100 days, 100 sleepless nights

I wanted to write about Donald J. Trump’s first 100 days as alternative president of the United States, but it seems that everybody else in the country is either writing or talking about it, so I don’t know what else I could say.

Except this:

Shortly after his inauguration, I started a Facebook poll, asking my friends to pitch in $5 and pick the date when they thought Trump would be impeached. The winner gets all of the money, which several players have said they would donate to the ACLU to help pay for the fight against Trump’s authoritarian regime.

I chose the date June 23, for no particular reason other than it just seemed appropriate, so I have a little time left before I have to start worrying that he might actually get through the year. I have twice written in this blog that RussiaGate is not going to end well for the King of Trumps, but I acknowledge that it might take some time before the last domino falls.

After all, it took, what, a little over two years for Woodward and Bernstein to bring down Richard Nixon. Of course, Nixon was a lot smarter than Trump and had a long political career, so you’d expect him to hold out longer than a political novice like Trump.

That said, I have a few thoughts about Trump’s mental acumen as he starts his second 100 days.

It has been well documented that Trump knows very little about how our government works, virtually nothing about international geopolitics and less than nothing about American history, and over the course of the past two years he has said some of the stupidest things that ever fell out of a president’s mouth.

But whenever I start thinking that Trump is nothing more than a wealthy idiot, one thing keeps sticking in my mind. It occurs to me that while he’s not very good at telling the truth in present tense, he’s pretty good at covering the tracks he thinks he might leave in the future.

For example:

* When he wasn’t sure he would get the Republican nomination because of a brokered convention, he tossed the blame over to the GOP establishment, saying they were defrauding their own voters. “I think you'd have riots” if the GOP nominated someone else, Trump said on CNN. “I'm representing a tremendous many, many millions of people.”

* When he did get the nomination but fell way behind Hillary Clinton in the polls, he became convinced he was going to lose. That’s when he declared that the election was “rigged” and was being stolen away from him. It certainly wasn’t his fault he was losing. He was also highly critical of the Electoral College, claiming it was tilted toward the Democrats.

But wait!

* After he won the election but lost the popular vote, he decided that the Electoral College wasn’t so bad after all, and bragged that he actually won the popular vote, too, if you deducted the 3-5 million illegal ballots that were cast.

* When he couldn’t produce any evidence of voter fraud, he changed his story again, announcing that he could have won California, New York and Illinois if he had needed them, but didn’t even try to campaign in those states because he had the Electoral College all sewed up.

* Fast-forward to his latest CYA that came in a recent interview with Reuters, when Trump revealed that he liked his old job, misses driving a car, can’t go anywhere he wants and thought the president’s job would be much easier. I found those comments to be surprisingly candid for a man who hasn’t told the truth twice in the same week since he started running for office.

Why would he say those things, unless he had an ulterior motive…like, say, greasing the skids for his resignation should he find himself on the verge of impeachment?

I can envision a scenario in which the Russia scandal intensifies and people like Mike Flynn, Carter Page and Paul Manafort start being arrested for various crimes and face some serious prison time unless they go on the record and connect Trump to the scandal. If impeachment became a real possibility, I can see Trump leaving a resignation letter on the corner of the Resolute Desk, pardoning all of his co-conspirators on his way out the Oval Office door and tweeting about that long-rumored Trump Network he wants to start with his racist buddy Steve “Breitbart” Bannon.

I can almost hear Trump now, bending the airwaves on his first broadcast to tell us what a great president he was:

"I did more in my 20 weeks in office than any other president did in four or eight years. I took the job to make America great again, and I did that bigly and in record time. That’s why I resigned. There was no reason to stick around any longer when I had already accomplished more than any president in history ever did or ever will. I inherited a mess, a total mess...but I cleaned it up and went out on top, like I always do, and no one will ever surpass what I was able to accomplish in such a short period of time. People are saying I'm the greatest president of all time. That I will tell you. And now a word from our sponsor. Ivanka...you're up, honey.”

It’s what he had planned all along.  You believe that, right? 

Do your ideals keep you warm at night?

It’s not wrong to have ideals.

It’s not wrong to want every person and every thing to function as intended and to operate to its maximum efficiency. It’s not wrong to want people to be the best they can be… to be honest and decent and live up to their own ideals.

It’s not wrong to want these things; it’s only wrong to be naïve enough to expect them.

I have a friend who paid a contractor a lot of money to put a new roof on her house. She had a right to want the job to be completed properly, but some time after they had finished, she discovered that the new roof leaked. Now she is paying another contractor a lot of money to do the job all over again. This is not ideal.  

I, myself, hired painters to repaint my 1970s-era house. I had a right to want them to do a professional job. The first thing they did was power-wash the imitation wood siding, causing it to swell, buckle, crack and fall away in chunks. They had to patch up the damage the best they could and then paint over it, so that now my house looks like it has a bad case of acne. It’s just acne of a different color. This is not ideal.

I tried to get them to come back (they have refused), but really, what’s the point? Clearly, they’re not qualified to do the job I wanted done, and, clearly, they don’t share my ideals.

