A different kind of president

Donnies apologists often seek to explain away his  stupid actions and remarks, which are endless by saying" he is a different kind of Pres.". They are  of course correct. We have never had such an ignorant, incompetent, lying and probably delusional president. In the past few days he has reached new heights of stupidity and incompetence by announcing a troop withdrawal from Syria and probably Afghanistan and petulantly refusing to sign a continuing budget resolution. With respect to the latter, he  obviously told House and Senate Republicans he would sign it but abruptly changed mind when criticized by Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingram and the leaders of the so-called House" freedom Caucus".

This was an opportunity for the traditional leaders of the Republican Party to reclaim ownership of the House and Senate and probably the party as well. They needed to pass what Trump had previously agreed to, send it to the White House and tell Donnie that should he veto it it would be passed over his veto. They also should've told him that if he continued to act in such a deranged manner he was going to have nothing but problems with Congress, including the republican Senate majority and would never be reelected.. Of course they did nothing of the kind but meekly rolled over. Luckily, the Democrats in the Senate refused to do so. Had they, Donnie would continue to believe he can do anything he wants.

Perhaps our major problem is that the president has wide-ranging, often unfettered power in foreign affairs. Lord only knows what  will do next. It seems from reporting that his Syrian decision was largely influenced by his phone call with Erdogen, certainly a  person who wishes the US well.

So the current situation is that trumps domestic follies are largely controlled by the radical right and his foreign-policy is largely influenced by our enemies, whom he appears to think are his best buddies, to the detriment of the US and our traditional allies.

Merry Christmas.

More dangerous than Trump

Many decades ago George Orwell wrote a great essay called olitics and the English language. It demonstrated how politicians use language to obfuscate and mistate their strategies and intentions. He later wrote the novel 1984 showing what happens when leaders in control simply mistate fax and lie. Now we have of course Donald Trump who seems incapable of not lying. But with him it seems obvious so why does he have a acceptance and approval of Republicans in general. Well some or die hard Republicans and would support him in all cases. Others have been called low information voters referring to a tendency of many to not dig into facts. But what we clearly have now is misinformation voters. These are voters who get their "facts and information" from duplicitous sources. One is of course trump but another is FOXNews, our current version of Pravda, and probably the worst is the Internet in which invented facts cascade through blogs and websites gaining currency has a ricochet through cyberspace. There becomes an exists an alternative reality that is obviously quite persuasive period

One of the great purveyors of deception is the radical libertarian right exemplified by the Koch brothers and their organizations and those aligned with them such as the Club for Growth which should be more accurately named the Club for Greed. They promote and sponsor organizations with highly deceptive names such as the" Americans for Prosperity". Now that sounds pretty good but what are their real aims? If they truly disclosed their goals it would be called Plutocrats and Kleptocrats seeking to eliminate social security, Medicaid ,Medicare ,operation Headstart, SNAP and any other social welfare program. Ultimately, they wish to reduce the federal government to an organization that focuses almost entirely on national defense and privatize everything else including such organizations as the Center for Disease Control, the national Institute of Health, The highway fund or any other program that could be privatized which in their mind is practically everything. They preached the notion that the best thing a voter could do for the nation is pay less taxes. This is a pretty easy sell. They have embarked on an ambitious program backed by enormous wealth and resources to achieve this. Part of this is controlling large parts of universities to spread the gospel. The best description I know of of this program is" Democracy in Chains" by Nancy McLean. Because of the vast resources they have in their deceptive programs they are much more dangerous then Donald Trump who is a transparent buffoon and whose presence on the stage is transitory. The republican party is pretty much in thrall to this movement. Traditional conservatives such as George will, Rick Scott, Steven Schmidt and others have left the party. The Republican Party is no longer conservative in the traditional sense. It is merely a group of professional politicians willing to work for the highest bidder. These things, not Donald Trump, are the real dangers to the republic.

Doin the White House shuffle

Things are uncomfortable these days at the old White House. Little Donny is clearly in an aggravated and petulant mood. Apparently someone told him that losing 40 seats and control of the House of Representatives was not a nearly one hundred percent victory and some have even suggested it's primarily his fault for being such a bozo as president. Also, he was not shown the defference he desires in Europe and in fact was dressed down byMacron. So, in his usual fashion trump is casting about who to blame and fire. His first Target is apparently Homeland security secretary Kristjen Nielsen. She hasn't been using the term" invasion" and also has an annoying tendency to explain to little Donnie about laws which prevent him from doing that which he wishes. Obviously, she has to go. Rumors are also circulating about Gen. Kelly whose tenure has been tenuous for sometime. You may remember Kelly once called our fearless leader either a moron or an idiot. Donnie doesn't want anybody that perceptive around .

Rumor has it that Kelly may be replaced buy either Jared Kushner or Littler Donnie. As Donnie explained, the cloud of the Mueller investigation is not hanging over these two crown Princess because Whitaker has told him that he will shut down the Mueller investigation. Donnie hastened to sav" strike that", I wasn't supposed to talk about Whitaker. Jared apparently has time on his hands as he has already brought peace to the Middle East and reorganized the federal government as well as becoming the BFF of the Saudi crown prince. Also, interior Sec. Ryan Zinke and commerce secretary Wilbur -the- talking- horse Ross also may be on the short list of the to be departed. It may be a race to see whether they are fired first or indicted first.

Meanwhile, the First Trophy Wife is demanding that deputy national security adviser Mira Ricardle be cashiered. Apparently Mira complained about seats on the plane when what's her name went to Africa all by herself. You may recall that while she was there she met actual African people but didn't stay long because the shopping was terrible. First trophy wife was said to state that Mira did not deserve the honor of being in the White House. As she told her confidantes, she had to agree to have sex with Little Donnie before she got the honor of being there and didn't see why other women got off so easily. Of course, the first trophy wife has now been replaced in the presidential bed by refuse from McDonald's and Burger King.

The American people breathlessly awake the next move by our buffoon in chief.

Bad hair day or bone spurs?

Donald Trump really shouldn't go to Europe. He makes a fool of himself and his done it again. He couldn't attend a ceremony honoring first world war casualties added military Battlefield Cemetery because of bad weather which cost him not to ride in his helicopter. He couldn't walk with the other heads of state to a ceremony because of" security issues". I am pretty certain the problem was that rainy weather causes him to have bad hair days. It is also possible that dampness causes his bone spurs to ache. You may recall those bone spurs prohibited him from serving in the military during the Vietnam conflict, even though he badly wanted to participate. He was in pain, could hardly play golf and tennis.

Trump also criticized the forest service for not preventing urban fires in California. Gifford Pinchot, and probably Teddy Roosevelt, are turning over in their graves .

Meanwhile, Trump's erratic behavior and delusions march onward. His claim of victory in the by elections  is reminiscent of George W. Bush's claim of "Mission Accomplished" on the deck of the aircraft carrier.

But his approval rating among Republicans still remains at high. Work harder Democrats.

The phantom strikes again?

You may recall that after Christine Ford testified at the Kavanaugh hearing, and before Kavanagh's partisan political rant, the Republicans were in a state of dismay and disarray. Ms. Ford was clearly believable and sympathetic. The Republicans and had to acknowledge that. What were they to do to reconcile the effect of her testimony and demeanor with Kavanaugh's denial? They of course wanted to talk about a conspiracy by the Democrats but there was no way that Ms. Ford fit in with that narrative, particularly given her prior consistent statements. So they came up with a typical criminal defense strategy, positing an unidentified perpetrator as someone responsible for the treatment Ms. Ford described. Now this was completely preposterous but it was the best they could come up with.

Yesterday pres. Donnie had a similar problem to deal with. It appeared that Washington Post columnist Kashoggie had been murdered in the Saudi Arabia consulate in Ankara turkey. But, as Donnie the Daft said, the king" Strongly" denied any knowledge of such a thing. (People talking to Donnie always do so "strongly".) The problem was that there was increasing evidence from Turkish officials that the columnist had in fact been murdered in the consulate. What to do? As Donnie pointed out, there was a buck to be made from the Saudi's. So, perhaps with some help from the Saudi's, Donnie concocted another phantom perpetrator, a" Rogue attack ". Also there was discussion from the administration of the important role Southeast played in the strategic security plans of the United States as a valuable ally. They perhaps a forgotten that al Qaeda came out of the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia and that the 9/11 bombers we're Saudi's. In siding with Saudi Arabia and the Sunnis, they also forget that the terrorist in a Iraq were Sunnis not shia. In fact, the Saudi's are easily as despicable as Iran, witness their bombings of Yemen, and their purges of their own people. Nonetheless, Donnie went with the Rogue actor theory and maintained his support for the Saudi's. After all, they gave him a red carpet ceremony, promised to buy are  $125 billion in arms from the US, which of course they haven't, and were really nice to Jared.

Son of a gun, the Saudis are now apparently forced to admit that the columnist was killed in their consulate, but of course the royal family had nothing to do with it. It was a rogue operation. They have no explanation of why two plane loads of 15 operatives, apparently bringing with them a bone saw, flew in and out of Ankara in less than 24 hours. They also wish the world to believe that was done without the blessing of the royal family even though nothing ever is. That is the sad state of affairs. Just one more example of the incompetent liar we have for a president being made a fool of by a foreign autocratic state. The lesson is, if you can't fabricate a conspiracy, use phantoms.

