INSTIGATORS, LAME DUCKERY, LATITUDE, AGENCY

Simon Tisdall poses questions on The Guardian,”Feeling depressed about the state of the world? Worried about the future? You’re not alone. Pessimism about politics is the new normal among the peoples of the West.” Tisdall lists the major causes for concern as the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, and the threats of right-left extremism, stagnating economies, inequality, corruption, terrorism, racism, big tech, mass extinctions, and the climate crisis as the unsettling nightmares we all share. He writes that this “tsunami of gloom” shows encouraging shifts within Russia, Israel and the USA — the instigators of the “major upheavals in the past decade.”

He sees that Putin’s position has become jeopardized by his Ukraine misadventure, and after four years the dissent among his rivals has raised his fears of assassination or a coup which has caused him to cut back on public appearances. We have all seen photos of the long conference table that puts his conferees at one end while he sits several feet away. Israel’s long-serving ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu is facing opposition parties who want to topple his ruling hard-right coalition, with a nationwide vote upcoming at October’s end. He was a prominent influencer on Trump to embark upon his disastrous Iran war, an obvious US-Israel catastrophe. World opinion weighs heavily upon the Israelis, and in light of their leader’s deadly belligerence in the region, he may not survive the balloting.

Trump, on the other hand, barely needs opponents says Tisdall, being his own worst enemy in ignoring the hardships he has fomented with his Iran fiasco. He has betrayed his MAGA base with his tariffs and trade wars, with his abuse of our allies while threatening conquests, not to mention his sucking up to dictators of nations regarded as dangerous adversaries. The dismay, the public pessimism, and feelings of hopelessness are universal as observers have seen the degradation of a once powerful and respected USA. Polls currently show that Trump and his MAGAts may lose control in the midterms, curtailing the president’s power, with impeachment a possibility. “Lame duckery looms,” says Tisdall, “Putin deposed, Netanyahu defeated, Trump defanged and distracted. If it came to pass the world would feel a very different place. Sidelining the chief riders of the storm could go a long way towards changing the zeitgeist.”

Alexander Willis writes on Raw Story, “President Donald Trump has picked up on the fact that a growing number of GOP lawmakers are racing to distance themselves from him as his approval ratings hit record lows.” Nevertheless, his toxicity, unrecognized by him, has led him to contact candidates to vent his dissatisfaction that he is being left out of their tv advertising and off their websites — his overture to voters to “pretend I am on the ballot” being cynically cast aside as poisonous. Some office holders/seekers have broken publicly with Trump, and it has leaked that “the president’s team makes sure to flag for the president examples of 2026 candidates whose campaign websites have scrubbed or minimized references to President Trump and his record.”

To calm him down, Trump’s team last week released a taxpayer-funded ad on Fox that praised him, featuring the song ‘Love Me‘ by JMSN, who said it was used without his permission. Two unnamed sources claim that Team Trump made sure the ad ran on Fox and in the Washington, DC media market, guaranteeing that the president would see it. Mehdi Hasan’s ‘Zeteo’ on Substack, reports, “For starters, Trump has a tiny amount of political support among voters in the DC area. This was yet another example of his advisers lighting many thousands of dollars on fire, just to calm him down.” A couple of weeks ago, a reporter asked Trump who would get his endorsement in a particular run-off election, his answer indicating that he was undecided. The problem being, he had already posted his choice two weeks earlier, so how powerful is an endorsement from a president who doesn’t remember who he’s selected?

Absent any taxpayer complaints, the White House launched yet another treasury-funded tv ad, the third captured by media tracker AdImpact, and shown mainly during two National Football League games on Sunday, featuring imagery of President Trump walking down a hall as the audio has him saying, “This is the final battle. We will cast out communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” The ad mimics a 2023 Trump campaign speech, and uses footage from a 2024 campaign ad. The three ads are tellingly being shown as the campaigns heat up for the midterm elections, but the White House maintains these are public service announcements, and very clearly not campaign ads, watchdog group Common Cause suggesting otherwise, terming them to be ‘propaganda.’ Common Cause VP Carol Evans says, “I don’t think you have to be a legal scholar and wonder why the president has to use taxpayer funds to promote his image this close to an election.”

Last week in a fit of pique, Trump banned CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House press pool for not kissing his ring with enough respect — and on national security grounds. As Greg Sargent writes in The New Republic, “He accidentally revealed an Achilles’ heel of sorts,” when several media companies then banded together in solidarity against the ban which then precluded the use of video recording for tv broadcasts; and, since CNN had camera duty that week, so to speak, and no other entity chose to fill in the gap — it made for a huge faux pas for Trump who relishes the spotlight, for better or for worse. Though a judge subsequently blocked the ban, it meant that few cameras were available for the grand ceremonial of China’s President Xi Jinping’s arrival in DC — a disaster for narcissist Trump.

Even after the judge’s restoration of press access to the White House, CNN was barred from joining the press pool on Air Force One traveling with the president to Knoxville, TN for a college football game between the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas, a highly-rated clash between top-rated teams. Video footage shared on social media captured Trump being booed loudly by attendees when the president appeared on the Jumbotron, sitting in a box next to Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. Trump managed a couple of weak fist pumps to the one MAGA-hatted fan he spotted sitting nearby.

A few months ago, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson delivered a jaw-dropping mea culpa for endorsing Donald Trump for president, saying, “I want to say I am sorry for misleading people,” and admitting he would be “tormented” by his backing the con man “for a long time to come.” It seemed that Carlson was embittered by the Epstein coverup and the Iran war debacle, disclosed in a podcast with his brother, Buckley Carlson, a former Trump speechwriter. The brothers agreed that they are implicated in this mess, but no matter how sincere the apology, they are forever stained, even as Buckley calls Trump an “out of control, megalomaniacal, destructive president.” Tucker’s apology comes across as shallow and insincere following his decades of racist, sexist and violent rhetoric as he carpetbagged for his former idol.

Former associates felt Tucker was just doing a bit, playing a boorish demagogue in the ratings game as he slid into Bill O’Reilly’s old slot on Fox News. Playing a bit is hardly forgivable, because knowing better and still being opportunistic at stirring violence against immigrants and Blacks doesn’t cut it. His lies about Dominion voting machines finally broke him, and damaged the Fox bottom line in the end, but he still walked away by earning millions over the years — which he should donate to a nonprofit to prove the sincerity of his apology. Social psychologist Cindy Frantz of Oberlin College, in observing the Carlson duo, feels that Tucker is “basically holding something back, continuing to go through some sort of internal disagreement, or he’s restraining himself from saying something.”

Frantz argues that there are two missing pieces that could have helped sell Carlson’s apology: 1) he didn’t mention any action for making amends for his regrets; 2) the other is an element neither he nor the general public can fix — there’s no interpersonal relationship here, since he’s a public figure before a camera, with too many barriers for people to trust what he says. Speculation is that Carlson has an ulterior motive for the apology, ranging from prioritizing his income, to running for office. The fact that he says, “I want to say I’m sorry,” rather than, “I’m sorry,” distances himself from any direct ownership of responsibility. Jimmy Kimmel commented on his show, “Did anyone know Tucker had a brother Buckley? Tucker and Buckley? That’s as white as it gets. I mean, it doesn’t get any whiter than that. Their parents were an ascot and a monocle.”

The latest Tucker Carlson interview, with NPR’s Newsmakers podcast host Steve Inskeep, has him calling for the president’s removal by his Cabinet under the 25th Amendment, and being particularly critical of the Iran war. The former Fox News host feels that Trump wasn’t the one who ultimately made the decision to join Israel in its attack on Iran — “I don’t think he had the latitude to make this decision on his own.” Carlson suggests that Section 4 of the 25th Amendment be invoked to force Trump out over his threats to “annihilate” Iran, and should also include those in power around the president. “A guy threatening to eliminate the human race and that’s not considered a crime?! It tells you how deranged our moral scale has become. So he should be removed from office for threatening a first-use nuclear strike,” fumed Carlson.

Carlson is not alone among conservatives calling for ousting Trump — prominently, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and former Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have joined a growing chorus of voices for action. Jones, on his InfoWars broadcast in April, said, “The definition of genocide is destroying an entire civilization/people! Trump literally sounds like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel Comics movie. This is not what we voted for!” Greene wrote on social media, “Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”

In the NPR interview, Carlson recalled a chilling statement made by Trump in a private Oval Office meeting, dismissing concerns over a possible Iran action. Carlson challenged the president, saying, “This war is not about Iran’s nuclear program, which you told me and the world that you eliminated last summer in June,”  while holding Israel accountable for the push toward war. He termed Trump’s response “nihilistic” as he said, “Yes, you’re right, but in the end we all die anyway, so it doesn’t matter.” The shocked Carlson told Steve Inskeep, “That’s the last thing any leader or person should display — who lives or dies does matter. The future does matter.” One online responder wrote, “Trump gave every impression that he firmly believes, in the depth of his soul, ‘if I go, it all goes…and when I am gone, what does it all matter anyway?’ This falls into a level 10 narcissist, the least common and most dangerous type.”

Talk about chilling, Anthony Davis on MeidasTouch Network has an essay based on his interview with forensic and social psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, entitled ‘Who’s Going To Stop Him?‘ Their conversation began with President Trump’s genocidal threats in his recent United Nations speech and his increasingly volatile language directed toward Iran. The interview kept returning to “a more fundamental question: what happens when a political system becomes so accustomed to extraordinary behavior that it stops recognizing it as extraordinary?” Dr. Lee’s view is that “we are watching a psychological phenomenon unfold at the highest level of government, one in which the behavior of a powerful individual can begin to shape the thinking of the population around him.”

Davis asked her about Trump’s “increasingly aggressive rhetoric and the apparent absence of meaningful institutional resistance.” Lee believes the president’s behavior should not be seen as some elaborate strategic calculation, but as a man driven by emotion, grievance, and an inability to tolerate realities that contradict his preferred version of events. We should interpret his actions not as strategy, but as aggressive reaction to failure, humiliation or a sense of lost control. She argues that when someone becomes unable to tolerate evidence that contradicts their self-image, the consequences can become increasingly dangerous. As an example, Lee sees the slogan, ‘Trump was right about everything,’ as a declaration that reality itself must conform to that claim.

One concern discussed by Davis and Lee, is the media’s recognition of the seriousness of events, but then retreating from coverage, particularly when criticism of Trump might be interpreted as partisan. Dr. Lee revealed that she and her colleagues had attempted to raise concern about Trump’s psychological condition, but were then excluded from mainstream discussions as dangerous behavior gets converted into arguments about political allegiance — truth becomes politicized. Contrasting the USA with Europe, false political claims can be denounced as absurd in most countries, but in this country “a fragmented and highly partisan media environment can give even extraordinary claims an extended life,” says Lee.