Honesty is one of my ideals. It’s a trait I value highly. I want everybody to be honest, but I’m not naïve enough to expect it. I once came home from a fast food restaurant and realized the clerk at the drive-up window had given me $1 too much in change. I drove back to the place to return it, but I’m fairly certain the person I gave it to stuck it in his own pocket.

Just yesterday I bought several items at CVS and was charged $29 and change. As I was walking out, I realized that one of the items alone was priced at $44, so I went back and told the clerk she undercharged me. Turns out that one item didn’t scan, so she rang me up again. For my honesty, she said, she gave me 25% off the price.

Here’s where I’m going with this (thank goodness he’s finally getting somewhere):

As I’ve stated here before, I’m re-watching the TV show “The West Wing” about the liberal Democratic presidency of Josiah Bartlet and his staff. The show ran from 1999-2006 and portrayed the kind of White House that every American deserves. I’m into Season 2 right now.

President Bartlet and his aides are portrayed as decent, honest civil servants who care about people, believe in the Constitution and work tirelessly to make the country a better place for all Americans. They're not perfect and they make mistakes, but they also are not in politics to feed their egos or to build a brand or to make a profit on outside businesses or to get revenge on a former president who embarrassed them once at a dinner.

They are not pathological liars, their facts are actual facts, they respect the other two branches of government and they treat the media the way the First Amendment intended. None of them appears to be insane, and most of all, the TV president doesn’t re-live his election victory every chance he gets, nor is he holding rallies and continually running for re-election after spending little more than three months in office.

So I look at the Bartlet “presidency” and I see an ideal. It’s not wrong to think that way, because I’m also not naïve enough to think that any White House has ever operated this ideally, from George Washington right up to the alternative president who sits in the Oval Office today. I’m also able to distinguish between a TV show and reality, so I’m not naïve enough to expect it.

It’s not wrong to have ideals and it may be naïve to expect everybody else to share the ones you have, but just to play devil's advocate, don’t you think it’s time that somebody, somewhere, tried to live up to just one or two of them? Is that really too much to ask?

Don’t let the terrorists read this essay

I don’t want to suggest that I can’t live without my computer, but consider this:

Before mine went on the fritz a few days ago, I had a pretty consistent (as in “boring”) daily routine. I’d wake up in the morning and check my email first thing. Then I’d open Facebook to see what I had missed during the night (very little, usually). I might scroll for a while, comment here and there, “like” this and “share” that, and so on.

Next came Twitter. You can’t fall behind on Twitter or you’ll miss some really good shi… I mean, stuff.

Then I’d read two newspapers online. That took anywhere from five minutes to two hours, depending on how many stupid mistakes and typos I could find in the local news. Then it was back to Facebook to see who had gotten on since the last time I looked.

Finally, I’d check a few other web sites – mostly sports – and then start looking for food. It’s not uncommon for me to eat meals at my desk while reading something or playing Hearts, Free Cell, Yahtzee or SimCity 4. When I got tired I’d go watch TV for a while or do something else, but sooner or later I’d be back, repeating the earlier routine… Mail. Facebook. Twitter. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

After that, I’d start writing that day’s shieldWALL essay, if I had one. If not, I’d click around reading the news or whatever. And on and on it went…

When my computer locked up on me, I virtually lost my mind. Here’s a list of the things I did then:

(1) Walk into my office and stare at the empty space where the computer used to be.

(2) Walk away, looking lost.

(3) See (1) and (2) above.

Get my point?

So anyhow, the old Dell is in the shop until at least next Tuesday and when it comes back, I think it will be stripped down to its birthday suit, which means it will take days or weeks to put everything back the way it’s supposed to be. In the meantime, I have other devices I can use to go online, of course, and they have the advantage of being portable and small enough to fit in my pocket.

I’m also commandeering a laptop that we’ve had for some time but rarely used. I had to load a lot of stuff onto it to make a suitable substitute for my Civil War-era desktop, but I think it’s working out pretty well now. Hell, I can even print, copy and fax. What could be better?  (It would be nice if the desktop looked the way it's supposed to and all of the icons were in the right places and the screensaver was.... well, nevermind.)

At least I now have a decent backup for emergencies. I mean, when you do all of your banking and most of your shopping and bill paying on a computer, not to mention all of the other stuff, it’s kind of scary when all of a sudden you don’t have one ready to use.

What’s really scary is this: You can talk all you want about crashing planes and armed assault and dirty bombs and poison gas, but if a terrorist wants to put me out of business, all he has to do is futz up my computers.

You won’t tell any of them about this, will you?

Thanks.

Who signed up for this roller coaster ride?

I haven’t ridden a roller coaster since the late 1980s or thereabouts. It was the Loch Ness Monster at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, and I can still see the yellow-painted track and hear the clickety-clack-clack as we chugged to the top of the first hill.

Being deathly afraid of heights, the climb scared the hell out of me and I had to close my eyes near the top, but once the ride started, I didn’t have time to be afraid. I actually liked it and wanted to go again, but the line was too long and we moved on to something else.

I’m riding a roller coaster again today. It’s called the Great White Trump-a-POTUS, and it still scares the hell out of me. The difference is, after this ride is over, I definitely won’t want to do it again.