Mini–me

There was a fair amount of speculation that when Bret Kavanagh went off in his rant against left wing conspiracies and revenge for the Clintons he was following instructions from the Trump administration. That is of course just a theory or a storey but it has a great deal of verisimilitude. His Imperial Majesty does not bless those who do not have a fair measure of attack dog in them. It is also instructive that during that rant he was reading from a prepared script. He was not reacting to a hostile question.

It is now clear that the nomination will pass and it is also clear that the nominee would do practically anything in order to secure his position. The clincher was the announce votes of Sen. Susan Collins. Her vote was at the end of a nearly hour-long" speech". I haven't heard her speak before and I must say that didn't sound like something she had written herself. It pretty much looked like a brief prepared by the Federalist Society, Particularly the analysis of judicial opinions either written by the nominee or which he had favorably described.

Be that as it may, it is hard not to believe that Trump now has a mini-me on the Supreme Court. The best we can hope for is that this justice will know he is under closer than usual scrutiny. It appears that he has exhibited wildly different behavior during periods of his life. Perhaps his better angels will reassert themselves. In any event, had this nomination failed the Federalist Society would've produced another clone. Regardless of the midterm elections, the Republicans would've controlled the Senate until January and pushed through their nominee. Our best hope now is justice Roberts who certainly is a conservative but it appears to have a fair amount of integrity.

Two Memorial Services and a Political Internment

It has been an extraordinary few days. Let us start with the memorial service for Aretha Franklin. It was a glorious feast of music, reminding us of one of the things that makes life worthwhile.

Then today at the memorial service for John McCain. It was magnificently choreographed, apparently largely by McCain himself, and I found it riveting. There is an old show business saying about a" tough act to follow". Those who followed Megan McCain we're terrific but they had no chance to compete. Hurt 18 minutes eulogy was an incredible combination of emotion, raw power and acute intelligence. She was the first, but not the last, to make it clear that Donald Trump shares  none of the qualities praised in John McCain–heroism, service, patriotism, dignity and fairness. The governor of Arizona will appoint someone to fill out John McCain's term. After today, there is no question who that person should be.

I pretty much suffer from stage-four cynicism these days but tears came to my eyes when Renée Fleming sang Danny Boy. There may be no other song that can equally express a sense of loss. And it was clear that what  is lost is not one man, but a sense that the country we all love and believe in  appears to be disappearing. Clearly, the elephant-or more properly the jackass-in the room was Donald Trump. Will this be enough to convince republican congressman and senators to confront publicly Donald Trump and shut his nonsensical behavior down ? Lindsey Graham, who has been real disappointment lately was  visibly affected. Maybe he will reverse his bad behavior of late . It would be fitting should this service come to be recognized as the beginning of the political internment of Donald Trump.

Too often the feelings and emotions provoked by a moment such as this service swiftly fade away. Let us hope that today will have a lasting effect.

What Will it take?

The events of last week–Cohen, Manafort and Trump's accountant being given immunity–have caused the members of the chattering class that appear on the endless daily panels to claim that an "inflection point" has been reached and the end is insight for Donnie. They really like that term" inflection point". In fact, donnie's approval rating has hardly been affected.

We had over the weekend the death of John McCain. It is useful to compare McCain to Trump, particularly since McCain left instructions that Trump  not attend his memorial services. That was a good idea because if Trump were to attend and speak he would probably say something along these lines." McCain was taken prisoner in the Vietnam War and was unable to contribute to the war effort. He also ran unsuccessfully twice for president. I only ran once and had an overwhelming victory and also had the highest ratings ever for a reality TV show."

All we need to do is keep in mind two memories and images. The first is John McCain during the campaign telling one of his supporters at a rally that Barack Obama was" not an Arab but was a decent man, a family man." This second is Donald Trump at his endless rallies, which have not stopped, cheering on his supporters as they chant "lock her up". We might also remember how he demeaned and belittled all of his primary opponents.

It is hard to characterize or categorize his current supporters. It is relatively easy to understand why diverse people voted for him. His opponent was highly flawed and ran in a bad campaign. He made extravagant promises with no substance and falsely portrayed himself as some sort of populist. Inevitably there is a block of voters who want" change". His current level of support however  is not as easy to explain. He has demonstrated that he is not a populace and continues to lie about his nonexistent programs for the benefit of the middle and lower class. It should be obvious he is lying and always did. He is definitely not a conservative and real conservatives such as George Will despise him. He is certainly not a liberal or progressive. He undoubtably has support from people who we could label plutocrats or maybe more accurately kleptocrats driven largely by greed and self-interest. So, it appears his supporters are those who are either too ignorant or lazy to look at what he is and does or simply those are driven by greed and self interest.

The polls suggest that a majority a voters disapproval him and believe him to be a liar. That doesn't mean that the Democrats will win elections. First there are gerrymandered congressional districts. Second, the Senate is a totally unrepresentative body, in which States generally backing trump are highly overrepresented. The Democrats have a lot of work to do. They need to beat the drums exposing trump and offer better policies and programs of their own, such as job training and infrastructure building. They had better get to work and forget about inflection points.

The Donald–Deluded, Deranged and Dangerous

Today, the focus of the usual suspects' endless chattering is the I word-" impeachment." The springboard to this is Donnie's current status as an unindicted criminal conspirator. This has even got Donnie's attention. Today on radio Moscow, AKA fox news, Donnie's primary delusion was on full view. He explained to the current pretty blonde Fox lady that absent him, the company would go down the drain. He pointed to his head and claims that it is only his brilliance that keeps the country rich and stable. His delusion about his own competence and abilities is dangerous. He apparently accepts advice from practically no one, unless that advice is to say" you are absolutely right". He is demonstrably inept, incompetent and somewhat dim. His recent trips to Europe and Singapore demonstrated he could not negotiate any kind of complicated problem. He doesn't have either the knowledge or attention span.

He is clearly spinning out of control. This is a person who arises early to watch television and tweet. He responds to FOXNews and other news programs with anger and frustration. His tweets are repetitious, Basically saying" fake news, no collusion and witch hunt". He claims anybody who disagrees with him is stupid and corrupt," it is so sad and a disgrace."His grip on reality becomes ever more tenuous. He has perhaps the most important and difficult job in the world which he doesn't start until 11 AM and then spends most of his time in photo ops and making stupid and inaccurate statements. He apparently ends the day yelling at the television set and making the same ridiculous tweets.

As the noose tightens around him he becomes ever more dangerous. His only response is to attack. Recently his targets have been the justice department and its most prominent principals–Sessions and Mueller. It would not be surprising were he to fire both of them as well as Rosenstein. Although Republican senators and congressmen have said that would be over the line , don't bet on them doing anything. He is also focused on Iran, and the two countries Best debt pandering to him–Saudi Arabia and Israel want Iran to be brought to its knees. So far Donnie is only using sanctions but don't bet against him launching a military attack.

The problem with impeachment, should the Democrats get control of the house, is that not enough Republican senators would vote to impeach. Not only that, impeachment brings us Mike Pence, not much of an improvement. The only good answer is at the ballot box in 2018 and 2020. If, given what we have seen we voters do not bring in Democrats we are in deep shit.

Book of Job

If God be kind benevolent and watching over his children, why is Aretha Franklin dead Donald Trump alive?If God be kind benevolent and watching over his children, why is Aretha Franklin dead and Donald Trump alive?

Talk about the I words, not the N-word

Among the current hot topics about the fool in the White House, is whether he has used the N word. Obviously this is going to be a hot topic but in the scheme of things it really isn't. We have several years I'll his disgusting use of language to degrade or defame is ever growing number of critics. Whether he use the N word or not is in context relatively unimportant. It certainly isn't going to affect any of his supporters. It appears that nothing will affect his solid base but there are those marginal voters that carried him over-the-top that can be persuaded to dump him but one more example of his bad behavior probably will not do it.

The DNC and the democrat candidates need to be talking about the I words–ignorance and  incompetence. That is the sort of thing which they carry the day and it is not a hard sell. His ignorance was manifest during the primary and general election campaigns. Particularly during the primaries, when asked about any strategies policies or programs all he could say was they will be "huge". He obviously had nothing. During the general election campaign he Maska rated has some sort of populist claiming he had a great healthcare program that would provide more benefits and cost less. He also claimed to know more about the Mideast wars than the generals. Upon being elected all he focused on apparently was the size of the the inauguration crowd, the amount of the total vote he received and whether he had better ratings than Arnold Schwarzenegger on the apprentice. He also was going to provide a big tax reform package. What did he come up with? His health plan was so bad even the Republican majority wouldn't pass it; his big tax reform plan meant to healthy lower and middle class was nothing more than Paul Ryan's giveaway to corporate America; and he said he had asked the generals to prepare some comprehensive release plan in a matter of days or so.

Subsequently he has demonstrated his incompetence either way he is insulted our allies, Gay funding obsequious behavior to our enemies such as Russia and North Korea and generally made extravagant claims all of which tend to be proven false immediately. He could not even competently respond to his critics. His only response is to yell" fake news". In a sense he is right because what the media primarily presents and which he calls fake news are his own statements and claims which are fake. In short, he has done nothing to show that he is remotely competent to be president and that he is totally ignorant about things he needs to know. This is compounded by the fact that he appears to be delusional and unwilling to listen to people who do know things. This is what should be brought to the attention of the voters and not more redundancy about the disgusting and stupid things he says denigrating people. That has been more than evident and doesn't need constant repetition.

Words Trump can understand

I feel very very strongly that wacky Donald Trump is a really despicable lowlife. I have had many people tell me that, really very intelligent incredible people tell me that. In fact people come up to me on the street and say "that Donald Trump is really a despicable lowlife". These are exceptional people, really remarkable and intelligent people. I also feel very very strongly that he is a low IQ person. I primarily based that on the stupid things he keeps saying and doing but I have also had many really remarkable, very intelligent people say to me" that Donald Trump is a really low IQ person".

