Flim Flam Boss

I'm sure many of you have read the various pieces in the media, chronicling the long litany of lies spewed by the Orange Menace. It's almost the converse of the old adage - you tend to loose the trees through the forest, the forest being, of course, the main storyline: that Donald Trump has to be the worst, least qualified President in the history of the United States. By all accounts, he is on track to do the most harm to the U.S. and the rest of the world with his hate-filled, white supremacist-driven agenda of returning this country back to the nightmare days of Jim Crow...while simultaneously trashing this country's standing to play any kind of role on the global stage.

Now, THAT takes real talent. Believe me, believe me.

Not sure that this toon is necessarily topical but it's just as pertinent now as it was the first time Trump opened his triple chinned greasy pie hole. At some point we have to recall each and every lie that Trump has thrown out there for us to swallow, and then hold him accountable for each one. Each constitutes an indelible stain on the legitimacy of the office of the presidency, a stain on the institutions of democratic governance and a stain on the honor of this country. In fact, that's exactly what Donald Trump is: a filthy, reeking stain, the kind you have to treat your drawers for before throwing them in the washing machine. Otherwise, you're stuck with the streaks.

And need I remind you, GOP, that's your spoiled rotten brat out there. So whatever he's doing to this country with your complicity and support, that's entirely on you. If he streaks it, you own it.

Try shouting that out.

Out With the Old, Trash the New

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays, reconnecting with family and friends...and binging on carbs and sweets. Now we have the new year to look forward to and with all of our best intentions we will all try to make resolutions to do better, be better...at least that's what most of will be doing. But I know one person who won't be bothering with such introspective pursuits so filled is he with narcissistic self-regard and disdain for anyone and anything else in this world.

Which is why I can't say I'm really look forward to 2018. We'll have at least one more year of Trump unfettered, certainly not by the band of soulless Republicans enablers in Congress. Pundits talk about how they haven't accomplished much besides the massive tax cut and confirmation of the Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court judgeship they stole from Merrick Garland. I would respectfully disagree - look at the massive rollback of environmental, health, labor, financial and consumer safety regulations. These regulations were designed to respond to real, documented abuse by private sector actors and to protect our society's most vulnerable from the real costs of our Social Darwinian economic system.

I'll focus on just one example of this frightening reverse a century's worth of social and economic reforms - the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It has been said that the compassion and strength of a society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. It that's the case, then the refusal of the Republican Congress and the Trump administration to renew and sustain CHIP stands out as one of the more egregious examples of their examples of hypocrisy as the self-appointed party of "Family Values." Combined with the reverse Robin Hood tax cut that lavishes benefits on the wealthiest, this callous act of omission has reinforced what has been apparent to most for past 50 years, the Republican Party's complete and utter moral bankruptcy. Happy New Year, kids, and good luck with that.

Fake Jews...and I Imagine They're All Very Fine People

Donald and the rest of the Trailer Park Wahhabis recently declared victory in their Crusade against the Infidels who were committing apostasy by wishing folks, "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." With all the problems we face as a nation, and THIS is what has occupied Trump's tiny brain for the past 2 months? Not that I'm surprised. It probably provides a useful distraction when he's fretting about the latest fake news that's flashing on his big screen TV in his man child cave in the White House residence.

And who better than to aid and abet in overcoming the heretics spouting fake news then Trump's very own Fake Jews! Okay, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, who did express his distaste for the Tiki Torchnacht march in Charlottesville after his boss made heroic efforts to try to normalize the neo-Nazis and white supremacists and what they stand for. And then he clammed up and went on his business developing the horror show that is the Republican tax cut, which is about to be voted on in Congress.

Cohn, Kushner and Miller are all very much behind Trump's plutocratic-fascist agenda. Thanks to them, many of their fellow Americans are worse off and this country is now firmly on a glide path for the rubbish bin. Shame on them. I thought that when Hillel (and others) offered the golden rule it was "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," not "Screw all the others and do what's good just for you." I must have missed that lesson in Hebrew School.

The Grinch Who Cut Taxes

Looks like the GOP will give the Donald his Christmas wish: the passage of his big, beautiful - more beautiful than this country has ever known - tax cut. Now all of the GOP donors will stuff their minions' stockings with more campaign contribution loot instead of coal, although they probably wouldn't mind a little clean coal to heat their McMansions and power their luxury yachts.

I have to admit that I'm at a bit of loss when I try picking out which aspect of the 500+ pages of this Reverse Robin Hood bill revolts me the most: permanent tax cuts for corporations that are already sitting on trillions of dollars in cash with no elimination of the many loop holes; reduction of the top tax bracket's marginal tax rate for the wealthiest; eliminating the alternative minimum tax for, again you guessed it, the wealthiest; and an increase in the minimum required for levying the estate tax, which will benefit...wait for it...YES! The congenitally silver spooned.

Of course, this is only the first move in the GOP's mad dash to undo 80 years of socioeconomic progress. Next up? Taking an ax to our already frayed social safety net - medicare, medicaid and social security - because, these plutocrat lovers claim, such social programs, which benefit mostly the rest of us, are the real driver of the federal deficit, not, of course, the additional $1-1.5 trillion they will have added with this bill. So get ready, Christmas Eve is just a week away, and since jack-booted border patrol agents will have probably refused Ol' Saint Nick entry at the border, most of us will be welcoming the Grinch into our homes instead. Be sure to leave out plenty of Diet Coke and Big Macs, and tune your TV to Fox & Friends - maybe he'll leave you a few crumbs after he has robbed us all blind.