It started last November 8, when I fell asleep while watching Hillary Clinton slowly chug her way upward toward becoming President of the United States, and took its first big drop a couple of hours later when I awoke to learn that Donald Trump had actually won.

Since then, Trump’s alternative presidency has been a series of emotional ups and downs – just like riding the Loch Ness Monster – only the stakes are much higher now, because his presidency is driving people crazy worrying about their future. Every day, it seems, we hop on another roller coaster. First we go up, and then we go down. We go up…then down…then up…then down…

For example:

We started out riding the Photoshop Special Rainy Day (or was it?) Invisible Crowd Inauguration Coaster. Remember? After failing to find anybody important who wanted to perform at his inauguration, Alternative President Trump looks out at the paltry crowd that gathered for the ceremony and declares it to be the biggest crowd in the history of the universe. Everybody mocks him but it’s okay because we figure he won’t be president for long so it doesn’t really matter. It’s great fun laughing at him, so up we go. Wheeeee!

But then he gets into office and starts nominating cabinet members who are so colossally unqualified it takes our breath away, like when a coaster finally crests that first hill and starts back down at rocket speed. Whoooo, we scream! They want to destroy the very agencies they are selected to lead. We’re not laughing now. We’re just depressed. Then Trump starts signing executive orders that favor polluters, bear killers, unscrupulous money managers, shady businesses and science deniers and overturning a lot of the good things that President Obama did. We wonder…can this really be happening? Down and down we go!

Meanwhile, Democrats in the Senate and a few Republicans are riding the Big Green (With Envy) Merrick Garland Gator. On this ride, politicians say they’re going to oppose Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. They plan to “Garland” the nomination the way the Republicans did to President Obama’s candidate. That’ll serve ’em right for trying to steal the seat, we think as we begin to climb, but when the time comes to vote, Trump’s man is confirmed anyway. Oh, no! Not him! He’s only 49, so we’re probably stuck with him for 30-40 years. So much for gay rights, women’s rights, voting rights…. Another ‘up’ turns ‘down’ in a hurry.

Then there’s the Triple Whammy Upsy-Downsy Obama-Rama Health Care Coaster. This one starts out with a pledge to repeal the Obamacare health insurance program. Oooh, downer! Then the alternative president meets with Obama and decides he likes the good parts and wants to keep them. Up we go! Then the bill gets drafted and it’s worse than anyone can imagine. O-M-G! But wait…it’s so bad it never gets brought up for a vote. Thank goodness, my insurance is safe! And now we learn that Trump and his minions are coming back with another bill that’s even worse than the first one. Down, down we go once again!

Or how about the “Wrongway” Peachfuzz Here Comes My Armada Upsidaisium Coaster? On this ride, the administration campaigns on a platform to get us out of foreign military engagements (this is good), but the first chance he gets, Trump fires 59 Tomahawk missiles into an abandoned Syrian airstrip after warning the Russians and Syrians to evacuate the premises. Down we go again! He does this to distract us from his administration’s collusion with Russia by proving he’s not a Putin puppet. But alas, Trump gets so orgasmic after blowing something up that he drops a motherbugger bomb on Afghanistan for no apparent reason, except to kill 36 ISIS fighters at a cost of $444,444.44 per death. Oh boy, we’re really descending!

Now drunk with power, he threatens North Korea with an “armada” to fix the nuclear weapons problem. Oh hell no! But it’s okay, because the ships are actually sailing south toward Australia and Trump is mocked for looking like Captain Peachfuzz from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Nuclear war is averted! We’re climbing again! All is well! At least for now.

I could go on like this all day, but the message should be getting clear. As Americans, we don’t have to like our president or agree with his policies, but we should be able to trust him to apply those policies clearly and consistently under a rational plan with an expectation of success and a carefully crafted end game. At least you can try to make plans that way. Besides, the whole world is watching us, so irrationality and inconsistency are not our friends.

We shouldn’t have to go to bed every night feeling good and wake up feeling bad – or vice versa – based on the tweets and taunts and temper tantrums of a narcissistic child-like president with no belief system, no world view and no moral compass who will whine, complain, lie, deny, bully, pout and throw things unless he gets his way.

I read recently that 35 noted psychiatrists believe that Trump is mentally ill and unfit to be the president of the United States. But here’s the problem: He doesn’t care what they think because to him all criticism is fake anyway. He is, after all, still the president regardless of their opinion … and while he may be certifiably insane, it’s the rest of us who are gradually losing our minds.

And what kind of 'ocracy' are we?

Here in America, we like to call ourselves a “democracy.” That rides along nicely with some of our other favorite sayings, such as “land of the free and home of the brave” and “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

But wait…there’s a line in our Pledge of Allegiance that refers to “the Republic for which it stands…” In truth, it appears that the United States is not a true democracy but rather a democratic republic.

So what’s the difference? I’m glad you asked.

Let’s say you work in an office with 11 people. At lunch time, you vote on whether to order pizza or Chinese. Pizza wins, 6-5, so you order pizza and everybody gets a slice or two. That’s a democracy. Majority rules. Period. End of story.

