What the
Declaration of Independence means to Mr. Trump.
DURING a one-on-one interview in the Oval Office, President
Trump kicked off the month of May in fitting fashion. He pointed proudly to a framed
copy of the Declaration of Independence hanging on the wall near his desk. The
reporter asked Mr. Trump what the Declaration meant to him.
Donald
replied – cluelessly – as he so often does regarding our nation’s history and preeminent
values. “Well,” he took a stab, “it means exactly what it says, it’s a
declaration. It’s a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a
lot and it’s something very special to our country.”
Ha, ha.
The President of the United State is a bozo.
*
I am
reminded of the student who attempted to deliver an oral book report in my
class, on To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy. After fumbling several
simple questions, I said, “Murphy was the most decorated American soldier in
World War II.” I tried to help him by giving him the broadest possible
question.
“What
did he get his medals for?” I asked.
The boy searched
his memory from some sliver of knowledge, and finally replied, hesitantly, “Killing
people?”
Soon
after, he waved the white flag and admitted, “Okay, I didn’t read the book.”
As for
the Declaration, I required my students to memorize the key opening lines of
the Declaration of Independence and expected them to be able to answer six
basic questions.
We
defined the words in capitals in class and discussed the importance of the
ideals outlined. My rule was also simple. If a student failed to memorize the
section I required, I had them come in at lunch and keep trying until they did.
(I have no doubt Donald would have to come in for lunch even
now.)
May 2,
2025:
The right-wing folks celebrated today when news was announced that the economy added
177,000 jobs in April.
Suddenly,
it was “Trump’s economy” again, not “Biden’s economy,” which he said it was,
when stock prices were slumping two weeks ago.
(To be fair, stock prices were also up today.)
This
hard-working blogger tries to present a fair representation of reality. So,
let’s look at the reaction to the jobs report on X, where the ill-informed go
to offer up opinions based on nonsense. I’m not sure who started the trend
here, but the MAGA types got excited and posted about the April report, citing
CNN to prove they weren’t cherry picking good numbers.
One
gentleman posted, with clueless excitement: “477,000 jobs added in one month,”which in his mind proved President Trump was crushing it, since economists expected
135,000!
MegaBigBalls25
copied that post and spread
the good news, setting the MAGA faithful to cheering.
The glad
tidings went out over X, and someone named “Devory Darkins” (below) decided to spread the news even further, also without
careful checking. And, still, he got 7.3 thousand likes – which is a sad
commentary on the reading comprehension of the MAGA faithful, indeed.
See if
you notice anything amiss:
(Head for the optometrist if you still don’t get it.)
As
already stated, the humble blogger tries to present an honest picture of what
is going on during the second Trump administration. So let’s look at job
numbers over a longer period. In 2024, the U.S. economy added 2,012,000
jobs, or 167,667 per month.
In 2023,
the U.S. economy added 2,594,000 jobs, or 216,167 per month.
In 2022,
the economy added 4,555,000 jobs, a whopping 379,583 per month. Yes. We know.
Many of those jobs were added after the COVID collapse began to be reversed.
And in 2021, the economy added or recovered 7,237,000 jobs – a
massive recovery, any way you analyze it.
(That’s Joe Biden’s jobs record.)
At this
point, you are sure to get treated to a dose of the Fox News blah, blah, blah
from the MAGA believers; but 177,000 is not a killer jobs report. It’s not bad;
but it’s like getting socks for Christmas.
You can
use them, but you won’t be excited.
In
Trump’s first 37 months in office(January 2017-February 2020), during
his first term – and before the pandemic hit – he added an average of 185,622
jobs per month (6,868,000 total).
This
blogger does not blame the COVID collapse on President Trump, even if he did
suggest idiotic ways to treat infections. So, let’s credit him for a good run
during the first three years he held office.
In the
same fashion, this blogger does not blame President Obama, who did inherit a
mess, after the U.S. economy crashed under George W. Bush. The economy shed
jobs every month, during 2008, with a Republican at the helm, and kept shedding
jobs all of 2009, after a Democrat took over.
Not till
October 2010 did the situation finally stabilize – and then for the next 75
months, through December 2016, jobs were added every month, without fail.
(We give the divided month of January 2017 to Trump, to be
gracious.)
