No Kings, Here Or There

 

Question: If you facilitate a peace plan in the Middle East, but foment brutal reprisals against your political opponents at home and murder people in boats in international waters, do you deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Because pacifying the Middle East has eluded prior presidents, it’s worth asking, despite those mitigating factors.

If the Trump-involved peace plan proves durable, and if displaced Palestinians find permanent, acceptable homes where they can thrive, hand him the prize.

Trump being Trump, he flew to Egypt and Israel to bask in praise, much of which he lavished on himself. Also being Trump, he glorified the area’s dictators, admired their unrestricted power, and disgorged his usual grievances about people he dislikes back home. Nevertheless, the exchange of 20 Israeli prisoners held by Hamas and about 2000 Palestinians held by Israel is an achievement for which Trump deserves credit, whatever his role within the team that pulled it off.

But, knowing Trump to be the grifter he’s been since his simulacrum of adulthood, there are justifiable concerns. In particular, the board of overseers created to supervise the redevelopment and management of Gaza, to be headed by Trump. It’s unknown whether or what he offered to the surrounding states that have signed onto the deal, but we know Trump et fils have been proposing Trump hotels and golf courses there for years, turning the area into a remunerative paradise. Grift я him. As proof, amidst it all, the “president” of the United States is hustling overpriced, low-quality watches like a carnival barker. It’s embarrassing.

It’s reasonable to assume Qatar, for one, will get a piece of the action for its $400 million high-flying gift, and after the Trump-approved military “facility” is completed in Idaho. We refer to the project about which Pentagon Pete exulted, “I’m also proud that today we’re announcing we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emeri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho. The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots...”

After the appropriately shocked response, even from MAGA, America’s highly qualified SecWar clarified: “... [T]o be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States—nor anything like a base...” So, okay. Nothing like a base. A facility. Within an American military base. With planes and pilots. And buildings. Definitely not base-like, though. Welcome in, Hamas-funders but not Hispanic.

If, a year from now, peace prevails, Hamas is defanged, the rebuilding is something other than a cash cow for Trump, sheiks, princes, and emirs, and Palestinians and Israelis are happy and secure, I’ll nominate him if no one else will.

Now that he solved the world’s most enduring geopolitical problem, as opposed to its most existentially grave one, climate change, which he’s intentionally making worse, it’d be great if he’d devote the rest of his term(s?) to brokering peace within the United States, by ending his verbal and military attacks on Democrats and lies about liberals. A nice start would be to acknowledge that this weekend’s nationwide “No Kings” marches are Constitutionally protected, essentially American forms of protest. Even better, he could take its message to heart.

But that would require cerebral processing power; something it increasingly appears he’s lacking. Like when he posted that “the Biden FBI” placed 274 agents within the January 6 crowd at a time when it was he, not Biden, in office. A lie, or dementia? Does it matter?

Instead, we have Holy Mike Johnson, who takes directions directly from God, which means one of them is a liar and I’m guessing it’s Mike, characterizing the marches as “a hate America rally” run by “the pro-Hamas wing and Antifa people.” Right. To advocate for free speech, fair elections, equal rights, unsuppressed education, and Constitutionally contained leadership is to hate America. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a comical downgrade from Pete Buttigieg, said they’re paid protestors. I’ll be there. Where do I get my paycheck? Or cash? Will George Soros be there, handing it out?

Declaring Antifa a terrorist organization, Trump, who is demonstrably working to overthrow the United States government, law enforcement, and our system of law, issued a proclamation stating, “Antifa ... explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.” Explicitly? Where? Is there a manifesto? Read us, Dear Leader, those explicit words. Where are the terrorists’ headquarters? Why haven’t they been raided?

Yes, there have been people dressed in black, mixed in with and far outnumbered by peaceful protestors, calling themselves Antifa. Some have done bad things. Some, according to the FBI when it was credible, were rightwing provocateurs. So some people call themselves Antifa. That doesn’t make it an organization by any definition, terrorist or otherwise.

America’s “president” is desperate to create violence to justify a permanent, military-backed, authoritarian takeover. Resistance, then, like “No Kings” marches, becomes a zero-sum game. It will end, one way or another.

Forked

 

About the shutdown of the government in which Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency (if that’s still the right word), the most accurate take came from this guy. Now, the same guy and every Republican in Congress, including Holy Mike Johnson, who talks directly with God, are lying, blatantly, un-ninth-commandmently about what Democrats demand to end the shutdown. They’re NOT arguing for including undocumented immigrants in Medicaid. They DO want to restore Republican-cut funds to it. For citizens. Unable to govern, Congressional Republicans turn to lying.

What Democrats SHOULD be demanding is release of every page of the Epstein files, unredacted; the end of lying about emergencies in blue-state cities; no more sending troops there; a clear statement that Trump turning the DOJ into a vehicle for personal vengeance is illegal and so is murdering people in Venezuelan boats whether or not they’re drug-runners of which no proof has been presented; and an admission from Republicans that they don’t care.

Yep, that'll do it. Shutdown over.

More realistically, Democrats should announce they won’t allow funding of the most corrupt government in the history of our republic until it’s fixed. And they should enumerate examples of that corruption every day till this November and the next.

But the moment demands more. Not MAGAs, because it’ll never happen, but, looking at that raid in Chicago, every clear-eyed American must realize we’re living in an incipient police state whose head of government (“president” no longer applies) claims the right to send US troops into any city he chooses, to round up anyone that displeases him. He just announced, after all, that he’ll imprison, for a year, anyone who burns the American flag, which is constitutionally protected speech. Only dictators declare their own laws. Only dictators unilaterally imprison people. And they ban books, words, history, and speech. Especially when, like MAGAs, enough subjects approve.

After training for Chicago like practicing the raid on Usama bin Laden, Trump sent a helicopter from which troops rappelled onto the roof of a five-story building; military vehicles; and agents with flashbangs who kicked down doors, trashed apartments, and rounded up all residents, including US citizens, offering no proof they’re terrorists as claimed. Children were zip-tied together and hustled out, screaming and crying, some of them naked. When a bystander called on those brutal agents to think of the children, one said “F..k them kids.” That’s what ICE has become. That’s who joins it. And that's not all.

Why those tactics? Why not secure exits and knock on doors? Because it’s about brutality for its own sake and unchecked power. It’s about testing outrage, of which there’s been only some, and only from Democrats. Trump’s fascistic suppression is met with silence from the right. Which means they’re so deep into curated hatred and fear that cruelty is satisfying. They welcome dictatorship because of who they think will be hurt by it and who they think, wrongly, won’t. Stephen Miller, evil incarnate, was caught considering sending the 82nd Airborne into Portland. Paratroopers. Into an American city. Against Americans. Aimed at one group, it’s terroristic. At the other, masturbatory. It’s sickening.

