Ear Worm

“... [W]hile he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. He wants to build his ballroom and TRAVEL WITH NATALIE on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Oman.” (Emphasis mine) So spoke Senator John Ossoff (D-GA), causing coordinated, skyscraping dudgeon from every right-wing mouthpiece. Those capitalized three words constitute his total reference to Ms. Harp. The point was Trump’s gross dereliction.

“He called her a whore,” one said. “He attacked a defenseless girl,” (she’s 35) said another, reportedly seeking Trump’s press secretary job. “I’d vote for Putin over Ossoff. That’s how bad this guy Ossoff is,” said the former Bill O’Reilly, choosing, like Trump, a murderous dictator. Here, there be lessons.

Everyone but MAGAs, and every man, woman, and child Republican member of Congress, knows. It confirms, yet again, in what low regard Trump and his confederates hold their voters; creating a s#!t sandwich out of a nothingburger, feeding it to MAGA, calling it delicious, to be swallowed gratefully. It works. What Senator Ossoff said is simple truth. Travel with. On a flying emolument. It’s not metaphorical.

Theatrically apoplectic wingnuts claim sleaze because they’ve seen and excused Trump’s for years. Serial adultery is who he is and, therefore, comes immediately to the MAGA mind. If he were playing Harp as he has his past victims, it’d be creepy, but nothing new. This is worse.

America’s “president” is so needy, so damaged, that he hired a full-time, always-near woman to shovel continual flattery. To search and print for him laudatory opinions, fake polls, and attestations that things are fine. It explains his non-compos insistence that he’s leading in polls, that his horrendously stupid war is going great, that he’s admired round the world.

She’s not his only toady. In those made-for-TV, national embarrassment “cabinet meetings,” his appointees heap servile praise, provide his “jokes” with a forced laugh track, and applaud his every preposterous assertion. While the world’s worst dictators, recognizing his vulnerability, play him like a Harp. (Sorry. Accidental capitalization. I’ll fix it.) She does it constantly, all hours. It’s she, it’s said, who transcribes his hallucinatory wee-hour rants onto his Truthless Sociopath website.

The danger to us of a “president” kept from truth about national and world affairs ought to be obvious to everyone; even those made blind by Trump’s propagandistic right-wing media.

But enough’s enough. If there’s not another word about Natalie Harp, from either side, it’ll be too many.

Another victim of conjured outrage, also from both sides, is Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline, appointed US Senator per order of Trump. Asked about China policy in a televised debate, she admitted knowing nothing. Not ideal for one in her position, but understandable at this early stage. What’s legitimately disturbing, though, was her cleanup act on Sean Hannity’s show. She said South Carolinians don’t care about foreign affairs, which is probably true of her side. "People in South Carolina are more concerned with making ends meet,” she added. “They are concerned with boys in girls' sports."

That’s as telling as the preceding revelations about Republican politics. In South Carolina, as it happens, it’s illegal for trans girls to play in girls’ sports. There, it’s not a thing. (Across the country, it’s been a thing about twelve times.) So either Senator Sibling is lying like a dutiful R, or her voters are so indoctrinated by right-wing mendacity that they think it’s massive, everywhere. In any case, it opens the playbook of a political party bereft of positive ideas. Scapegoating and demonizing the vulnerable is all they have.

Ms. Graham, in other words, is the perfect Republican candidate, mirroring all of Trump’s choices: inexperienced, unqualified; obsequious genuflection and repetition of his lies, the sole requirement. And there’s none so inexperienced and unqualified as weekend Fox host, Pentagon Pete Hegseth, who fired the general responsible for creating an American drone division, hiring another, who ended it. It’s part of his idiotic “back to basics” approach, ignoring the lessons of the Ukraine and Iran wars.

Not recognizing that the military future belongs to drones is worse than Trump’s desire to build battleships in his name, when battleships are all but obsolete, and redesigning aircraft carriers because the ones he saw watching “Victory at Sea” while nursing his imaginary bone spurs looked cooler. Russia just launched an autonomous drone into Ukraine, guided by an American-made chip. Will Trump respond with bazookas and flamethrowers?

Dang. Now there’s no room to address his stupid trade war with Canada (he wants to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America. That'll show 'em!) Or his appallingly corrupt, Republican-ignored stock purchases before announcing policies that boost them. Or SCOTUS, predictably 6-3, greasing his plainly unconstitutional ban on mail-in voting. When Democrats take over Congress, maybe they’ll end the madness.

For now, Canada’s Mark Carney is the moral, political, and intellectual leader of the free world.

On Sunday, Trump put on an Indy car race on the streets of DC.