Tag Archives: Donald trump

Trump Times Entry 278 – Begging the Obvious, He Doesn’t Give a FK

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Begging the Obvious, He Doesn’t Give a FK

August 14, 2017

Feeling scattered, getting angry again

This is my third try at writing today’s blog. Took a swing at highlighting Republican responsibility for gifting us the Donald – seemed trivial, went nowhere. Took another try with mocking Repubs for not realizing what Trump was, but upon reflection, decided they did know what he was. They just didn’t care. Both ideas fizzled, neither felt right.

Instead I kept flashing back to: they killed another one of us this weekend. And now the alt-right spokesmen are slut-shaming her and Donald Fucking Trump can’t bring himself to talk about the murder, no less condemn the perpetrators, or even mention her name – Heather Heyer.

While at the same time, Trump could specifically name and attack Ken Frazier when Ken resigned from the Donald’s council on manufacturing this morning. Mr. Frazier, head of Merck pharmaceuticals, quit “as a matter of personal conscience” and “to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.” Seemingly in response to this weekend’s events.

Trump, of course, attacked him on Twitter and threatened to “LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” (The caps are the Donald’s – he’s such an alpha-male.)

So, Trump’s still attacking, just not the alt-right. (CEO quits the Donald’s club – attack, Nazi kills demonstrator – meh.)

The Donald’s gentle behavior regarding the alt-right (and Putin, for that matter) begs the question: why? Does the Donald fear them? Is he, somehow, beholden to them? Does he think they’re too small to be concerned with? (Even when they commit murder.) Or is he sympathetic with their racist world view?

Does it even matter? While answers to those question might be of some interest, the fact that we’re compelled to ask them is telling. The reasons why notwithstanding, Trump just gave another pass to the alt-right, after a murder. And they loved it – they’ve been blogging about how cool he is since his non-condemnation Saturday.

The election, two-hundred-eighty days ago, was the first step towards Heather’s murder. Trump’s implicated and will continue to ignore alt-right violence against the republic – as surely as Trump lies or alt-right cowardice.

Resist,
osv

PS-
12:00pm:
The Donald just publicly condemned neo-Nazis and racism after two days of criticism for not doing so. He did not make a direct reference to the weekend’s violence, mention the killing or say her name. Just more generic political-speak. Perfunctorily.

Trump Times Entry 278 –

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Summer Reruns

August 13, 2017

Unsettlingly Nostalgic

Trump attacks. That’s how the Donald responds to conflict. We’ve witnessed enough iterations to generalize: CNN shares an embarrassing story about Trump – Trumps attacks, Mitch McConnell fails to get a bill to the Donald’s desk – Trump attacks, Mueller investigates Trump financials – Trump attacks, Jeff Sessions won’t help with containing the investigation – Trump attacks, terrorists strike in France or Great Brittan – Trump attacks the terrorists and the victim country. There’s lots more, he’s blasted Democrats, Republicans, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled people, Judges, women, Australia, Venezuela, Korea and California.

He’s a one trick pony in a great big tent. (metaphor intentionally mixed – I like the image)

Trump attacks.

Except for two very specific things: Vladimir Putin, and the far right.

For example, just last week, the Donald thanked Putin for expelling 750 U.S. diplomats. (His communication staff clumsily spun his thanks as ironic.) Then, yesterday, he blamed “many sides” for the violence in Charlottesville. Violence that led to the death of a Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old local anti-racist demonstrator, and injured nineteen other anti-racist demonstrators. Violence by a twenty-year-old alt-right follower.

Many sides.

The Trumpster laid a generic “We’re in this together” message on us as his response to the incident. He offered no mention, no less critique, of the alt-right, white supremacists or, even, Nazis. He, instead, implied an equivalence: all sides are at fault, Nazis and anti-racist – the same, many sides.

So, why? Why’s Trump so quick to spread around the guilt regarding alt-right related violence, when he instantly attacks pretty must everything else that offends him. (Except for Vladimir, of course. That’s a special case.)

Perhaps, he’s not offended.

My compulsive counting of days since that fucking election has reached two-hundred-seventy-nine. It’s not even been a year, but feels like we’ve been dragged back to sixties, back to when racists wore their colors with impunity and hid behind monikers like John Birch or the American Independent Party rather than alt-right.

But, roses by another name…

The republic knows it’s no Summer of Love out there, but with protests erupting over issues thought settled back then, with our protracted foreign war and VA failing vets again, with political leadership pandering to the same, old white male, population as back then, it’s beginning to feel like a summer 1967 rerun.

And nineteen sixty-eight sucked,
osv

Trump Times Entry 277 – At Wits End

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At Wits End

August 12, 2017

Dazed and Confused

I need a Trump reset. Think the I overdosed yesterday when I read the Donald would not rule out military options for Venezuela. One would think, after watching Trump for the last two-hundred-seventy-seven post-election, pre-apocalypse, days nothing could surprise me. But, wrong again – military options? Venezuela? WTF?