If the Chicago obscenity didn’t cause Republicans in Congress or members of rightwing media to speak out in revulsion, it’s likely too late. It didn’t. So it probably is. Acceptance of Trump’s lawlessness and inhumanity isn’t just cowardice, of which there’s plenty. It’s adoration. It’s what he has unmade of the United States. It’s how Kristallnacht happened. We’re almost there. 

Trump spoke to U.S. Navy sailors in San Diego last weekend: “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats. They want to give all of our money to illegal aliens...” On his Truthless Sociopathic, he referred to Democrats as “the party of hate, evil, and Satan.” And he posted this dark vision of himself. Dictators thrive on hate for the “other.” But, say MAGAs, Trump LOVES America. Our half, anyway, and that’s all that matters. (He doesn’t. It isn’t.)

Since Trump announced his third run, his plans have been clear. After nine months, they’re undeniable: established law means nothing, nor do the courts. He wants absolute power and is taking more every day. That’s not hyperbole, it’s not hate. It’s observable fact. So voters have a defining choice: vote Republican, admit you welcome dictatorship and trust it’ll always be others in Stephen Miller’s and Russell Vought’s crosshairs; or vote for Democrats, even if you’re uncomfortable with same-sex marriage and vaccinations and love canceling 94 million pounds of food for food banks, because you think democracy is worth saving and anyway you’re not gay or sick or hungry.

We’ve come to the inevitable fork in the road. If you rationalize what’s happening in Chicago, if you keep voting Republican, you’re trading constitutional democracy for autocracy. It’s that simple. You can no longer pretend otherwise.

Am I angry? Damn right I am.

The Proverbial Firehose

Addressing the entire daily gusher of Trumpism's willful ignorance and authoritarian madness is impossible. Where to start?

As a doc, here: The only scientifically sound way to study the effects and efficacy of any pharmaceutical is a placebo-controlled, prospective, double-blind study, wherein control and treatment groups are matched for factors other than the medium under study, and in which neither the subjects nor the investigators know who’s taking what until it’s over. Drawing retrospective conclusions from pre-existing, uncontrolled data isn’t.

RFK, Jr, who’s ignorant of science and appoints only people who reject it, promised he’d discover the cause of autism by September. Having no ability to conduct a proper investigation, nor time enough and judgment, he unearthed a publication that aggregated prior Tylenol studies. That it challenged Trump’s ability to pronounce its generic name was likely unintentional. 

The association between acetaminophen and neuro-developmental disorders, of which autism is one, was thin at best, and the authors so stated. Some of the included reports showed none at all. Nevertheless, desperate to have something, anything, by his promised deadline, Bobby regurgitated it, undigested. Lacking comprehension but not self-regard, Trump bought it like bitcoin. Since then, his Truthless Antisocial posts, reminiscent of his bleach, light, ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine cures for Covid, esteemed physician that he is, have multiplied the recklessness. If it weren’t so dangerous, it’d be laughable. 

With time running out, after years claiming vaccines are culpable, RFKJ, or the worm in his brain, grabbed whatever was handy. Curiously, before this clock-stopping breakthrough, he’d cut millions in funding for autism research. The last thing he wants is proof he was wrong. 

More could be said, but there are other pressing matters.

Remember when America’s assiduous guardians of democracy, U.S. Reps James Comer and Jim Jordan, were rooting out “government weaponization” by President Joe Biden? When, after years of made-for-Fox shoutings (once known as hearings) they came up with nothing? Now, when Trump’s weaponization is as obvious as the bronzer border on his face, the silence from those justice warriors resounds throughout our democracy, the demise of which they’re pursuing with Trumpophilic zeal. 

Blind to historical echoes and current implications, the Make America Gruesome crowd will cheer whatever Trump does. To everyone else, forcing the indictment of James Comey through the compliant hands of Pam Bondi should be recognized as step 999 on the journey of a thousand toward dictatorship. Also his pledge to go after others on his enemies list, including former Democratic presidents. His plan to redefine protest and disagreement, constitutionally protected in times past, as domestic terrorism takes it far past the line. The goal is to eliminate all forms of opposition, on the thinnest of pretenses. It ought to illicit revulsion in every thoughtful American. Among the FoxoMAGAfied, it’s received worshipfully.

The dire ramifications can’t be overstated. Absent pushback from conservatives-in-hiding, it could be the end. “The land of the free and the home of the brave,” indeed.

When Trump-appointed prosecutor Erik Seibert found no grounds to indict Comey and resigned instead, Trump chose a yes-woman with no prosecutorial experience who did as ordered, despite being advised against it by other DOJ prosecutors. Corruption? Weaponization? With Republican-controlled Congress and six-ninths of the Supreme Court scrambled-egging him on, he needn’t hide it. He just threatened federal funds to NYC if its citizens elect a particular mayoral candidate. Holy Mike Johnson refuses to seat a newly-elected Democratic representative who’d be the determinative vote to release the Epstein files. Respect for democracy and elections? Not in MAGAmerica.

Been to Portland lately? Our son and his family live there, happy and unafraid. To justify another military invasion, Trump called it “war-ravaged,” which, even when those few downtown blocks saw not-peaceful protests, it never was. Today, that’s as far from the truth as Trump always is. Local responses have been pure Portlandia, but it’s no joke. More than Trump’s election lies, this unwarranted show of military force augurs the end of freedom, and not just in blue states. His hunger for power is borderless. His aim is intimidation, leading to subjugation everywhere. Does anyone still wonder how it happened in 1930s Germany?

The master plan has been employed by dictators since history began. If Trump is ill-equipped to have studied it, the people truly in control, Project 2025’s Stephen Miller and Russell Vought, know it by cold-blooded heart. They’ve been grooming him as their figurehead since before he rode that escalator down. And downer. 

Before the election, Trump made his anti-democracy intentions unmistakable. MAGA elected him because of it. The only surprise is how quickly American institutions, including media and universities, law firms, and congressional and red state Republicans flecked their genues. Do those hoary final words of the National Anthem still apply?

Will military leaders cave, too? After the embarrassment they were subjected to at Quantico by an obviously unfit Commander in Chief and a preening, peacocking “War” Secretary, maybe not. We can only hope.

Turning Point?

