Home » Posts tagged 'donald-trump' (Page 2)

Tag Archives: donald-trump

I Have Had Enough

Posted on by | 1 Comment
It’s Time To Do Something

It’s Time To Do Something

Many of my friends are still saying they’ll take a wait and see attitude toward Herr Trumpf. Maybe I have a shorter fuse: It’s time for me to enter the political sphere long enough to send him back to the real estate profession where he has performed so abysmally. I would rather he build more stupid Trumpf Towers with gold plumbing fixtures and Trumpf Golf Courses than upend my country and send it reeling into the abyss. He will, of course, go bankrupt again. But that’s okay, so long as he doesn’t bankrupt all of us.

How long before we burn all our allies and enter into unfriendly relations with everyone—except for Dear Putin. Even he will realize that the Trumpf is not something one wishes upon one’s worst enemy.

George Orwell did not write 2017: That’s something our President with his supinely cowardly Congress is in the process of doing. Poor Orwell got out while the going was good. We are not quite so lucky.

Next week I intend to call my Congressman and both of California’s Senators. I know they will secretly sympathize with me, but I would still like to see what they could do. No one could move Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan—who have supped and continue to sup with infamies.

It Doesn’t Even Require Impeachment

Posted on by | 2 Comments
It’s All There in the 25th Amendment

It’s All There in the 25th Amendment

Read the following four sections of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and consider the possibility that Donald J. Trump is mad:

Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

My Last Word … for Now!

Posted on by | 2 Comments
It Says It All

It Says It All

As a combined Hungarian-Slovak-Czech-Bavarian, I am always interested to see how my people view what is happening in the United States. This cartoon is from Marian Kamensky of Slovakia. I will have nothing more to say about Trump for the time being. Let’s see how fast he and his fragile ego unravel.

TV for Dunces

Posted on by | 3 Comments
Whatever Happened to Real Stories?

Whatever Happened to Real Stories?

Television used to be first class entertainment. There was great comedy (Sid Caesar and Milton Berle), great speculative fiction (Twilight Zone), great whodunits (Perry Mason), and great quiz shows (You Bet Your Life). The shows were either scripted or with great impromptu acting. There was talent in front of the camera and in the smoke-filled rooms where the shows were planned.

That was then. Somewhere along the line, the TV producers decided that reality TV was cheaper to produce and would be accepted by the viewing public. And it was: with hundreds of channels of cable, there were scads of shows like Antiques Road Show, The Kardashians, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Pawn Stars, and a million forensic crime shows reprising old crimes.

Instead of entertaining the viewers, these shows sedated them. One of the stars of the genre was Donald J. Trump of  The Apprentice. All he had to do was glower and say “You’re fired!” and everything was golden.

Now this same Donald J Trump is our next (and perhaps last) president. All he has to do to solve the problems of this poor country is strike a few attitudes and tweet his uneducated opinions in the middle of the night. Advance planning no longer exists. We are now being governed by a bunch of untalented poseurs.

A REMINDER: Don’t forget to turn off your TV for tomorrow’s inauguration. Reality TV types hate having a bad Nielsen rating.

A National Day of Mourning

Posted on by | 3 Comments
You Have Better Things to Do This Friday

You Have Better Things to Do This Friday

Maybe you’re curious to see how badly Mr. Cheeto-Head blows it on Friday, January 20, when he becomes the 45th and worst President of the United States. Don’t bother: You’ll hear all about it later on. I would prefer that all the stations reporting on this non-event register a big loss. After all, our country will be registering a major loss. For either four years or such time as he is impeached and convicted, we will have had it up to here with his negative tweets and failure to abide by any rule of law.

Move Along! There’s Nothing to See Here

Move Along! There’s Nothing to See Here

If the Orange Demon has any sense of decency, he will bow out the way William Henry Harrison, our 9th President, did in April 1841: Ol’ Tippecanoe died from a cold he got at his inauguration a month earlier.

Does This Remind You of Anyone?

Posted on by | 3 Comments
An Amazing Coincidence

An Amazing Coincidence

When I read Teffi’s essay on Rasputin in Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi, couldn’t help comparing the dread Siberian starets to an American political figure in the news. Here are three instances, from which you can draw your own conclusions:

The Black Automobile

According to Teffi:

The “Black Automobile” remains a mystery to this day. Several nights running this car had roared across the vField of Mars, sped over the Palace Bridge, and disappeared into the unknown. Shots had been fired from inside the car. Passers-by had been wounded.

“It’s Rasputin’s doing,” people were saying, “Who else?”

Dealings with Women

Teffi was seated next to Rasputin, who tried to get her to have some wine:

Rasputin was drinking a great deal and very quickly. Suddenly he leaned towards me and whispered, “Why aren’t you drinking, eh? God will forgive you. Drink.”

He kept trying to get her to drink and to come to his place, but she wisely refused.

He “Sows Discord and Panic”

Finally, Teffi writes:

He profits from everything black, evil and incomprehensible. Everything that sows discord and panic. And there’s nothing he can’t explain to his own advantage when he needs to.

Now I could add that he tweets nasty, ad hominem attacks in the middle of the night, but that would be giving it away, wouldn’t it?

 

 

 

 

A Hopeful Holiday

Posted on by | 1 Comment
Christmas Decorations from the Grier-Musser Museum

Christmas Decorations from the Grier-Musser Museum

Here I sit with my fingers crossed, afraid to check the news and seeing what our new elected Fuehrer has to astonish and dismay the world. I could really work myself into a state about this turkey, but I have decided to concentrate this Christmas on the people I love. There is nothing I can do to buck the Electoral College majority for the Cheetoh-headed moron, so I will leave him to the scorn of history. (That will not prevent me from opposing him in a more substantial way if the opportunity arises.)