Now let’s say you vote again next week and it’s 6 for pizza, 4 for Chinese and 1 for burgers and fries. Pizza still wins, but the people who voted for Chinese or burgers now have certain rights that were recently granted to them by your boss. One of those rights says they are free to opt out of the pizza selection and go get a burger on their own. That’s how a republic works. Well, kind of.

Here’s a better explanation courtesy of the interwebz:  

“The key difference between a democracy and a republic lies in the limits placed on government by the law, which has implications for minority rights. Both forms of government tend to use a representational system — i.e., citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their interests and form the government.

“In a republic, a constitution or charter of rights protects certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government, even if it has been elected by a majority of voters. In a ‘pure democracy,’ the majority is not restrained in this way and can impose its will on the minority.”

I have to admit, I always knew there was some kind of difference, but I had to use the google to get a complete explanation. And that led me to look up a list of other terms that seem relevant in the Era of Trump:

Autocracy – a system of government by one person with absolute power. Examples are Syria, Egypt, Brunei, several African nations, various kingdoms and a whole bunch of “-stans.”  We’re not an autocracy (yet), but our alternative president apparently wishes we were.

Oligarchy – government by a few. In other words, a small group of leaders exercises complete control over its citizens. Modern-day examples are China, North Korea and Venezuela. If Trump keeps compressing his inner circle, this could be us before too long.

Plutocracy – a country ruled by its wealthiest members. Some people argue that we have become one now, because the Supreme Court has allowed a flood of money into our elections, income inequality is growing and the middle class is disappearing. Russia comes close to being a plutocracy. Ethiopia is the best example I could find, and some people think Japan fits the bill.

Theocracy – Government ruled by, or subject to, religious authority, or what we’re likely to become if Trump is impeached and Mike Pence becomes president. There’s a long list of theocracies around the globe including Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and, yes, the Vatican.  

And then there’s kleptocracy, from the Ancient Greek word for “thief.”

Literally, kleptocracy means “rule by thieves.” A broader definition is “a government with corrupt leaders that use their power to exploit the people and natural resources of their own territory in order to extend their personal wealth and political power.”

Say what?

You mean like using the power of the White House to encourage foreign leaders to stay in your hotels, or granting your daughter trademarks for a line of jewelry, or meeting with Indian business partners to discuss business on the government dime, or renting out your Florida resort as the “summer White House,” or lobbying a British politician to oppose offshore wind farms because one will block the view at one of your Scottish golf courses?

Stuff like that?

According to New York Magazine, “There was a time in the very recent past, when the idea of a billionaire president running the White House like it was the D.C. branch of his family business — leveraging his office to increase the profit margins of his hotels and resorts, giving his daughter and son-in-law veto power over vast swathes of executive policy, and subordinating his campaign promises to the best interests of his brand — would have sounded like the plot of a gratingly bleak and unsubtle satire of the post-Citizens United era.”

There was also a time – like today – when it sounded a lot like reality.

I started this essay wondering whether we are a democracy or a republic. Now that I’ve reached the end, I’m not sure we are either one at the present time. When you look around at our country, what kind of “ocracy” do you see?

Wrong number: People I didn’t know now, then or ever

I get a lot of calls for people I don’t know.

There’s someone named Stephanie S_______, who apparently needs to call the sheriff’s department immediately. They’ve been calling her for a couple of years now, so it may be getting urgent. I don’t know her and I don’t know what she did, but if it’s taking this long to track her down, it might be something really bad. 

Then there’s a guy named Randy G________. I’ve been getting calls for him for, oh, I’d say about 10 years. I didn’t know him 10 years ago and I don’t know him now, if he’s even still alive. I think he may owe money to someone. I’m hoping it’s a collection agency and not the Russian Mob, because they think he lives in my house. I don’t want anyone named Boris showing up here with a ball bat thinking I’ve hidden Randy in the cellar.

Several years ago, I got my first iPhone and bought an app called “White and Yellow Pages.” You can search for people by name, business or phone number. One of the first things I did was look up Randy G________ and, sure enough, there he was: name, address and phone number. It took me all of 18 seconds to find him. (He's still there today.)

Shortly after that, I got another call looking for Randy. The conversation went something like this:

CALLER: I’m trying to reach Randy G________. Is he there?

ME: There’s no one here by that name. You’ve called here dozens of times and every time I tell you we don’t know him, he doesn’t live here and as far as we know, he has never lived here, so please stop calling here looking for him. He isn’t here now and he won’t be here in the future.

CALLER: This is the number we have for him.

ME: That’s not my fault. It’s wrong.

CALLER: Are you sure he’s not there.

ME: Here’s an idea. Do you have a smart phone and 18 seconds to spare? I suggest you obtain the White and Yellow Pages app and look him up yourself, like I did. It took 18 seconds and I found him easily. I suggest you start calling the number that’s listed there.

Click.

Now I realize that Randy G________ may no longer live at the address that shows up on my phone app and that may not be his phone number now, but at least I know it WAS his information at some time in the past, unlike my address and phone number, which possibly NEVER belonged to him. If I were trying to find him, I’d consider that a better source of information with which to start.