In this erosion of democratic power, Lee argues that Americans have gradually lost their sense of what they are entitled to demand from their institutions, as well as their confidence in their ability to demand it. This process begins with advertising and psychological manipulation, as propaganda and disinformation creep in to spread emotionally driven beliefs into the community. Lee uses the belief of the stolen 2020 election as an example, which has spread from Trump into a collective phenomenon. Lee told Davis that the public has more power than it realizes, but has become dependent upon the assumption that some constitutional mechanism will step in to solve things — citizens must be convinced that they are correct in demanding functioning institutions.

Dr. Lee contends that the public has to recover its own sense of agency, which has gradually been eroded, teaching people to accept circumstances rather than challenge them, one danger being that lies, being emotionally compelling, can travel faster than truth, but truth has the advantage that propaganda lacks: it does not need to be manufactured indefinitely. Reality keeps returning — we only need to recognize it when it does! All of which still begs the question: who’s going to stop him?

TRAUMATIZED, ELDER ABUSE, GROUNDSWELL

Anthony David writing on Substack, asks, “A persistent question continues to baffle us: How can roughly a third of the American electorate, representing more that 50 million voters, maintain approval for Donald Trump, despite record gas prices, the high cost of living, the war in Iran, the desecration of public buildings, the illegal abductions, the mass detention and racist deportations, measles and anti-vax policies…oh, and the slow motion collapse of democracy and the nation as a trusted ally in the world? Who exactly are the 33% or 34%s of Americans who think this lazy tyrant, this dollar store dictator, this narcoleptic nincompoop is doing a decent job? Critics often resort to sweeping generalizations, dismissing this demographic as uniform in thought, uneducated, or driven purely by prejudice. However, dismissing millions of people under a single label obscures the complex psychological, ideological, and socioeconomic drivers behind their loyalty.”

And we might question how those in the Congress manage to keep a straight, serious face as they continue to defend their nincompoop, even as they continue to get bombarded by constituents? Take for instance, South Carolina’s Senator Tim Scott who recently told Fox News that President Trump had “made an unprecedented move by following ethical standards,” despite the daily reports that the president is adding to his personal wealth, estimated to be over $2 billion just in his second term in office. HuffPost correspondent S.V. Dáte asks, “Is he new to our planet?” Former Arizona Representative Adam Kinzinger posted, “The lies are beyond ridiculous now. He of course exempts himself.” And, Rabbi Jill Zimmerman, with over 50,000 followers on Bluesky responded simply, “Wait, what?” Time to drag out that old Molly Ivins chestnut when she quoted Texas State Senator Carl Parker, who said, “If you took all the fools out of the legislature, it would no longer be a representative body.”

Thom Hartmann refers to Robert Reich’s post on Raw Story where he says that America is officially traumatized, and the diagnosis is in. Reich highlights what every therapist, primary care physician, and exhausted spouse already knows: we are a nation with full-blown PTSD. The American Psychological Association now reports that 76% of Americans cite the future of the country as their leading source of stress, outpacing the economy, work and money. As Reich notes, “anxiety has moved from being a psychological disorder to becoming part of a seemingly natural order.” Hartmann says, “After 45 years of Reaganomics gutting job security, shredding the safety net, and concentrating wealth at the top — followed by a decade of Trumpism’s daily firehose of cruelty, corruption, and constitutional vandalism — the American nervous system has simply checked out. Marriages are postponed, births are falling, and pharmacy shelves groan under the weight of antidepressants and stomach pills. The Founders wrote in the Preamble that the goal of the rule of law outlined in the Constitution is there to ‘ensure domestic tranquility.’ That bargain has been broken by a strongman who promised to fix the anxiety and instead became its single largest source.”

In his essay in The New Republic, Michael Tomasky writes, “It was a surreal week, bursting with surreal news generated by the surreal idiot who sits in the White House, but maybe the most surreal headline of all was the one I saw Thursday morning telling me that Costco was rationing motor oil. The limit they’ve set is very likely more than your average motorist needs, but still. Rationing!” He sarcastically asks if this is England in the 1950s, with the motor oil price doubling? Tomasky points out that diesel fuel has nearly doubled in price and that some previous sources’ stocks are now undependable, with global commerce bearing the brunt of shortages. That $3.00 bag of mixed greens or baby spinach will be about $4.50 in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. “For years, we’ve wondered whether American democracy would survive Donald Trump. But now, we need to fret that capitalism may not survive Trump, and that between now and January 2029, assuming the GOP doesn’t go Twenty-Fifth Amendment on him, he’ll single-handedly bring not only the American but the global economy other its knees,” Tomasky cautions. Trump’s tariffs are hated by all — from Main Street to Wall Street, from consumers to farmers, from markets to bond traders — and even the toadies of the Supreme Court hate them. The Iran War [excursion?] has been a top-to-bottom disaster, with the Strait of Hormuz being effectively closed — on a recent day only four ships made passage compared to a prewar count of 120 or so.

Tomasky maintains, “If a human being with normal cognitive development was presiding over this mess, we could reasonably hope that he’d recognize what has gone wrong and change. But Trump is not a normally developed human being. When he does bother to turn his attention to the economy, he says that it’s the best in the history of the country and that gas prices will come down as soon as ‘x’ happens, which never happens. So far, though, the guardrails of democracy have more or less held. But what about the guardrails of the economic system? They are: a Congress that conducts real oversight and demands accountability; a class of corporate and financial leaders who actually put the good of the country ahead of the next tax cut or earnings statement; a well-regulated market system that is set up to punish short-term excess and wealth creation for the few and reward efforts to produce shared prosperity. Right now, we have none of those things.”

Several weeks ago, Rick Wilson posted on Substack, ‘Trump is Dying,’ mentioning the president’s declining health, and the White House concealment of the reality through a coordinated cover-up. He compared the situation to that of President Wilson’s 1919 deception when his wife, Edith Wilson, forged her husband’s signature on many documents, while citing ‘claims of excellent health.’ Rick Wilson has noted Trump’s appearance, his swollen extremities, and bruises, posting, “This is no third act. There is only the long, undignified, make-up smeared decline of a man and a movement whose moment has passed, narrating itself even more loudly into an ever emptier hall, a frowzy barfly of a man, replaying past glories that never happened and hoping you won’t notice the bad wig.” Last week the Lincoln Project raised the twin specters: “He has the nuclear codes. He controls the world’s most powerful military. And now, the 80-year-old president is spending his days posting A.I.-generated images of himself launching a nuclear war from outer space, commanding an army of robots with the caption ‘give them nightmares,’ smashing Iran with a comically oversized hammer, and body-checking Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in hockey gear. This was the President of the United States. Now people from across the political spectrum are openly calling for the 25th Amendment. Not as a talking point. As a serious question: what is it actually for, if not this? Donald Trump is not fit. He hasn’t been for a long time. He’s slipping. And the longer we let him hang around, the worse it’s going to get.”

Trump’s new pre-occupation with space has inspired him to design the new uniforms of the Space Force, the newly-formed space branch of the US Armed Forces, and admittedly taking inspiration from the film, ‘Starship Troopers.’ Of the new garb he explained, “…inspired by the dignity and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform,” being completely in the dark that the 1997 movie took its influence from the uniforms of the Nazi movement, with many satirical Nazi references to boot. Director Paul Verhoeven said, “I don’t know if this president is aware that the movie says these [characters] are fascists, without knowing that they’re fascists. That’s the point.” Nevertheless, the administration is blitzkrieging ahead with the design, Trump being fixated on aesthetic remodels and rebrands. Daily Kos posts that since Trump took office, there have been plenty of similarities pointed out between Nazi Germany and the sitting administration, from the attacks on higher education to the attacks on immigrants.

Kos says, “Deaths inside ICE detention facilities have reached record numbers while lawsuits claiming inhumane and egregious living conditions are still ongoing. But it’s the dehumanization and even the gamification of these men, women, and children that has rung true when it comes to comparing the Trump administration to Nazi Germany. It definitely doesn’t help the administration — and many GOP leaders — have been linked to the cause. Then again, it’s unclear if the White House realized it was feeding into this ongoing comparison when they chose the stark new uniforms — or if they just really, really missed the plot.”

And is Air Force Secretary Troy Meink stepping out of his lane by revealing that the US has launched into orbit “space-control weapons“? In a speech at an Air & Space Forces Association conference in Maryland he said, “Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exits. This is why the United States now has, on-orbit, space-control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.” Chief director of space security and stability, Victoria Samson, of Secure World Foundation commented, “Well, that’s huge, because I don’t think any US government official has ever said that before. The US now has to accept the Chinese and Russians doing/saying the same. I don’t think that this is going to be in the interest of US national security.” Samson speculates that Meink is referring to space-based jammers or electronic warfare, rather than kinetic space-control weaponry. Jessica Corbett of Common Dreams, writes that the US is limited by the Outer Space Treaty, which was signed by other founding parties, including China and Russia, nearly six decades ago, which states that governments agree not to “place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner.” It has been suggested that if indeed this treaty has been violated that Trump be outfitted in a new Space Force uniform, and be sent to personally retrieve any erroneously launched hardware — his uncle-genes should serve him well.

Jennifer Welch begins her ‘I’ve Had It’ blog with the line “America’s top domestic terrorist is back,” with a welcome to “today’s masterclass in elder abuse.” Welch announces that, “Mitch McConnell, his face frozen in a grinning death mask, has returned to the Senate.” She is disgusted that reporters were barred from recording a video of Mitch in the Senate chambers, with a reminder that “They don’t own the Senate — we do — and we deserve access to our representatives. But being caught on video, you can see why they’re trying to hide him from us. This man — who is clearly not functioning — is supposedly going to read legislation? Listen to debate? Cast votes that impact millions of people? By comparison he makes Trump look like the picture of vitality.” Welch goes on to say that Mitch’s first vote back was right in line with his long reign of terror, by voting ‘yea’ to advance the confirmation of Matthew R. Byrne as a US District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, who brings a record of ruling against trans and reproductive rights — Mitch’s type of guy who is singlehandedly dedicated to increasing suffering.

“They oppose the things for us that they give to themselves,” said universal healthcare advocate Melanie D’Arrigo, as McConnell returns to Congress after three months of paid leave with taxpayer-subsidized healthcare. The 84-year-old Senator had not been seen in public since his hospitalization following a fall in mid-June, amid speculation over whether he was still alive, fueling calls for his resignation, or for the Kentucky governor to appoint a successor before Mitch finishes his term at the end of this congressional session.

Andy Borowitz used his The Borowitz Report to observe the return of the missing Senator: “The long-awaited return of Mitch McConnell to Congress on Monday marked the first time in months that the state of Kentucky has enjoyed the attendance of two brain-dead senators. In addition to his fellow Kentuckian, McConnell was applauded by other members of the Republican Party’s brain-dead caucus, including Ron Johnson and Tommy Tuberville. Although the caucus took a hit earlier this year with the departure of Markwayne Mullin, McConnell did receive a warm greeting from the newest insentient senator, Darline Graham of South Carolina. ‘From all indications, Mitch McConnell has no idea what’s going on around him,’ Senator Graham said. ‘He’s my role model.'”