What is Christmas really all about? I think the operative word is “love.” According to John 3:16 in the King James Bible, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Christian doctrine says it was all an act of forgiveness to cancel out the “original sin” of Adam and Eve for eating the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge. God the Son incarnated as a human being and died a horrible death by crucifixion just so we’d all stand a chance. In this light, Christmas is a feast of divine love.

But not everyone believes this, and I myself tend to cherry-pick Christianity, adopting what I like and brushing the rest aside. I like the idea of giving gifts to the people who mean the most to me; and I like using this time of year to cement my closest relationships, whether with Martine, my family, or my closest friends.

Unfortunately, Christmas has been weighted down with a whole lot of paraphernalia. There are stores open twenty-four hours a day for last-minute shopping. (My shopping is all done—and I would never visit a retail store at this time of year because of the crowds.) I have no twinkling lights about my apartment: I don’t even have a Christmas tree or a wreath on the door. I don’t wear any ugly Christmas sweaters. Unlike most male Americans, I don’t watch any bowl games—or, in fact, any sports at all. Instead, I look forward to a nice Christmas dinner and an exchange of gifts with my oldest friends. Martine and I will watch the 1951 Alastair Sim version of The Christmas Carol, and maybe even A Christmas Story (1983) if I can. And I will read one of Charles Dickens’s lesser-known holiday works, such as “The Chimes” or “The Cricket on the Hearth.”

Use the real meaning of Christmas to become stronger in your emotions. Perhaps what the 2016 election really means is for us to look after ourselves, because most assuredly no one will look after us.

For Ecuador With Love and Squalor

Posted on by | 4 Comments
Cañar Indian Woman in Alausi

Cañar Indian Woman in Alausi

Late last night, I returned from Ecuador to another Los Angeles heat wave. It was yet another wonderful South American trip, with a number of highs and one very big low.

That low had nothing to do with Ecuador, and everything to do what happened to our country last Tuesday. Watching the election returns on CNN from my hotel in Quito, I spent a sleepless night twisting and turning, only to wake up early to leave for the airport.

But then, the Trumpster is our own American nightmare; and Ecuador for the most part cheered me and even amazed me. Even on the way to Mariscal Sucré Airport, my taxi driver pointed out the snow-covered Mount Cotopaxi looming to the south in a moment of extreme clarity. (It is not usually visible from Quito.)

Ecuador is a country with a number of viable indigenous cultures. In Otavalo, Alausi, Cuenca, and even Quito, I saw a number of what we incorrectly call Indians. I took a number of candid pictures, such as the one above.

One special feature of this trip was that I spent the first two weeks with my brother, and the last week alone, as Dan had to return to Palm Desert to fulfill some construction obligations. It was fun sharing my vacation with him, and it was a very different experience for me. I am not used to sharing the decision-making process during my trips; but here it worked out. We may be very different people, but there is considerable overlap in the matter of preferences.

It’s good to be back, even if it is to a Frankenstein-Dracula America. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Voting Against the Creepy Clown

Posted on by | 3 Comments
It Was Worth It!

It Was Worth It!

Despite all my strong feelings about the upcoming election, there appeared a real possibility that I wouldn’t be able to vote. I could wait for the sample ballot with its attached absentee ballot application, but there was a better than 50% chance that I wouldn’t get the absentee ballot in my hands before I boarded my plane to South America.

So I called the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters and asked what I could do. They said I could vote in person by going to the County Clerk’s office in Norwalk. Foolishly, I took the 105 Freeway to Norwalk and got stuck in a behemoth traffic jam. It took me all of two hours to drive the 30 miles to the County Clerk’s office and only 15 minutes to vote. Fortunately, I took a better route home (the Golden State Freeway over to the Santa Monica Freeway).

This election matters a great deal to me. I know that California will not go for Trump—even Republican ex-Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to vote for him—but I have to be able to face myself when I look in the mirror. I have to act on my beliefs, or what am I?

You can bet that the Creepy Clown did not get an X in his box on my ballot. I can go to Ecuador now with a good conscience.

Defiance Is Everything

Posted on by | 1 Comment
Wearing It Like a Badge of Honor

They Wear It Like a Badge of Honor

I know I said I would shy away from politics in this grim election season, but I could not avoid writing about what troubles me to the base of my soul. And that is the fact that people persist in backing Donald Trump despite the horrible behaviors that he is admittedly guilty of. At one point, he even said he could shoot some innocent down in the streets of New York without impacting his political base. Now I think that perhaps that is true.

The United States does not matter to these people. All that matters is expressing their defiance of all things relating to Obama, Hillary, liberalism, and political correctness. I keep thinking of Sly in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew:

Y’are a baggage, the Slys are no rogues. Look in the Chronicles—we came in with Richard [sic] Conqueror. Therefore, paucas pallabris: Let the world slide! Sessa!

Yes, but once one wakes up from a drunken stupor, one has to face a world that is irretrievably broken. What then? Another impeachment trial?

This is the first election in the history of this young nation in which a large number of voters just want to scuttle the ship and sink it, even if they themselves drown in the process.

I am so exercised by this state of affairs that I’m going to drive out to the L.A. County Clerk’s office in distant Norwalk to pick up my absentee ballot for fear that, in the normal course of events, I won’t have it until after I leave for Ecuador. I know that Californians will reject Trump, but now, more than ever, I feel that my vote is personally important.

Consider it my own act of defiance.