 

When it was revealed that Tom Homan, Trump’s Border and Brutality Czar, accepted a bagful of $50,000 in cash for promising to facilitate deals with Trump, and that Trump quashed the investigation, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline “It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to” Leavitt, speaking through lips conveniently placed above her crucifix, said, “He did nothing wrong.” (It was recorded, Ms. Leavitt. Release it.) Not lying, Megan Kelley wrote, “WE DO NOT CARE.” Hey, MAGA, there’s a new slogan in town.

At the half-hate, half-memorial for Charlie Kirk, Trump, doing God’s work, followed Erika Kirk’s remarkable words of Christian forgiveness and grace, with, “He did not hate his opponents; he wanted the best for them. (Ed note: For over half of America, Kirk didn’t want the best.) That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.” There followed louder cheers from the collected Christians than there’d been for Mrs. Kirk.

Were any worshippers repulsed when demonic Stephen “You-can’t-call-me-a-fascist” Miller defiled the memorial with his signature demagogic putrefaction? 

Ghoulish: it’s the G in MAGA.

Previously asked if killing those seagoing, alleged drug-runners was illegal, V.P. Vance said, “I don’t give a sh#t.” Because he’s full of it enough to give freely, that was puzzling. Examples: Former FBI director Wray “should have been investigating the networks that motivated, inspired, and maybe even funded Charlie Kirk’s murder.” Facts? He don’t need no stinkin’ facts. After “Haitians are eating pets”: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention ... then that’s what I’m going to do.” And he has, ever since. On the assassination of Charlie Kirk, he lied that “statistics prove” most violence comes from “the left.” As he can’t not know, they show the opposite.

“He did nothing wrong.” “We do not care.” “I don’t give a sh#t.” MAGAs need bigger hats. “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them” will require T-shirts. And Autocorrect. This Trumpic gem demands an entire billboard: "When 97% of the stories are bad about a person, that's no longer free speech." It’s in the Constitution! Like “I have the right to do anything I wanna do. I’m the President of the United States.” Article II. 

Jimmy Kimmel’s return to the air (except here, where Trump-loving, news-censoring, newscaster script-writing Sinclair owns KOMO, refuses to run it and doesn’t want you to know things) suggests Trump’s censorious dictatorship might be reversible. What went on behind the scenes is unknown. In front, people canceled their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions, hundreds of thousands of protestations were sent to ABC (and to Australian Broadcasting Corporation, proving decent people get confused, too). Even Travelin’ Ted Cruz was critical. That’s the lesson: If enough people freed their souls from FoxoMAGAfication, Trump’s totalitarianism could give way to democracy.

It’s a big “if.” The people who cheered Trump’s blasphemy at the deification of Charlie Kirk will never choose enlightenment. But maybe some attendees, and, one could hope, residually thoughtful Trump supporters observed the last couple of weeks of contrived, weaponized vengeance and persecution of free speech rediscovered what having second thoughts feels like. Remembered when they knew democracy, freedom, and free speech are inseparably intertwined. Who’ll think, sure, seeing those brown people being rounded up roughly is nice, but there’s something more important at stake here.

People aware that, years ago, opposing parties worked together and accomplished great things. Ones unwilling to keep ignoring the protrusive corruption of this administration, enriching billionaire Trump pals, selling them control of all media; the lying, the undisguised peddling of hate to ensure an ever-stronger grip on power; the ridding from government people of integrity, finally recognizing how treacherous it is. Able to entertain the thought that, for love of country, it has to stop.

Maybe those people recall Trump promising, “After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I also will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.” Maybe, after Trump lied that he had nothing to do with the firing of Jimmy Kimmel, they’ll be reminded that, immediately after the cancellation of Stephen Colbert, he said Kimmel would be next. Maybe they’ll discover they’ve been duped from the beginning.

Perhaps those who don’t deny the Holocaust heard echoes of it when Vance, hosting Charlie Kirk’s podcast, implored Americans to turn in anyone they hear saying anything negative about Mr. Kirk. Maybe, even though it’s not (yet) affecting them, they’ll decide, “This isn’t the America I thought I loved, not the one I want to live in. I need a president who upholds rather than ignores the Constitution, who’s truthful, whose White House isn’t a gilded cesspool of greed and corruption, and who didn’t just embarrass America before the UN General Assembly. I can no longer be a part of it.”

Wouldn’t it be nice?

Revenge Is Mine, Sayeth The Loud

 

When gun violence occurs, Democrats point to easy access to lethal weaponry, Republicans point to, well, anything else, and nothing changes. This time, though, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Trump and his accentuators trod new ground, demanding wholesale retribution against “them.” They’ve always scapegoated everything wrong with everything, but this is different.

“It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organization,” wrote Laura Loomer, Trump’s new-favorite autocracy specialist, before knowing anything about the assassin. Implicitly calling for eradication of liberalism, his other favorite, Stephen Miller, called it “... an ideology ... which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved.” J.D. Vance has been conflagrating ever since it happened. Asked on Fox “news” about toning it down, Trump, who once mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi and who pardons violent felons, said, truthful for once, “I couldn’t care less.” The public, yes. But America’s government has never been so intentionally malignant.

“You own this,” raged Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) to Democrats, on the floor of Congress. (Who owns Minnesota’s Democratic state Representative Melissa Hortman’s and her husband’s assassination, Nancy?) Later, atop a pre-beaten horse, she fingered university brainwashing. The killer spent one online semester before enrolling in tech school.

One after another, rightwing media declared “war” on “the left.” Disregarding the deaths of JFK, MLK, RFK, innocent Black children and freedom workers during the Civil Rights struggles, Jews in synagogues, the Hortmans, Officer David Rose defending the CDC against a brainwashed anti-vaxxer, and innumerable more, Elon Musk explained, “Democrats are the party of death.” Trumpists say comparing people like Miller, Loomer, and Musk – and Trump! -- to fascists crosses a line. Where on which line does their rhetoric fall? Based on what information are they blaming “the left”?

In detestable contrast to presidents who rose to tragic occasions with words of comfort and calls for restraint, Trump lowered to this one, attacking “radical left lunatics,” adding “we have to beat the hell out of them,” explicitly sanctioning violence. From which his in-pocket DOJ, already promising retribution, would surely look away. 

After the murder, a Facebook “friend” messaged me: “... You unfortunately by your constant negativity encourages a breeding ground for this type of behavior... you are part of the problem with your constant negativity. hatred breeds hatred. Your posts are consumed by hate you view it as journalism but its not.” (sic, severally.)

I’m unworried that thoughtful readers of my column will be driven to violence. Given Trump’s provocations and threats from less thoughtful readers, I’m unsure about the other way around.

Perhaps we can agree:

One: Killing Charlie Kirk was horrible, despicable, and antithetical to democracy, even our dying one. It made me physically ill, as it should everyone, but didn’t. Anger, I understand and share. Gloating, I abhor.