Roll Tide

It ain't over yet, but it looks like Doug Jones will be Alabama's next senator, and Roy Moore can go crawl back under his rock and maybe take some of his hater followers with him. They probably won't all be able to fit, but hopefully there are more rocks down in Alabama so they can all keep each other company, stewing in their supremacist hatred and self-righteousness.

And then there's the Donald, who blew it again. No amount of alternative facts and spin will remove the stink from this one. He blew it, BIG-ly, and now he gets to reap what he sowed - the beginning of the end. Throw in Mueller & team's continued steady progress on peeling back each layer off the stinking onion that is the Trump administration's corruption and collusion with the Rooskies, and I can only imagine that there's been an uptick in deliveries of Depends to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Finally, we have the GOP, which was agin Moore afore they was fer him. They might think that they are now stink-free of this pedophile, but they better think again. Remember, Moore did the same thing Trump did, albeit with minors, but as we've learned from Al Franken's forced resignation, there's not much public appetite for splitting hairs when it comes to sexual harassment and assault. 

Politically, the Trump and Moore only offered the unvarnished version of what the GOP has been pushing for the past 45 years, and frankly I'm not sure how much varnish they bothered to apply in that godforsaken tax cut bill they're so dad gum proud of. Nothing says, "Screw you, 'takers,'" like a massive redistribution of income from those who have the least to those who have the most. 

Hopefully, enough Americans realize what's going on and shrug off their cynical apathy to send a message next November. Roll over GOP, Donald & Co. and, "let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." In other words, "Roll Tide!"

Me Me Me Me Me Me Meeeeee

For many of you who have been keeping up with this blog's rants 'n' raves, you will know my position on the many recent revelations of acts of sexual and gender-based violence committed by powerful men: there needs to be a public accounting of them and these need to be held accountable. Full stop. With that in mind, today's blog is not about having a few yuks. I genuinely want to have a serious discussion here.

I remain deeply disappointed by the Democratic Party's decision to force out Al Franken. What he did was mostly, in my view, juvenile behavior, which still merits closer investigation and, based on the results of that investigation, consequences commensurate with harm caused by his acts. I see what he did as being categorically different from the acts purportedly committed by many of the other men whose actions have come to light: preying on teenage girls (and boys, as the case might be), grabbing them and then bragging about it, forcing them to witness and/or perform in sexual acts, etc.

My point is this: if we don't differentiate between the various categories of sexual and gender-based violence then we are falling into a trap that only benefits the powerful perpetrators. We will have framed the public discussion in such a way that any accuser must be pure as the driven snow if she or he is to be considered at all credible. Because if those without or with less power have committed so much as a single act, no matter how insignificant or not, that might be interpreted as less than 100% ethical, moral, legal, etc. then the powerful will be able to point out these imperfections and delegitimize both the message and the messenger.

And that situation only benefits those who have committed much more serious, damaging acts of sexual and gender-based violence, because they will be able to silence the voices that could and should be heard. It also cuts off any sort of meaningful public discussion. Put differently, anytime you hear someone insisting on "zero tolerance" for an act, they are intentionally setting the bar so high for remedying the public problem (sexual and gender-based violence in this case) so that they can cripple any serious effort to address it. Public policy in response to social issues cannot be restricted only to black and white solutions. These social issues - and their drivers - are much too complex.

Bottom line: don't the survivors of sexual and gender-based violence deserve better than having our politicians focused solely on scoring political points and grandstanding? Me thinks so.

Here's the toon:

The Dope

It saddens me to see so many folks support the squeeze that Donald Trump has foisted on the Palestinians. Official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's eternal capital is a Pyrrhic victory at best. The Americans are no longer considered an honest broker in the Middle East peace process, and the Israelis enrage the Palestinian people needlessly, further deepening the latter's cynicism that they have a good faith partner in the former in the peace process.

We all long for peace in this part of the world, and it must be a just peace, one that is built one equity and respect for the dignity and rights of all people. Using the same tactics one would use to stiff a contractor in building a casino may not be the most appropriate for trying to mitigate and ultimately resolve a decades-long violent conflict. But what do I know? I'm just another fool who's wasted his time actually reading books and trying to ask questions.

Of course, the Donald just loves to stir things up - all for the adoration he gets from of his base whenever he sticks his little stubby finger in the eye of moral rectitude, decency and, in this particular case, decades of diplomatic efforts. Oh well; it's just another chunk of concrete out of the fast-eroding foundation of American credibility and leadership. I think I'm starting to get sick of winning.

Hide & Subpoena

Well, it's official. The Trump campaign and transition team were colluding with the Ruskies. Michael, or should I say "Mikhail," Flynn lied to the FBI about his various interactions with the Russians during the presidential campaign and immediately following the election - while Barack Obama was still the President of the United States. Whoops.

Enter Robert S. Mueller, Esq. After a long period of slow, deliberate investigation, things have begun to hot up, with initially small and then increasingly bigger pins falling left and right. Pretty soon will be looking at a potential fall of the Day-Glo orange kingpin himself. Wouldn't that be grand? Meanwhile, the Republicans are working feverishly and as fast as they can to ram through as many reprehensible, regressive pieces of legislation for Trump to sign before the U.S. public wakes up and votes them out of one or both houses of Congress.

I'm guessing that we are going to see any of the following:

1. Another Saturday Night Massacre, and/or 
2. An acceleration of the slow onset disaster of our democratic norms, and/or
3. A mockery of our oversight mechanisms.

I vote for all of the above, so duck and cover and hope for the best but expect the worst.