At first, I thought he was just saying shit to get a reaction, but there was a familiar overtone. Seemingly from out-of-nowhere, the Venezuela option felt just like back when Trump accused Obama of tapping his phones. Too absurd to take seriously, but that very absurdity drove discussion, attracted attention. The phone-tapping story lives today, despite being debunked by the FBI last March.

And other shit keeps piling up: Korea, Russia, open warfare within the GOP, back-stabbing within the DEMs, white supremacist rallies, anarchists forming organizations and practicing dress codes, trigger happy cops abound, healthcare still a mess, voter rights under attack, allies don’t trust us, hate crimes are up, gun control is down, economic division continues to widen and our planet’s thermostat’s broken.

So, of course, invading Venezuela is on the table.

I don’t know about the rest of the republic, but I need to rethink how I perceive the Donald. Commonplace classifications haven’t worked. He’s not an effective politician, regardless of how much he lies. He’s not a great businessman, no matter how much money he cheated from people. He’s not even a good conman, his stories are clumsy and, frankly, he’s not that attractive. Yet, he sets the tone and nearly forty percent of us still support him.

And that makes as much sense as attacking Venezuela.

Must be missing something,
osv

Trump Times Entry 275 – Locked and Loaded Lunatics

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Locked and Loaded Lunatics

Anger seeping through providence

August 11, 2017

As expected, the Donald escalated the war of words with North Korea this morning by tweeting the U.S. military was locked and loaded. He went on to brag that America and South Korea would move forward with large-scale military exercises – war games, later this month.

Earlier in the week, North Korea announced their own plans to target missile strikes near Guam – not at Guam, but near – in a different sort of war game, later this month.

Great, a couple tough-guy wannabes, too chicken to serve, are publicly screaming at each other as they position to play war in the same neighborhood, later this month.

But, Rex Tillerson and what’s left of the State Department assure us we have nothing to worry about. Rest easy, they tell us – don’t read too much into it. Trump’s just using language Kim Jong-un will understand. Yet, today’s tweets, sound more like language only Trump understands.

Hell, speculation about Trump’s mental health is now even coming from Republicans. Speculation on Kim’s mental state has never been good. So, later this month, we’re gonna have two crazy tough-guy wannabes circling each other brandishing phallic weapons.

Perhaps, we should just let the lunatics fight – each other, but without the phallic machines. If the Donald and Kim really want to get into it, let’s put them into a cage wearing speedos (phallic enough) and make an event of it. A mixed-martial-arts, last man standing wins, grudge match. No rules, just a testosterone versus testosterone primal war game. Shit, we could even let Trump brand and promote it – you know, schedule it at a Trump property, later this month.

That way perhaps, since these”leaders” would have something personal at risk, skin in the game as it were, maybe they wouldn’t be so willing to risk the rest of us in their cockfight, later this month.

It only took the Donald only two-hundred-seventy-six days, since the election, to raise the specter of nuclear war – negating nearly three decades of, post-cold-war, de-escalation. Good job asshole!

The republic needs to institutionalize the Donald before he picks a fight with someone willing to fight back. Rest assured, when all-hell breaks loose the Donald will be Tweeting from somewhere safe while we live and die with the consequences. As will little Kim.

Later,
osv

Trump Times Entry 274 – Trump Brand Fight Club

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Trump Brand Fight Club

August 10, 2017

Kind of numb – perhaps, punch drunk.

We’re all members of the Donald’s fight club. Sure, some of us don’t realize it because, well, you don’t talk about fight club – rules one and two. But membership’s been mandatory since the election, two-hundred-seventy-five days ago because rule three of Trump’s Fight Club is: everyone’s a member. The last rule: the Donald gets to pick the fights, is another variation on the original, but consistent with the Trump corporate policy. Hence, fair enough for the Donald, so fair enough for the country.

The notion that Trump always wins is not so much a rule as a social construct. Over the years, we’ve found that when playing with the Donald, it’s best for the Donald to win – it’s only polite. And he gets crabby if he doesn’t.

While discussing the club is not allowed, discussing the fights is encouraged. After all, every mention of a fight will include mention of the Donald and that’s the point – the Donald.

The fights have been numerous: Trump vs the press, Trump vs the FBI, Trump vs Rosie, Trump vs Australia, Trump vs Germany, Trump vs Clinton (still), Trump vs Trump golf club members, Trump vs Trump University students, Trump vs real university students, Trump vs trans people, Trump vs. Comey, Trump vs the EPA and Trump vs Kim Jong-Un – just to name a few.