I will
let you do the math, using this graph from the Department of Labor Statistics,
and you can see who did better, per month, Obama in his last 75 months, or
Trump during his first 37.
Okay, I lied.
I couldn’t wait to see if the MAGA faithful would do the math. I did it for
them. In Obama’s last 75 months, the U.S. economy added:
2010488,000 in the final three months (162,667
per month)
20112,058,000 (171,500 per mo.)
20122,186,000 (182,167 per mo.)
20132,229,000 (191,583 per mo.)
20142,991,000 (249,250 per mo.)
20152,713,000 (226,083 per mo.)
20162,331,000 (194,250 per mo.)
That
would be: 14,996,000 jobs added, or 199,947 per mo. Or you could say that Mr.
Obama did far better in his second term than Trump did in his first,
even before COVID shut down the economy.
And that
is what we liberals like to call “math.”
UPDATE: Job
numbers are revised twice before they are finalized. The May jobs report cuts
the “jobs added” number for March to 120,000. The April number is also revised downward
to 147,000.
The
preliminary job numbers for May are 139,000. Clearly, these are not numbers a
president can brag about.
To “check
the excesses of Congress, or of the executive.”
5/7/25: The
MAGA fanatics are fuming because federal judges keep ruling against the MAGA
God. Many of the worst priests and priestesses have begun calling for judges
who rule in ways they dislike to be impeached.
Or
killed?
In a clear attempt to intimidate the judiciary, some anonymous
nut – or bag of nuts – has been sending unordered pizzas to the homes of
jurists, in the name of a judge’s son who was murdered when he opened the door
of his home to a supposed pizza delivery.
Sen.
Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has warned:
The
targeted individuals reportedly include Supreme Court justices, judges handling
legal cases involving the Administration, and the children of judges. Some of
these deliveries were made using the name of Judge Esther Salas’s son, Daniel
Anderl, who was murdered at the family’s home by a former litigant who posed as
a deliveryman.
Chief Justice Roberts.
Chief
Justice John Roberts has also taken note of the many the threats. During
an interview Wednesday he made a point of standing up for the role of an
independent judicial branch – in the face of the MAGA fools.
“In our
constitution, the judiciary is a coequal branch of government [emphasis
added], separate from the others, with the authority to interpret the
Constitution as law and strike down acts of Congress or acts of the president,”
he pointed out. “And that innovation doesn’t work if the judiciary is not
independent.”
“Its job
is to, obviously, decide cases, but in the course of that, check the
excesses of Congress or of the executive, and that does require a degree of
independence,” he added, drawing applause from the crowd.
*
This blogger can add that as a
former American history teacher, he explained the job of the three branches
this way:
Legislative branch: Makes
the laws.
Executive branch: Carries
out or enforces the laws.
Judicial branch:
Interprets the laws and the Constitution.
Chart from an old history book. (Note the salaries.)
BACKGROUND: In
July 2020, Judge Esther Salas’s son, Mark Anderl was shot and killed when a man posing as a
pizza delivery man shot and killed him when he answered the door. Her husband Mark
Anderl was also shot and wounded. In an online autobiography, the killer
attacked feminists, generally. Then he described Salas as a “lazy and
incompetent Latina judge appointed by Obama.”
As ABC News explained: The assassin “further criticized Salas’
accomplished resume, writing that ‘affirmative action got her into and through
college and law school,’ and dismissed her private practice and public defender
work. Her one accomplishment, he wrote, was ‘high school cheerleader.’”
5/31/25: DURING
Donald Dumpling’s first term in office, it was possible to follow every illegal
or incompetent twist and turn. In his second go at playing president, the
burden is too great for any one blogger. May proved to be a wild month with Donald’s
crimes and lunacies coming fast and furious.
The best
I can offer is a list of:
HOT/NOT
HOT
HOT:
Donald campaigned on the brag that only he could end the Ukraine War,
and claimed he could end it in one day, even without taking office! All we had
to do was elect him.
And
presto…
NOT HOT
– Calendars. As the last moments of May fade, two hundred-and-seven days have passed
since a majority of voters (for the first time) chose Donald and rejected Kamala.
Trump is back to calling it “Biden’s War,” and insists he may “walk away” from negotiations, which
is definitely not the same as ending the fighting.
Ukrainian drone strikes Russian bomber base.