You might be wondering why I didn’t just give out the number that I found along with Randy’s address, but I have a good reason for that. It’s the same reason why I didn’t use any last names in this essay.

See, I don’t know Randy and I might not want to be on his bad side. I mean, for all I know, Randy and Stephanie could be in this together. They could be partners in crime, like a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, and they wouldn’t take kindly to my helping the authorities find them. There’s a reason why they’ve stayed hidden all these years, and they apparently like it that way.

If you know them, tell them their secret is safe with me. I just wish people would stop calling them at my house.

About that rattling you hear after midnight…

Sometimes, late at night (or very early in the morning), when most people in my time zone are asleep, things start to rattle around in my brain. I can’t stop them and I can’t control them, and eventually, all of that rattling tends to wake me up.

When I was a reporter, it was news stories I needed to write. I could literally write 3-4 paragraphs in my head, review, revise and remember them until I got to work the next day and then type them into my computer. I could do that. Honest.

When I became an editor, it switched over to headlines. I’d be writing and re-writing headlines in my mind. Then, during my public relations years, it was news releases, talking points and answers to difficult questions.

Now, it’s mostly politics. I’m sure that surprises you.

Most of the time, if I’m lucky, I can lie in bed until the rattling stops and then go back to sleep. Other times I wake up and commit the rattling to paper – or more appropriately, to keyboard and screen. Last night was one of those times.

So first off, I was thinking about these four-day work weeks for the Alternative President of the United States. Is there really nothing that needs to be done between noonish on Fridays when he heads out for the golf course and whatever time he rolls in after his tweet storms on Mondays? I mean, if he’s really not busy, I could come up with a few suggestions, starting with simple stuff like “study a map of the world,” “open an actual book” or “read the Constitution.”

By my count, a four-day work week means the alternative president is off work 43% of the time. I know he says he’s not taking a salary, but he should still give 43% of it back to the taxpayers in some meaningful way. That would be $172,000, which might feed a few shut-ins through Meals on Wheels or keep Big Bird on TV for a few days. It used to be our money, so he should ask us how we want it to be spent.

Next, there’s the matter of Air Force One. If I’m not mistaken, that airplane belongs to us – the American taxpayers. If the alternative president goes to Switzerland for a peace conference or even just a seminar on Swiss watches or Swiss chocolate, I expect him to fly in that plane. That’s what it was built for and it has security features that United Airlines doesn’t have – even though they’re pretty good at dragging unsuspecting passengers down the aisle.

On the other hand, if he’s using AF One every weekend just to go golfing at, what, $3 million a trip, I believe he should get our permission first. We could vote online. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes for the majority of taxpayers to vote “no” on that idea.

What about Camp David? Is somebody up there around the clock, standing guard for nobody? Is there a cleaning crew keeping it tidy for the first family who will never, ever go there? How much does that cost? Inquiring minds want to know, especially when those questions start rattling around at 3 a.m.

If the Trumps don’t want to spoil their designer shoes by walking through wet grass or subject themselves to fresh mountain air, how about we rent Camp David out to the Girl Scouts or mountain bikers or use it for corporate retreats? We could blindfold the people going in and out so they wouldn’t know where it is and lock up all of the government secrets in a shed next to the outhouses.

Finally, there’s the White House. Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t we own that building? Didn’t we harness up a few wagonloads of slaves to come north and build that building in the Maryland-Virginia swamps so our president could have a safe, well-guarded and rent-free place to live? And don’t we have a visitors’ log inside so we can see who came to visit our house?

It’s bad enough that someday we’ll have to clean his stench out of the hallways and off those gaudy gold draperies he’s hung everywhere, but now he’s only in the place 57% of the time and doesn’t want us to see the list of Russian spies who ARE spending time there.

These are the kinds of things that bounce around between my frontal lobe and my cerebellum after the late night episode of Perry Mason ends and the sleep timer kicks my TV set into slumber mode. Shortly afterward is when all that rattling begins.

Monday trifecta: ‘The West Wing,’ internet privacy and the new (old) Supreme Court

In my spare time I’ve been re-watching the first season of “The West Wing” on Netflix. What better way to escape the reality of an ignorant, narcissistic president who was created by television than to lose yourself in a brilliant, compassionate POTUS who was created for television?

It’s not as crazy as it sounds.

Considering that “The West Wing” debuted in 1999, it seems incredibly on point for the world we live in today. Already in just five episodes, the show has featured wildlife advocates seeking to protect grizzly bears and wolves (who knew?), the prospect of a terrorist unleashing a deadly virus on the civilian population and a president who advocates affordable public education for college students.

In Josiah Bartlet, “The West Wing” offers up a likeable president with a wry sense of humor whose brain is chock full of international politics, American historical facts and general everyday trivia, and he happens to be a Nobel Laureate in economics.

In Donald J. Trump, we have an alternative president who claims to have “a very good brain” but actually has no sense of humor and no world view to speak of, thinks that Frederick Douglass may still be alive and started a scam university that was supposed to teach economic principles to poor people who probably couldn’t spell Nobel Laureate.     

