Maybe it’s the heat; maybe it’s the constant nibbling away by this administration at anything that makes sense. I just have this feeling that our Presidente, Donald Trump, is planning to invade Canada. He didn’t get his way by bullyragging Denmark to get Greenland. Maybe he figures that Canada, being right next to Greenland, would be even better bets to insure America’s “security.”
As the second term revenge tour continues apace, Trump is getting as nutty as Caligula and Heliogabalus combined. Is ICE his new Praetorian Guard? Will we have a new Presidential Election, or will the Donald generously insist on continuing on as Dictator for Life?
It surprises me to see the United States coming apart like a cheap suit. I guess that 250 years were all we were entitled to enjoy as a nation before becoming a shithole country.
I feel sorry for the three liberal members of the Supreme Court. They are trying their best to see that justice is done; the conservative members, on the other hand, are trying their best to see that the whims of Donald Trump are rigidly enacted into law.
This is nothing short of infamous. I keep thinking of the court of the damned in Stephen Vincent Benét’s story “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” They may have been convoked by the devil, but they actually produce a just verdict and free the New Hampshire farmer, Jabez Stone. The real-life Roberts court, on the other hand, will go down in history as having gamed the system to please the most unworthy president this country has ever had.
The fact that the judicial system of the United States can be gamed so readily indicates to me that the Constitution is badly in need of revision. Part of the gaming, however, is that three-fourths of the states—which are required for any amendments—will never accede to going against a totally corrupt president’s wishes. The thirteen states which could kill the amendment would be rural Southern and Midwestern states which, together, would constitute a small minority of the population of this country.
Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers of this country chose to mistrust the voters rather than the politicos.
What to do?
After the Trump madness is over with, the following justices should be pressured to resign: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh. They are nothing less than traitors.
On the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I decided to return to reading books on American history. The fact that I refrained for so long was due to my contempt for Donald Trump and the voters who elected him to office in 2024.
Consequently I am halfway through a biography of Andrew Jackson (Jon Meacham’s American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House). Recently, I thought of “Old Hickory” as a precursor of the Trump madness. Now I begin to think that, although Jackson was highly conflicted, a slaveholder, and responsible for gross injustices toward the American Indian population of the Southern states, he was by and large an honorable man of his time and place.
For one thing, he was an excellent general, responsible for inflicting a humiliating defeat on the English during the Battle of New Orleans. He served two terms as President of the United States, and did not attempt to loot the country for his personal benefit.
He was probably one of the unhappiest of our nation’s leaders. His beloved wife Rachel died before he was sworn in as president. He had a close relationship with his Andrew and Emily Donelson, who served as his personal assistants. But then a vicious petticoat war between the Donelsons and the wife of his Secretary of War, who was a personal friend, poisoned much of his first term.
Somehow he maintained his popularity among the voters. That was because he firmly believed in following the will of the majority, even if meant stepping on the toes of men like John C. Calhoun, his vice president, or Henry Clay—both of whom craved the presidency for themselves.
I am only halfway through the biography, but have decided to continue reading one or two American histories or biographies a month for the foreseeable future. Since I am rapidly on the road to recovery after my broken shoulder, I shall look for a copy of Bernard DeVoto’s 1846: The Year of Decision for my next read in this series.
After the November 5th election, many voters are considering the possibilities of becoming an expatriate in a country where the next President (hopefully) could not touch them. After the recent threats to Mexico and Canada, this may not work.
There are two possibilities for a safe passage away from the Trumpster Dumpster. First, choose a country that the next President does not know exists. Here are a number of possibilities:
Azerbaijan*
Belize
Benin
Bosnia and Herzegovina*
Burkina Faso*
Burundi
Cabo Verde
Comoros
Djibouti*
Eritrea*
Eswatini*
Guinea-Bissau*
Kiribati
Kyrgyzstan*
Lesotho*
Liechtenstein*
Malawi
Nauru
Niue*
Sao Tome and Principe*
Tajikistan*
Timor-Leste
Tuvalu
Vanuatu*
To provide an extra level of safety from MAGA-hatted provocateurs, select one of the above countries marked with an asterisk (*). These are countries it is not likely the next President would be able to pronounce correctly enough to be understood.
As we head toward the culmination of another anxious election season, I suddenly had an inkling of what could happen. Donald Trump has always relied on rallies where he speaks with a bigly group of mostly young supporters with posters and MAGA hats at his back.
These rallies vaguely resemble the rallies that Trump’s hero, Adolph Hitler, staged in the 1930s. Of course, they couldn’t hold a candle to the giant 1935 rally in Nuremberg which was filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and released under the title Triumph of the Will. Now that was a real rally, with over 700,000 supporters in attendance.
Hitler Rally in Nuremberg 1935
The thought came to me that the whole Trump moment in American history will end badly. The electorate is largely made up of two groups:
People who hate Trump with a passion
People who idolize Trump with a passion (but who will come to hate him when they wake up and find out they have been used)
What I think will happen at some future date is that those faces at MAGA rallies will become a mark of shame, and that people will scan photographs of the rallies with magnifying glasses to find neighbors they could blame for their predicament, which will probably get worse over time. (Even if it doesn’t, the voters will think that.)
I look at cars that bear political bumper stickers and think, “What happens if they park their car in a neighborhood which is strongly ‘anti-’ their candidate?” That’s one of the reasons my car is devoid of bumper stickers and decals.