NOT HOT:
The busy Leader of the Free World took time out this month to attack Taylor
Swift. On Truth Social, he posted, “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I
HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?’”
Most males
would disagree.
NOT HOT:
If Swift isn’t hot, neither is Department of Transportation Secretary Sean
Duffy, former reality TV show star and Fox News host. On Sunday, May 11, for
the third time in less than two weeks, the air traffic control systems at Newark
Liberty International Airport went dark.
(Okay, that last is a joke – but would you be surprised if it
wasn’t?)
NOT HOT
– Maturity in the White House. Donald Dumpling, as we like to call him, decided
to waste even more valuable presidential time, and post a video of himself hitting Bruce Springsteen with a golf
shot. This came after the musician warned, the “America that I have written
about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in
the hands of a corrupt incompetent and treasonous administration
[emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].”
Donald replied
in typical, petty fashion: “I see that Highly Overrated Bruce Springsteen goes
to a Foreign Country to speak badly about the President of the United States. Never
liked him, never liked his music, or his Radical Left Politics and,
importantly, he’s not a talented guy.”
(It is estimated that Springsteen has sold 140 million albums,
worldwide.)
(For that matter, Ms. Taylor’s last tour sold $2 billion in
tickets.)
HOT – Trump
family finances!!! As NBC has noted, Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur,
won a contest to sit at a table with the president, during a “crypto-focused
gala” at Trump’s private golf club in Virginia. We now know that Mr. Sun invested
$75 million in $TRUMP meme coins, which means Donald and his family may have banked $56 million, from just Mr. Sun’s transactions.
HOT – Pardons.
Sun had been charged with market manipulation and selling unregistered
securities in 2023. Miraculously, the Trump “Department of Justice” has now dropped
all charges.
(See below, for even more on the crypto-focused gala.”)
HOTTER –
Pardons! Again! The president has announced that he will pardon former reality TV stars, Todd
and Julie Chrisley. The two were convicted of fraud and tax evasion. Todd
was sentenced to a dozen years in prison, Julie seven. They had been ordered to
pay $17.8 million in restitution.
HOTTEST –
Cheating on taxes. Paul Walczak has also been pardoned, after his mother attended
a $1 million-per-plate dinner at Mar-a-Lago. (We hope
attendees received free drinks.) A former nursing home executive – and who
doesn’t want crooks running homes for grandma and grandpa – Walczak had been
ordered to serve 18 months behind bars and cough up $4.4 million in
restitution. He was found guilty of skimming $10 million from workers’ wages –
supposedly to pay Social Security taxes – but used the loot to buy a $2 million
yacht and finance an extravagant lifestyle.
NOT HOT
- Justice. The judge in Mr. Walczak’s case had told him that there was no “get-out-of jail-free card” for the superrich. He failed to consider a $1
million plate of steak and beans.
HOT –
More pardons! Damn! Donald has saved another convicted crook from the necessity
of going to jail. This time, it’s Culpepper County, Virginia Sheriff Scott
Jenkins. The sheriff was convicted by a jury in December 2024 on one count
of conspiracy, four counts of honest services fraud, and seven counts of
bribery related to federally funded programs. Or: a dozen felonies.
Jenkins took
at least $75,000 in bribes.
HOT – the
Babbitts. The Department of Justice has settled with the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was
shot and killed during the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. Her parents
will be awarded $5 million.
NOT HOT:
That $5 million will come out of the pockets of America’s taxpayers! (Taxpayers
are already on the hook for $3 million in damages caused by the January 6 mob –
with Trump having pardoned all the rioters who were supposed to pay damages.)
NOT HOT:
Families of five police officers who died in the wake of the riot (four by
suicide) have not been awarded a dime.
NOT HOT: Neither have the 140 officers injured
during that attempt to thwart a basic function of democracy.
NOT HOT
– Breonna Taylor’s family. The DOJ has decided to drop an investigation
into her killing, after Memphis police started shooting after entering her
apartment, and a stray bullet killed Ms. Taylor, who was doing some “criminal sleeping.”
NEVER GOING
TO BE HOT – January 6 criminals such as Emily Hernandez. She was sentenced, just ten days after the president granted
her pardon, to ten years in prison for felony drunk driving leading to
the death of another driver; Daniel Ball, arrested again on charges of being a felon
in possession of a gun (Ball had a previous felony conviction for domestic
violence and battery by strangulation; Matthew Huttle, killed by police
during a recent traffic stop; and Zachary Alam, arrested again, this time on a charge of felony
residential burglary.