President Bartlet, according to Wikipedia, “is characterized by manifest integrity, quick witticisms, a fierce intellect and compassionate stoicism” and “is widely acclaimed by critics and political commentators alike as the ‘most popular Democratic president in recent memory.’”

Donald Trump is a pathological liar who likes to grab…well…never mind.

My wife says Aaron Sorkin was high on cocaine when he wrote the 155 episodes of “The West Wing.” I don’t know if that’s true, but if that’s what it takes to create the kind of White House we all deserve, then maybe we should do a few lines. At this point, what could it hurt?

Internet Privacy

Every time Congress passes a bill or the president signs an order, my first question is always, “Who benefits from this?” Usually, the answer is either Big Pharma or some other lobbyist, but every now and then it’s a complete mystery, and I find myself asking, “Who the hell thought this was a good idea?”

For example, I couldn’t figure out who would want to kill sleeping bears and wolf cubs until I googled the Humane Society’s web site. I asked some coal people I know how polluting streams with coal waste translated into bringing back mining jobs. (They told me it doesn’t.) And most recently, I wondered who could possibly think it was a good idea to allow internet companies to sell my browsing history and other personal data to, well, basically anyone.

Oh, I get it that major internet providers will be able to make more money by selling the information – and making money always seems to be at the heart of any rule or law implemented by a Republican administration – but I wonder if members of Congress realize that their information can be sold to marketers the same as mine. From what I hear, some of them might want to keep their browsing history to themselves. Know what I mean? (Wink wink, nod nod.)

Of course, I did notice that Tennessee Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn is one of the key supporters of this rule, and that explains a lot, considering that she is a complete idiot. I guess that means the reasons behind this particular regulation don’t have to make any sense, because I’ve seen her on TV several times and nothing she ever said made sense.

The Supreme Court

Neil Gorsuch

Finally, I heard a Republican strategist over the weekend say two things about the confirmation of new Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch:

(1) That Gorsuch is replacing another arch-conservative, Antonin Scalia, whose death opened up the vacancy, so in effect the court is just returning to the way it was when Scalia was alive.

(2) That Democrats will claim the seat was “stolen” from President Obama but, in reality, his candidate, Merrick Garland, was never going to be confirmed by the Senate in 2016.

I don’t usually agree with Republican strategists, but I believe that this guy may be right on both points.

I’m sure you all remember that the ballot boxes were still being dusted off for the 2010 mid-term election when then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell famously declared on October 23, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Republicans went on to gain 63 seats in the House of Representatives that year, recapturing the majority, and cut the Democrats’ advantage in the Senate to 51-47 with two independents. That enabled McConnell and the rest of Congress to begin the process of obstructing President Obama at nearly every turn, so that by all accounts, McConnell’s plan became a rousing success.

By 2016, when Obama nominated Garland to the vacancy on the bench, the Senate, too, had gone over to the Republicans by a 54-44-2 majority. McConnell never allowed Garland to have a hearing in the Senate, but with 60 votes needed for confirmation at the time, he never would have stood a chance.

Gorsuch will assume his seat today and according to Reuters, could be faced with some significant cases right off the bat. They include:

* Expanding gun rights to include carrying concealed firearms in public.

* State voting restrictions aimed at reducing minority turnout.

* Allowing business owners to object on religious grounds to serving gay couples – or in other words, legalized discrimination.

Regardless of whether the GOP strategist was correct in his assessment, there is one overriding reason why all of this is being allowed to happen. In the 2016 presidential election, voter turnout dipped to one of its lowest points in two decades when slightly more than half the citizens of voting age even bothered to cast a ballot.

By staying home, the other half made sure that Donald J. Trump was elected as the least qualified president in U.S. history, Republicans held onto both houses of Congress and Neil Gorsuch was added as the fifth conservative vote on the nine-member Supreme Court of Appeals.

See? It really does matter who you vote for…and when you don’t vote, sometimes it matters even more.

Got Russia troubles? Why not bomb Syria?

I went to bed last night trying to get my head around the missile attack on Syria, trying to formulate an opinion, trying to determine how I felt about it. Sometimes, I find the best way to do that is to list some pertinent facts, then go back and read them and watch as my essay basically writes itself.

You’re welcome to play along while I formulate my opinion. Here goes:

* First off, I don’t like war – especially not one where we inject ourselves uninvited into another country’s conflict. I guess you’d say I’m a pacifist. I don’t mind being called that.

* I did support George Bush’s original attack on Afghanistan after 911 when he went after Osama Bin Laden, because people had flown airplanes into American buildings and killed 3,000 people. In that instance, even a pacifist knows we couldn’t just sit back and do nothing, so we did what we did and everybody jumped on board.

* This case is different because we weren’t attacked or even threatened by Syria. What happened there was horrific, but horrific stuff happens every day somewhere in the world and we don’t shoot off missiles because of it. Check out what’s going on in Western and Central Africa, for a start.

* I have never thought we should be the world police. Apparently Alternative President Donald J. Trump believed that, too, until he didn’t. I’ll get to why he changed his mind in a minute.