Being bandied about with frequency is the word ‘gerontocracy‘, which dates from 1830, meaning a government run by old people — back when the average 20-year-old man didn’t live past his mid-40s. Those living in those days could not have imagined what we have now with the well-stocked US government populated by 70- and 80-year-olds, Donald Trump being the record-holder as oldest candidate to be elected president. We have 84-year-old Mitch McConnell, 80-year-old Senator Ed Markey running for reelection, and 93-year-old Senator Chuck Grassley who has filed for yet another term. So, shouldn’t we question ‘how old is too old when running for office?‘; and, ‘how do we deal with it?‘ Minimum age limits are set within the Constitution — 25 in the House, 30 in the Senate, and 35 for the White House — but do we need a maximum age limit as we see politicians serving well past the retirement age for the average American worker? With the gray-hairs multiplying and with their high-profile health issues, Americans are tending to call for instituting age caps according to all polling respondents, with even older Americans wishing to see younger office holders.

The rapid acceleration of technology is one factor in the push for younger decision makers. Those who have spent most of their lives without the current technologies view them differently, an example being that about half the senators seated at the start of the current Congress were 60 or older when ChatGPT debuted in November 2022. Data shows that older Americans are far less likely to use such tech, seeing it as a danger. A study by the Pew Research Center finds that 48% of Americans ages 18 to 29 have a negative view of Artificial Intelligence, while only 35% of Americans 65 or older share that same view. The study says that the older someone is, it’s more likely they will feel “unsure” of what the future holds, meaning an aging Congress would be less inclined to regulate emerging technologies, being less familiar with them.

This unfamiliarity is probably the reason for the 2012 failure of President Obama’s proposed ‘Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights‘ which was designed to give citizens some control over how companies handled their online data. The bill was doomed for several reasons — opposition by industry groups, a hostile Republican House of Representatives, and probably the general disinterest of an older Congress. To pass age limits would require amending the Constitution, a process unlikely to win enough bipartisan support in our fractured political scene, but some states have set examples by adopting legislation setting age caps on judges. Some argue that seasoned lawmakers are generally more effective at passing laws than greenhorns, and by booting out the older seat holders, Congress could become less effective. However, public support is becoming a groundswell, and the time is ripe for a change.

SOUTH CANADA, PRE-NUP, ART OF THE DEAL

“I’ll take BRIBE for $5,000, Alex,” say at least 35% of those on the voter rolls. President Trump’s dividend promised to every adult American, called the “Trump Dividend,” if the midterm elections result in House and Senate majorities for the GOP has been a reasonably hot topic in some news outlets following his Midterm Convention promise in Dallas. However, for the most part it resulted in a ‘ho-hum’ response, being seen as just more Trumpian hot air to Americans who have become immune to his antics. Of course, nobody will get a dime, regardless of their balloting, and as critics have pointed out such a bribe would cost the treasury around $1.3 trillion. Incidentally, those same critics jumped on the news that ‘holiday’ cash gifts of $45,000 each were given to Natalie Harp, Margo Martin, and a couple of other aides — his money or OUR money? As The Swamp on Substack posted, “No, it’s not a shakedown. Vote GOP, and we give you money. Mob bosses do that, too.”

VP Vance defined the ‘bribe’ on Fox News as a “dividend for American workers” to be funded by tariff revenue. “We’re taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies but also foreign countries who have been taking advantage of America’s workers for pretty much my entire life,” Vance explained. Marc Short, board chair of former VP Mike Pence’s think tank, Advancing American Freedom, said, “The president is a performer and having the pageantry of the convention [in Dallas], he’s going to throw out something,” — a “departure from Trump’s pledge of fiscal responsibility and conservative economics.” Former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s snide remarks echoed those of many others: “$5,000 for the peasants will be in the mail after the election only if you vote Republican, along with those DOGE [$5,000] and tariff [$2,000] money checks.” Afterwards, Trump dared to propose yet another $500 rebate for nearly a million people he claims were “wrongly overcharged” under Obamacare. The president’s promises of cash payments in the past have never materialized, and we have to remember him once bragging that he could be the “best communist” in history because all he’d have to do is promise people free stuff and then never deliver.

A post on The Onion: “Trump promises to take $5,000 from every American if Democrats win midterms.” Isn’t he doing that already? And, leave it to Andy Borowitz to address the pie-in-the-sky dividend: “Calling it an effort to ‘restore sanity,’ on Thursday Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered every adult American $6,000 to vote against Republicans in the midterms. ‘If you oust the Republicans, you’ll receive a check for $6,000,’ he said at a press conference. ‘And to be clear, we’re talking American dollars, not Canadian.’ The prime minister’s announcement seemed unlikely to make Donald Trump increase his own offer, since $5,000 would be the most he has ever paid to a non-pornstar. Carney concluded his press conference by unveiling a new map of North America with the United States renamed ‘South Canada.‘”

Trump’s Dallas Midterms Convention will be remembered as an early Halloween celebration for its rows and rows of attendees dressed as empty auditorium seats, which didn’t fool the Orange King by a long shot. He announced on social media, a full house, packed to the rafters, breaking attendance records with crowds waiting outside, and beating the NFL in tv ratings. House Speaker Johnson told NewsMax’s Finnerty the arena was full, even as the cameras panned the interior to video the Halloween celebrants. Not fooling around, Liz Landers of PBS News posted a video of the half-full 20,000-seat basketball arena, and former Democratic staffer Aaron Fritschner posted on X, “Capacity-wise they could have held this in a high school gym.” Several pundits observed that the hot Texas sun may have discouraged many who had waited in a long entry line, with many needing medical attention from EMTs. The number of empty seats must have made the convention organizers realize that a bullet was dodged in not being able to book the Dallas Cowboys‘ 80,000-seat football stadium as Trump had proposed initially.

Daily Dose of Democracy posted on its site: “America’s wannabe dictator took center stage and forced the lemmings in attendance to pledge allegiance to ‘the greatest president in the history of the United States’ while also promising to ‘cheat like hell’ to make sure Republicans don’t lose in November. Uh, okay. Any Republicans who were hoping this week’s ‘midterm convention’ would somehow be more than a gratuitous spectacle of sycophants worshipping at the altar of their god-king just got an answer.” Trump raised his right hand, asking the attendees to do likewise, as he led them in a mock version of the Pledge of Allegiance, to pledge “if I am registered or not, I am going to cheat like hell like they [Democrats] do.” “You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell, you know that? Okay? And I don’t want that to happen to  you, so please go vote,” the president concluded. VP Vance supposedly was given the biggest speaking slot on the last night of the convention, attempting to give a keynote address to bolster his 2028 presidential aspirations. He followed Trump’s speech and managed to give a 40-minute oration before Trump again took his microphone, spewing his inanities, and insuring that  the cameras focused on him. “We’ve got to take care of business this November, then we’ll worry about what comes next,” said Vance the greeter, standing at the gates of hell.

“I just love that we have an administration that treats the American voter like one of his [Trump’s] ex-wives. ‘How much money to make you happy? There you go.’ Like, I don’t think it’s wise,” comedian Roy Wood, formerly of The Daily Show remarked on CNN. The show’s anchor, John Berman joked, “You think that voters should get to spin a prenup with presidents?” Wood is now host of CNN’s American adaptation of the news and entertainment panel show, Have I Got News For You. Likening Trump to a surly divorcee who confuses his constituents with his marriages, Wood suggested how the prez could improve his outlandish bribe of $5,000 for voting in the Republican column. “I’m waiting on my money, so why not just give us half the money up front? Ain’t that the art of the deal?”

The Swamp on Substack says it’s never a good sign when the vendors offer cut-price merchandise before the headliner has left the building, and especially when the event wasn’t sold out as claimed. Sell-out Republicans have finally seen the writing on the wall, so they avoided the president’s self-promoted adulation fest, or quickly headed for the exits in the hopes of salvaging their political careers by Election Day. As for the swag vendors, t-shirts were half price on the second day of the convention,  although a shirt featuring a younger Trump as a Marlboro Man, astride a spirited horse sold out on the first day — $47 a pop! Food vendors were selling stale hot dogs along with a syrup enhanced cola for $25, with a small pre-packaged salad for only $12 extra. No complaints about ‘affordability’ here. Of course, the real eating, drinking and money-raising action was taking place in the private dining rooms and hotel suites for the GOP powerbrokers.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise reportedly was headliner at one of the week’s more fascinating fundraisers at the Highland Park home of billionaire mega donor, Harlan Crow, well-known for his buddying with certain Supreme Court justices. For the privilege of seeing Scalise host a fireside chat in Crow’s digs, guests ponied up $10,000 to $100,000, the side attractions being Crow’s library of thousands of rare books and manuscripts — not to mention the sculpture garden known as ‘The Garden of Evil‘ which is graced with statues of Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, and others. Nothing says Republican fundraising like a garden full of dead dictators. So while the convention floor at the American Airlines Center offered an excess of Trump’s presence, the real business of Trump-a-palooza was happening elsewhere in Dallas, along with ‘affordable’ cover charges.

Travis Gettys writes on Raw Story, “President Donald Trump seems to want to drag the United States down with him once he shuffles off this mortal coil, according to historian Alan Elrod.” Dark warnings were in evidence at last week’s Trump-a-palooza regarding the nation’s future if Republicans lose in the November midterms, with Trump encouraging his followers to cheat or risk hellfire, observes Elrod, a politics and history professor, in his column for Liberal Currents. “Trump’s speech came off more like a sermon [a la Jim Jones] from Jonestown. My own overriding thought was: ‘This speech was like some sort of performance art piece of a live entombing of a mad king and his most loyal followers.‘” Trump is constantly referencing legacy issues like the ballroom, the border wall, and global tariffs, while teasing a campaign for an unconstitutional third term in office, and as Elrod notes, his lavish praise for some women who had attended more than 200 of his rallies is reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian practice of ‘retainer sacrifice.’

Elrod references his colleague, Samantha Hancox-Li, who has a simple theory about Trump’s self-promotion and obsession with legacy and slapping his name on buildings and projects: fear of death. Hancox-Li says, “My current theory of Donald Trump is that he is utterly gripped by the terror of death, and is desperately attempting to leave some mark on the world that history cannot erase — the point of his wars, the annexation threats, the DC vandalism. I think right now he is genuinely fixated on adding new American territory as the brass ring, the thing they’ll never be able to take away from his memory.” Elrod is in agreement, saying, “It’s a macabre but convincing psychological assessment. Rather than making America great again, Trump is inflicting grievous harm on it with tariffs, now upgraded to import bans against select Canadian goods; an illegal war; and a total ransacking of our public and private sectors for the enrichment of his courtiers and his family. And he is going to bury us all with him in a tomb of his own design — a ballroom.”