(This is but a sampling of the disreputable characters Trump has
pardoned.)
HOT – Hungry
grizzlies and litter. In another “brilliant” DOGE move Republicans are
proposing $1.2 billion in cuts to spending on national parks. That
would represent a 25% reduction. Services, from timely trash removal to rescue
of hikers threatened by grizzlies, will be curtailed.
FISCALLY
NOT HOT – Moody’s U.S. credit rating. With evidence growing that Trump and the
Republicans will fail to cut the federal deficit (again!) Moody’s has downgraded the nation’s credit rating to Aa1.
First
time ever.
HOT: The
change in the nation’s credit rating is expected to drive interest rates higher,
such as on home and auto loans.
HOT –
Magic gasoline prices. Mt. Trump keeps insisting that he has brought down
prices at the pump to under two dollars a gallon. According to AAA the
national average on May 22 was $3.19 per gallon.
Gas prices: Glendale, Ohio, May 16.
HOT:
Money! Donald Trump Jr. is charging $500,000 for anyone who wants to join
his private club, which will meet at a restaurant or maybe a secret
clubhouse in Washington D.C.
In case
you’re missing simple realities, the club will be called the “Executive
Branch,” and if you pay, the head of the actual executive branch might do you
some favors. (See: Paul Walczak, above.)
(Clubhouse password phrase: “Show me the money!”)
SUPER HOT
– Massive money!! On May 22, the president tends to a little personal business
when he invites 220 lucky investors in $Trump meme coins to dine with
him at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. First, he flies in on a military
helicopter, at taxpayer expense. Then he gives a little welcoming speech from
behind a lectern bearing the presidential seal. Finally, he promises to boost
the crypto currency business while – of course – boosting his personal stake.
How were
the lucky 220 chosen? Donald
and his business partners created a “leader board” to show which investors
bought the most $Trump coins – and top buyers received the “most EXLUSIVE
INVITATION in the World.”
Here’s
how it worked. You bought meme coins which had no intrinsic value – and
you got to sit at the president elbow – and Donald promised to scratch your
back, businesswise, since you had scratched his backside, where he keeps his
wallet.
NOT HOT:
For the love of God, can we just get online depictions of the president
looking like he does in real life?
In fact,
there was a second level of bribing.
An
exclusive reception:
As The
New York Timesexplains: “A meme coin is a type of digital currency
tied to an online joke or mascot; it typically has no function beyond
speculation [emphasis added]. But Mr. Trump’s coins have become a vehicle
for investors, including many foreigners, to funnel money to his family.”
Sangrok
Oh, a Korean crypto king, wasn’t bashful when asked why he had flown halfway
round the world to break bread with The Dumpling.
“It’s kind of a fund-raiser” for Mr. Trump, he told
reporters. “And he’ll always be good to his sponsors.”
Not to mention, good to himself:
A
business entity tied to the Trumps sits on a large stash of the $TRUMP
cryptocurrency and collects fees every time the coins change hands. So far, the
coin has generated at least $320 million in fees [emphasis added], which
the Trumps share with their business partners, according to Chainalysis, a
crypto analytics firm.
So, you
can see that business, for the man who is supposed to focus on being President
of the United States, was very, very good. And it was only going to get better
in the next three-plus years.
Cha-ching!
Cha-ching!!
Cha-ching!!!
HOT:
Melania also has a meme coin! When
the coin was first offered, sales were gang busters. She made a bundle.
FRIGID:
It didn’t take long for people who invested to figure out that, no matter how
much they loved all things-Melania, hawking coins with no intrinsic value was a
Ponzi scheme – but legal, because investors weren’t being cheated.
They were mostly just dumb.
Once
worth $7.43, you can now buy a Melania coin for 35¢. That would mean original
buyers had lost 92.9% of their money.
HOT:
Still fetching at 55, Mrs. Trump can afford plenty of big hats, to keep her
husband’s pouty lips at a safe assured distance. Amazon is paying $40 million to make
a documentary about her life.
NOT HOT:
Mr. Trump’s sex life (unless he’s banging Laura Loomer on the side, which some
suspect).