* It occurs to me that humanitarian atrocities like the Syrian gas attack on civilians are among the reasons why we have a United Nations. If action against Syria was required, why didn’t they do it?

* When he was campaigning and again after he was elected, Trump said he’d never announce war plans in advance because it would give the target a chance to escape. I’m wondering then why he notified Russia about his Syria plan before pulling the trigger on the missiles.

* I saw some video footage of the aftermath on CNN. It looks to me like we blew up some rocks and made some dents in the desert. It was not exactly “shock and awe.” It was more like “aw, shucks.”

* The president shouldn’t start wars from a golf resort.

OK, let’s recap and see what we’ve got:

Every day, in one way or another, the Trump administration floats out some conspiracy theory or baseless allegation to deflect attention from the fact that it’s being investigated by the FBI for colluding with the Russian government to manipulate the 2016 election. Mostly, they just blame Obama.

Shooting 60 attack missiles at a foreign country that did nothing to threaten America is a damn fine way to get the media to stop writing about your Russian connections, especially if the country you’re invading is a Russian ally and you’ve tipped off the Russians in advance to get the hell out, then crafted your attack to cause as little damage as possible.

“See, there’s no Russian collusion. I just bombed Syria.”

Today it comes out that Trump spilled the beans to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Putin passed it on to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad so that everyone could evacuate the target and we bombed the equivalent of a vacant lot. It has also been reported that Assad decided to raise the stakes today by launching more gas attacks on civilians.

"I'll see your puny rocket display and raise you a few dozen canisters of deadly chlorine gas." 

Film at 11.

I had originally suggested -- assuming that we actually had a good reason to bomb Syria -- that we should at least have done it the right way. The problems started when the media found out we took this action without advising Congress or our own State Department, but did notify Russia. It made me wonder who else was not told? The UN? Our allies? Israel? I guess that will all come out in time.

Today, that seems like a moot point anyway. Based on new information, there was no good reason to do what we did. The attack on a few acres of unoccupied concrete was a $70 million light show launched by Trump to divert attention from his Russia problem while showing the world he's tougher than Barack Obama.

I mean, look who benefits from the event. Trump is getting rave reviews from his supporters for being a manly man and for shooting across the Obama red line. This may help his 34% approval rating bigly. He also got those "media dogs" to chase another stick not related to the Russia probe.

Russia benefits because we supposedly “retaliated” against one of their allies which gives them more ammunition to back the Assad regime while denying any involvement with Trump. It’s worth noting, too, that after the attack, Russian intelligence wasted no time sending out its fake news bots to say the gas attack on Syrian civilians had been a hoax.

And how does America benefit? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone not named Trump?

Just as I suspected. To borrow from Shakespeare, this attack was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It was another example of Trump trying to do something for all the wrong reasons and even then not knowing how to do it right.

And look...there's my opinion. It showed up right on time.

Never trust a man who doesn’t like dogs (or horses or bears or wolves, oh my!)

Bill Murray is reputed to have said, “I'm suspicious of people who don't like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn't like a person.”

He didn’t actually say that.

However, somewhere, some time, someone did say, “Never trust a man who doesn’t like dogs.” I don’t know who said it first, but I’ll take credit for saying it now.

Donald Trump doesn’t like dogs.

*   *   *

I don’t know how many reasons we need for disliking the alternative president, but here’s a new one you can add to the list. It seems that right after the inauguration, the new administration scrubbed the government web site of all information pertaining to people who abuse animals. This included tens of thousands of reports on animals kept by research labs, zoos, circuses and animal transporters, and whether those animals were being treated humanely under the Animal Welfare Act.

It also took down inspection reports under the Horse Protection Act, which prohibits injuring horses’ hooves or legs for show, as well as information on dog breeders, including those who are running inhumane puppy mills. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the Trump administration doesn’t want you to know who’s abusing puppies.  

This information had for decades been posted on the web site of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where it could be accessed by consumers, the media, pet store owners and pet advocacy groups such as the Humane Society and the ASPCA.

The administration said in a statement it revoked the public’s access to this information “based on our commitment to being transparent…and maintaining the privacy rights of individuals.” Seriously? Is this the same Trump administration that thinks my internet provider should be able to sell my personal data and web browsing history to advertisers without my permission?

Like so many other things, the Republican Party fully supports our personal privacy, except when it doesn’t. (Not if there’s somehow money to me made, that’s for sure.) Now, the only way to get information about animal abuse is through a Freedom of Information Act request, which can take months or even years to approve.

“Not only is all of this cruel, it makes little economic sense,” according to an article on the Daily Kos. Several states require pet stores to sell only from reputable breeders, so hundreds of stores may now be violating state laws since they can no longer identify abusive puppy mill owners – those who breed large numbers of dogs under inhumane conditions.

The Humane Society goes even further, saying there is no reasonable explanation to withhold animal abuse information from the public. “Here we have a government action that benefits no one except people who are caught abusing animals and don't want the public to know,” an official said.

I don’t know why anybody would want to protect animal abusers and shield them from the public, but wait...this is the Trump administration, so let’s recap:

* Last month we learned that Trump will sign legislation to allow hunters to slaughter sleeping bears and baby wolves in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge so that wealthy hunters will have more antelope and moose to kill.