He really seems more like an animal that a person, probably a braying jackass.

Many people, very fine people, have told me that he is a crook and that he and his companies were probably engaged in money laundering. People have asked me, "why doesn't he released his tax returns?" They say he is a real braggart about his accomplishments and   that if he were a successful businessman he would publish his tax returns on the front page of national newspapers, after first discussing them with Sean Hannity on FOXNews. This I can tell you, anyone who puts his name on anything within reach is not about to be a shrinking violet what it comes to demonstrating his success

Very fine people I know have said that they could arrange for me to play golf with Trump but I would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement, agreeing to never discuss how well or how badly he played golf. I have talked to some very fine people, and good golfers who have played with Trump. When I asked about his golf game they merely roll their eyes and say they are not allowed to talk about it. This I can tell you, if he were good he would want them to talk about it.

This I can tell you ,I feel very very strongly about this.

Trump's" working" vacation

Trump is now on an 11 day working vacation. In fact that phrase could be a metaphor for his entire presidency, with the emphasis on the word "vacation". The role of president of United States is probably the most difficult job in the world. A president has to deal with an incredible range of subject matter area–the military, the environment, Health and Human Services, the domestic economy, International trade issues, foreign relations with both enemies and friends–the list is endless. I have worked on litigation involving expert ties to testimony, Typically in my case economic testimony but also from time to time testimony of experts in various areas of commerce and industry. It is a difficult task because you have to spend enough time to become at least conversant with the terminology and the structure of thinking the experts use.

Donald Trump came into the presidency with nearly total ignorance of all important areas. He demonstrated that during the primary and general campaigns when he refused to indicate when his policy or thinking was on nearly anything. Then when he became president he showed a total disdain for knowledge and the work necessary to gain knowledge. For instance he said he knew more about the middle east wars then the generals and he could devise a health plan for the US that would be less expensive with less deductibles and more coverage, clearly not a possible program other than maybe under a single-payer plan which he does not want. He was also going to totally reform the tax code and we have seen what he actually did. Prior to his meeting with Kim in Singapore there was concern as to whether he was adequately prepared. Is response was that His entire life had prepared him any pretty clearly did nothing in preparation. Then he spent maybe an hour alone with Kim and announced he is solved problems in the Korean Peninsula and we need not fear North Korea. It has become obvious that that was complete bullshit. You did not prepare for his meeting with our allies in Europe and instead disrespected him and said stupid things and then went off to meet with Putin in Helsinki with no preparation. Either the public or his National security adviser Dan Coats knows what was said at that meeting.

In short, Trump treats the presidency as a part-time job that requires neither preparation nor close attention. He has this delusion that the force of his personality as all that is necessary. He is now doing the one thing that he loves, campaigning. He loves it because he is surrounded by his most devoted followers to whom he can lie with impunity. He follows this by claiming that any criticism of his lying and stupidity amounts to fake news and  appears to be on a mission to have the free press eliminated as much as possible. We will have elections in the fall of 2018 and then in 2020. If the Democrats cannot by 2020 have regained control of the presidency and at least either the House or Senate we are really without hope. At that point were I not so old and were it not so difficult to arrange for all my children and grandchildren to accompany me I would probably become an ex-pat.

Is it 25th amendment time?

As Trump swings into his campaign mode he is becoming even more uncontrolled, erratic and inconsistent. His campaign speeches more and more resemble tent revival meetings with overtones of hallucinogenic drugs. Is early morning tweets become more and more preposterous. He also claims more and more to have made incredible deals when it is clear he has accomplished nothing.

The usual suspects in the usual panels chatter endlessly about what his strategy is and will it work and is he only playing to his base, Etc. I think they are overlooking the obvious. He appears to be becoming more and more delusional and mentally unstable. I am not so naïve to think that the Republicans and the members of his cabinet are going to deal realistically with his behavior. They seem content to simply shrug their shoulders. Meanwhile, Trump's current mania is to reverse any regulation made during the Obama administration. It appears as though he is motivated to prove how great he is by obliterating all traces of his predecessor. He also continues to be obsessed with attacking Hillary Clinton. He is given credit for this being a diversionary tactic. I think the more likely explanation is that it worked during the campaign and he wants to live in the moments of the last campaign, perhaps dimly recognizing that he is totally incompetent in his job. He claims to be a" stable genius". Is pretty clearly neither stable nor a genius.

Those in a position to exercise some control over him appear most often to be either unwilling or unable to do so. Their remedy is consistently to try to clean up the mess created by Trump by verbal sleight-of-hand tactics.

Trump is our version of King Lear standing on the cliffs raging against the wind. We are in some sort of race to gain some measure of control in 2018 and  hope that he is voted out in 2020 and in the meanwhile does not do  Irreparable damage to the republic. It is hard to be optimistic.

Low Information Voters

This is a term that has been used with some frequency lately. It refers to not only voters with a low quantity of information but perhaps more importantly to those with limited sources of information. There are increasingly voters who obtain information from extremely limited sources, maybe one News channel and a few blogs and websites. Neuroscientists have demonstrated that the tendency of those with limited sources with whom they agree is to become more rigid in their opinions.

One of the phrases one hears and maybe one uses is" I cannot understand how anyone could…". The dots are typically filled in by such phrases as support a candidate or attack a candidate or disagree with some policy. What the"I cannot understand "phrase really means is that" I violently disagree with that and think anybody who doesn't is a dumb shit." If one really wants to understand the position of those with whom they violently disagree turning to neuroscience is helpful. What one can learn from books such as" The Undoing Project" by Michael Lewis and other similar books is that various biases- confirmation bias, affirmation bias-exert a great influence over the opinions one has. It is not easy to examine the biases and why they lead to certain results, even if you try to examine your own biases. But it does demonstrate that those with whom you disagree are not necessarily dumb shits. Most often it is their life experiences which create biases that lead them to their conclusions, not a lack of intelligence . And, of course, the tendency to gravitate towards information which confirms these biases only aggravates the problem.

Democrats need to cease acting and stating in patronizing style, acting smug and complacent, if they wish to change the the opinions and voting of some of those with whom they disagree. Primarily, the Democrats need to deal much differently with the voters in the part of the country extending from West Virginia to Wisconsin that deserted them in 2016. Instead of acting as though they feel these people are complete fools they need to examine what compelled that result, what created the biases that led to the voting change. One of the things they could do is a concerted effort not to tell these voters in a lecturing sort of fashion what they need to think but actually go and ask them questions." What are the things that most bother you? What sort of infrastructures does your state and community need? What sort of job training programs would help you?" They do need to argue that the promises Trump made about better healthcare ,more jobs, tax cuts for the middle and lower class have not been honored. But they need to fashion their own proposals in collaboration with those voters they wish to convince. If you wish people to side with you, you need to show them some respect.

TAX RETURNS,WORK PAPERS &FRAUD

The trial of Paul Manafort is set to begin next week. He is charged with various Financial crimes including it seems fraud and money laundering. When Manafort's domestic sources of capital dried-up he went to overseas sources, particularly Russian and Russian controlled sources. It is these transactions which are under scrutiny. Do we know any other public figure that had such a scenario? Remember when Donnie  had to file for bankruptcy for his companies after losing $1 billion in the casino business his domestic sources dried up. What were his sources of overseas capital in his business of branding his name ? Were some Russian or Russian controlled? Probably some Capital was obtained from Deutsche Bank which was clearly in the business of laundering money for among others Russian oligarchs. The alternative spelling for oligarch is" criminal".

Which provokes the questions, why are the Democrats not demanding insistently and loudly that Trump's tax returns be released. Complicated tax returns with schedules provide a wealth of information. The Democrats should also be demanding that the audit workpapers of what ever accounting firm audited Trump and his businesses as well as their policy and procedure manuals be made public. The combination of all those things would provide a treasure trove of information to determine whether or not Trump and his businesses were committing Financial crimes and may still be. Surely the Democrats must have someone in their group of consultants operatives etc. who is financially sophisticated. Why are they not going for the jugular vein instead of spending their time prattling about what ever stupid statement trump makes on a daily basis. They need to get their eye on the ball.

Meanwhile Trump's new diversionary tactic is to advocate taking away the security clearances of any former officials such as James Clapper, Dan Brennan etc. who have the temerity to criticize the fool in the White House. We may safely expect that Trump will soon claim that the statements these people make against him constitute a threat to national security. You may remember Donnie pining away for Roy Cohn, his former lawyer who was also counsel for Joseph McCarthy during the dark days of the McCarthy hearings in the Senate. McCarthy you may recall accused countless people, always falsely of being agents of foreign governments and security risks. Perhaps Trump can get Devin Nunes to commence McCarthy-like hearrings against those who criticize drop. Nunez has proved himself utterly shameless and will do anything apparently to support the fool in the White House.

A PEAK BEHIND THE CURTIN

Perhaps you remember the scene in the movie the Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled back to reveal that the wizard was a fraud. We have been waiting for such a moment with respect to Donald Trump. There have been noises from beyond the curtain such as Tillerson and Mattis calling him an idiot or a moron and not retracting those statements. What we are waiting for is a noisy registration from a top administrator, preferably a Secretary stating that the reason for the resignation is that Trump is an incompetent, ignorant fool who will not listen to anyone and acts like a petulant child.