On May
9, The New York Timesreported that the First Lady had been seen at the
White House “less than fourteen days,” out of Donald’s first 108 in office.
Sources told the Times that Melania sometimes “vanishes from view for
weeks at a time.”
HOT –
Planet Earth: But you may not notice. The Trump administration is firing all
the scientists who were studying climate change, and the threat a warming world
poses for humanity.
NOT HOT
– Coal miners. Behind the scenes, Elon and his DOGE Boys pushed federal
agencies to fire as many people as possible. That included more than experts working
on improving health outcomes for retired and current coal miners,
including screening for black lung disease.
MT.
VESUVIUS HOT: Republican lawmakers in West Virginia were livid when they
realized DOGE had demolished a program constituents loved, simply because it
helped save loved ones’ lives. The Center for Disease Control has since ordered most of those experts reinstated, and
various cabinet members have been busy trying to blame each other for thefiring
fiasco.
ICE COLD
– Homeland Security Babe Kristi Noem. Secretary Noem loves to pose in makeup,
with hair done up in waves of curls, while holding large automatic weapons, and
watching ICE agents handcuff children.
This month
she proved entirely clueless when asked to explain why habeas corpus was
important – and should not be suspended as Neo-Nazi Boy Wonder Stephen Miller
has suggested.
The
right of habeas corpus (literally: “you shall have the body”) guarantees that
governments can’t just charge you with crimes and lock you up until they
feel like getting around to giving you a trial.
Such as:
Never.
Instead,
the government is ordered to produce the prisoner in court and show cause why
that prisoner should not be released, for example, on bail.
This is
simple stuff – which many of the blogger’s former seventh grade students may well
remember.
Noem?
Not so much. Asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) during Senate testimony, to
define “habeas corpus,” poor Kristi might as well have answered by making gargling
sounds. The secretary responded: “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right
that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”
(Damn, girl! You would have been better off farting a reply.)
HOT – Burner
accounts. Staffers for Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a rampaging MAGA starlet,
have been tasked (at taxpayer expense) with creating “burner accounts” and fake
social media profiles. Mace herself is accused of joining the fun. Mace “would allegedly
order her underlings to identify criticism of her on social media; a slew of
fake accounts would then pile on the offending account.”
“We were
congressional staff, and there were actual things we could be doing to help the
constituents,” one staffer admitted.
NOT HOT
– Honest public servants. Two officials at the National Intelligence Council
ran into trouble when they reported that the president’s rational for
deporting illegal immigrants under the Alien Enemy Act was flawed. Director of
National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired them both.
HOT – Judge
Jeanine Pirro. The president nominates theFox News host to be
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
NOT HOT
- Pirro. The free press reminds us that Judge Jeanine once asked a friend in
law enforcement to bug her family’s 26-foot-long boat, so she
could catch her cheating husband. Even more fun: The man she asked to plant the
bug was himself under federal investigation and went to prison.
We are also
reminded that Pirro pushed “stolen election” lies after Trump got his ass
kicked in 2020. Behind the scenes, her own producers summed up her rants
saying, “This is completely crazy.”
HOT –
The term “groceries.” Donald has been waxing eloquent regarding bagged food
items. Or, as he put it recently: “An old-fashioned term that we
use – groceries. I used it on the campaign. It’s such an old-fashioned term,
but a beautiful term. Groceries. It says a bag with different things in
it.”
(Yes, Donald. Sometimes even multiple bags!)
NOT HOT –
Grilling. With arrival of Memorial Day weekend, Fox News was forced to admit that grocery prices were not
falling. Instead, consumers might have “sticker shock” when they saw beef
prices. Prices for steak, roasts and ground beef were at all-time highs. Price
reductions might “not be coming anytime soon.”
HOT – Flip-flopping.
On May 8, the president suggested that Republican lawmakers raise taxes on
multi-millionaires and billionaires. The idea was to create a new, higher tax bracket for individuals earning $2.5
million per year, or couples earning $5 million. The top tax rate would rise
from 37% to 39.6%.
HOT -
Sean Hannity. The Fox News host earns an estimated $45 million per year by
playing a blowhard on TV. He exploded at the news he might have to pony up a
few more dollars, to support the U.S. military, clean up national parks, or pay
his share of the Babbitt family’s big cash settlement.