Of late, the Donald’s  even started up with fellow Republicans. His latest go-round with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, while off to a slow start, promises to get ugly fast and may entertain us clear through the holidays. Can’t wait for the Donald to whip out the frog insults.

Of course, none of the fights have ever come to actual fisticuffs. If they had, Megyn Kelly would have kicked his overweight ass last Fall (Trump vs Megyn Kelly, October 2016). But to be fair, we can’t expect the Donald to physically fight, what with his bone spurs and all. So,Trump gets to stick with rhetoric and leave the dangerous stuff to the rest of – yeah, I know, another variation from the original rules.

To be sure, the Trump branded fight club rules differ significantly from the original. Nevertheless, the republic recognizes that the Donald’s fight club is based the same base principle: the desire to destroy something beautiful.

Defend yourselves at all times,
osv

Trump Times Entry 273 – A Fool’s Fire and Fury

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A Fool’s Fire and Fury

August 9, 2017

Scared, but resigned.

The man who didn’t serve in his generation’s war seems determined to drag this generation into another. The news feeds are pounding the drums, sources in high places say the Donald’s threat was “unexpected, but it wasn’t surprising” – a fine distinction. Other officials tell us, “Don’t read too much into it”. Secretary of State Tillerson says, “Americans should sleep well at night”. The legitimate government, such that it is, quotes “Don’t Panic” mimes to us.

Yet, the orange clown with the red button tweets about our nuclear arsenal as if it were one of his gold commodes.

It’s been only two-hundred-seventy-four days since the unexpected, but not surprising bullshit election and the republic is unlikely to sleep well tonight regardless of what the Exxon CEO disguised as our top diplomat says.

The Donald’s Republican support is retreating, the grand jury is closing in – and there’s nothing like a war to sway public opinion. So, dragging us into a military distraction seemed likely. Still, it was unexpected (but not surprising) when Trump opened with the nuclear option.

The mistake was, once again, giving him too much credit.

Overthrow the Tyrant,
osv

Trump Times Entry 272 – Leaks Spring Eternal

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Leaks Spring Eternal

August 8, 2017

A little hopeful

The Donald loved leaks, especially WikiLeaks, during the election. He cited them all the time during those last few weeks of his Russian enhanced marketing campaign. Legal or illegal, indelicate or irrelevant, didn’t matter. The public’s need to know (and Trump’s need to speak) was the thing, not Clinton’s or the government’s privacy. And the media covered it double time – splashed the leaks themselves, then featured Trump swinging them like bludgeons.

Quite the spectacle, the old guy outraged over the girl’s inside story. The whole thing felt kind of lewd, but without the necessity of viewing skin. A small, but important, kindness for sure.

Of course, now the Donald is outraged about the leaks gushing from his sieve-like White House. Funny how leaks persist, regardless of who’s in charge. And when the boss is an asshole, employees tend to talk about him – not at work, of course, but after-hours in dark watering holes and parking lots.  Satisfaction will be taken in private, if not allowed in public.

People talk and with a subject as big, seedy and controversial as the Donald they talk a lot.

They talk about Trump playing golf when he should be working. They talk about the Donald cheating at said golf. They talk about meetings with Russian operatives. They talk about the Donald yelling at the TV. They talk about the intelligence community withholding information from the Donald. They talk about Trump’s shitty telephone manners. They talk about Trump attempting to open black site prisons. They talk about how much Putin pays the Donald.

It’s ironic how the thing that got him elected, Trump’s talent for compelling people to talk about him, will eventually get him hung. Fitting and worth discussion.

I’ve been talking about the Donald and his band of cartoon characters for two-hundred-seventy-three days now and that election seems a distant past. Much has changed, but our drive to communicate has not. If anything the drive grows stronger.

The Donald and his boy, Jeff Sessions, cannot prevent those around them from forming opinions and acting on them. And regardless of a person’s ideology, we are all compelled to speak about what concerns us. It can’t be helped or prevented, even by the fascist pretender.

The republic finds all the chatter, even that which offends, hopeful.

Still the romantic,
osv

Trump Times Entry 271 – Donald’s Discipline

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Donald’s Discipline

August 7, 2017

Feeling all sorts of nostalgic.

Apparently, someone thought Trump’s new chief of staff, General Kelly, would bring some discipline to the Donald show. Somehow, someway, mainstream media were expecting a changed, more reserved, Donald – at least for the moment.  After all, he’s on vacation spending government money at a Trump resort and his new chief’s a Marine General. So, it’ reasonable expect relative quiet for a while, right? Ha!

At 5:38 AM, the Donald kicked off his first vacation week with a classic Twitter tantrum. He started with attacking the media by calling The New York Times fake news, then bragged about his rally sizes, talked about his many achievements and touted a larger than ever fan base. Then he brought it full-circle by attacking the media again, but including CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Washington Post as targets along with the original NY Times.