Trump’s ranting about the impenetrable ballroom project which will hold up to 2,000 people caused Elrod’s thoughts to become dismal. “These are the ramblings of a neurotic, dangerous madman. If Trump is taking America down, if he is going to bury this country, all the good in it and all its prosperity and potential, then he wants his most adoring and loyal retainers with him. He wants his cult locked inside.” Trump die-hards are optimistic about the midterms — to a degree. “It’s going to be fantastic,” insists Melissa Cole from Oklahoma, as she donned a gold sequined MAGA jacket at the Trump-a-palooza. “It has to be fantastic…we’re in a war between good and evil.” Grape or cherry Kool-Ade?

In an essay in The New Republic, former federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig argues that even if Democrats win decisively in the midterms there’s no guarantee the winners will be seated. Yikes! The ghost of Mitch McConnell arises with memories of President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, and the Senate leader’s refusal to hold hearings! Judge Luttig sees a constitutional crisis in the making for January 3, 2027, the date that the 120th Congress should be sworn in, with procedures being disrupted by Speaker Mike Johnson as he fires constitutionalist House Clerk Kevin McCumber, a Republican who goes by the book. Johnson could then install a Trump loyalist who will then leave Democratic members-elect off the roll that determines who gets to organize the new Congress. “From there, it’s writs of mandamus, emergency appeals and weeks or months of a country without a functioning House while the Supreme Court decides whether America is still a democracy,” says Luttig.

Luttig, a Supreme Court ‘finalist’ who lost out to a corrupt and arrogant Samuel Alito, points out Trump’s whining about rigged elections — with Republican acquiescence — and the harping about “nationalizing the voting” to achieve “election integrity” as MAGA blames Democrats and voting non-citizens for widespread fraud that is unproven and discounted with only insignificant occurrences. The Constitution is clear in Luttig’s estimation — that the House cannot refuse to seat anyone who has won a free and fair election on a flimsy pretext, yet he looks askance at a Supreme Court which handed Trump immunity and dodged the Fourteenth Amendment question. Luttig encourages Republicans not to go along with the deviousness, but is not optimistic. The judge writes, “The writing is already on the wall.” And as John Byrne posts on Raw America about that comment, “It’s been there since 2021. Some people just refuse to read it.”

That writing on the wall began on January 6, 2021, and as Steve Schmidt writes on The Warning, “That day was a crime of immense magnitude. The failure of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Merrick Garland and a few hundred political appointees to defend the republic and demand justice on behalf of the American people was a sin. The bill is coming due and soon. Judge Luttig sees it clearly. He has picked January 3rd as the day America dies. Judge Luttig has called his shot. Shouldn’t we speak about this out loud? Or is it already too late? Is there already too much fear to say out loud what could happen? Are we already consigned to whispers? What happens on January 4 when the winners of elections have been declared cheaters, criminals and liars?” Schmidt reminds us that everything is in motion, not a Hollywood movie or a Trump fever dream, and when we consider the unimaginable, we should think about it completely. “After all, delusion is a MAGA trait, not an American one,” he concludes.

Lisa Needham writes on Daily Kos, “Much like the Iran War, which Donald Trump has already won a thousand times, the Reflecting Pool repairs were already perfect — the best ever. But now they will be even better. Are you tired of winning yet?” The president bragged about corrections that will now be done, such as inflow and outflow pipes, that were being delayed until the end of the year, but he sped up the ‘repairs’ to coincide with his big birthday bash, so now we get to pay for more unnecessary expenses due to his half-assed planning. He can’t let go his claim of “clear evidence of vandalism” on the original American flag blue liner, yet he will admit that “contractor error” was one element of the pool’s cheap swimming pool appearance. “Meanwhile, we’ll all wait with bated breath to check out those Reflecting Pool improvements. Our tax dollars are hard at work — moving themselves from our pockets to Trump,” charges Needham.

But, stop the presses! The Horror! The latest pool makeover has been hit by disastrous storms resulting in toppled protective fencing, fallen trees, dirty rainwater with leaves and debris, and yellow “Do Not Cross” yellow police tape littering the site. Mother Nature gave the kibosh to Trump’s “pool is almost completely fixed” proclamation — a setback for the president AND the taxpayers’ pocketbook — with no projected completion date. A DC tour guide remarked, “I’ve lived here since 1965 and this is the worst I’ve ever seen the pool. $16 million later, here we are.” Trump’s initial announcement on the repair plans called for a $1.5 million revamp that would take just a few weeks. Cost has now ballooned to nearly $20 million. Place your bets on what the final sticker price will be!

In an altered photo of Trump and an aide standing beside the pool, the president says, “All I see is scum.” The aide replies, “Well, it is a reflecting pool, sir.”

Speaking of repairs, everyone is asking, “What in the world is going on with Trump’s hair?” A photo of him de-boarding Air Force One went viral with his new imagery, a drastic new look with brown hair with hints of gray, and flipped to the opposite side. Shirish V. Dáte of HuffPost asked if the White House was able to “certify that no animals were harmed in this process,” and political commentator George Conway cracked that “something needs to be done about [Trump’s] hair under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment.” The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols‘ take was that it was odd, but “not the most important thing in the world.” It is known that hair-sensitive Donny has a prominent bald spot hidden by his usual combover, which also has a supplemental cotton candy-like hairpiece, sometimes protected by a red MAGA baseball cap.

On the Inside Trump’s Head podcast, biographer Michael Wolff claims that the president is accompanied by a portable hair fix-it kit in all his activities. Wolff says, “The ‘patch kit’ consists of small tufts of hair that match whatever color his hair might be at the time.” No word on who the stylist might be, but this person applies the tufts to Trump’s head with “some kind of paste,” the maintenance being a major enterprise for many years. Bet you can’t wait to read the tell-all book that is bound to appear in the post-Trump period! Especially when you consider that this individual gets to sit next to the person carrying the nuclear codes! Hot stuff! Wolff’s co-host, Joanna Coles, joked that the hair-do looks “like one of those spun sugar things that you can put your hand in and pull it out and start eating it, and it would have no caloric value at all.”

Unable to let his grudge against Canada be, last week Trump levied more tariffs against that country which set off a round of insults and tariffs levied against the US by Canada. Daily Dose of Democracy reported, “America’s 80-year-old nincompoop-in-chief apparently wants Canadian companies to teleport their headquarters across the border overnight as a precondition to continue doing business with the United States. ‘Let all Canadian Companies that are doing business with America move to the United States, immediately. Many of them are Companies that moved out years ago due to stupid US Leadership. When you move back, there are no TARIFFS!’ Trump wrote, mistaking his Sharpie collection for magic wands. For those keeping score at home, Canada is the United States’ second-largest trading partner with $900 billion in cross-border economic activity each year.”

Thinking it would enrage Canadians, Trump recently ‘changed’ the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, changing the mnemonic, H-O-M-E-S, used to help in remembering the names of the five Great Lakes, to S-H-A-M-E — as pointed out by Rachel Maddow and others. Janie Bonkiewitcz posted on social media, “16 years ago Google pulled its search engine out of China, refusing to submit to an authoritarian government. Today, they’re renaming lakes to appease one.” This was a result of Trump’s demand that all navigation apps alter their maps to read ‘Lake America.’ Apple held out for a few days but acquiesced. Old-timer MapQuest refused to obey, simply allowing users to name the lake whatever they preferred, gaining new adherents and users in doing so.

People have been laughing at President Trump‘s upcoming so-called mid-term convention in Dallas, which is referred to as a Trump-a-palooza, with his promises of “lots of Great Entertainment,” and “a RALLY like none other,” with no party business being conducted. The obvious message here is that the president wants to make the midterms about himself, to be onstage, hugging the American flag, cameras rolling and crowds looking on in complete adoration. The Republicans running for office? He doesn’t care and neither do the candidates because they don’t wish to be anywhere near his toxicity. So, if they lose, it’s not his fault because he won in 2024, remember? The GOP would rather not attend this two-day poorly-planned event, viewing it as a shakedown for corporate America with Trump’s placing a price tag on the ‘privilege’ to attend. The highest tier will pay $100,000 to attend, the low admission is ‘only’ $25,000 (to include one guest) — a bargain toll for their own execution, eh? Contrast the 2,000 tickets sold so far, with the 50,000 in attendance at both the Republican and Democratic national conventions in 2024.

Trump is being a total cheapskate, guarding his PAC war chest which is estimated to be in excess of $400 million, despite his own claim of a stash of $850 million, and having no intention of parting with any of it to pay for his Disaster in Dallas. “Republicans desperately need the midterms to be about anything other than Donald Trump. Trump desperately needs everything to be about Donald Trump,” writes Kos on Daily Kos. “Because he’s a grifter first and foremost, you better believe he’ll find a way to use all that donor money on himself.” Poor planning, including invitations being mailed late, finds invitees already committed to other events, or quickly finding other excuses not to attend. Trump is noticing, and he will react with his childish fury, attacking the very Republicans whose seats he is supposedly trying to save. “They’re trapped in a no-win situation entirely of Trump’s making. And it couldn’t happen to a worse bunch of people,” concludes Kos.

Politico surveyed more than 70 GOP candidates and party members, finding that most will be no-shows or are undecided about attending Trump-a-palooza, with dozens more preferring to be mum about their plans. Reasons given include pre-existing district obligations, personal family plans, washing the SUV, with some bluntly explaining that avoidance of Trump this close to the election is best. Michigan Representative Tom Barrett says he would rather be “useful” in his district, saying, “I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention, but I can control where I’m at.” Cost has to be a major deterrent, with one member admitting that the costly fee gave him an easy excuse to skip an event he didn’t care to attend anyway, and another calling it “a waste of time,” aimed at the party base instead of attempting to persuade independent voters.

Trump and VP Vance will head the two-day event at the American Airlines Center, with leaders Mike Johnson and John Thune (a maybe), and a few 2028 hopefuls in attendance. Axios obtained a leaked list of speakers, with one name in particular drawing attention among critics, that of Attorney General Todd Blanche. “The United States Attorney General is speaking at a national partisan political convention,” former Obama campaign aide, Christopher Hale posted on X. Former US Attorney Joyce Vance notes that US federal executive branch employees are prohibited by law from using their position to influence elections, saying “The AG is on the clock 24/7, and his appearance is a potential violation of the Hatch Act.” Pick your poison carefully.

Lisa Needham writes on Daily Kos that Trump-a-palooza feels like a solution in search of a problem, “an unnecessary interference with actual campaigning, the point being to make President Trump feel special.” She says that it’s not about getting Republicans elected since that is being taken care of by gerrymandering and voter suppression. According to The Wall Street Journal, photos with Trump will cost $88,600, “a number that seems weirdly arbitrary until you realize that $44,300 is the current Federal Election Commission contribution limit for donations to national party committee. So, presumably, half would go to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the other half would go to the National Senatorial Committee.” Needham calls that a bargain when you consider that a “roundtable” with Trump on the first night of the convention will run you $250,000 — as he continues to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, perhaps? It’s all about a tiny ego, folks.