So far that hasn't happened but lately we came very close. I referred to the moment when national security adviser Dan Coats was being interviewed by Dana Bash and the news broke that Trump had invited Putin to come to the White House. Coats'reaction was priceless and telling, not only what he said but his body language and demeanor. First he displayed total surprise but then it was clear that his reaction was" What the hell will this buffoon do next." He said that the announcement and the disclosure was " really special." This to me demonstrated what those few top people in the administration who are remotely competent probably consider Trump a really bad joke. The loyalists were aghast and called for the firing of Dan Coats. Subsequently coats put out a statement that he meant no disrespect for Trump but it was pretty obvious how he really feels about Trump. I hope we are somewhat closer to the noisy resignation that strips Trump naked.

Meanwhile Trump continues to do his imitation of the Black Knight from Monty Python. As the evidence continues to mount that he is a liar a crook and a traitor he intellectually speaking lies on the ground dismembered claiming no one has laid a glove on him. Sarah Huckleberry is forced on a daily basis to claim that Black is white, Day as night and Trump is not a lying fool. One wonders what sort of price she will pay eventually for this. Maybe nothing.

TRUMP IS A TRAITOR

We have a long had our suspicions. We know he is a liar with sociopathic tendencies who cared for nothing but himself. It also became more and more apparent he is delusional. But now, with the events of the last few days including today's press conference it is clear that he is a traitor. He is not indictable for treason but he is nonetheless a traitor. He has betrayed the best of everything this country has always stood for.

Meanwhile the Press is prattling about it and  unable to call a spade a spade. The Democrats appear to be doing nothing. The opposition needs to out -trump Trump. They need a strong man to appear daily on television and call him a traitor, a liar and probably a crook who has engaged in money-laundering, talking about his refusal to release his tax returns. Let's not forget that Trump probably prevailed because of all the"Earned Media" he received. He is still getting it. We need to beat him at that game.Right now the best man for the job is probably Joe Biden. But the Democrats need to choose a couple good young strong candidates, probably governors of states to begin to do the same thing. It needs to be a constant drumbeat. We need T-shirts with a new slogan "Trump–a Liar a Crook and a Traitor". For some reason three word slogans are particularly effective. As Dr. Seuss said," The time has come, The time is now"

Meanwhile how do we describe the hell or high water Trump supporters who are fazed by nothing he does? Certainly they are not those who we would loosely call liberals. They are also not traditional conservatives, most of whom detest Trump. They are certainly not our public intellectuals such as Thomas Friedman. Are they typically totally selfish people who are convinced they will get more or keep more from him? Are they just republicans who is will always vote for a republican candidate, even when he is not a Republican? Is there any political or ideological term that describes them, or at least most of them? I can't think of any. We need to outnumber and out- fight them.

When cancer invades your body you cannot just call it something else or hope that it goes away. It must be rigorously attacked.

Tramp administration Post job openings

The Trump administration has recently posted openings for Federal jobs, that of Republican congressman. Administration spokes person kellyanne Huckleberry stated that this is a continuation of the incredible job creation the Trump administration has accomplished. The positions offered are those from which current Republican Congress persons have resigned. As kellyanne explained, all of the resignations were completely for personal reasons and had nothing to do with the experiences of these Congress persons during the last year and a half.

There are few requirements for these positions. Neither experience nor educational requirements exist. In fact, a total lack of experience or education is considered desirable. These positions are in districts which Trump carried so that republican success this fall should be a cinch. Trump himself will back the candidates and even pass out M A G A hats. Given that nearly all voters agree no previous administration has ever accomplished anything remotely like Trump has done it is expected these candidates will prevail.

It is suggested that applicants contact the major Republican donors in their districts for financing and scripts to follow when campaigning. Once elected the job is quite easy as there are no decisions to be made, those will be made for them. The job offers opportunity for advancement, perhaps to become a senator. That allows the opportunity to approve future Trump appointments and perhaps the opportunity to vote in an impeachment proceeding.

Meanwhile, Trump continued to meander through his delusional world. He apparently mistook the Queen of England for the Prime Minister of Montenegro as he jumped in front of her thinking a camera was near, a severe breach of etiquette. When that was brought to his attention Trump said" Nobody gets between me and a camera". Trump will now continue to Helsinki Finland to meet with his good friend Vladimir Putin. The post meeting press release has already been released. It states that they had a great meeting, a great relationship but is somewhat short on details. Trump also stated that no one else could do what he has been doing and we all hope that is true.

Trump-speak

It has been widely noticed that Donnie has a great deal of problem using the English language with any degree of accuracy(although he is really good at using the word" very"). For instance if he says" I have a great relationship with" it typically means he has never met the person . So here is a kind of primer of some of his speech mannerisms .

If he says" I am a great businessman and dealmaker, that's what I do "it means I lost $1 billion one year in the Casino business for god sakes, I was bailed out by the banks,but after becoming a reality star personality I was able to use my"" brand to participate in lots of shadey schemes probably involving money-laundering and I'm never going to show you my tax returns so you can know the truth.

If I say that"" I am going to engage in tax reform for the benefit of the middle and lower classes" it means I am going to give tax cuts to the most wealthy businesses and persons in the country with a little dribbled down to those who really needs them.

If I say that" I will create a great new health system that will provide more benefits less deductions and cost less'it means I will do my best to deprive 70 million people of healthcare.

If I say in the same paragraph" the United States is the richest and most successful economic country in the world and has the most powerful army in the world" coupled with the statement that" the rest of the world has been taking advantage of us and it has got to stop" I am saying that people continually say that I inherited a good economy from Obama and I cannot stand that so I am going to make bold moves to screw up the economic system in this and other countries that has contributed to making this the greatest country in the world.

If I say that" I am filling my administration with incredible, brilliant and remarkable people" what I am saying is that I am surrounding myself with such crooked and incompetent nitwits that even I might look good in comparison. The real virtue my administration has is that they continually tell me how brilliant I am which of course means they are extremely perceptive.

These are but a few examples but I am sure you can catch the drift.

Trumpenstein

We have created a monster just like Frankenstein. The process has resembled more like the one in Mel Brooks movie" Young Frankenstein" than the original Frankenstein. If begin buy no one taking Trump seriously and the media giving him more free air time then the rest of the candidates combined. Notwithstanding his antics in the primary debates and his belittling abusive comments the Republican National Committee obsequious went to Trump Tower to exchange allegiances. Then the democrats were complicit in advancing a flawed or at least vulnerable candidate and doing a lousy job during the campaign. Meanwhile the enablers on the press talking more about him than the rest of the candidates combined while the Republicans ruthlessly disparaged Hillary Clinton using two really unimportant arguments, her emails and Benghasi.

The result is that we have the most ignorant and incompetent President ever. And that's not the worst. He is also a despicable human being and delusional about his own abilities. Notwithstanding that he is recognized around the world comprising our allies and our enemies as a buffoon, he still commands the most powerful nation on earth and seeks autocratic power. Increasingly surrounds himself with and Administration as incompetent as he is and whose hallmark is obsequious and synchophatic behavior. The Republican Congress has totally abandoned any principles they may have a claim to stand for such as balanced budgets and free-trade. They appeared to be in total thrall to him concerned that they may lose their individual seats and collective majority. Our allies in the West have difficulty dealing with his erratic abusive and stupid behavior but they are stepped with him for the time being. We can expect our allies in the west and in the far east to increasingly work toward somehow devising ways to work around him and the United States, particularly in the realm of international currency and debt settlements.

So what is to be done about this mess. The non-fox media has to cease their daily panel shows which create an aura of credence to the positions taken by the Trump apologists. Just report what he says and does and have learned and qualified people explain why he is wrong or in rare instances that he may be right. When he makes his puerile anodyne statement such as "it's wrong to kill children or newspeople" that are only designed to conceal his probable sociopathic behavior just let it go. We can expect nothing from the Republicans which means that the Democrats have to figure out someway to at least partially prevail in 2018 and totally in 2020. That means they have to go to the Midwest and explain that truck has lied to the disadvantage workers and offer their own plans such as an actual infrastructure building program in public private partnerships to train workers for new jobs. The Democrats also have to continually point out he is an uncivil abusive despicable human being and that alone disqualifies him from his office.

At this point there is no real reason to be optimistic. His approval rating among Republicans remains at about 90% and the Democrats continued to thrash around and now argue among themselves. Perhaps the best thing to do is to concentrate on the state and local levels and work to make things better close to home. Our best shot at improving Government generally and certainly at the National level lies with women and the young. We of the minority of the old white population need to help and encourage them.

Once upon a Time in Singapore

On the dusty streets of Singapore, two gunslingers faced off at high noon. They have been threatening to do each other in for sometime now. The townspeople fled from the street awaiting the bloody confrontation. The two-faced off. Donnie,how are you said one? Kimmy said the other, You are looking great. Let's have our picture taken. Let's go into the saloon and have a short meeting. After about an hour, the two emerged saying we have solved all the problems between us. Kimmy has agreed to denuclearize and I am agreeing to lift sanctions and threaten him no more and to withdraw US troops from the Peninsula. In fact, I see no reason to have US troops in that part of the Pacific at all. This Kimmy is a really sweet guy. If only I had known. Donnie, you are the best said Kimmy.

Look, said Donnie. We wrote our agreement on a napkin in the bar. When you are a great dealmaker it is so easy. I am looking forward to Real estate development, even though  I'm not actively involved anymore but my company is, on the North Korean Riviera. It will be huge.

