June 5, 2019

On his trip to London, Donald Trump put the loo in looney tunes. While protesters were marching in the streets, Donald Trump was once again dodging the draft (question,) meddling in British politics, referring to a member of the royal family as nasty, being puzzled by Prince Charles interest in climate change and future generations, referring to semi-automatic rifles as entertainment, and meeting with the Irish PM in the loo at Shannon airport. Queen Elizabeth trolled him with a book on WW II, but he is bent on undoing everything that WW II was fought for. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he has to come back home to reality, congressional investigations, and Republican push back on his tariffs.

And, when he does return, he returns to no agenda and no mandate. Worse, he returns to awful poll numbers. He is a wounded animal, and there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded, cornered animal. He will finds ways to make deals by giving away the store. He will then declare victory and move on. He will cave to North Korea on missiles, he will cave to the Saudis on arms sales and nuclear proliferation, he will cave to Canada on NAFTA, he will cave to Mexico on the wall and the 5% tariff, and, worse, he will cave to China on trade. The “art of the deal” guy says to walk away from a bad deal unless, that is, you need to make a deal to survive. I predict a series of incredibly bad deals prior to the election, and Donald Trump will be the biggest “loo”ser.

June 5, 2019

Frankenstein was Mary Shelley’s monster built from random human parts made monstrous by a deranged and defective brain. The monster eventually kills its creator, and goes on a murderous rampage before being burned to death by the villagers. I do not think it is too much of a stretch to say that Donald Trump is the Republican Party’s Frankenstein.

The Republican Party and its donors created Trumpenstein. The NRA gave us an evil policy of obstructing all common sense gun restrictions at all costs. Sheldon Adelson gave us a hateful policy towards the Palestinians, and set back prospects for a Mid-East peace for generations. The Koch Brothers and the oil industry gave us climate change denial. The religious right brought back abortions in back alleys and coat hangers. The Trump organization gave us Saudi Arabia and the indiscriminate killing of a US journalist.

All of these random groups found a host organism in an amoral Donald Trump. What they were not counting on was that the Trumpenstein monster was powered by a highly unstable brain. It’s a brain fueled by the hate of women, people of color, immigrants, and anyone who would challenge it. Like fire to Frankenstein, Trumpenstein is afraid of and enraged by anything related to President Barack Obama. The only thing left for the monster to do is kill its creator, the Republican Party. Hopefully, as Hillary Clinton said, it takes a village.

May 30, 2019

The “deep state” is no deeper than Donald Trump’s thinking. Deep dish pizza has more substance. The “deep state” mantra is just another conspiracy theory right up there with birtherism, Pizzagate, Newtown, Benghazi, Hillary’s e-mails, and many, many more. It has been misused to delegitimize any of Trump’s critics. Now Attorney General Barr is going to drag us down another rabbit hole hoping to find the “deep state.” I suspect what he will find is a group of dedicated civil servants just trying to do their jobs as opposed to temporary elected and appointed officials just trying to keep theirs.

In order to believe the “deep state” conspiracy theory, you have to believe that, before the 2016 elections, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies colluded to keep Trump from being president, and, having failed at that, plotted a coup d’etat to get Trump out of office. In addition, surreptitiously, they had to recruit a majority of the House of Representatives and a majority of the American public to go along with it. I got my phone call from the “deep state.” Did you get yours?

May 30, 2019

Robert Mueller addressed the country yesterday for ten minutes. His address was not the Gettysburg Address. It was not a fireside chat. There were no historic phrases we will be reciting for decades. It was not delivered with the rhetorical flourishes of Cicero. It was not delivered with the religious fervor of Billy Graham. It was clinical and legalistic. It was Joe Friday, not Martin Luther King, Jr. “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” However, his remarks did recall for me MLK’s “I’ve Been to the Mountain” speech. It could have gone like this.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do the country’s will. And the country allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen what should come next. I will not get there with you. But I want you to know today, that we, as a people, will get back to what the Founder’s envisioned . So I’m happy, today. I’m not worried about anything.”