At the bargain table sits VP JD Vance who offers a roundtable for only $75,000, and paltry $35,000 for a photo. Needham writes, “Honestly, we’d pay five figures NOT to have a picture with Vance, the least charming man alive and the only person currently more poisonous than Trump.” But in the end, she says, to be fair, “Trump is still really good at raising money, because everyone who loves bribing officials loves to bribe him — and he’s always open for business. At best, this convention will be a big nothing-burger; at worst, a disaster. But either way, have fun Republicans. The rest of us will just be studiously ignoring the whole thing.”

A Jack Ohman political cartoon features GOP strategists sitting around a table, looking at an Out-of-PowerPoint display on the wall, headed ‘2026 GOP HOUSE STRATEGY,’ with bullet point messages: • Deny knowing President Trump, • Pixelate his face out of your ads, • Stay in denial. Don’t worry. Be happy, • Look! A Squirrel!

The convention will not be helpful to Republicans fighting for their political lives, but it will be helpful to Donald Trump, a disparity that displays “the cost of a cynical decision made a decade ago by a party that traded a few more years in the majority for their inevitable destruction,” writes Matt Kerbel of Wolves and Sheep. “It is the cost of blindly following someone whose life’s work has been to suck the value from whatever he can acquire and cast aside the remains. This is how Trump conducted business. It is how he conducts his presidency, how he approaches relationships with other nations, and how he is treating the Republican Party.” Kerbel recognizes that Trump has no use for the Republican Party beyond what it can do for him, and it will be fully apparent this weekend as the attendees view what is happening to the party which placed its fate in the hands of a narcissist who will get what he needs.

So, this desperate effort to gin up some kind of momentum for the midterms for a few weirdos who would rather watch an aging pedophile rant about ballrooms, windmills and immigrants instead of watching the opening festivities of the NFL season, can find out more about Trump-a-palooza at gopdallas2026.com. Although, that doesn’t take you to the convention website — it takes you to the Epstein Files database on the Department of Justice’s website.  HA! — GOTCHA!

Despite the bluster of the GOP, the White House is preparing for Democrats to be in charge, said Rick Wilson, former Republican strategist, and he has a plan to go after Trump should the blue wave come to pass with the midterms. The GOP is “starting to talk about executive privilege, about lawyering up, about making sure that people have their ethics disclosures and their financial disclosures and their personal paperwork in line, that they haven’t saved any incriminating documents, and that they’re not going to be patsies when they get investigated by the coming Democratic majority,” reports Wilson. He says Trump deserves to be impeached but because of the makeup of the Senate, those votes aren’t there, but, the Democrats need to take advantage of the fear that’s building within the opposition.

Wilson says, “The minute the polls close and we know we have a majority, Democrats should take a page from the book of mob prosecutors, and work their way through Trump’s key staffers first.” Starting at the bottom and quickly working through the chain of assistants, secretaries and key career staffers for their depositions to divulge Trump’s secrets, results initiating a fear that “is delicious, palpable, growing by the minute, a fear that needs to grow into a raging terror.” Unable to afford the big-time attorneys that Trump will hire for his protection, the lesser lights will fear for their futures, and recognize the urgency of being truthful about the administration’s willful destruction of this country, or the theft of assets from the country for the president’s benefit.

Elliot Kirschner writes in Through the Fog, “There will be a rush from those who appeased or conspired with Trump to distance themselves from the ashes of the dumpster fire they helped make possible, arguing that he [Trump] was an anomaly and that we need to get back to the America we had before. But that America was a big part of the problem, because it was the country that made Trump possible. We must recognize that the story America tells about itself has always favored the points of view of the privileged and the powerful…the forces that control and reap the benefits of the status quo almost never relinquish their position without a fight.”

As Rick Wilson pointed out, the reactionary forces are already trying to set the terms of the debate when the Democrats return to power. “This is a fight for the future, and we need the language equal to the stakes. Authoritarians will demonize whatever we call a mass movement to make the United States more fair and just…fighting back and holding these people accountable is not crazy. It is exactly what our Democracy needs if we are going to continue to keep it,” concludes Kirschner.

EVERYMAN, PREDICTION, GIDDY-UP

A ceremony was held at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas last Friday, during which President Trump awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to the Artemis II crew, recognizing the four astronauts for their historic lunar flyby in April during which they set a new human spaceflight distance record of 252,756 miles from Earth. According to journalist Aaron Rupar, the president was more than an hour late, so in the interim the attendees were treated to long videos and ambient music as they waited for the MeMeMe routine to play out. Rupar live tweeted that once his speech began, he spoke to complete silence — no applause or reactions to his “brazenly partisan speech.”

“This is one of those instances where Trump’s inability to deliver a speech that’s under a half hour long really hurts him. Nobody wants to hear him riff about Venezuela and Iran for an hour+ at an event that’s supposed to be nonpartisan and in honor of other people. Complete silence at the NASA Center as Trump brags about the stock market and touts fake foreign investment numbers. Just a brutally awkward speech that is going over like farts in church,” reported Rupar. Instead of honoring the Artemis II astronauts, he talked about himself, making it a partisan speech of lies, playing his greatest hits, a total lead balloon to the scientists, astronauts, staff and their families, who sat in stony silence.

Daily Dose of Democracy’s take on the event reported that the president’s “demented brain STRUGGLED to come up with things to say to the well-educated crowd, his fryer-grease-soaked cerebellum coming up with ‘I had an uncle who was a great scientist, a great man. Was at MIT for 41 years, Dr. John Trump. And he loved space. He use to tell me about space, space, all space. He would throw in the word ‘nuclear’ every once in a while. But he loved space. I guess we have genetically, we sort of, believe in that stuff. I love it. I find it so interesting, so amazing. It’s very special.’ If there is one thing Donald Trump 100% does not care about, it’s space. There are no show tunes, fast food joints, big tough guys, scantily clad women, concrete, golden toilets, golf courses, or steam airplane catapults in space. Side note: we WOULD LOVE to hear more about the science of uncle-genes. Sigh. Houston…we have a problem.”

Trump’s struggling “to come up with things to say” is a bit more concerning to John Paul Garrison, a Georgia-based clinical and forensic psychologist, who analyzed footage of the president’s speech, in what he called the “most concerning footage” he has seen yet. His observations of various neurological concerns and some steep decline over the past few months compared to the Space Center speech “is extremely concerning.” As Trump boasted about the stock market’s performance, he briefly paused mid-sentence as his body twitched, in Garrison’s opinion, a neurological event that crosses both hemispheres in his brain. The psychologist describes his right arm jerking, eyes blinking, voice hesitating, and then the left arm jerking — not simple muscle spasms, and no sign of pain — which he terms a ‘focal aware seizure,’ or a brief epileptic event. Garrison is insisting this is not a diagnosis, but it is consistent with those who have suffered strokes, clearly neurological.

Trump did manage to announce the establishment of the US Space Academy, which will be modeled after traditional military service academies like West Point, for the purpose of training graduates for the US Space Force, NASA, and the commercial spaceflight industry. A specific location for the academy has not yet been selected, but look for a quid pro quo as Trump considers offers from contenders.

Among the cast of characters created by the late author and cartoonist Jules Feiffer was Everyman, an astute observer of the state of the nation dispensing his thoughts and ideas in serial panels. During the Reagan presidency, Everyman shared these ideas: 1. Truth hurts; 2. Before truth, this was a happy country; 3. But look what truth did to us in Vietnam; 4. Look how the truth fouled up the 1960s and the 1970s; 5. Truth has changed us from a nation of optimists to a nation of pessimists; 6. So when the president makes it a crime for Government workers to go public with truth, I say, ‘Hoorah!‘; 7. And when he bars the press from reporting our wars, I say, ‘About time!‘; 8. America doesn’t need any more truth; 9. It needs to feel better. Columnist Molly Ivins wrote, “Ronald Reagan, Feiffer observed elsewhere, represented a return to innocence; a new moral, ethical, and political Victorianism. Reagan’s Victorianism transcends truth. It circumvents politics. It gives America what it demands in a time of insoluble crisis: fairy tales.” With Trump’s embrace of space we have added yet another dimension for more of his exaggerations and lies. Tell us another one, Uncle Donny!

Thankfully, those attending the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at Ground Zero won’t be subjected to any of President Trump’s MeMeMe routines. His team made advance site visits to Manhattan, as Trump was expressing to the planners an interest in speaking at the event; but since it is established policy to disallow politicians from speaking at anniversary events, he will have to riff somewhere else — be forewarned that he will be at the Pentagon, coming from the weekend’s midterm convention in Dallas with new stories/lies to spread. A 9/11 Memorial and Museum statement said that the president is “always welcome to attend the ceremony,” however, VP Vance will be representing the administration in Manhattan.

A few weeks after launching his war with Iran, the president said that he had “predicted” that “Osama bin Laden would knock out the World Trade Center,” a year before the attacks. “I said, ‘You better get him. He’s a bad guy.’ I watched him be interviewed one time, and I said, ‘That’s a bad guy. You’d better get him. One year before exactly. I wrote it in a book,” Trump insisted. “You can even check, about a year before the World Trade Center came down.” According to a CNN fact check, Trump’s 2000 book ‘The America We Deserve‘ only mentioned bin Laden once and did not call for him to be killed or warn of any attack. Tell us another one, Uncle Donny!

Trump envisioned himself as a caped crusader, coming to the rescue of consumers in the personage of Hamburger Helper, as he initiated a plan to import beef from Argentina. Beef prices have been escalating, so the president suspended tariffs on up to 300,000 metric tons of imported ground beef for the next three months, throwing Capitol Hill Republicans into a full-blown meltdown. Promising to sell it at 25% below current market prices may sound gratifying to consumers but America’s ranchers and cattlemen — a hefty portion of the MAGA base — charge that they will be destroyed. Senator Cotton of Arkansas was vocal about this plan, writing on social media that market prices are high because cattle herds are small, as producers struggle against meatpacking monopolies.

Some staff members inside Congress are saying Trump is “an idiot who doesn’t understand economics and doesn’t understand math, who simply doesn’t grasp the laws of supply and demand.” One House Republican said that Trump is “Democrats’ secret weapon for success.” Additionally, onlookers are disturbed given Argentina’s recent history of shipping potentially health-hazardous beef, with China suspending a shipment after detecting the presence of chloramphenicol, and antibiotic that carries rare, but documented, risks of fatal side effects. Musician and social activist Bill Madden posted on X about the China incident, writing, “With serial-lying psychopath Trump as president, God help us.”

A statement released by Good Ranchers, a Texas-based direct-to-consumer meat company, says, “This isn’t alarmism. History is worth paying attention to. In 2013, Europe went through a massive food fraud scandal when products labeled beef tested anywhere from 30% to 100% horse meat. The package said beef. It wasn’t beef.” Wyoming-based beef company, Meriwhether Farms, issued a sarcastic warning to consumers earlier this year: “Chloramphenicol is banned in the US because it can cause fatal aplastic anemia in humans, but don’t worry, the US has increased beef imports from Argentina — without implementing mandatory country of origin labeling requirements!”