So this scripted deal went down. Now all the pundents are saying yeah but the devil is in the details.(They love to say that.) Even Donnie has said there are details to be worked out but like everybody else he says it will take years. But, the important historic event, an agreement ,has been made by me and my new pal. No one else could've done it.

It appears as though Donnies feral brain got this one right. He is going to ride this on the campaign trail like a trick rider. As far as he is concerned the deal is done and his greatness has been once more demonstrated. Will this work? Probably. This is particularly true because the Democrats as usual are doing nothing, offering nothing and serving up warmed over Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Kim is now a big player on the International scene and this will doubtless help him at home. Remember, he sometimes finds it convenient or necessary to murder his rivals in order to maintain absolute control. This cannot but help him.
Meanwhile, in China, Zi is smiling. He wants a stable communist regime in North Korea and he would prefer some measure of disarmament, particularly nuclear weapons in North Korea. He wants a decreased US presence in his region so that he can become more and more important and powerful to all East Asian nations. He will now be even more able to blatantly disregard the sanctions against North Korea because Donnie is definitely not going to complain loudly. With enemies like Donnie Xi does not need friends.

Let's make a deal

Donnie, our feckless leader, is in Singapore to meet with Kim. He is well prepared for this meeting because he has attitude and instincts and incredible negotiating skills. He has demonstrated the latter by all the incredible deals he has negotiated during his presidency. At last count, the number is zero. He just left the negotiating session at the G7 summit in Canada where he refused to sign on to the joint statement his underlings had negotiated. He then had a temper tantrum on the plane to Singapore because Troudeaux had the effrontery to say that Canada was not going to be pushed around by Trump. His so-called economic advisers said that Trump could not be seen to be weak going into the summit with Kim. Apparently they believe he is much better off appearing to be a blustering buffoon.

Donnie is apparently prepared to spend several hours one-on-one with Kim. Apparently he thinks that the sheer power of his personality will Kim to say I will do whatever you want and right away and then maybe you can do something for me later.

While Donnie has been pissing off all his real allies, Kim has been spending time being the jolly fat boy who appears to love everyone. He has also destroyed one of his test sites, not shoot off any more rockets lately and has not acted at all belligerent. Nothing will come of this summit other than Trump announcing that he did something no other President has ever been able to do. He will not explain that what that means is that no other president has ever been made quite a fool of by a tinpot dictator. At the end of this cartoon show, it is pretty clear that to the rest of the world Kim will appear to be the most reasonable and rational. Of course, when one is compared to Donald Trump that is not hard.

If one wished to symbolize this meeting it is probably best done by pointing out that Dennis Rodman showed up representing some block chain Financial system used in the pot industry. Maybe he can negotiate a deal to bring pot and block chain financing to North Korea, thus bringing some economic growth. Perhaps Trump will bring Rodman into his administration. He would fit right in.

Trump Withdraws from Marshall Plan

Donnie today announced he was causing the United States to withdraw from the Marshall Plan, calling it the" worst deal he ever saw." Just look at it he said after the second world war the industrial capacity of Western Europe and Japan was totally decimated. We were the only game in town. So what did we do? We loaned those countries money so they could buy our goods. There was no reciprocity, they had nothing to sell us. It was totally unfair. Then, as a result they were able to rebuild their economies and now they compete terribly unfairly with us by sending us more goods then they purchase, thus loaning us money as a result. When asked isn't what we did under the Marshall plan exactly what China is doing with us now? He said that is the worst deal I have ever seen the way we deal with China. He was also asked about NAFTA, what he said was the worst deal he had ever seen, the TPP what you said was the worst deal he had ever seen, and the Iran  joint deal, the worst deal he had ever seen.

Trump was asked whether the post second world war economic policies, including the Marshall Plan, had spurred the greatest period of economic prosperity in the history of our country. He said it couldn't have because it was the worst deal he ever saw. He was then asked about the state of the US economy. He said under his administration it is the greatest it has ever been. We have the strongest economy, the best stock market, the greatest military might, and the greatest leadership in the entire world, the best it's ever been. Now, he said we must make America Great again by changing everything. We are going to impose tariffs on most of the world, impose sanctions on most of the world and prevent access to the American financial network for most of the world. In fact, we may just close our borders to the rest of the world. That will make America great again.

Ask if he had consulted with anyone about his plans, He said he didn't need to because his experience brilliance and instincts were all that is necessary. He said his economic adviser, Peter Navarro, who is not really an advisor but whose role is to tell him he's right said that he was right. I have a few more tricks up my sleeve he said and they will probably pop into my mind overnight. We will see.

The greatest deall I ever saw

So, the summit is on. How did we get there? Upon Trump's presidency beginning Kim ratcheted up his nuclear and missile testing. Trump rose to the bait. Nobody messes with Donald Trump. I have bigger missiles than you and more bombs. Eventually, Kim said let's have a sit down. The great dealmaker said you bet. Then we went into off again on again. Trump was further nearly salivating by discussions of a Nobel prize for dealing with Kim. Now is the summit is set, probably, for June 12.

Kim is not coming to the White House as a supplicant. Rather he is meeting as an equal on neutral ground in Singapore. In the build up to this, Kim has visited China twice. China is of course much more important to him than the United States. We can assume was some assurance he has discussed his strategy with China. The best intelligence we have about China is that it wishes to keep North Korea as an independent Communist buffer state in Asia but would like to see the elimination of the nuclear weapons. Kim has also had discussions with Putin. He clearly has a plan B.

Meanwhile Trump, has set the stage for the negotiations by pissing off all his allies with stupid tariffs. He tends to forget his big sanction programs require cooperation. It is an open question how long our allies are going to put up with this before they begin serious attempts to work around the United States. We may expect to see attempts to reduce the importance of the United States dollar as a reserve currency including a new basket of currencies at the IMF. It is also probable that claims will be brought to the WTO as these tariffs have been spuriously justified on the grounds of national security, something no one buys.

So, trump, still salivating over his Nobel prize has seriously reduced his bargaining position. Does it make any difference? Probably not. At this summit we can confidently expect nothing but theater and no hard results. Trump, however, Will claim he has accomplished something no one else in history has been able to do saying that Kim uses the word"Denuclearzation". He will exaggerate if not outright lie about what he has accomplished. One thing is sure, as far as a world wide reduction of nuclear weapons it will be far less than the Iran deal. Were Trump consistent, and there is your fantasy for the week, he would have to say it is the worst deal he ever saw if indeed he claims it was a deal and we know he will have to because he is, after all, the world's greatest dealmaker even though he has never made any as president and will not on this occasion.

Trump confronts schoolchildren killings

Donald Trump went on television today to courageously proclaim that he is very very strongly against killing children in schools. He said he is with the people of Santa Fe, Texas by which he probably meant the survivors and not the victims.

Truck then laid out the plan he is sending to Congress to confront the problem of killing children and schools, which he is very very strongly against.Oh, just a minute. He really didn't say he had a plan to send to Congress or to enact administratively.

He said his administration was formulating a plan to send to Congress which included administrative action. Oh, just a minute. He didn't say that either.

He didn't say or propose that he would do a damn thing except to say he was very very strongly against killing children in schools. This undoubtedly provided great comfort and relief to the survivors of thevictims in Santa Fe and all the other schools which have  had their children murdered lately.

Kim–the art of the deal

For three generations my family has been experts at the art of the deal. Because of what's going on right now I can't help but brag about this technique. My focus is upon dealing with United States, a country with infinitely more power and assets than my country.

The crucial first step in any deal is sizing up your opponents. The previous us presidents and their administration's had several characteristics we could use to our advantage. First, they were naïve and idealistic, thinking that the leaders of a country were primarily interested in bettering the welfare of that country. My family has been only interested in one thing, keeping complete control of our country ourselves. We had no interest in" democratic reforms". We adopted the communist model since it is well-suited to create a totalitarian government as it centralizes power. Second, these administrations thought that we would bargain in good faith. This allowed us to manipulate them by suggesting we were moving towards political reforms and willing to make good bilateral agreements. We were careful to structure all the agreements so that the other side would make the first commitments. This has worked well .

Donald Trump it is what we call in Korea a different breed of cat. It was easy to discern that he had only one real interest and that was self aggrandizement. It was obvious he craved applause and also lied about his accomplishments in order to receive it.

We thus begin phase 1. This was a series of provocative actions on our part to stir up the pot. We knew this would entice him to react and he did by series of belligerent and bellicose statements. Those of course were quite useful to us in continuing to convince the population of our country that we were under attack  by imperialist Western nations. That keeps them willing to accept hardships.

We then began phase 2, A series of seemingly conciliatory gestures and statements indicating we knew we had to deal with this new president. We started discussing a need for a new deal and a presidential summit. We call this casting out the bait. He jumped at the bait and begin congratulating himself and preparing his Nobel prize acceptance speech. This we call setting the hook. Then we abruptly changed, saying they're probably could be no deal. This we call tightening the line. Now Trump, who was salivating over his success and crowing about it is faced with having egg on his face. He badly wants something to brag about. He really wants a deal. We now have created an advantage in dealing with him that we will begin to exploit. I wish it could always be this easy. His name should be "trout" not Trump.

Trump's Middle East Caper

Donnie was pissed. Ever since the campaign he had said he would shit- can the Iran deal(the worst deal he had ever seen). For months he had been requesting his intelligence people to tell him that Iran had breached the agreement but they wouldn't. It would be up to him to come up with a reason, not something he was particularly good at. The French and the Germans have been urging him not to back out of the deal. He didn't particularly care about the German woman but be kind of liked the French guy with the hot wife and nifty parades. They urged him to make a collateral deal and keep the present one in place. Donnie thought about it but decided that's for pussies. He would bring down his wrath upon them and bring them to their knees. Then he would propose a deal they couldn't refuse. That's the art of the deal. So he pulled the plug and began to sanction the hell out of Iran.