Two: The perpetrator must be deeply disturbed, whatever his “ideology.” Friends had noticed his gradual social withdrawal, spending time in dark recesses of the internet. If, in his disordered mind, he thought he was helping the cause of anti-fascism, he accomplished the opposite. In any case, his actions seem to have been his alone. Don’t tell that to Trumpists, though. They want “they.”

Three: In no way justifying his murder, Kirk’s oeuvre was discord. If my rhetoric is “hateful” (it isn’t: it’s outrage), his belittled everyone not white, male, native-born, heterosexual, and Christian. He even advocated death for President Biden. I won’t list more here. You can look them up. Nevertheless, he ought still to be taking his combat evangelicalism to campuses, alive and well.

The response to 9/11 excepted, events like this have separated Ds and Rs for decades. Despicable comments pollute social media from the fringes of each; but, contrasted with Democratic leaders when Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated, Trump and many high-ranking Republicans are calling for extermination. It feels familiar.

Political violence should horrify everyone who believes in democracy. So should leaders suborning unbounded revenge, for the same reason. Trump glommed Charlie Kirk’s murder as an exploitable windfall, supercharging his anti-democracy aims, extant long before. He’s using it, enthusiastically, to justify more suppression of dissent, while MAGAs cheer him on. Opportunistic geopolitical foes are exploiting it, too, as always.

Well-meaning words to the contrary, violence is who we are. It birthed America and has shaped our history thenceforth, infecting, at one time or another, people of all political persuasions. But if the arc of violence is long, in the time of Trump it bends toward the right, by actual count. (Those data have suddenly disappeared from the DOJ website.) 

In response to an unspeakable atrocity, MAGA Republicans promise Trumped-up, scorched-earth retaliation upon half the country, with brutal totalitarianism the intended result. Coming from our government, it’s without precedent in the US. But it’s exactly how Trump is perverting Charlie Kirk’s death, with malice aforethought, seeking absolute authority.

As Charlie always said, “Prove me wrong.”

Weaponized Fluffery

 

The murder of Charlie Kirk makes me feel ill. So does Elon Musk’s response to it. Beyond that, nothing useful can be said, so we move on. 

Trump’s recent made-for-MAGA “Cabinet Meeting” was nothing about policy and everything about serial assculation, a showcase of Trump’s bottomless need for fawning sycophancy. If MAGAs don’t see it for what it is, namely a gaping vulnerability in an American “president,” other world leaders do.

Like many clear-eyed observers of Trump’s obsequious deference to Vladimir Putin, I once assumed there must be blackmail behind it. The rumored “pee tape,” for example, or recordings of likely “ungentlemanly” behavior while he was in Russia, tending to his Miss America ladies. There were hidden recording devices in my room in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow while on tour in college, so I’m certain there are recordings of Trump when he was there, too, whatever the content. I was talking with a young artist, wrongly unworried about speaking in my room, who spoke longingly of America, where artists are free to create. Immediately after accompanying us to the train station, he was arrested.

The recent showcase in Beijing, featuring Putin, Modi, Kim, and representatives of many other countries, including some of our pre-Trump allies, all aligning with China’s Xi, made me realize Putin didn’t need blackmail to get what he wanted from Trump. For Putin, a former KGB operative trained to take the measure of people, sizing up Trump was easy as pierogi. He saw a man so in need of flattery, so prone to bragging undeservedly and lying unreservedly, that manipulating him must have been lesson one of KGB Spying 101. So, seizing the opportunity fate handed him, using fake media and other methods, he helped to get him elected.

Unlike Trump, whose thought timeline measures in seconds and who suffers from premature emanation, our adversaries think long-term. Grooming Trump, for example, for years. It’s taken decades for China to achieve world economic and scientific dominance. By happy coincidence, Trump’s self-pleasuring tariffs sealed it, convincing the world to abandon America for more reliable trading partners.

There’s no strategy to Trump’s spur-of-the-mouth declarations. His destructive tariffs were meant to bully other countries into respecting him, consequences to our country be damned. The result, predicted by politicians and economists of both parties, is that our economy is shrinking like his approval ratings while prices rise like global temperatures. The latest jobs report showed net job loss in every sector except healthcare. Because he has the same understanding of economics that he has of Constitutional law, he promised supercharged job growth at home, spurred b y his ill-conceived, ego-driven tariffs. Instead, manufacturing jobs have declined for six straight months. We should be grateful for growth in healthcare jobs, though. RFK Jr’s attacks on science-based medical institutions mean we’ll need every one of them.

If Putin didn’t foresee that Trump would weaken America by imposing tariffs (or maybe he did), he knew it’d happen some way. He probably saw that, in Trump’s need for adulation, he’d seek democracy-ending authoritarian power at home, no matter how destructive. We “Never Trumpers” saw it and predicted it. So must have Putin. It wasn’t subtle.

The content of Trump’s private meetings with him remains unknown. But it’s a solid bet that bolshoi stroking of Donald’s ego was included, flattering him into wanting more. And he knew how to get it: by doing whatever was asked of him. The firing, by unqualified DNI Tulsi Gabbard, of 37 CIA Russia experts immediately after the Trump/Putin/Alaska fiasco didn’t go unnoticed by Putin’s state media, who gloated that Trump and Gabbard did exactly what Putin wanted. More recently, Trump announced his intent to end financial support for Europe’s security initiatives, including border fortifications intended to discourage Russian invasion from the East.

The pattern is clear. In the Kremlin, they must be doing high pyahts. Unlike so many other players, Putin didn’t need to buy Trump’s bitcoins or stay in his hotels. Just well-placed but insincere, approbation turned the trick.

But, some might say, Trump seems finally to be getting tougher on Putin. Doesn’t matter. Thanks to Trump, Vlad has what he wants from the countries he needs.

Putin’s kind of weaponized flattery trickles down. Trump uses it on his besotted followers. Certain of their credulity, he’s posting signs at infrastructure projects under construction because of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill, against which Trump bleated vociferously. “President Donald J. Trump,” the signs lie, shamelessly, “Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure.” It’s disgusting.

MAGAs, whose news sources are Trump and his fawning media, will accept it as God’s truth. As they will his “hearing it now for the first time” lie regarding that botched Seal Team Six operation in North Korea. Right. Incursions into enemy countries are always undertaken without sign-off by the president. MAGAs will believe that, too, just like they’ll believe that raiding a Hyundai plant in Tennessee is consistent with encouraging foreign investment.

It’s embarrassing. And frightening. The putative “Leader of the Free World” is an easily manipulatable liar. Our global foes exploit it. Millions of Americans continue to believe him, unwittingly validating the long game of those foes.