Andy Borowitz writes in his book, ‘Profiles in Ignorance‘, that “Donald J. Trump was born into third generation family wealth. His grandfather Friedrich Trump struck it rich during the Klondike Gold Rush not by mining gold but by ‘mining the miners,’ in the words of Trump family historian Gwenda Blair. After thousands of would-be prospectors abandoned their worn-out steeds on a treacherous mountain pass aptly named Dead Horse Gulch, Friedrich saw his big chance to break into the restaurant industry. In a forerunner of Trump Steaks, he repurposed the horseflesh as tasty entrées for famished Gold Rushers, thus launching a portfolio of businesses that soon included a highly regarded Arctic brothel. Inheriting the commercial savvy that enabled Friedrich to sell quarter-pound ‘horseberders,’ his son Fred created a thriving real estate business in New York, building thousands of apartments. ‘My father taught me everything I know,'” Donald later said. Well, giddy-up!

Not content to let his earlier Venezuelan intrusion lie dormant, Trump posted that he has locked up majority control of more than 65B barrels of that country’s proven oil reserves — the biggest oil deal in history, in ALL CAPS, he claims. The problem is that this is a geological estimate, not oil that can be pumped, refined, and sold, since it will take enormous investments and years of infrastructure work before any benefit can be realized. So, Trump’s promise of quickly lowering of prices can only be seen as another letdown. Because the Venezuelan crude is a heavy, degraded oil, a ‘sour’ oil high in sulfur content, most US refineries aren’t able to handle it, requiring new refineries that will take up to fifteen years to build.

Venezuelan leader Rodriguez announced that investment of a hundred billion dollars is backing the move, but nobody knows where it’s coming from — not Exxon, not Conoco — perhaps a newly created US entity, which would need congressional approval. The Wall Street Journal reported that Chevron and other US companies were nearing a deal to invest billions (not a hundred billion), but most companies are leery since Venezuela nationalized their assets in 2007, as they fight for restitution. Exxon declared the country as uninvestable without more durable investment protections in place.

There has been no public accounting of the $8B for 100M barrels of oil which has moved through the system in the months since the US took control of Venezuela’s oil exports. Supposedly the money sits in a Qatari bank account, but the Trump administration has failed to explain what safeguards exist to keep that cash from accumulating in a Trump slush fund. Actual production is stagnant — about 1.1M barrels per day — with risk analyst Brett Erickson calling it a blatantly corrupt deal and a clear robbery of Venezuela’s resources against the will of its own people, as he warns that the struggling population may see the truth and respond accordingly.

Economists estimate the ‘deal’ will generate tax revenue of only $3.22 per barrel of oil — less than half that of historical earnings — an unusually low figure and a complete lack of transparency. A Venezuelan opposition figure, unaligned with the previous Maduro regime, calls this a massive land grab by a rapacious mafioso US. We have to remember that Trump had praise for the so-called Freedom Fuel Network for pricing gas at $3.47 at the pump in about 20 locations, as they undercut other marketers. Turns out that Mansfield Oil Company filed a federal lawsuit against KRSM Inc. and its president, alleging KRSM took more than a million gallons of fuel valued at nearly $4M, then never paid up as it supplied the Freedom Fuel Stations. Hmmm…suspicious?

Calling it Trump’s Venezuela ‘steal,’ Ben Meiselas of MeidasTouch calls the plan “absurd and dangerous,” in misleading us to believe there is suddenly a gusher of oil to relieve our pain at the pump. Private investment companies are not identified, nor are there commitments, written agreements, and no congressional authorization for Pentagon involvement. Suddenly this underground cache will become part of the American energy supply? “Yet, Trump throws out these insane and gigantic numbers because that what he’s always done. Announce the biggest number imaginable and hope everybody repeats it before anybody asks whether it’s real. The point right now is to simply create the perception that enormous new oil supplies are coming. It’s part of this broader effort to manipulate expectations around energy prices while pretending everything is going to plan. Obviously, we’ve seen versions of this with Iran too. Announce deals that don’t really exist, claims shipping is returning to normal, talk about tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz as though everything is back to where it was, even as the numbers tell a very different story,” charges Meiselas.

“Let’s be clear: this isn’t a win,” wrote Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen in a social media post. “This is proof Trump put our service members at risk to get Venezuelan oil for his billionaire buddies. Putting our soldiers’ lives on the line for private profit is a gross dereliction of his constitutional duty.” Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, accused the president of using Maduro’s ouster to “control Venezuelan oil.” “Will prices come down for Americans? Who knows, but not likely as much as Trump has forced them up through his idiotic Iran War. But here’s a guarantee — this will pad the pockets of Trump family and Big Oil companies and delay transition to cleaner energy. Bottom line — using our troops for a private oil grab is corruption at epic scale,” Kaine wrote on X.

Well, Trump has now scooped The Onion and Andy Borowitz with the satirical profundity of the season as he ‘changes’ the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, then heads them off with the suggestion that the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans may be next in his sights for an assignation. As Arwa Mahdawi of The Guardian suggests, “Don’t mention the war! Or the economy, for that matter. Or the Epstein files. Or Natalie Harp. Or ‘affordability.’ Best not to talk about anything that affects ordinary people our embarrasses the president, really. Instead, let’s all rejoice in Trump’s latest triumph: renaming Lake Ontario, which is shared by Canada and the US, as Lake America. On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to America-fy the lake’s name on US maps and documents, which is an excellent use of time and resources. I suppose we can at least be thankful that the president, who is trying to slap his own name on everything from airports to the Kennedy Center, didn’t decree that the body of water be called Lake Trump.”

With trade negotiations between Canada and the US collapsing, that’ll show ’em we mean business! A US president ordering the name change of a Great Lake in order to antagonize a close ally would have been headline news in a normal timeline — now it’s just another Silly Thursday stunt that governmental entities will ignore, because it demonstrates that Trump is out of ideas, a desperate, isolated, weak and floundering wannabe god-king. Of course, MAGA believes it will lower our grocery bills, decrease gas prices and make healthcare more affordable as we plunge into the abyss of uncharted stupidity. One poster on social media suggested we make another lake name change — how does Lake Barack Obama is Superior sound to you? No matter how many executive orders Trump signs for inclusion in his Mar-a-Lago-bound file box, Lake Ontario will be Lake Ontario long after we stop calling Trump ‘president.’

Kos on Daily Kos writes, “Two big stories have dominated attention this week. The biggest is the hysterical reaction from Republicans over Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia including three simple words in this sentence about President Donald Trump: ‘See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.‘” So, what the heck? Let’s rub their noses in it a bit more! Kos says, “The GOP lost their minds because they know that White House assistant Natalie Harp, who writes love letters to Trump, is just freakin’ weird. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said on MS NOW that Harp is ‘his binky, for lack of a better way of putting it — a comfort blanket.” Jeff Strobinsky, on his podcast, asked, “And Melania stays in the marriage because…?”

Ossoff accused Trump of “lying a nation into a war, treating citizens as fools, and those who serve as pawns,” pointing to the sailors on the USS Lincoln who have been on the aircraft carrier far longer than is normal for an assignment, and suffering shortages under wretched conditions due to lack of supplies. “He fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, sleeping through meetings,” says the senator, being more concerned about stock trades, building self-aggrandizing monuments, and golfing. The Trump/Harp relationship came into sharper focus when it was learned that the two hid in the catering truck as the president’s entourage ‘escaped from Turkey‘ a few weeks ago, due to a supposed Iranian shoulder-fired missile assassination threat. Left behind to travel in the ‘sacrificial decoy aircraft’, were Secretary of State Rubio, Treasury Secretary Bessent, and White House adviser Stephen Miller. Nobody is more deserving than our president to have a young, platinum blond, taxpayer-funded, emotional reassurance companion for the tense flight!

And shame on those who make comments about Natalie’s resemblance to daughter, Ivanka, questioning whether or not Melania and the Trump kids love the old man! One commenter calls them “bit players in his reality show” — he doesn’t care about what they think, only caring about how they fit into his construct. We don’t see Melania tagging along with Donald in all his sojourns — not like Natalie who was seen jogging alongside a lengthy queue of golf carts in Scotland, as she attempted to stay abreast of Dear Leader’s cart. Attorney Seth Abramson suspects there is far more to the relationship than is currently known, saying, “Anyone else starting to feel like there’s a scandal hiding behind all this? The White House lost it today just because Natalie was mentioned in public. The whole nation’s ‘Spidey-senses’ should be tingling.”

Ms. Harp claimed that Trump saved her life from bone cancer, in her address at the 2020 Republican National Convention, by allowing her to be in clinical trials for an unapproved chemotherapy. “Not so,” says Edith Olmstead in The New Republic. The drug had already been approved by the FDA for trials long before Trump was in office. Liar Trump’s eventual Right to Try law, was actually a massive failure, though he claims it saved thousands of lives — six approved drugs saved thousands? Oh well, as long as Natalie believes it as well — birds of a feather.

Mike Nellis writes on Endless Urgency that we are undeserving of the ire directed toward us by the MAGA Minions — we have a right to question those who work for we the people. Not because of salacious gossip, but in Harp’s relationship with the president she might be a threat to our national security because of her extraordinary access and influence. ‘Who has the power in this White House?’ is a legitimate question. Natalie Harp feeds Trump his information — she’s called his “human printer,” constantly shaping his world view from her portable printer and boosting his ego by handing him favorable, flattering comments, reviews and posts. Nellis affirms he has zero sympathy for the MAGAts who are screaming from the rooftops about the mentions of a female staffer — where was their outrage while defending The Don’s blatant sexism and abuse of women in the past?

“Apparently, their concern for the dignity of women begins exactly where Donald Trump’s humiliation does, since they’ve spent a decade cheering while Trump attacks women, humiliates them, and weaponizes their personal lives for political gain,” charges Nellis. Jon Ossoff’s throwaway line in a Senate speech hit a nerve, angering Trump, angering Melania, a blow “below the belt,” which Nellis finds hilarious since that’s the way Trump punches. The entire White House pinball machine is on ‘Tilt,’ as some jealous staffers are leaking tidbits to the press to sabotage the relationship; however, the president is as devoted to her as she is to him — they need each other. Harp shapes Trump’s worldview, controls his narrative, controls his time, controls his mind, the mind of a man in serious cognitive decline, making this a very scary moment. This is no time to ignore this situation — they work for us, so ignore the temptation to ‘look at the bunny in the corner’ as they continue their diversion tactics.

President Barack Obama advisor, David Axelrod, finds the Trump/Harp relationship “a deadly serious issue” with it going on for more than a year, and her without a security clearance. Having access to official documents, and to Trump’s Truth Social account, his primary mode of communication, seems a bit sketchy as she decides what he reads, and which foreign leaders get access — or not? Trump biographer, Michael Wolff, is of the opinion that Harp’s closeness to Trump “is not a relationship that should exist in a professional setting,” touching on “a revolt” among Trump’s staff, unhappy with her proximity to him due to her lack of experience. Wolff thinks Harp is convinced that she’s the president’s “higher purpose bride,” but that all came crashing down when First Lady Melania Trump resurfaced after being absent for almost a month — a paid visit in all likelihood?