HOT –
More flip-flopping. On May 9, the president changed course and agreed that Republicans should not raise taxes on the
richest of the rich. Whoever said they should was a communist and an idiot.
HOT – Cartoon
intelligence briefings! Donald has been too busy posting on Truth Social to
attend daily intelligence briefings. According to an analysis of public
records, as of May 9, Donald had attended only 12 briefings.
In fact,
Director Gabbard is said to be struggling with ways to get Donald to read his reports –
because, frankly, he’s an incurious dolt.
Currently,
the president’s daily briefing (PDB) is,
a written digital document with pictures, [but] there
is a feeling Trump is not invested with one insider admitting, “The problem
with Trump is that he doesn’t read. He’s on broadcast all the time.”
With
that in mind, NBC News is reporting there have been suggestions about
converting his briefing into one “made to look and feel like a Fox News
broadcast,” according to multiple sources.
“Under
that concept as it has been discussed, the national intelligence director’s
office could hire a Fox News producer to produce it and one of the network’s
personalities to present it; Trump, an avid Fox News viewer, could then watch
the broadcast PDB whenever he wanted,” the report states before adding, “A new
PDB could include not only graphics and pictures but also maps with animated
representations of exploding bombs, similar to a video game, another one of the
people with knowledge of the discussions said.”
Pay attention, President Numbskull!
HOT: Still
more flip-flopping. According to President Trump, slapping tariffs on imports
will be great for America, and the U.S. will collect billions of dollars
every hour of every day, and extra during Leap Years, and the federal
government will soon be seen to be wallowing in cash.
NOT HOT
– American babies. It turns out that 98% of all car safety seats for infants and toddler are
made in China, and tariffs may drive up costs by 30%. Which will suck
even more if you have twins or triplets!
HOT:
Large banners showing Trump’s glowering mug, hanging from the United States
Agricultural Building. The banner reads: “USAD: Growing America since 1862.”
Secretary of Agriculture Brook Rollins assures everyone that the president is “ushering
in a Golden Age for our farmers.”
HOT:
Sales of George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, in which an authoritarian
government plasters pictures of the leader of the nation, captioned, “BIG
BROTHER IS WATCHING” on every street corner.
(See above.)
NOT HOT:
Elderly Americans. While you are busy watching Giant-Poster-Donald watching you,
COVID continues to kill 350 Americansweekly. That would be 18,200 deaths annually.
HOT:
Measles!! Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reports that as
of May 25, the U.S. had recorded 1,168 known cases of measles, a disease once
considered eradicated in this country.
NOT HOT:
Secretary Kennedy insists that he would never fire “working scientists” at federal
agencies under his control.
This
would be “news” to key scientists working on bird flu at the Center for
Veterinary Medicine.
Also: CDC
scientists fired after their entire lab
tracking sexually transmitted infections and hepatitis outbreaks was axed.
HOT – PFAS.
The Trump administration is rolling back rules which would reduce levels of cancer-causing
“forever chemicals,” or PFAS, in drinking water.
More
toxic substances in every gulp!
NOT HOT
– Child dental care! Team Trump and his anti-science pals want to ban fluoride
in drinking water. The American Dental Association says that it “recognizes the
use of fluoride and community water fluoridation as safe and effective in preventing tooth decay for
both children and adults.
HOT –
Donald’s temper. “The result of this decision will let more CRIMINALS pour into
our Country, doing great harm to our cherished American public,” the president howls.
“The Supreme Court of the United States is not allowing me to do what
I was elected to do.”
STONE
COLD – Donald’s feeble grasp of the role of the federal courts in our
three-branch system of government.
The
courts do not exist to let him “do what he was elected to do.” Their job is to interpret
the law and if a president oversteps constitutional bonds (see for
example, Richard Nixon and the Watergate tapes), let him know.
HOT – Chief
Justice John Rodgers. The Chief Justice can smell a skunk when he sniffs one,
and he warned that the rule of law in this country was now “endangered,” and cautioned
against “trashing the justices.”
In fact,
he told an audience at Georgetown Law:
__________
“The
notion that rule of law governs is the basic proposition. Certainly, as a
matter of theory, but also as a matter of practice, we need to stop and reflect
every now and then how rare that is, certainly rare throughout history, and
rare in the world today.”