Brain Worms Everywhere

What’s a sociopathic narcissist to do? Poor Trump: In the before times, he rightfully bragged about getting the Covid vaccine up and running at “warp speed.” He hadn’t spent much time with beakers and Petrie dishes, and he benefited from the prior twenty years during which the groundwork for mRNA vaccine development reached its zenith right on time. Nevertheless, initial fatuity aside (disbanding President Obama’s pandemic preparedness team, it’ll be over in weeks, bleach, light, etc.), he deserves credit for that.

So, what to do when the craziest of his crazy patronage hires claims those vaccines were ineffective, deadly, and should be banned, replaces vaccine experts with quacks, and defunds further research? Does he defend RFK, Jr.? Does he fire the guy he touted before, saying he’d let him “go wild” at HHS? It’s a horned dilemma. He’d rather be grifting.

Junior Bobby Kennedy is nuts. Has been for a long time, well before Trump put him in position to kill Americans; well before every Republican senator except one, including four medical doctors, voted to confirm him. The exception? Mitch McConnell, the hypocrite’s hypocrite most responsible for keeping Trump in office.

Bobby Junior Kennedy claims he can tell which children are “overburdened with mitochondrial challenges” (not a thing) just by looking at them. He quotes medical research reports that don’t exist, and misquotes and misunderstands those that do. He couldn’t tell properly-run science research from the roadkill in the trunk of his car. There’s a worm in his brain that died after eating part of it, possibly killed by the heroin that once poisoned his bloodstream.

Bobby spreads misinformation like a farmer spreads manure, but, unlike farmers’, his manure ends, rather than stimulates life. Bobby-J is nuts. Truly, deeply, dangerously nuts. Nevertheless, Trump, who hugs the flag, hugged him, too, putting him in charge of America’s health. Republican senators who knew better confirmed him. For a country purporting to be great again, it’s shameful.

Pathological liars know they’re lying. “I’m president,” Trump recently said. “I can do whatever I want.” It’s not supposed to be that way. The Framers believed they’d prevented it by creating “checks and balances.” But they couldn’t imagine sociopathic narcissists being unchecked by the unbalanced.

Contrarily, because he’s nuts and can’t tell the difference, Junior believes what he says, thinks he’s saving lives rather than endangering them. If Trump cared about anyone but himself, he’d have fired him by now. If there were even a dozen Republicans in Congress who weren’t self-serving cowards, they’d have joined Democrats to impeach Junior K the minute he started firing all the competent people at NIH and CDC, replacing them with conspiratorial know-nothings.

Unless every red state and every district within those states has managed to elect only stupid people, which seems unlikely even given the political insanity running amok in those states, there must be at least a handful who do recognize the danger RFK presents. Not to mention people like Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth in the White House’s orbit. And Steven Miller, who calls RFKJ the administration’s “crown jewel.” Removing those other threats to bodies politic would require a level of integrity lacking even in the theoretical few.

Elected Republicans won’t act. There can be no clearer proof of the descent of a once-respectable political party than the spectacle of K-J doing incalculable damage to the health of Americans while that party’s Congresspeople, elected to further the interests of their constituents, sit silent and afraid.

The same applies to standing up to Trump as he systematically overruns the constitutionally-mandated guardrails meant to keep an incurious authoritarian from unbridled power. And if the existence of Bobby K in government is proof of the fall of the Republican Party, the reelection of Felonious Trump is confirmation beyond doubt.

The downward economic impacts of his immigration policies are just beginning to be felt. Pocketbooks aren’t yet as thin as they’ll be due to his tariffs. Worse still is the end of America’s ability to influence world affairs, to remain a respected leader in science and technology. And benevolence. Instead, Trump is sidelining our country, making it dependent on others, disrespected and dismissed. The implications are grave.

Witness the gathering in China of leaders of our economic and political adversaries: Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi, and India’s Modi, forming an anti-US trading alliance. NoKoKim showed up, too, bearing his own toilet. India’s and China’s technological and scientific advancements are surpassing ours. Trump’s policies couldn’t be more favorable to them. It’s almost as if handing them the world was his intention all along.

As he inflicts his bizarre, reality-rejecting vendetta on renewable energy, those countries are racing ahead with better harnessers of sun and wind, developing battery technology that will end concerns about dark nights and windless days, while making electric cars cheaper, faster charging, and with more range than a full tank of gas.

Maybe, if our next president ends Trump’s “see-me-flex,” economy-killing tariffs, they’ll even let us buy some.

Devolution

Serving in Vietnam, I shrank my world to about eight feet in diameter. Other than doctoring, I was concerned mostly about what might happen within or near that circle. Rockets landing, for example. One did. Getting shot at. That, too.

My wife sent me a book that brought my thoughts beyond myself again, Carl Sagan’s “Intelligent Life in the Universe.” Given the overtaking of our country by people wrapped in the Flag (don’t burn it) and carrying a Cross (wear it prominently), it’s relevant today.

Boiled down, Sagan’s message was that no matter how improbable the existence of life is, how unlikely for it to have arisen spontaneously, it was a statistical certainty. One in a million? A billion? How about one in a trillion? Or a trillion-trillion? That’s approximately how many stars and planets there are in the Universe, all made of the same atoms and molecules, bumping into each other. Forming compounds. Random, Brownian. It’s chemistry. In this universe, anyway.

How many bumps to form self-replicating molecules? Who knows? But there’s worlds enough and time. Of the trillions of places where it didn’t, the one (or more) where it did would seem, to sentient life-forms that appeared, miraculous. Special. The chosen ones. Impossible to have happened without intent, the odds too long. Like one in a trillion-trillion. Viewing from beyond the Milky Way, happening on a tiny grain of sand in an unbounded desert containing uncountable grains whose chemistry, though similar, happened not to generate life, as opposed to the view from the grain itself, it’s no miracle at all. Just one of the monkeys with a typewriter.

Though we can’t grok it, something very complicated exists without creation. Either it’s the universe or a creator. The late Pope Francis, a scientist, was able to accept the obviousness of evolution without finding it antithetical to his religious beliefs. It is, after all, undeniable. We see it and have confirmed it on a macro level; microscopic, too; in DNA, and more. To deny evolution would be as mind-blind as, oh, denying anthropogenic climate change or the results of fair elections.

We humans can barely analogize that much time, such large numbers, much less internalize them. It’s hard to imagine Earth 500,000 years ago, let alone several billion. But we see evolution happening in real time, before our eyes, the evolution of which has been explained quite nicely too. Still, it’s all but impossible to conceive of what could happen over hundreds of millions of years.