Melania held a press conference, emerging from the White House, holding hands with her husband, as she spoke about the expansion of her Fostering the Future Initiative in the Rose Garden — no sign of Natalie the Harpy who would normally be a feather’s throw away. Michael Wolff opines that the two women are locked in a secret power struggle, with Melania refusing to show up if Harp was present, particularly during the 2024 presidential campaign. A recent report that Harp was the leading advocate for the demolition of the East Wing of the White House — traditionally housing the Office of the First Lady of the United States — might have spurred last week’s visit…oops! She prefaced her press conference remarks with, “I heard you missed me. Here I am! Welcome to the White House.” The First Lady’s appearance didn’t quell the chatter about the affair, making it only louder. Let the battle begin!

A Mike Luckovich political cartoon shows two word balloons above the White House. One reading, “Natalie, my protector! You are a godsend! Thanks for making my life bearable!” The other balloon reads, “You’re welcome, Melania…”

Lisa Needham writes on Daily Kos that Harp is rumored to be Karoline Leavitt’s replacement as the White House mouthpiece — the gift that keeps on giving! “Normally, you’d think the sort of attention Harp is receiving would actually catapult her all the way out of the White House and into orbit, but you’d be wrong. In this administration, the fact that Harp, who currently serves as a sort of combination helpmeet, mental fluffer, and cheerleader for Trump, that getting on TV more is very important,” says Needham. Of course, she has no press-secretary-type experience, but why would you want relevant experience for any job in this administration? “It’s hard to conceive of someone worse than Leavitt, but Harp would be it,” maintains Needham. “It’s a terrific way to run a country.”

It should be noted that Natalie actually showed up at the Freedom 250 Grand Prix in DC on Sunday, as did Melania who had dibs on the president. Natalie had to console herself by chatting it up with Eric Trump as they watched Donald and Melania cruise the track in a motorcade to launch the day’s event. But rest assured that somehow, someway, the salaried executive assistant was earning her $150,000 paycheck honestly — all without running alongside the president’s limo.

Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reports that Melania will get another shot to bore us to tears, thanks to Jeff Bezos and Amazon MGM Studios. Alix asks, “When it comes to movies, everyone knows the sequel is never as good as the original. But what happens when nobody liked the original to begin with?” Rather than put a stop to any future installments, First Lady Melania’s self-titled documentary is an apparent exception, so full steam ahead for more punishment on Prime Video this fall. To be billed as a “totally different experience” and “completely new,” the retry was shot during the first 20 days of Trump’s current presidency, and will reveal a side of the former model that “hasn’t been seen yet.” That should interest Donald, you think? And, according to him, the film is “selling out — FAST.”

Getting down to brass tacks, we know that for the first movie, Bezos spent $40 million for the rights to the film, then dumped in another $35 million for marketing, then grossing a paltry $16.6 million worldwide. Melania’s return wasn’t too bad, however, netting her $10.71 million. No estimate on what she will make for the new docu-series, but we can count on the Trump Family Crime Syndicate to enrich themselves even further in this Bribery By Tech Giants scheme. Posted comments flourished on social media sites when the news broke about the impending release: Apple Bonker wrote, “Please…let’s not be so tough on Melania. After all, she has proven immigrants WILL do the jobs Americans find too gross.” Romaragazza posted: “I hear the sequel will be called ‘Some Like Them Young’.” Radders questions, “How can this be the ‘First Lady’? If she hadn’t met Epstein, she’d still be standing under her lamp post on a city street corner.” A disinterested Tony Situ posted: “I really don’t care. Do U?”

Former adviser to Trump in his first term, Anthony Scaramucci, feels that Melania’s unprecedented absence in the president’s second stint has left him “more unhinged.” Until last week, she had been present only 38 days this year, serving as First Lady in name only so as not to embarrass the president. The Mooch says, “When she was more friendly with him, she would tell him to tone it down, and he would actually listen to her. There’s very few people that Trump listens to.” He believes that Trump has actually become more emboldened with the First Lady no longer “reining him in,” leading to his instability. It’s lonesome at the top!

Hayes Brown writes on MS NOW that President Trump has a list of some of the most powerful and feared men in human history as Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan mention in their book ‘Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.’ Prominence is given to Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, William the Conqueror, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, and Joseph Stalin, all of whom are outranked by Trump with his power and his capacity to change the world — this according to the so-called historian who made the list for the president. Haberman and Swan describe the “untroubled ease with which he accepted a place among men who had reshaped the world through conquest and fear, drawing no distinction between those who built and those who destroyed.”

“The president’s megalomania helps explain some of the wildly reckless decisions of his second term, and is seeming indifference on domestic issues, as Trump appears to be dreaming of reshaping the world in his image and imagining he can do so without paying a heavy price,” writes Brown. In an interview with Jon Stewart on ‘The Daily Show‘, Haberman and Swan describe Trump as seeing himself as a Napoleonic figure even as he ignores the humiliating rise and fall of the French emperor who ended up in exile because of his overreach. The president was asked, following his invasion of Venezuela, what limits there are to his power. His classic Trumpy reply was, “There is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

He has managed to convince himself that he is a unique figure in world history, saying he is the most powerful person to ever live, and wishing to be remembered as the one who did things that other people couldn’t do, through “sheer power and force of will.” It’s unlikely that Trump will be brought back to earth soon, having surrounded himself with ‘yes men’ and sycophants. “The seeming absence of people who might check him is dangerous,” wrote journalist Michael Kruse in 2016, “In the mercurial life of Donald John Trump, here is one great truth: When he’s riding highest, he is also at his most frenzied, his most volatile — his most self-destructive.”

Trump’s cavalier approach to the Iran war, and the ongoing conflict, has tempered his aura of invincibility, dramatically weakening his poll numbers as he tries to slough off any blame, and presaging a lack of the same unfettered use of power in the second half of his term as a lame duck. Brown suggests another name for Trump’s list of the powerful — Pharaoh Ramses II, the powerful ruler of ancient Egypt, who is recognized as the subject of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘Ozymandias.’ In the poem, Shelley describes a ruined, broken monument, surrounded by empty desert, atop a pedestal inscribed with the words, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Brown goes on to say that the common thread that unites Trump with those on his list is hubris. “The unbounded pride and willingness to place themselves above all others, even the gods, has been the downfall of enough mortals that the Ancient Greeks framed it as a king’s greatest sin. Trump apparently sees himself as mightier than any man who’s ever walked the globe. His belief based on flattery and self-deception, is a combination that has felled more would-be tyrants and despots than any one list can hold.” Regretful that we have to share his world with him!

Trump’s long-time thorn-in-the-side, Rosie O’Donnell, guest-hosted ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!‘ last week and she didn’t hold back, suspecting that the president would be tuned in every night. Her final monologue brought down the house, with her version of ‘Donny Boy,’ based on the Irish tune, ‘Danny Boy‘: “Oh Donny boy, it’s Rosie, Rosie calling. From Hollywood, the Jimmy Kimmel show. Drop that Big Mac that we all know you’re holding, because my dear, I worry for you so. Poor Donny boy, your polls, your polls are falling. Your reflecting pool is green as Mountain Dew. Your wig’s a mess, your ballroom is appalling, and with Iran you bit off more than you can chew. But there’s a way to end this drama. It’s time to use that stable genius brain. Since we all know you’ll never be Obama, why not resign and make this country great again?” Daily Dose of Democracy calls one Rosie comment a whopper: “You gotta realize it’s time to hang up your wig and let Natalie tuck you in.” Toupée!

Tom Engelhardt writes on Nation of Change, “If only we could walk out on him the way he recently walked out on NBC’s Kristen Welker in the middle of an interview, when she challenged him over his wild claims of election fraud in California’s primaries. But no such luck, of course.” Tom says that with two and a half years to go, “Trump is undoubtedly going to give decline (and fall) a new meaning. It’s true that all great powers invariably go down in their own fashion, but never, I suspect, quite in the fashion of Donald J. Trump’s America.” Pronouncing Trump as uncontrollable, even by himself, he has set himself up as president, ruler, king, and dictator of a (dis)United States of America.

Trump has failed to notice that since WWII, the greatest power on earth has been unable to win its wars of choice against countries whose power bore no relation to America’s, and now Iran has become all too typical in his disastrous “excursion.” Even the elected officials and other leaders have blithely followed along, ignoring the painful lessons in the years since 1945. Only China seems to have taken note, its leaders avoiding war, aside from minor skirmishes, with Russia following in the footsteps of the US as it continues to waste its resources in Ukraine. Engelhardt credits the world’s military with having refrained from use of atomic weaponry, however, he feels that we are in a slow-motion version of atomic warfare called ‘climate change.’

He says that Trump is at war with this planet, big time, calling this mild all-to-slow-motion reality a hoax, a scam, a con job. In a true Trumpian statement, the president has insisted that the Earth is “cooling as a planet,” even as heat indexes continue to rise annually. Even the Environmental Protection Agency had stated that any actions to deal with climate change will be “futile.” As the planet continues to heat up, the powerful nations of the world worsen the situation by adding disconcerting amounts of fossil fuels to the atmosphere. Engelhardt apologizes by ending his piece on a grim note, asking us to think of Donald J. Trump as our end times president.

A post on The Intellectualist says, “A third world war is not inevitable. The conditions at issue are not a predictive checklist. They are mechanisms through which conflicts that begin separately can start changing one another. The danger is not simply that several wars are occurring at once. Regional wars can be extraordinarily destructive without becoming direct great-power wars. They remain regional when outside great powers — even while supplying weapons, intelligence, financing or political support — and do not enter sustained direct combat against one another.” The piece says that both world wars crossed that boundary because the leading powers fought one another across multiple theaters — scale does not determine the category, only the identity of the combatant does. The warning here is that the distance between regional war and great-power confrontation is narrowing by the day.

Doug McKinnon, a former White House and Pentagon official, in his opinion piece in The Hill asks, “Is the US already in WWIV — and losing?” He recalls Einstein’s dystopian vision statement: “I know not with what weapons WWIII will be fought, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones.” McKinnon doesn’t view it that way, speculating that weapons of mass destruction will be substituted with cutting-edge systems created and perfected for WWIV. No nuclear warheads, ballistic missiles or mushroom clouds — only mouse pads and joysticks! Military operations fought with debilitating cyber-attacks to shut down water supplies or electrical grids would be far-reaching and more effective.

Panic would ensue if financial systems or investment accounts were hacked and zeroed-out; hacking transportation computer systems for commuter trains, air traffic control systems, or self-driving cars would cripple all travel. And orbiting satellites would be endangered, paralyzing a wide array of informational sources. This is not fantasy or the stuff of science fiction — such cyber and social manipulation systems have been years in the making, with regular testing, especially with AI gaining prominence. We have recently seen the evidence with Iran hacking into water systems in at least 12 states. McKinnon says, “Advancing technology is a miracle, right up until the moment cyber-criminals or cyber-warriors learn how to exploit it.” The warp-speed progression of AI and robotics is meant to take human beings “completely out of the box.”