So what now? The first move is Iran's. Will the comparatively moderate President maintain control and cause Iran to honor its commitments to the rest of the signatories? Or will  Iran go flank speed towards developing its nuclear capabilities? If Iran does honor its commitments, what will the other signatories do? Will the Europeans continue to trade with Iran and not reinstate sanctions? Russia probably would and who knows about China. If the Europeans stick with the deal Will trump caused the US to install sanctions against pretty much the rest of the industrialized World? What would that happen? Probably a slump in the stock market and maybe a recession.

It's hard to imagine that the rest of the world wants to be under the thumb of Donald J Trump. One would think that would be intolerable, particularly now when it appears that the United States can't be trusted to on honor its commitments.

Meanwhile, the United States has apparently abandoned its historic position as being the balancing power and the brokering power in the middle east. We now side with Saudi Arabia, that wonderfully democratic country, against Iran. We side with the Sunni against the Shia. We side with Israel against the Palestinians while continuing to say we are nurturing a peace process. We apparently no longer support the Kurds notwithstanding their role with us in defeating Ises and we are probably clueless about what to do with Turkey. If there is an endgame there it's pretty hard to see it.

Now, as of this afternoon, the wonderful relationship between Donnie and that nice guy Kim appears to be maybe cratering. Stay tuned.

Proof Positive

There are increasing factual disputes facing we  citizens. Currently, some of the hot ones are" Was and is Comey lying?-Are any of the charges levied against nominee Jackson true?-Is Iran violating the six party agreement?" There seems to be endless factual disputes arising between the administration on the one hand and everybody else except fox news. There are so many that we need some simple mechanism, a litmus test, to resolve them. Fortunately, we have one. Donnie says that Comey is a liar, all charges against Jackson are false and Iran has violated the agreement.

One of the few things that can be depended upon is that Donnie is a liar. It is probably true that often he is merely delusional rather than intentionally lying but the result is the same. So, when ever these vexatious factual disputes arise the answer is simple. Look to see what Donnie says and the opposite will be true. This simple but effective test will shortcut the need for any extended discussions about yay or nay. So, you see, Donnie does have his uses. Comey is not a liar, the charges brought against Jackson are not all false and Iran has not violated the agreement. We can rest easy.

Role Reversal?

Since the end of World War II, Notwithstanding the cold war with Russia, the US has been understood to be the leader of the world. Changes, really not-so-subtle, may well be occurring. In the far east, after the US withdrawal from the transpacific agreement the other nations have preceded without us. There has been an increasing perception that" America First "may really mean America alone in an arrogant and selfish fashion.

Lately Donald Trump has been his usual bufoonish self. He has hung Nikki Haley out to dry, pretty much cut off Gen. Kelly of the knees, refused to listen to Gen. Mattis and continues to support incompetent and duplicitous cabinet members and nominees for those posts. He also continues to either exaggerate or out right lie about his accomplishments.

Into town this week rode Pres. Macron of France. This man prepares. He began by appearing on FOXNews, Donnie's favorite network and in a series of events wooed Donnie with flattery and camaraderie. Then today he made a speech before a joint session of Congress. It was masterful, gently chiding the position of the United States and particularly Donnie on such things as the Paris Accord, The Iran deal, the inevitability of globalization and the need for multinational approaches to the challenges of globalization, International trade and terrorism. The speech was generally well received although it was clear that the Republicans were uncomfortable with much of it, as evidenced by their failure to applaud at some obvious times.

All in all it is clear that Macron has adopted a kind of avuncular attitude towards Trump and  is attempting to gently instruct him and change his views. Of course, if Donnie ever figures this out hewill be livid. Luckily, he does not seem to be a quick learner and still is basking in the glow of the pomp and circumstance of the last few days. It also seems that  Macron is more than willing to take over the role as the leader of the Western world. Donnie undoubtedly still believes he occupies that position but he has clearly disqualified himself for the time being. Angela Merkel appears tired and has more than enough on her plate at home. The United Kingdom is in political turmoil and really has no one to offer up. Macron has plenty on his plate at home but it appears poised both intellectually and energetically ready to be a or the world leader. Coming off his performance of the last few days I hope he perseveres.

Trump expels" The Americans"

Donald Trump, or as he is now known" Spanky", announced the expulsion of Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys in retaliation for the Ruskies doing "bad things". He explain his decision as follows:" My cheeseburger and I were watching Fox News last night when there was a commercial break. As you know I have a restless intellectual curiosity and do not wish to waste time so I started surfing through the channels. By chance I came upon a reality show called "The Americans". This program exposed Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Russian agents on our soil. This is obviously intolerable so I have determined to expel them from the country immediately. I quickly turned back to Fox News and was surprised to find no current reporting on these two spies. Of course I often find that my intelligence is way ahead of any thing that appears in the media, even Fox News.

In another development, Trump was questions whether there was time for adequate preparation for his summit meeting with Kim. Trump replied there was plenty of time. In fact, Jared Kushner was even then drafting an agreement. Trump explained this could be quickly done because basically Jared was just changing a few names and provisions in a modest fashion on the agreement with Iran. When asked whether he had thought that was the" worst agreement he had ever seen" Trump replied that was because it was with Iran, a rogue State.

Rumor has it that Trump is planning to have an executive committee of his cabinet composed of those he deems to be the best and brightest. So far under consideration are Betsy DeVos and Ben Carson because they never give him any trouble by asking questions or proposing action. Elaine Chou is out of the running because she is married to some guy who won't do what Trump tells him.

Trump is losing it

I have recently needed to reconsider whether we would be better off with Pence or Trump. That has been prompted by Trump's increasingly erratic behavior. As far as his Cabinet is concerned, he is changing horses like a gypsy. One has to believe that is caused at least in part by his need to blame someone else for the criticism he continues to receive. When he discusses matters impromptu, he seems increasingly deluded. I recently heard a professor of linguistics discussing whether Trump was a serial liar. His opinion was that Trump did not consciously lie. Rather, like a three-year-old Trump simply imagines how he wants things to be and says that they are. The notion that we have a petulant three-year-old at the helm is not comforting

Last Friday Trump's erratic and delusionary behavior improbably reached new heights. He ranted about the legislation he had just signed even though his aids and Republican congressman had said that Trump was satisfied with it. He acted as though he had no idea what was in it until it was presented for signature. He then started demanding things like a line item veto, something that has long ago been declared unconstitutional, and demanded the senate change its filibuster rules. What was most frightening was his demeanor. He seemed completely out of control. He reminded me of Capt. Queeg on the witness stand in The Caine Mutiny movie when Capt. Queeg experienced a complete meltdown.

It is frightening to think of the amount of control he has over foreign-policy and the use of the military. This is particularly true now that John Bolton has replaced McMaster and Mike Pompeo has replaced Rex Tillerson. Mattis is the only adult left in the room. There are no other guardrails.

It really is the time to start thinking about the 25th amendment. The problem there is the feckless Congress and the complicit and sycophantic cabinet other than Mattis. It is interesting to imagine what would happen if Trump had to answer questions from Congress the way the British prime minister does in the House of Commons. I think Trump's head would explode.

For all of these reasons, if somehow Pence could replace Trump and lessen the military adventurism potential and the Democrats could the 2018 midterms we would be about as well off as we could get. Unfortunately, it is not likely that Trump will be impeached or relieved of his duties by the 25th Amendment. We are likely to be imperiled for some time.

Trump seeks advice from Putin

The usual suspects on the usual media are all a -Twitter today because Trump over the strong advice of his national security team called Putin to congratulate him on his reelection. What they apparently haven't figured out is that the congratulatory aspect of the call was a mere pretext. What is clear is that Trump is already running for reelection in 2020. The real substance of his call was to seek advice from Putin as to how he could arrange an election, like Putin does, that he cannot possibly lose. Rumor has it that Putint quite gladly gave Trump advice along these lines because he does not want him out of the White House for a long time. Apparently the substance of the advice was to use all means possible to keep those in opposition from voting. Trump explain that his party was working diligently on that. The other advice was to silence if possible but at least discredit all reporting unfavorable to him.

Trump shared with Putin the fact that he is a keen student of history and really respects things the Italians have been able to do. They had these guys they called Caesars who were emperors. Trump's favorite was of course Caligula. Then they had ruling families like the Medecis and sage advisers like Machiavelli. More recently they had Mussolini and of course Trump's newest favorite Berlusconi. Berlusconi could absolve himself from any crimes of which he was convicted while president and had those fabulous Bunga Bunga parties. Trump can just imagine having all those women who are suing him at the White House for a Bunga Bunga party. They would probably drop their suits, as well as their pants, just for the thrill of it.

It has now been confirmed in an ironclad fashion that the Mueller investigation should go forward. Louie Gohmert, undoubtedly the most stupid man in Congress, has called for an end to the investigation. Any doubts that it should go forward  have been permanently eliminated.

New York Times columnist Ross Doughart has published an interesting editorial today explaining how the mainstream media during the primary and general election campaigns were instrumental in helping Trump succeed by devoting an incredible amounts of time to Trump and having these insipid panel discussions which lent an air of legitimacy to the Trump campaign. They are still at it.