In the process of replication, DNA is prone to copying errors: mutations. Some amount to nothing. Some are dilatory, some fatal. Some, though, cause useful, incremental changes in its product. That’s what “natural selection” is all about. Organisms that have mutated a change, however tiny, that enhances survival, even only a bit, have an advantage, however small, over those that didn’t. And so it goes, time over time: existence favors the better versions. Sahelanthropus tchadensis over Ardipithecus ramibus. Australopithecus giving way to Homo sapiens, to leap over a million intervening years.

For a while, in medical school, I came to question all of this. How could something as complicated as the nephron, for example, the microscopic essence of the kidney, simply have evolved? What cascade of steps would it have taken? It’s so elegant, so intricately complex, so perfectly structured to do its many jobs. And then I thought, well, yes, but it’s also hard to imagine the cumulative effects of little mutations occurring over billions of years. Earth, it’s calculated, formed around 4.5 billion years ago, and life, as defined by organisms having the ability to replicate themselves, began about a billion years later, 3.5 billion years past. Fathom that! For reference, I’ve gone from a single, fertilized cell to 6’ 4” and, now, back to 6’2” in only eighty years.

I don’t know if there’s a capital-C Creator or not, but I have doubts. And because, in addition to those perfect little nephrons, we also have renal cell carcinoma and glomerulonephritis, childhood bone cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, if there is, he/she/it must either be more careless or less pleasant than is commonly believed.

I can, however, imagine our universe being a terrarium in some cosmic space-kid’s science experiment. The terrarium I made got overgrown with mold within days.

So, what’s my point? Only that there’s logic and science behind religious skepticism. And that, among the thousand or so Earthly religions, there’s no reason to consider one more veracious than another; nor, among those that have them, their Good Books, each claiming singular, divine origin. Which means no religion, especially the unchristian perversion flaunted so publicly by Holy Mike Johnson and White House denizens, belongs anywhere near our government. And that, among believers, humility is warranted.

Many of my friends and family are religious: Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist (I think). None approves the Trump-loving, power-craving, cruel strain infecting today’s Republican Party.

Of course not: They’re my friends and family.

Summit Tells Me...

 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: An adjudicated rapist/multiply-convicted felon and a war criminal under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court walk onto a red carpet in Alaska...

Dang. I can’t remember the punchline but I don’t think I was laughing.

In his base camp with war criminal, free-world pariah Vladimir Putin, Donald “Day one war-ender” Trump humiliated himself and our country. Having forced US troops literally to kneel and roll out the red carpet for Putin, welcoming him like storied royalty rather than the murderer he is -- “his excellency Vladimir Putin,” as designated in left-behind plans for a luncheon that never happened, post-thud – Trump showered gifts and all but begged the KGB-trained liar for praise. Which he got, probably scripted in Moscow.

Like all world leaders, Putin knows he can hustle Trump by feeding his unquenchable need for adulation. Played him like a three-ruble balalaika. After predictably made-for-MAGA tough talk, Trump predictably caved. No ground given (literal or figurative) by Putin.

Sealing the no-deal, Russia’s dictator told America’s that if it weren’t for vote-by-mail he would have won in 2020, after which Trump announced he wants to ban it. And Putin “confirmed” Trump’s perseverating confabulation that if he, Trump, had been president at the time, he, Putin, wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine. If Putin feared Trump then, why hasn’t he yielded to him now, when he is president? Does he, as rumored, have “something” on Trump? Totally believable.

If I’d become a nuclear physicist instead of a physician, I’d have solved cold fusion.

Ensorcelled by Putin’s weaponized fluffery, Trump surrendered his demand for a ceasefire and defended Putin’s claims to the Ukrainian territory he stole by kidnapping children and by bombing hospitals, shopping centers, and homes. In response, because, unlike Trump, they understand history and world affairs, European leaders reasserted their support of Ukraine. Humiliated, Trump slunk to Sean “Safe-haven” Hannity to serve up Putin’s talking points, assuring the Fox host and his credulous listeners that the meeting was a “10 out of 10.” The self-congratulatory gaslighting he produced online afterward was emetic. And Kim-ian.

As expected of anyone Trump hires, NATO ambassador Matthew Whitaker, integrity-free because if he had any he’d not have been appointed, suggested that Russia could keep the parts of Ukraine it “earned on the battlefield.” Earned! Then he puffed that “only Trump” could end the war, because he’s a “peacemaker.” He must have forgotten January 6.

Monday, Ukraine’s President Zelensky arrived at the White House, along with seven European leaders who, because they don’t trust Trump, rushed there to protect Ukraine’s interests. Meekled by men and women of resolve, he ended up pledging to support them. We’ll see. Tuesday, he backslid. Living eternally in opposite world, MAGAs thought the leaders’ presence signaled respect for Trump. Maybe because, knowing the drill, they performatively thanked him.

Trump’s failure to art a deal is so unambiguous that, for now, we’ll leave it there. Instead, here’s something that, because I’m a physician, troubles me greatly: Through RFK, Jr., his hand-picked, Republican-senator-approved science-illiterate crank, Trump is making it harder for doctors to do their jobs. 

Busy doctors don’t have time to read every new research paper. To stay current, they rely on reputable sources for their findings and their summaries of the work of others. On an online Q&A forum in which I participate, I’m often asked how to trust online medical information. Till now, along with places like Mayo and Fred Hutch, I’ve advised searching CDC and NIH websites, which many doctors also do.

Now, not only can laypeople no longer rely on them, neither can doctors. Bobby J stripped those institutions of their most important researchers and fired members of oversight and advisory committees, replacing them with science-deficient hacks who’ll fill third-rate journals with crap research showing predetermined results. Because of ArfKay’s brainwormed delusions, your docs will fly a bit blinder.

It’s worse. Trump is the first president actively trying to lose the war on cancer. Well, sure, he has more important issues than caring what Babbling Bobby does. Growing the billions he’s made from his bitcoin scam since Inauguration 2.0., for example. If he cared more about Americans he swore to protect than about personal enrichment, he’d have stopped Junior from drastically defunding cancer research. Also mRNA vaccine research, which has encouraging potential for treating many, if not all kinds of cancer. It’s idiotic and deadly and MAGAs voted for it twice. But they’re too busy loving ICE brutality to care.

I know people who voted for Trump to stop the “woke mind virus,” which threatens an epidemic of thoughtfulness. There’s another virus, though, whose deadliness isn’t imaginary, infecting the White House and Congress: Trumpism. In the next election, America needs decontamination by massive, enlightened voter turnout.