* We already know that Trump’s sons like to hunt wild game and pose for photos with the bloody carcasses of the exotic animals they have killed.

* And now, we find out that Trump – who reportedly considers dogs to be “unclean” – doesn’t care about the ethical treatment of puppies.

Instead of rescuing animals, the Trump administration seems to be systematically trying to remove them from the planet...or at least subject them to unchecked abuse. I just hope that a few animals are able to survive this administration so we can repopulate earth after Trump and his storm troopers are gone.

There is no joy in Mudville, because baseball is too long

Baseball season is here again. It’s Opening Day in the Major Leagues.

I like baseball because it’s the only sport I was able to play with any reasonable amount of skill, and it is America’s pastime, after all – unless you count posting cat videos and political arguments on Facebook and Twitter. There’s nothing quite like a night out at the old ball yard with a warm $8 beer, a cold $6 hot dog and a few thousand of your closest friends yelling at an umpire.

I read with some amusement recently that Major League Baseball was once again looking for ways to speed up the game. This, because the average time of a nine-inning contest is now up to three full hours – an increase of four minutes over 2015. One playoff game, it was noted, took more than 4 1/2 hours to play.

Now I haven’t played baseball for a very long time, but I did play slow-pitch softball into my late 40s. We could complete a 7-inning game with the score of 21-19 in a little over an hour, so I know you could find ways to play a nine-inning baseball game in two hours or less if you’d just think outside the box.

I’ve got some ideas for new rules that will get you back those four minutes and then some – all at minimal cost.

* First off, if I were in charge, I’d electrify the batter’s box using invisible pet fencing. Once a batter stepped into the box, he couldn’t step out again without getting an electrical shock (unless he hit the ball and had to run to first base). The voltage would go up each time he stepped out until it reached a lethal dose. If he stepped out too many times and fell over dead, he’d be ruled “out” – literally.

* Next, I’d institute a “shot clock” for pitchers with 15 seconds per pitch. If you didn’t get the pitch off in time, it would be ruled a pitch clock violation and the batting team would get an extra out for that inning. If this happened more than three times in a game, metal spikes would shoot up out of the pitcher’s mound while the pitcher was standing on it. Enough said about that.

* To cut down on long at-bats, I’d adopt the softball rule that says any foul ball hit after two strikes is an automatic out.

* I’d give the pitcher six chances to get a batter out. After that, he’d have to throw the pitches underhand.

* We’d stop using a new ball every time one touched the dirt. As long as the ball still had a cover on it, it should be good enough to use.

* And what’s up with batting gloves? Can’t they make batting gloves that fit? I’ve seen guys step out and adjust their batting gloves once, twice or three times between pitches. If your gloves don’t fit, strap ’em on with duct tape and let’s get on with it. Any guy who adjusted his gloves more than once per at-bat would be called "out." Next batter, please.

* Along the same lines, make it illegal to change your batting gloves for a different pair after you got on base. If you can’t run the bases wearing the same gloves you used to bat, you’re much too persnickety to play baseball. The ghost of Ty Cobb should come back and kick you in the ass, spikes first, for being such a girly girl.

* Moving on, I’d penalize a pitcher for throwing to first base unless he actually picked off the runner. If he threw over once and didn’t get the guy out, the runner gets second base automatically.

* I’d eliminate managers making trips to the mound. Give the pitcher an earpiece like they have in football helmets and let the coach talk to him directly. This would work except in ballparks near airports, where the pitchers might pick up broadcasts from the control tower.

* If the manager wanted to change pitchers, it wouldn’t have to be done in secret. Just walk to the top step of the dugout and yell, “Jake, you suck. GTFO.” That should work.

* In my more radical suggestions, I’d get rid of umpires completely and install lasers to indicate balls, strikes, fair and foul balls, safe/out calls and home runs. This would cut down on arguments, improve the accuracy of calls and lead to my next suggestion…

* Instant replay has to go. Period.

Any serious discussion about speeding up the game of baseball has got to start with getting rid of a rule that allows umpires to take 2-3 minutes or more watching a video replay of a foot touching or not touching a base, shot from one or more awkward and dubious camera angles and reviewed by a guy in a private booth that could be 300 to 3,000 miles away.

Even after review they get it wrong half the time. If they’re going to miss half the calls, I’d rather they miss them on the field and not in the replay booth in New York. At least the umps who make the mistakes would be in the same area code as the players.

Finally, here are three other rules changes I’d like to see that wouldn’t shorten the game but might make it more fun to watch:

(1) If a batter gets hit by a pitch, he gets one free shot to throw the ball back at the pitcher as hard as he can. The pitcher has to stand still and take it. He can cover up his face or his crotch, but not both.

(2) Speaking of crotches, I’d institute a penalty for every time a player grabbed his crotch on TV. If it’s a batter, he’d get a strike called. If it’s a fielder, he’d have to grab the crotch of the player to his immediate right.

(3) Last but not least, I’d shorten the baseball season to 16 games and increase football season to 162 games.

Yeah, that should do it. Now let’s PLAY BALL!