The Donald Does Japan

Looks like the Donald has made yet another belly flop of a splash during his time abroad, this time in Japan. He managed to meet the new emperor, attend a sumo wrestling match, and trash one of our most important alliances for good measure. Evidently, he threatened Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe with tariffs if the Japanese auto industry didn't stop importing so many of its products to the U.S. Nobody bothered to remind Trump that Japanese automakers already manufacture one-third of all of their products in the Lower 48.

For good measure, Trump gave a favorable shout out to one of his favorite dictators, Kim Jung Un, by way of agreeing with the North Korean government's communique, which called Joe Biden a low IQ individual. Never mind that U.S. presidents have traditionally followed an unspoken rule of leaving partisan politics at the American shore while traveling abroad and representing our nation. Norms are for other (lower IQ) people. What struck me is that when Trump is overseas, he's bumbling foolery is only magnified, because it is so out of context and without the usual 35% of our own population bobbing their empty heads in unison to his crass, puerile nonsense.

It all had the air of an Elementary school Model United Nations exercise, except that 10 year olds would at least make an effort to act diplomatically and avoid rupturing intentionally strategic alliances. Not Trump. He's like a big clumsy, vicious monster that revels in finding new ways to destroy whatever person, place or thing has the bad fortune of being in his path. And for measure, he teams up with other brutish monsters, to whom he has pledged his undying love and affection, so that together they can all pile on for a proper session of raze and burn.

I guess Trump's visit to Tokyo will be forgotten within a few hours in our rapid reload news cycle. He'll just go off thrashing, smashing and crashing somewhere else. We'll all gasp and shudder and then wait for the next time he does it all over again. It's exhausting even thinking about it never mind actually doing something about it. Me, personally? I'd actually prefer some big green scaly nuclear waste-powered, hellfire-breathing monster. At least, I wouldn't have to experience the same self-rewinding tape of disaster over and over and over and over again.

He's Lovin' It

I don't know about you, but watching the Democrats in Congress wring their hands while the Donald runs roughshod over the rule of law is making my stomach turn, kinda like after I scarf down a "meal" at Mickey D's. All of these so-called salty veterans of D.C.'s favorite pastime, Insider Baseball, continue to tut-tut over the idea of beginning the impeachment process, even as the Trump administration swats away one subpoena after another, further diminishing Congress as a co-equal branch of the federal of government.

Instead, they come up with one politically expedient excuse after another about why now is not the right time, sticking their heads in the sand while muttering something about, "Let's wait until 2020, and let the voters decide." What the heck are they scared of? That the Senate won't actually vote to impeach Trump? That impeachment will throw them off message as they head into the 2020 elections? That the politics aren't to their liking? Something is beginning to smell an awful lot like flop sweat, oozing out of the pores of 280 Democrats on the Hill. Meanwhile, the Trump administration strategy of stonewalling and stalling appears to be working, allowing them to continue pursuing their white supremacist mission with impunity.

Personally, I thought Elizabeth Warren had it about right when she pointed out that nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is there an exception for political inconvenience. At least there's one Democrat who is willing to assume her institutional role obligation and uphold the Constitution, protect the rule of law and stand up to Trump. Okay, to be fair, there are several others, but among the Democratic "leadership," you don't hear anything coming close to this kind of response. Just crickets. Chirp.

And Trump, who has been claiming "total exoneration" and who has been benefiting from William morphing into Roy Cohn, couldn't be happier. After all, he's insisted all along that the Mueller investigation was a "witch hunt" instigated by angry partisans of the Deep State in the FBI and the national security-intelligence apparatus. And the Democratic response to this man who would have us all believe that everything in the Mueller Report is just one big "Nothing Burger"?

"Would you like some (freedom) fries with that?"

I can only guess, he MUST be lovin' it.