Trump-opioids and economics

Trump held one of his look at me sessions in New Hampshire yesterday to discuss how he was going to eliminate the opioid problem in this country. First, he is going to run commercials showing the effects of over dosing drugs claiming that will stop juveniles from doing so. Gee, I wonder why no one ever thought of that before. He could call that" just say no." He is then going to provide all sorts of mental health treatment and other therapy for drug users. He didn't say he was going to ask for congressional funding for these programs. Perhaps he knows that Paul Ryan and his merry band of tax cutters are even now figuring out how to reduce monies for Medicare Medicaid and all other types of programs that would help many of these people suffering from opioid overdose. He then is going to get" very very strong" against those supplying opioids and perhaps imposing the death penalty. So, we may have lots of dead doctors and nurses and pharmacists littering the country as they are a lot easier to find then the drug Wholesale suppliers. He is also going to keep drugs out of the country by building the legendary southern wall. Apparently no one has told him that most drugs coming in through Mexico or through border crossings or on airlines or ships. But, he is going to get really tough as opposed to actually getting advice and figuring out something that might be helpful.

On the economic front he now has Larry Kudlow as one of his economic advisers. Kudlow is firmly in the" hey tax cut for the wealthy will solve all fiscal problems" camp along with Paul Ryan. Kudlow can tell Trump that his ridiculous tax cuts really do help the middle class and lower as these benefits will trickle down. In fact this could be part of his campaign against drug use because as a result of these tax cuts people will have so much money and be happier that they won't need drugs. Now Kudlow is not in favor of trumps foreign trade policy particularly tariffs. But, he doesn't need to Address of that. He is the domestic economic guy and Peter Navarro can't be easy foreign trade economic guy who tells Trump, as he does, add his trade wars going to be a rousing success. Recently in the New York Times Paul Krugman discussed at length trade policy and tariffs, And area in which he won the Nobel prize for economics which I suppose means that Trump would never listen to him. Suffice it to say that the Krugman does not think Trump and Peter Navarro know what they're doing.

And on other fronts, trumpet is suing Stormie Daniels for $20 million even though he apparently got the sex for free. Now another sweet young thing is suing Trump seeking to put aside the contract by which she was bribed not to blab about her affair with Trump. The funny thing about this is that you know, in his heart of hearts, trunk really wants to talk about how he scored with these two. It's got to be killing him.

The National Security" Trump" card

Cadet bone spur recently imposed tariffs on the importation of steel and aluminum, Justifying that on "National Security" grounds. This enabled him to bypass the primary authority of Congress to pass tariffs. It also probably isolated these tariffs from being a violation of WTO rules. He then blocked the acquisition of a US company by a Singapore company on the same grounds. In each case that rationale was at best flimsy. Now, and unconfirmed rumor from an unreliable source says that Trump has become quite enamored of this tool. He is reported to have said" I need a level playing field when dealing with Kim and Xi and even my friend Vladi-pooh. They have the ability to make treaties without  submitting them to any legislative body(although they control those anyway) and I don't. I need to be the decisionmaker to make incredible deals as I have the ability to do. Also, these guys don't have to put up with criticism from the press in their country. I am beset with criticism based on fake news. I have asked the Justice Department to investigate whether on the grounds of national security I can bypass the role of Congress in ratifying treaties and also silence criticism from the press. That will put me on a level playing field. On any level playing field I will be dominant as I am a genius when it comes to negotiations and dealmaking".

Trump has fired Tillerson , unceremoniously to say the least, as Secretary of State and wishes to replace him with Mike Pompeo. The usual suspects on the usual panels on the usual news networks are ceaselessly chattering about this and how it will affect Donnie's strategy and decision-making. Notwithstanding this pointless speculation  it is abundantly clear that the qualification of Mike Pompeo for this position consists of his being able to respond to Donnie at all times" You are absolutely right". He the thus joins Peter Navarro in the ever-expanding sycophantic chorus. It has become increasingly apparent that Donnie is becoming even more obsessed with his own brilliance and puts the blame for any missteps by his administration on the grounds that he listened to somebody else. He won't make that mistake again.

This nitwit believes he is fully prepared for a sit down with Kim. He needs no preparation. His instinctive brilliance is all he needs to bring to the table. Kim will melt before him.

We can safely bet that going forward Donnie's strategies will consist of a series of impulsive ad hoc notions without the slightest taint of coherency. Strap on your seatbelts.

Trumps anti-gun violence program

In their reaction to the Florida high school shooting, Trump and his team have outdone themselves. Trump met with high school students from the Florida school and nodded sympathetically, consulting his notes which told him to act in that fashion. Then he had one of his show and tell meetings with legislators, Displaying a willingness to take several measures and showing no fear about the NRA. Then, of course he had a really good very very good incredible meeting with the NRA and started walking back his position. He seems nearly obsessed about videogames and whether they create a tendency towards violence. Apparently he is a Platonist and is worried about inflaming the passions. Just kidding, he probably thinks Plato is a gooey substance children play with just as he probably believes AI does not refer to artificial intelligence but is a steak sauce.

Firmly taking control of the situation, he is forming a commission to study the problem of gun violence. You won't believe who is heading it up so I'll tell you-none other than Betsy Devos. Now we knew after her confirmation hearing that she was totally ignorant about education policy but this Sunday on 60 minutes she demonstrated that not only is she ignorant she is really stupid. It was hard to watch her attempting to answer questions from Lesley Stahl. These were not difficult questions but she was totally clueless. It was embarrassing.

Meanwhile Trump launched his trade war. He will impose on the wholy fallacious grounds of national security tariffs on steel and aluminum. But maybe not on all of the exporters to the United States, but maybe on all of them. You may recall that during the campaign on the advice of Peter Navarro his primary bête noire was China and its currency manipulations. Navarro at that time claimed that all the economic problems of the United States, mainly imaginary ones, would be solved if there was no trade deficit with China. Navarro's most recent pronouncement was that his role as economic adviser was to provide a theoretical underpinning to whatever notion popped into Donald Trump's head. He is a sort of economic counterpart to kellyanne and Sarah in their roles of cleaning up messes. There was an interesting article in the recent issue of the economist about China and that what was needed was a concerted action by the Western democracies and our Asian Friends to put pressure on China to behave. Trump has decided to punish our allies rather indiscriminately when he should be consulting with them and maybe learning something although the odds are against that.

Trump has now announced he is off to have a sitdown with the fearless leader of North Korea. Rumor has it that he is asked  Corleone Family to arrange  secure place to have such a meeting. We await breathlessly further developments on this frolic.

Trump or Pence?

Let us start with the assumption that Donald Trump is more then somewhat less than optimal as a president. That seems not an unreasonable assumption. Just review mentally his actions and statements of the last week or so. There are rumors that he is getting more and more dysfunctional and it is probably stress related. It is probably reasonable to assume that occasionally his delusional cloud parts and he recognizes the nearly overwhelming amount of criticism and disapproval he receives. If Trump work to be removed by impeachment or by operation of the 25th amendment of the Constitution you would be replaced by Mike Pence. That provokes me to consider which of the two non-optimal choices I would prefer period

First let's consider Trump. He is ignorant incompetent, either lying or delusional and a real jerk. In most of Trump's public appearances Pence stands loyally behind him with this sort of frozen solemn look on his face, nodding with approval at Trump's statements. Trumps foreign-policy strategy, if you could call it that, is probably they worst aspect of his presidency. He is against the Paris Accord, the transpacific agreement, inconsistent on NATO, appears ready to tear up NAFTA, seems obsessed with Iran, slavishly appears to support both Saudi Arabia and Israel, is inconsistent as to China and indulges in saber rattling with North Korea. Most people's greatest fear about his foreign policy is that he will either attack North Korea or provoke an attack from North Korea. Pence of coarse has no foreign policy though he pays lipservice to Trump. The best thing you can say about Trump's foreign-policy is that it is so erratic, changes from day to day that for the most part he really has no foreign-policy, just a series of ever-changing ad hoc pronouncements. In the final analysis, I don't have that much concern about his foreign policy mainly because he doesn't have one and is certainly not ideologically hidebound. That said, he is worrisome.

In domestic policy, Trump ricochets between kind of a faux populism and a fawning over the wealthy and their interests. It doesn't appear that he has any idea what he is doing. This is where I think Pence is the most dangerous. He was a totally incompetent governor and probably would not have been re- elected. Absent his being selected as vice president he probably would be back as a Radio talkshow host. From what we know he would likely be a willing advocate for the programs of Charles Koch and his network of institutions like the heritage foundation and the club for greed. He would willingly go along with them and Paul Ryan in an effort to diminish and dismantle programs such as food stamps Headstart ,Medicare , Medicaid and social security. I don't think Trump would do that.

So, odd though it seems, giving my opinion of Trump, I would rather take my chances with Trump than have Pence become president. I also think that in 2020 Pence would have a better chance of being reelected then Trump. I have to admit however that I never thought Trump would be elected.

The Parable of the Young Congressman

Our lesson today is taken from the Book of Politics, chapter 2 verses one through five.

1. And it came to pass that there was great consternation in the second congressional District of Florida. A great plague had come over the land. People were dying including children. The the people we're demanding that something must be done.

2. The young congressman went to his leadership to seek advice and counsel. Client have a terrible dilemma he said. My voters demand something must be done. But, I received significant campaign funds from the NRA and they have told me that if I back legislation restricting gun ownership and use not only will they not back me they will back a candidate against me. I think something should be done but I don't know what to do it in this situation.

