Item: The Oroville Dam in California, the nation’s highest, in apparently in imminent danger of collapse after damage to the dam’s main spillway following severe storms earlier this week. A metaphor for other things? Or a cautionary tale for a global-warming-denying-President?
Item: Democratic Senator Al Franken tells all who’ll listen that his Republican colleagues in the Senate believe that Republican President Donald J. Trump is mentally unstable.
Item: The Grey Lady reports on turmoil at the National Security Council, where the National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, may well have improperly signaled future American policy to a hostile power (that would be Russia) while not yet in office… a problem… and Steve Bannon is on the council… a problem… and the President (gak) is looking for public reaction to determine his next move. Meanwhile, the Jared Kushner owned New York Observer offers an analysis of an intelligence community determined to push back against the Trump Administration.
Item: The President is complaining that the media is not reporting about thousands of enthusiastic supporters cheering him at Mar a Lago. Given that he’s probably paying many of them time and a half or more for their presence, his irritation is understandable. Perhaps the crowds are admiring the President’s golf game, which he now devotes much time to (after, of course, criticizing Obama for playing golf.)
Item: At least someone is optimistic in light of the Trump Presidency: Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, who suggests that having “the idiot Trump” in the White house is cause for optimism.
Item: In the same week Nordstrom’s dropped Ivanka Trump’s clothing line, Kmart and Sears are dropping their connection to Trump branded products. If Walmart goes… he’s sunk.
Kudos to (gak) the President, insofar as he has altered my understanding of the laws of physics, and, for the now just over three weeks (that’s it?) he has been President, he has made time run slower. The question is… what can we take out of the fire-hose worth of activity that has been unleashed (often at the unfortunate speed of “Twitter”– a medium whose stupidity I can personally attest to since I’ve my good friend Donald J. Putin has been following the affairs of state.)
Superficially, Trump is a self-absorbed buffoon, stuck in a 3 or 4 year old’s narcissistic state of demanding approval and recognition for his greatness. Part of this is his Roy-Cohn-Dark-Side-Jedi training of always lashing out at anyone who crosses him, no matter how small or meaningless the alleged slight, coupled with refusal to pay just debts. But there is also the master tactician at work, who always manages to squeeze something out of any situation for himself, while screwing vendors, contractors, partners, customers, etc. etc. (hint: this won’t go so well for the American people). He has figured out that small-minded meanness (of a kind that comes naturally to him) is shockingly popular, and hence, he won’t drop his idiotic calls for a Southern border wall and his downright psychotic insistence that Mexico will pay for it, and of course, his surprisingly popular attempt to ban Muslims from entering the United States (then again… how unpopular is it?).
And that’s just it. Never before have we had a government come in whose explicit goal was to lie about everything, from voter fraud to the size of crowds to their contacts with Russia presumably to their golf handicaps. So… it becomes hard to see what exactly is coming.
Damned if I know; I just know that I will be very likely poised to oppose it, because it’s almost certainly anathema to every principle this country is supposed to stand for. I think.
tdog
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