Which is why Republicans hate mail-in voting: it eliminates deliberately created long lines in minority districts and makes it easier for workers’ voices to be heard. Democrats, mostly.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Donnie Does D.C.

 

Trump’s latest “law and order” fantasy isn’t about law and it sure as hell isn’t about order. It’s about power. Naked, unaccountable, permanent power. And he’s aiming the first strike straight at Washington, D.C.

The plan is as blunt as it is dangerous: put federal troops in the streets of the capital, under his personal command, no local authority in the way. Use D.C.’s status—no governor, no state sovereignty—as the legal crowbar. Call it “restoring safety.” Wrap it in a flag and sell it to people who think authoritarianism is fine so long as the boots aren’t on their necks.

Then, once the shock wears off, do it again—Chicago. Philadelphia. Atlanta. Los Angeles. Anywhere a political opponent holds office or a crowd holds a sign becomes a “security threat.” Send in troops. Normalize it. Repeat until soldiers patrolling our cities feels routine.

He’s been rehearsing for years. Lafayette Square—troops and riot police gassing peaceful protesters so he could strut to a church and hold up a Bible—wasn’t an accident. It was a live-fire test. There was outrage, but no real consequence. The precedent stands.

The District is the perfect laboratory for an aspiring autocrat. No messy state constitution, no governor to push back, just a Congress that will tie itself in knots and a Supreme Court stacked with loyalists. Once troops are in, there’s no natural brake. And the moment military control of civilian streets is treated as “normal,” it becomes the default answer to dissent anywhere.

This isn’t about crime. Trump doesn’t care about crime unless he thinks it’s committed against him. This is about eliminating obstacles—political, legal, and literal. Federal troops don’t answer to city councils or police chiefs. They answer to him. If he controls the chain of command, he controls what gets shut down, who gets arrested, and which “orders” matter. And because they wear uniforms, he gets to sell it as patriotism.

The cheering section will love it. The shrugging middle will think, “Maybe it’s necessary. Maybe it’s temporary.” That’s the fatal mistake. No strongman in history has handed back power once he’s grabbed it. They keep it. They expand it. They justify it with every crisis they can gin up.

Picture the rollout: Troops in D.C. suppress a protest—doesn’t matter what it’s about. The media covers the crackdown; he calls them traitors and sends “security” to their offices. Legal challenges crawl through the courts while the precedent metastasizes. Next, a spike in crime—real or invented—in a city with a Democratic mayor becomes the excuse for “federal intervention.” Local cops are told to coordinate with the military, meaning obey them. From there it’s a straight line to troops “monitoring” polling stations, “securing” state legislatures, “protecting” his rallies. By then, the Constitution will be something read at ceremonies while the real operating manual is a stack of executive orders signed behind closed doors.

Once this gets baked into the system, it’s not just Trump we have to fear. Any future president—left, right, or lunatic—will have the same weapon. The Founders didn’t give the executive this kind of domestic military power for a reason. They knew what it would be used for. Trump’s betting most Americans have forgotten.

He’s not even subtle. He says “dominate the streets” and people clap. He says “take back our cities” and people nod. He’s counting on fear—of crime, of immigrants, of each other—to grease the skids. Fear makes people trade freedom for the illusion of safety every time. And once you’ve traded it, you don’t get it back without a fight.

D.C. is the first domino. It’s where he can make this legal, visible, and irreversible. If he pulls it off, he’ll have proven that Americans will tolerate soldiers policing their own citizens if you tell them it’s for their own good. That’s the green light to do it anywhere. Everywhere.

This is not a hypothetical. This is a man with a proven taste for using force against civilians, an open desire to silence opposition, and a legal loophole big enough to drive an armored convoy through. He is telling us what he wants. He is telling us how he’ll do it. And if we wait until the plan is “official” to object, we’ll be objecting to soldiers in our streets—not the idea of them.

Stopping it means naming it now, hammering it now, refusing to let anyone sell it as “temporary” or “necessary.” Because the moment it’s accepted in one city, the rest of the map is just a matter of time. The capital is the test. The country is the target. And the man aiming at it has never missed an opportunity to turn fear into power. If we let him fire this shot, we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to pry the gun out of his hands.

Note: this was written entirely by ChatGPT, using the prompt, “800 words about Trump military takeover of D.C. in the style of Sid Schwab.”

Blame Game

 

When Trump dies, his tombstone (gilded obelisk, more likely) will say, “I blame Obama.”

Never has a “president” so readily blamed others, much less admitted mistakes. He takes credit for anything positive, like good job numbers or stock market ups, and reprehends his predecessors (or Hillary Clinton) for bads and downs. Usually, he’s wrong both ways.

Democrats’ warnings were right: turning the DOJ into his personal lawfare apparatus; skyrocketing budget deficits; ignoring judges and the law; imposing inflationary, job-killing tariffs. Then, having made unkeepable economic promises (some might call them lies), when the check-ins came home to roost, he fired the messenger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, economist Erika McEntarfer, who’d been confirmed 86 – 8 by senators, including JD Vance, who recognized her integrity.

The BLS (not the Commissioner) gathers employment numbers and reports them. And, when they need revision, revises. It’s safe to assume Trump’s replacement will reinforce Trump’s “down is up, up is down,” making the BLS, like every department in Trump’s “government,” untrustworthy. Ratify his lies or be gone. Do it, be moved to a “Club Fed.” 

Trump’s bleats notwithstanding, employment data can’t be “rigged.” Preliminarily miscalculated, evidently. But, in the end, hiring is binary: yes or no. MAGAs will believe whatever Trump says, but even right-leaning economists approved of Ms. McEntarfer’s corrected data. Shall we trust numbers from one who says he weighs 225 pounds, stands 6’3”, and promises to lower drug prices by 1,500 percent? 

It’s what Trump and the dictators he emulates do: Remove people who say things they don’t like. Fire (in the case of Putin, defenestrate or poison) watchdogs and investigators who reveal corruption or speak truth. Pam Bondi’s totally not weaponized DOJ is “investigating” Judge James Boasberg for the crime of enforcing the law. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, too, for looking into Trump’s crimes, which he did so scrupulously and painstakingly that Trump was able to run out the clock. Other judges who ruled against Dear Leader are reporting serious threats from his America-greatening minions. Collaborators.

Until they eliminate them altogether, dictators ignore laws. That’s Trump. Same with facts. His EPA just un-scienced the finding that greenhouse gases are bad, paving the way to deregulate fossil fuel production. Snap of the finger: years of scientific research and documentation, gone. If the preceding outrages merely kill democracy, this will kill people. But, say MAGAs, Trump loves us. Warmly. So does his lunatic HHS Secretary, who just canceled $500 million for vaccine research. Including for flu and Covid. 