3. It is good that you have come to us said his leaders. These situations arise from time to time and must be handled carefully. You must convince your voters you are doing something without angering the NRA. We have been speaking with the leaders of the NRA and believe we have the answer. You and others should propose minimal legislation addressing gun control. For instance, raising the age to 21 in order to purchase guns; supporting legislation restricting ownership of guns from certain categories of people. Specifically, preventing those who have been adjudged to be psychopathic criminals as well as vague and unenforceable restrictions imposed on"dangerous" people. Also you can support the notion of better enforcement of registration requirements. Most importantly, you should talk about the need for more citizens to have guns to protect themselves and others.

4. The NRA will be on board with this. They of course like the idea of more people with guns and they know that the other proposals will have no meaningful effect on peoples purchasing and owning guns. But, they will be able to say that the Second Amendment and gun rights are once again under assault. That will enable them to raise more money and increase their wealth and power. You meanwhile will be able to tell your voters that you're doing everything you can to solve the problem. This is what we call a win win solution period

5. The young congressman felt great relief and thanked his leaders for solving this problem. That is why we are here he was told. In the future do not worry about problem such as these. Don't be anxious. Just come to us and we will tell you what to do. I can't tell you what a great relief this is to me said the young congressman. In the future I will not concern myself with problems such as these, knowing you will always tell me what to do. You can count on it said the leaders.

The O K Corral lHigh School

Well, we have had another mass shooting, This time at a high school. The immediate response response was predictable." Something must be done. We must stop this. This time it's different." Have we heard this before? There is something different. Young people have taken up the cry and there is more sound and fury. But will it signify anything? So far more elected officials, particularly at the state level have joined in the something must be done chorus. But the usual obstructive comments even by those who say something must be done are being made. Whatever is proposed, there is , even by politicians who say that something must be done such as Marco Rubio , the argument that" this measure  would not have prevented this shooting". And of course this is true. In a country with more guns than people and some estimated 10 to 15,000,000 assault type weapons there is no measure to eliminate mass shootings without confiscating all such weapons and that is never going to happen. Then there is the argument that it is difficult if not impossible to define what is an assault weapon. That could be done.

The most popular measures being proposed are more restrictive registration requirements and the ever popular" we need more guns not less-let's arm the teachers". Apparently it is believed that we can identify all disturbed or dangerous people and keep guns out of their hands. On the face of it that is nonsensical because it can't be done. We are all potentially dangerous and subject to triggering events that can cause us to snap. The prevalent response to such occurrences now appears to be to grab a gun and shoot somebody, or maybe a lot of somebodies.

Now let's turn to the arming of the teachers solution. This of course is the Pavlovian response of the NRA. Also, cadet bone spur appears to be favoring this. At his press conference, this nitwit blithely said that had a teacher with the gun been present in lake land he would've quickly blown away the shooter and no one would be harmed. This has provoke a response from various people who actually know something about the use of guns and who nearly unanimously suggest this is ridiculous. These vigilante fantasies may be fun, sort of like watching a John Wayne movie when you are a child-or in many cases when you're  an adult-but on its face is preposterous. There is an old saying" don't bring a knife to a gunfight". A corollary would be don't bring a pistol to an assault rifle shootout. The NRA leadership, truly despicable people, have seized upon the okay Asian to say even more outrageous things than usual. There leaders, Boris and Natasha, have deemed all proposals other than theirs as a massive assault on individual liberty, particularly the second amendment. Natasha also stated that the" Legacy press "which I assume means anyone who doesn't agree with her relishes these mass shootings because it increases ratings. That is a new low even for the NRA.

It is not likely that anything significant will happen. Pretty clearly, assault weapons are not going to be banned, even the sale of them. The long-term answer is to diminish the political clout of the NRA. And that can only be done by voting–voting in people who resist the NRA. Perhaps one promising sign is the energy exhibited by our youth. There will be a march organized on March 24 nationwide but marches happen and then they are gone. Only 16% of those eligible to vote between the ages of 18 to 29 vote in by year in elections. That March 24 March needs to beef turned into a voting registration campaign. Until we elect responsible State and local officials, nothing will happen of any significance. Let us support our youth and urge them on to register and vote.

Trump Denied Security Clearance

An anonymous source revealed today that President Trump has been denied security clearance. That came as a result of recent action taken because numerous people in the administration had not received security clearance and had access to highly classified information. Apparently one of those little lightbulbs went on over the head of one of the security officials who said "Wait a minute. Isn't the reason these people don't have security clearance is that either their background checks are incomplete or there are indications they could be susceptible to blackmail or influence by foreign agents? What about Trump? He has already blabbed classified information from Israel to the Russians. He requested the Russians during the campaign to hack into Hillary Clinton's emails. He has refused to produce his tax returns which is highly problematic because there appears to be an increasing likelihood that his companies were engaged in money-laundering for Russian criminals, probably including Putin. The trail of cash most likely starts from Russian criminals through Deutsche Bank and then laundering by Trump entities. Why else would Deutsche Bank loan money to travel entities which went bankrupt and lost $1 billion in one year in the casino business? Trump has to be denied access to classified information. Trump is highly susceptible to blackmail. What do you think accounts for his behavior towards Russia during his presidency?"

But, the source was asked," How can Trump make important decisions concerning the security of the United States without access to that information?" "Do you really think we want him making those decisions, was the response? The only thing we want this buffoon deciding is how many mulligans to take and how many puts to give himself on the golf course. It would be one thing if he was merely ignorant but he is clearly delusional and self-centered to a staggering degree. We need to marginalize this clown until 2020 and then hope he is voted out of office. Meanwhile, our job is to control the damage as best we can. There is a fair chance he won't even realize what's happening because he doesn't read his briefings and has the attention span when being told information of a five-year-old with ADD."

That is really disheartening was their response to the anonymous source." The source replied "The American people got just what they saw during the campaign. Unfortunately, although many may suffer buyers remorse, there is no return policy. We just have to do the best we can."

Once again, Life imitates art

There is a new TV series entitled" Counterpart". The underlying story is that about 30 years ago hey parallel universe sprang up in which each of us has his counterpart with identical DNA and appearance but whose personality  traits probably are much different because of different experiences in the last 30 years. People in these two universes can travel to the other and back not through some singularity but something that rather looks like a Subway tollbooth.

Having established the artistic metaphor, it has become increasingly clear to me that's what separates the pro trump and increasingly all Republicans from the opposition is not a mere difference of opinion. It is a completely different universe. In my universe in the last few days the Trump administration has received two recent body blows. First, the White House story that the administration, particularly ex Gen. Kelly, dismissed Rob Porter immediately upon knowing of his domestic abuses. In testimony by Chris Wray before the house, you should excuse the expression, Intelligence committee, it became abundantly clear that the administration had known about this for months. In response to this, those in the other universe concocted one of the most preposterous arguments they have yet devised to say only some cellar dwellers in the administration had any knowledge. Then, in testimony before the same committee it became clear that the  memorandom concerning the FISA warrant approval process regarding Carter Page concocted by the White House and Devin Nunes what's complete horseshit and that nobody in the White House asked opinions of the intelligence Community regarding security concerns before releasing it. In their universe, this memo remains evidence of FBI plots against Donald Trump.

It does not appear that there is any Subway tollbooth that allows transportation or even maybe communication between these two universes. There is no point in even trying. There are probably those who are adrift in limbo someplace between these two universes wondering where the hell they are. Those are probably the only people worth trying to talk to.

Tammy Duckworth came up with a great name for Donnie calling him" cadet bonespur after some of his typical bellicose statements. I think another good name would be typhoid Donnie because he seems to have been able to infect anyone within the vicinity of him with the lying disease. I don't see how it anyone in his administration as well as most of the Republicans in Congress are going to come out of this with any measure of integrity or self-respect left. It will serve them right.

Donnie loves a parade

It is no secret that old fat ass really loves military parades. Rumor has it that he used to drool when watching the May Day parades from Moscow. He particularly likes the reviewing stand and the salutes although he doesn't understand why they don't also clap as they pass by. He has lately been disturbed by the pictures of the military parades staged in North Korea honoring his nemesis. Then he found that even the French have parades on Bastille day. That was too much. So, our fearless leader has demanded his staff and the Department of Defense create plans for a stupendous, really remarkable, big beautiful parade. His parade working group was ordered to search history for the biggest and best military parades.

Brought to his attention was the fact that when Rome was really Rome there would be parades honoring military victories with marching centurions, even elephants and often captured enemies. He has been told about the Caesars and has become somewhat envious of Caligula who really knew how to have a good time. He has been told that elephants are  impractical but there still are military horses that could be part of the parade. He has told his desire to have captured enemy combatants in shackles and also perhaps a few illegal aliens similarly constrained. The troops will be ordered as they pass by the truly magnificent reviewing stand to give a snappy salute followed by at least one minute of clapping.

But Donnie wants more. Provoked by his newfound fascination with Caligula and the other Caesars , Donnie wants a giant toga party at the end of the day at mal de mer. This will be a $200,000 per robe toga party/fundraiser with half the proceeds going to the mal de mer resort to pay for the expensive meal which will include chocolate cake–two slices for old fat ass–with the rest going to the newly established Trump" Presidency for Life" campaign. As Donnie has stated," in one year I have achieved greater military victories than any president in history and this must be recognized." It was suggested that 4 July would be a good day for such a parade but Donnie said no that holiday already exists and we need a new annual holiday with a snappy name such as" Trump Victorious Again." The guest list for the toga party will remain fluid because who knows who might still be around. The triumvirate now known as KellyannKellySanders stated that this celebration firmly reinforces the Trump Doctrine that what's good for Donnie is good for America.