It was a chaotic circular five tweet essay. Started in a direction, then randomly jumped from topic to topic, but somehow ended on theme – actually, on enlarged theme. Hmm…

I probably would have given him a “B” grade for his effort. (“A” for technical structure, but a “C” for boring the audience with old bullshit – we constantly need something new and he knows it. Also, five tweets are too many – a pro can tell the story in four or less.) Would have been a solid B, had he stopped there. But this is the Donald, need I say more?

Trump came back at 6:47 AM to hammer Senator Richard Blumenthal about his military record. As a reaction to Blumenthal’s saying the Russian investigation “must be pursued” on CNN, Trump called the Senator a “phony Vietnam con artist!”

Yeah, personal attack had always been one to Trump’s go-to tactics, but this is a rerun. He’s said this shit about Blumenthal before. Plus, Trump attacking people who actually served (Blumenthal was in the Marine reserves for 6 years, while Trump played soldier at a rich-kids boarding school) never lands well. Sadly, the second Twitter rant only warrants a “D” – and that’s charitable.

So, the Donald gave us a “B” and a “D” effort this morning – overall a “C” performance. Disappointing.

Then again, it may not be the Donald’s fault (it never is). Maybe this mediocre performance is the result of the new chief of staff reigning Trump in. Gee, maybe the speculation was right. Is this the new restrained Trump?

Two-hundred -seventy-two days ago, back before the arranged election, late summer living was easy. I read for interest, not for fear, and the republic was assumed. Twitter was not. Good times.

Jail Trump,
osv

PS-
How long till General Kelly is compelled to move on? Who next – maybe Sarah Palin? Remember back when Sarah was the absolute wackiest? Good times.

Trump Times Entry 270 – Low Trump Impact Day

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Low Trump Impact Day

Mutual love and respect

August 6, 2017

Feeling reservedly optimistic – hence, a little foolish

Let see, it’s Sunday, the Donald’s on vacation, congress is on break, Trump’s tweets have just been garden variety self-congratulatory stuff and he hasn’t threatened anyone in the last 24 hours. All seems quiet on the fascist front.

Perhaps the most alarming news, of late, has been speculation that Trump is considering Stephen Miller, his combative neo-Nazi adviser, to replace the Mooch. Looks like they’re planning to replace an unhinged loudmouth with a fake intellectual loudmouth. A step up? Meh.

Given the attention Miller gets (the press kind of hates him, but loves to quote him), I suspect he won’t last long on that job. We all know, the Donald hates it when other guys get too much attention. Perhaps, the most interesting question regarding the Miller appointment is: will he last longer that the Mooch? I suspect he will last longer, but secretly hope Miller sets a new fastest-fired record – he has the potential.

So, other than a fresh new neo-Nazi White House face, not much new is happening.

Yeah, let’s call today, the two-hundred-seventy-first since the election, a low Trump impact day. The republic needs it.

Summer’s fading – the light, the angle of the sun’s different. Back to school sales have been sighted, harvest motifs on the horizon.  Autumn’s bearing down – inevitable as a Trump lie or a grand jury’s indictment.

Looking forward to change,
osv

Trump Times Entry 269 – A Well-Earned Vacation

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A Well-Earned Vacation

August 5, 2017

Feeling late summer lazy.

So, the guy who never takes a vacation (to quote the Donald, “Don’t take vacations. What’s the point?”) is taking seventeen days off this month. This hiatus comes after 25 days in Mar-a-Logo, 14 days at his New Jersey golf club and two days at Camp David since his inauguration in January. Yup, the guy’s got a nice work ethic.

But, the Donald plans to continue tweeting and meeting while summering in Jersey – so, had he not told us, I don’t think anyone would have noticed he was vacationing. I mean, he’ll be living at one of his resorts (on the tax payer’s dime), tweeting, holding luncheon and diner meetings in public restaurants, watching cable TV and playing golf. Sounds pretty much like any other day in the Trump regime.

On the other hand, if the Donald had, let’s say, Obama’s work ethic (Barack took 15 leisure days through August in his first term, Trump’s doing 53) we’d be in even deeper shit than we are. So, there’s that.

If nothing else, after two-hundred-seventy days of post-election Trump immersion, the republic could use a seventeen-day break. Unfortunately, unless someone takes the Donald’s phone away, we won’t reap any benefit from a Trump vacation, we’ll just bear the cost.

But frankly, he would just shut the fuck up for those seventeen days, it would be money well spent.

Enjoy the Dog Days,
osv

PS –
Yeah, right. Like Trump’s gonna be quiet and take a break – not!  Expect his tweets to get progressively more unhinged as boredom sets in and the Russian investigations leak more Trump dirt. Late summer trashy reading is on the way.