If winning is everything, it is important not to ever appear to be a loser. In reporting about politics, one often hears about someone “doubling down.” What that usually means is that one takes a position and sticks with it come hell or high water.
Probably the best example is Donald Trump who after four years still claims that he won the 2020 election, and that the Democrats and Joe Biden cheated him out of the presidency.
The term comes from the card game Blackjack. According to Technopedia:
Double down in blackjack is an option where you add an extra bet, equal to the initial one, and you only receive one extra card in the hand.
This feature is available in most blackjack games and is required for optimal strategy. However, it can be a risky move since you stand to lose more money in the hand. That is why it is very important to know when to do it.
Eric Cartman
Other than Trump, the person on television most associated with the practice of doubling down on almost every issue is Eric Cartman on the cartoon show “South Park” Typically, he will take a wrong-headed stance and hold to it until he fails openly and utterly.
This type of behavior is associated with a fear of making mistakes. The fact that we are human means that we will often make mistakes. It is far better to own up to them and learn from them than to double down on a dubious position. As writer Neil Gaiman wrote:
hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something.
IIn my life, I have always distrusted people who always claimed to be right. That’s just one of a thousand reasons I would never vote for Trump or any of his ilk.
No, It’s Not Biden or the Justice Department This Time
It was during the 2016 presidential campaign at a stop in Sioux Center, Iowa, when Candidate Trump said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? … It’s, like, incredible.” It was then that the Candidate began to believe in his own invincibility. All those rallies with adoring MAGA-hatted spectators must have further convinced him.
What Trump did not take into account were the people who did not like him. That number has been growing—slowly, perhaps—but steadily. So steadily that a grand jury delivered an indictment for 37 counts relating to the mishandling of archival materials that were stored at the ex-Prez’s compound at Mar-a-Lago.
Take note that it was not President Biden who indicted him, nor even the Department of Justice. It was a number of average citizens serving on a grand jury that were appalled by the Trumpster’s manipulative dealings with the National Archives, and by the fact that papers relating to the military strengths and weaknesses of the United States were being shown around to Mar-a-Lago visitors and members.
Was Trump showing any of these papers to his good friendsNorth Korean President Kim Jong Un? Recdcep Erdogan of Turkey? Xi Jinping of China? Vladimir Putin? Three of the above dictators may well be at war with us at some future date. Isn’t that espionage?
This could be bad news for the formerly thought-to-be-invincible former president. Am I surprised? No.
Trump Appearing in New York for Another Deposition
Yesterday, I was surprised that Bill Maher on “Real Time with Bill Maher” came out against the 34 felonies with which the Trumpster is charged relating to the Stormy Daniels case. Apparently, he thinks that Americans don’t care about sex-related charges against our presidents, thinking of how Bill Clinton’s popularity soared despite the whole Monica Lewinsky affair.
I say that it is best to keep MAGA Man busy with lawsuits and criminal charges—enough to keep him busy for the rest of his days. This is on the same principle that it is best to keep a toddler busy so that he doesn’t get into more mischief. And here the stakes are considerably higher than mere mischief.
Wear the man out defending himself, looking out for ever more lawyers to stiff. When he is kept busy in this way, there will be fewer incendiary rallies en route to becoming president again. It’s like tying a 100-pound weight to his legs.
If you read this blog, you know I dislike the man. That doesn’t stop me from seeing the humor of the situation.
All these court cases are like the death of a thousand cuts. One can make a case for him being a martyr the first time, but what about the 70th time? or the 7 times 70th time? It may just do the trick.
Now that his karma is finally catching up with him, my thoughts have turned to the young Donald Trump, when he was actually considered to be cool. I am thinking of Trump at Studio 54 being kowtowed as a celebrity. Here was a real estate mogul married to an exotic Czech model named Ivana. He still had a reasonable amount of hair and even looked sort of handsome. This was in the period before he became a reality TV star on The Apprentice in 2004. And definitely before he took aim at the presidency.
The moment Trump came down that gold-plated escalator of the Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, everything turned into a brown and murky covfefe. After ex-wife Ivana died last year, she was interred at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ as part of an elaborate tax dodge. In fact, the golf course had to be consecrated so that the Catholic Ivana could be buried there. As a certain ex-president would say in its nightly tweets, SAD!
As time goes by, there will be a lot more to be SAD about. The current indictment is only the beginning of the ex-president’s troubles. Whatever you may think about him, you wouldn’t like to be in his shoes.
Ever since that grim day in November 1916 as I twisted and turned in a hotel room in Quito, Ecuador, I have come to the conclusion that something is not right with the universe. I am reminded of Casca’s words in Act I Scene iii of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar:
A common slave—you know him well by sight—
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join’d, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire, remain’d unscorch’d.
Besides—I ha’ not since put up my sword–
Against the Capitol I met a lion,
Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me: and there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.
And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noon-day upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say
’These are their reasons; they are natural;’
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.
What I am referring to is the news that an asteroid might strike the earth the day before the November 3 “fraudulent” election that will confirm Donald J. Trump in his role as dictator for life.
According to CNN, the asteroid is just a shade over 6 feet—the size of our presidential pretender. I cannot help but think that it will land in such a way as to set fire to our great leader’s impressive bouffant hair-do, and possibly burn him to a cinder in his size 12 shoes. If that happened, it would surely show that there is some justice in the universe.
Tarnmoor 
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