“A largely automated military, a digital currency, driverless electric vehicles with ‘kill switches,’ AI-controlled utilities — all of these conveniences also make us more vulnerable, in addition to whatever they do to worsen unemployment. Despite our perceived advances, and often because of them, adversaries, rogue states, and terrorists have entirely new avenues by which to manipulate and weaken us,” writes McKinnon. And despite the warnings of our growing vulnerabilities being relegated to white noise, we stay on the path toward empowering AI and robotics, with the smart money on our continuing to ignore the threats. What if, on its own, Artificial Intelligence concludes that humans are standing in the way of its destiny? Doug leaves us with the proverb: “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.” Picture the “2001: A Space Odyssey” computer named ‘HAL’ and its one ‘eye’!

The bone spur afflicted, draft-dodging Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image a couple of weeks ago, casting himself as a battlefield leader portraying him as a general, flanked by generals Patton and MacArthur of WWII prominence. Trump displays four stars on his epaulets, whereas the two outranked generals are showing only two stars — well below Patton’s actual four, and Mac’s actual five. Perhaps Trump’s fantasy image of four stars represent his deferments for education — he could have added a fifth for the bone spur. His chest is bedecked with countless ribbons and medals, resembling some Russian general’s photos we are probably familiar with. Missing is an eye patch for our One-Eyed Donny.

Trump’s brush with soldiering came when he was attending the New York Military Academy, earning the rank of cadet captain, hardly enough glorification for his military résumé. Problem solved by adding to his AI general persona, the Medal of Honor — conspicuous gallantry, indeed! In April, The Wall Street Journal reported that he was considering awarding himself with the coveted medal, all because his plane flew into Iraq to visit troops, landing on an unlit runway during his first term as president. “I flew to Iraq and was extremely brave. In fact, so brave I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor,” he was quoted at the time. Perhaps he should be encouraged to have his plane land on an unlit runway in Iran to add credence to his claim of bravery.

Posts by readers in reaction to the brave AI general quickly followed: “Four student deferments? With a documented GPA of 1.2 from Fordham University, and graduating 364th in a class of 366 from the University of Pennsylvania (part of public record). How was it possible for him to receive one II-S, let alone four?” Another posted, “I could also point out that both Patton and MacArthur were relieved of command for insubordination. Eisenhower relieved Patton for his resistance to denazification in Germany, and MacArthur was relieved by Truman for his insubordination regarding statements of policy contrary to Truman, and his overtures about using atomic bombs on China.” Suppose it will take an AI five-star general to remove this doofus?

Expatriate Robert Harrington offered, “That image is physically sickening…and shows how twistedly sick his mind is. That image is an absolute disgrace and insult and disrespect to our military and those who serve(d) and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. That image of HUMPTY is a textbook example of ‘STOLEN VALOR’…a persistent, strange, psychological behavior when an individual who has never served in the military claims to have performed heroic deeds and thus earned/deserved medals for their deeds (there is even a federal law regarding Stolen Valor since 2005). Every person, military and nonmilitary, should be sickened and appalled by this image, and it’s time to call out HUMPTY’S despicable behaviour.”

Appropriating humorist Jack Handey’s Risky Situation joke: “He knew he would be taking a chance by signing the Declaration of Independence. But he signed anyway. ‘Hey, what are you doing, Mr. Trump? That’s the Declaration of Independence,’ said the museum guard, chasing after him.” Doesn’t sound so far-fetched, does it?

A Bob Dylan quote gets the last word: “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” Our president is soaked to the bone by now!

Cliff Schecter and Dan Perry in their post on Blue Amp Media, state that most historical turning points are obvious — Pearl Harbor, 9-11, JFK’s assassination — with most realizing that such events will shape all history that follows, only to be revealed with the passing of time. The two pick December 12, 2000 as different, divergent, yet a consequential day that had “greater long-term significance on the health, wealth, and welfare” of the nation within what they term a “biased and corrupt decision” of the US Supreme Court. “In a partisan 5-4 decision that will live in infamy — decided in Bush v. Gore to ignore the traditional role of states in administering their elections (as laid out in the Constitution) and shut down vote counting in Florida with an unnecessary, arbitrary deadline, and ‘selected’ George W. Bush as the 43rd President of the United States,” they wrote.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush, George W. Bush’s brother, had promised beforehand that the state would be delivered to the GOP candidate. Four of the five right-wing Court members who ruled in favor of Bush had been appointed to their stations by none other than President George H.W. Bush, prefacing the “trajectory of American foreign policy, constitutional law, political institutions, and even the Political culture from which later presidents emerged, in ways both profound and incredibly harmful to the American republic.” Schecter and Perry argue that this might be regarded as “the beginning of the division, decadence, and decay of American democracy” as witnessed over the past quarter century — the long decline of the US as a superpower which once had a leadership position around the world.

Events in the intervening years can only suggest that this defining moment was far from an otherwise ordinary decision, with the strongest argument being the invasion of Iraq. A President Gore may have been unable to ward off the 9-11 attacks, but the Blue Amp essay determines that a policy wonk like Al Gore would not have been “clearing brush on a Texas ranch discussing ending stem-cell research,” as his national security team was creating briefings entitled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US.’ Greater attention would have been paid to such findings, but in the aftermath of attacks, Gore would assuredly have gone into Afghanistan in pursuit of al-Qaeda, and bin Laden.

Many of Bush’s advisers were chomping at the bit to remove Saddam Hussein before 9-11, and the fake intel on weapons of mass destruction only roared to the fore after the attacks on New York and Washington, DC. The push to go into Iraq proved to be based on lies, resulting in expenditure of trillions of dollars, the loss of countless lives, and the shattering of America’s credibility. As we are all aware, presidents and their administrations tell lies in varying degrees from time to time, with countless pretexts. Lyndon Johnson and Richard ‘I am not a crook’ Nixon are probably standouts for most of us, their having presided over a most calamitous time in our history.

After the 9-11 attack, with nearly 3,000 people killed in the fallen towers, the Pentagon, and a downed airliner in Pennsylvania, the shocked nation unified in its grief. But then fear raised its ugly head, and the unqualified George W. found himself presiding over an anxiety-ridden country that was quickly becoming divided and suspicious. The administration saw that those fears could become politically advantageous, and so began a reorganization that plagues us still. The Department of Homeland Security came into being, with domestic surveillance expanding and security strengthening, resulting in today’s fear of our own government.

A recent viewing of the Molly Ivins‘ documentary, ‘Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?, and revisiting her 1992 book of essays, likewise entitled, brought forth many chuckles, and a new ‘appreciation‘ for her insightful explorations of the Reagan administration. Her outspokenness led her to begin one article with, “I know some of you humorless old lefties think we shouldn’t gloat publicly over Reagan’s difficulties. Listen, my momma may have raised a mean child, but she raised no hypocrites. I love this. I can’t wait to read the newspapers every morning. I’m entitled to this satisfaction. It has not been easy to be anti-Reagan in Texas for the last six years. Damn, right, I’m gloating.

“One interesting aspect of the big mess is the political sociology of lying. The Republic has sunk to such a state that our public servants not only lie but brag about it and even seem to consider it their chief function. Damage control, deniability, spin, turn. Watching the spin doctors at work is fascinating. The step is to blame the media for everything. If the ‘delicate negotiations’ go awry, it is the press’s fault.” Molly recounts the administration’s attempt to end the terrible war between Iraq and Iran by sending arms to bring peace. “Ah,” the president said with great lucidity, “It’s true we shipped weapons to Iran, but they were defensive weapons.” She concludes, “If the man had a brain he’d play with it.” Contemporaneous observation, as well?

She continues with, “The charm of Ronald Reagan is not just that he kept telling us screwy things; it was that he believed them all. No wonder we trusted him — he never lied to us. His stubbornness, even his defiance, in the face of facts was nothing short of splendid. It made no difference how often you told him something he didn’t want to believe. This is the man who proved that ignorance is no handicap to the presidency. Some days having Reagan for president was like finding Fidel Castro in the refrigerator; like the time he appointed thirteen people to a commission on AIDS — including a sex therapist who thought you could get AIDS from toilet seats; some fruitloop who claimed gays were engaging in ‘blood terrorism’ by donating infected blood; and a longtime friend who ran a controversial ‘AIDS testing clinic’ out of her van. No one on the Commission was a medical specialist with any experience in treating AIDS.”

Ivins explains that Reagan was a candidate for the Moral Majority and the Religious Right, but “unfortunately, his administration was so riddled with corruption that as late as 1985, 563 federal officials were indicted with 470 being convicted — a tenfold increase over the high-water mark of Watergate.” Molly couldn’t let it pass about Nancy Reagan’s gazing in attention at her husband’s speeches, “as if she were witnessing one of the wonders of the world, no matter how many times she had to sit through that drivel.” Ivins claims that Nancy “sought to shed her reputation as a vain, vapid clotheshorse by valiantly combatting the drug epidemic with the most ringingly inane and inappropriate slogan in the history of folly: ‘Just Say No.’ All who have been saved from drugs by Nancy Reagan, please raise your hands. Thank you.”

Esquire contributor, pundit, and author Charles Pierce writes, “I saw Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill,” in his critique of recent presidents. “In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and say, ‘And we shall overcome.’ I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver a eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh’s madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing ‘Amazing Grace’ in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.

“And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

“The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides. We never have had such a cheap counterfeit of a president as currently occupies the office. We never have had a president so completely deserving of scorn and yet so small in the office that it seems almost a waste of time and energy to summon up the requisite contempt.

“Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don’t have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too.

“Watch him behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn’t he a funny man? Isn’t what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now.”

The turning point of Bush v. Gore and its horrific and illegal outgrowths — torture and its justifications of cruelty and vindictiveness, preventative war, rendition and gulags, erosion of due process with deportations, the placement of unqualified cronies in key government positions — can be viewed as seeds of today’s fully grown lawlessness under Trump’s War Department, ICE, and the Justice Department, and the further corruption of the Supreme Court. Alongside these factors, Schecter and Perry place global warming as an issue that a President Gore would have recognized as a central priority, remaining within the Kyoto Protocol, and pushing the country into the new century with a different posture for this long-term challenge.

The worst predictions about climate change are becoming more evident in today’s world, with rising seas encroaching upon coastal cities, rising temperatures melting glaciers and jeopardizing lakes and rivers that sustain life, displacement of people in regions that are becoming too hot for human habitation from the resultant drought and famine, as ecosystems collapse. Geopolitical conflicts will intensify in the competition for food and water, leaving these survivors to deal with the mess left by the December 12, 2000 court decision, with Trump and his criminal enterprise continuing to stuff their pockets. How long will the world, Charles Pierce included, be content to watch the assembled morons cheer on this story?