__________
HOT – Military
tribunals. On Truth Social Donald reposts a call for former President Obama to…well…:
“ALL
ROADS LEAD TO OBAMA... RETRUTH IF YOU WANT PUBLIC MILITARY TRIBUNALS.”
(If you don’t sniff fascism here, your sniffer is broken.)
NOT HOT
– North Carolina. When Joe Biden was president, Candidate Donald lambasted him
because rebuilding efforts in North Carolina, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, weren’t
going fast enough.
NOT HOT:
At least half of all mothers – since most women in all three elections
where Donald ran have voted for the other person. Trump’s lovely Mothers’ Day
sentiments were here expressed:
HOT: Prevarication.
The president has been telling all true MAGA believers that raising tariffs won’t hurt consumers. According
to Mr. Trump other countries will pay the tariffs and importers will absorb the
extra cost. Walmart has now announced that they won’t.
You will.
EVEN COLDER:
Other companies that have warned tariffs will drive up prices for consumers,
include AutoZone, Best Buy, Ford, Macy’s, Nikon, Nintendo, Proctor &
Gamble, Stanley Black & Decker, Target, and Volkswagen.
HOT: Tacos.
Every time Trump announces new, punitive tariffs the
stock market tanks, andhe loses his
nerve and delays implementation – referring to his on again/off again flip-flopping
as “negotiating.”
Wall
Street investors have instead slapped a new name on his policies, using the
anacronym: “TACO.”
Or:
“Trump Always Chickens Out.”
NOT HOT
– Reviews for the president’s May 25 speech to graduates at West Point. In a
weird, politicized address, Donald:
1.1.Wore his favorite “Make America Great Again” hat
while babbling.
2.Said that no one wanted to join the military until he returned
to office (even though the entire graduating class had in fact signed up in
2021, when President Biden was in office).
3.Warned graduates to avoid“trophy wives,” because sometimes
that “doesn’t work out so well.”
5.Was seen later that day, riding in a golf cart, at
Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
HOT:
Golf. We don’t know if Mr. Trump played golf later that day; we do know he has
begun his first term the same way he finished his first – by playing golf with
alarming regularity.
NOT HOT:
Vladimir Putin. It has taken Donald Trump a decade to figure out that the
Russian dictator is a ice-cold killer. But on the same day he leaves West
Point early, he posts on Truth Social:
NOT HOT:
The DOGE dopes came up with a new fraud-detecting system at Social Security. Sadly,
zero fraud was found, but the new system caused massive delays for anyone new,
including the 16,500 individuals who try to sign up daily for benefits.
As one
former high-ranking official explained, “People lacked the fortitude to tell
DOGE there was no fraud because they were afraid to lose their jobs. They knew
there was no fraud.”
(See: Tulsi Gabbard firings, above.)
NOT HOT:
Kid Rock. The musician may love everything about Donald and his policies,
including deporting all the illegal immigrants we can
find and shipping them to El Salvador. Except we now know a Nashville restaurant
Kid owns was one of several that had to close kitchens early, recently,
in an attempt to avoid losing all their workers in an ICE raid.
HOT: Conspiracy
thinking. At dinner at the Kennedy Center, where Trump is now the head, Donald
again insisted that Democrats cheated him out of the win in 2020. “And then they
rigged the election, and then I said, ‘You know what I’ll do? I’ll run again
and I’ll shove it up their ass.’”
NOT HOT:
Presidential class.
NOT HOT
#2: Trump mocks France and our other Allies for celebrating the
end of World War II, bragging that we really won the whole war. “We love
France, right,” he told an audience of American troops during a visit to a base
in Qatar. “But I think we did a little more to win the war than France did, do
we agree?”
He
continued: “You know. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But when Hitler made his
speech at the Eiffel Tower, I would say that wasn’t exactly ideal.”
Trump
noted that “"Russia was celebrating, France was celebrating, everybody was
celebrating but us. And we’re the ones that won the war. We won the war. And
they helped, but without us they don’t win the war. We’re all speaking German.
You know that, right? Without us, they’re speaking German, maybe a little
Japanese too.”
He also announced that – with himself at the helm – Americans
will be proud of our victories again. From now on, we shall celebrate “World
War II Victory Day” every year, on May 8, marking what he says is the
anniversary of the end of World War II. We will celebrate, he adds, because “we
did more than any other Country, by far, in producing a victorious result.”