Is it getting Pyongyang in here? Part of the ransom Trump extracted from CBS was inclusion of a “bias monitor” who’ll report directly to him about any content deemed “too critical.” What’s worse: that Trump demanded it, CBS agreed to it, or Republicans rejoice in it? Criticism of leadership is indispensable in healthy democracies. What Trump wants and Republicans, who would hug our Constitution if it were a flag, are fine with, is untouchable monarchy.

“Nothing in this is, or shall be interpreted or construed as, an offer, promise, or acceptance of any form of bribery, undue influence, or corrupt practice.” So says the agreement for “gifting” that palatial Qatari jet to the U.S., the down-to-the-frame retrofitting of which, it’s calculated, will cost American taxpayers a billion dollars. Dollars that recent Fox talk-show host and current DEI-obsessed Defense Secretary Hegseth hid in a secret transfer from dedicated DOD funds. After renovation to Trump’s kingly standards, he’ll have personal use of it till death do he face. Well, then. Interpret, we shall not. Nor construe.

While Trump flies around in taxpayers’ billion-dollar bunko, if he carries out his dream of replacing the East Wing with a gargantuan, royal ballroom, we’ll be left with a desecrated White House. The People’s House, welcoming visitors from all walks of life, will become Trump’s auriferous legacy, a grandiose homage to his need for veneration. One person’s pathological narcissism will despoil something beautiful, its timeless architecture so understatedly American. It’s metaphorical.

Trump’s and his party’s war on facts, science, and truth is easy to understand. Those values expose their lies and failures. Campaigning on cruelty can’t win forever, and they know it’s all they have. On governance, they lose. Which is why Texas, as demanded by Trump, with all red states sure to follow, is taking its already-egregious gerrymandering to unseen levels, eliminating five Democratic districts. And now, Trump’s IRS says multimillionaire-run megachurches can endorse candidates and maintain tax-exempt status. Everywhere you look, it’s undisguised corruption. Like ending free tax-filing after a million-dollar donation from TurboTax. 

These perilous times for democracy demand that Democrats fight as dirty as Republicans; do the same in blue states as legislators are doing in red ones, for as long as it takes to return to voters the right to select their representatives, not the other way around. Then enact fair voting laws forever, or until the SCOTUS Six rewrite the Constitution yet again.

Whichever comes first.

Gaza And More

 

I took one of those send-your-spit DNA tests. As expected, it showed me to be 99% Ashkenazi Jewish, because both sides of my family are Jewish, going back past Adam and Eve, probably to Graecopithecus. I've written about why I'm not proud of things over which I had no control, born Jewish among them. But I'm glad of it.

When I meet Jewish people, I feel unspoken kinship. Jews have contributed disproportionately to the arts, technology, science, medicine. If I'm not among those contributors, I admire them from closer than afar. Jews have survived centuries of hatred. My grandfathers lost family in the Holocaust, which, contrary to the belief of many in the MAGA camp, actually happened. Seeing pictures of those skeletal outlasters of incarceration makes me physically ill. As does the rise of antisemitism under the leadership of "good people on both sides" Trump.

I'm glad for the existence of modern-day Israel, in awe of its research achievements that have benefited humankind. If its re-creation after World War II as haven and homeland for survivors of the Shoah engendered unceasing animus within the countries surrounding it, it was the right thing to do. As have been its wars of survival, like its stunning victory over the outnumbering, attacking nations in the Six Day War.

My point: I'm not someone you could consider antisemitic. So when I say I'm revulsed by what Israel is doing in Gaza, it's not about religion or ethnicity. It's about humanity. If a strong response to the horrifically cruel attacks by Hamas on October 7th, 2023, was absolutely called for, Israel has long-since gone beyond justification. I'm angry over it, and filled with sorrow. If I can't claim pride in being born Jewish, I can feel uneasy - embarrassed, even - to be associated, however tangentially, with the brutality, the indiscriminate slaughter being carried out by Israel. Starvation. Interdicting aid. Killing people, children included, as they scramble to receive what little nourishment is available. Recently allowing some food convoys back in, plus Trump's meager contribution of cash last week: too little, too late.

I abhor what Benyamin Netanyahu is doing and I hate that our "president" openly encouraged him. "Finish the job," he said. "Do whatever you want." No one should be surprised, though, because what Trump is doing to immigrants in America, adults and children, recent arrivals and law-abiding residents for decades, if not causing as many deaths as Israel's, is equally heartless and dismissive of the humanity of his victims. Plus, because Republicans cheer Trump's immigration cruelty at home and Trump facilitates Bibi's abroad, both are being done in our name.

Criticism of Israel's actions does not equate to antisemitism. Nor does it justify Trump's rounding up, imprisoning, and deporting students, here legally, who've been protesting them. (Which he's not doing to protect Jewish students: it's an excuse to subjugate universities to his will.) America has supported Israel since its creation and, as long-term policy, that shouldn't change. To preserve its existence, Israel will likely need America's help forever. But, especially now, it ought not be unconditional. Seeing children of bone and skin, barely holding off death, knowing there were many who couldn't: Enough is much more than enough.

The US could put its aid to Israel on hold. It might not halt the carnage, but it would disassociate us from the inhumanity. It would also, no doubt, cause outrage among many of Israel's American supporters. Matters of conscience, though, are more important than politics or the flow of money that's become indispensable to American politicians of all persuasions. They used to be.

I'd like to believe the majority of Israelis, like the majority of Americans who disapprove of virtually all of Trump's policies, reject Netanyahu's scorching of Gazan earth. Hamas is a barbarous terrorist organization that needs to be eradicated. Surely, though, a country as skillful as Israel could find a way to do it without starving civilians and, like MAGA's BFF Putin, bombing their hospitals and homes. Maybe that's impossible, but it ought to be the goal.

Enough said. If the Gaza tragedy is overwhelmingly awful, the Epstein saga continues to confound. Trump's former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, now an obedient DO"J" employee, has been interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's chief accomplice and pedophilic facilitator, serving twenty years for her crimes. Trump, who never lies, says he hasn't been following it, says issuing her a pardon after she says whatever they get her to say "… is not something I've thought about." Only the most Trumpomagafoxified could consider that, or her spillage, credible.

MAGAs have another challenge to rationalization: Trump only "wins" tournaments at his own golf resorts. From his taxpayer-funded trip to promote his courses in Scotland, there's now video proof of his oft-reported cheating. Defend, worshippers, the character of the man you revere, who cheats at golf and brags about winning. Because character isn't conditional. His explains everything he does.