This May
8 party will be news to people who recall that the Japanese did not
surrender until September 1945.
(Also: Hitler never gave a speech at the Eifel Tower.)
Mr.
Trump has also decided to rebrand Veterans’ Day, November 11, which will now be
called “World War I Victory Day.”
The
blogger would urge him to celebrate April 9, as “We Kicked Confederate Ass
Victory Day” every year; but that might irk his base.
Fans of losing flags.
HOT –
More conspiracy thinking. According to President Trump, Joe Biden doesn’t really have cancer. In fact, there’s no
need to “investigate” Biden staffers or his doctor about his declining health
in office.
Because…Joe
was “executed” in 2020. As USA Today reports, “The false claims,
made by another user on Truth Social and reposted by Trump on May 31, also
included that ‘clones doubles & robotic engineered soulless mindless
entities’ have since substituted for the ex-commander-in-chief.”
NOT HOT:
Unless you enjoy threats against the free press – in which case you’re like the
Nazis.
When NBC
News’ Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander asks The Dumpling about
the gift of a jet from Qatar, during a meeting with the leader of South Africa,
President Trump erupts.
You
know, you ought to get out of here. … You are a terrible reporter. Number one,
you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter. You are not smart enough. But
for you to go on to a subject about a jet that was given to the United States
Air Force, which is a very nice thing. … You ought to go back to your studio at
NBC, because Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to
be investigated [emphasis added]. … No more questions from you.
HOT – Donald,
personally. During a Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery,
Donald couldn’t help but put the focus where it belonged.
On himself!
After
insisting that he really won the 2020 election, he waxed eloquent on his good
fortune. Now, he told his audience, “We have the World Cup and we have the
Olympics. Can you imagine, I missed that four years [when Robot Biden was in
the White House] and now look what I have, I have everything. Amazing the way
things work out. God did that.”
NOT HOT:
The fallen heroes buried in all those graves, who did not “have everything” and
whom, by Trumpian logic, it would seem, God killed.
NOT HOT:
Americans on Memorial Day who didn’t vote for Donald, and don’t kiss his
posterior at every chance they get. Classless yet again, the president posts
this hateful diatribe on Truth Social:
HOT – Old-fashioned
racism. After Shiloh Hendrix goes viral for repeatedly calling a boy at a
playground, and then the boy’s father when he objects, “n-----s,” she faces a
storm of criticism. She appeals to MAGA World; and on the crowdfunding platform
GiveSendGo she manages to raise $670,000.
NOT HOT
– Water: With the president gabbling on and on about how he needs high-flow
showerheads because of his hair – and the EPA getting rid of regulations to curtail
water waste by washing machines, dish washers, toilets and – yes – showerheads
– the Colorado River Basinis drying up.
Researchers
warnthat the region has “lost
27.8 million acre-feet of groundwater” since 2003. That would be enough to fill
Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir. Even worse, the decline in groundwater
has been accelerating.
We can
also report that the Great Salt Lake in Utah is slowly disappearing, which would be an
environmental disaster.
But, hey, Donald’s hair is the issue.
HOT: Melting glaciers.
Scientists warn that over the next several centuries, almost all the world’s
glaciers will vanish. Even if climate change can be halted, today’s
temperatures spell doom. Still, we can limit the damage, says one expert. “With
ambitious climate measures, we can save a lot of ice.”
HOTTER: Mount
Everest. Kami Rita Sherpa, the record-setting guide who recently completed his
thirty-first successful climb, warns that climate change is making climbing
more dangerous.
Asked what he
meant, he told a reporter:
Changes are
visible in the entire mountain region, not just Everest. It’s because of
climate change. Snow is melting faster than expected, and that has made
climbing more difficult and riskier.
In the early days,
at Camp II [a higher elevation on the mountain], we could walk over ice until
the first week of June. We never saw streams coming down from that area. But on
Tuesday, one of our fellow guides drowned because melting ice created a stream
there. It was up to my waist.
NOT HOT: Leonard
Leo. Once upon a time, President Trump loved Leonard Leo and asked the head of
the conservative Federalist Society help pick judges for all kinds of places on
the federal bench. Now, many of the judges Donald appointed are ruling against
him, mostly because so many of his ideas are nutty and dangerous.
After a
three-judge panel temporarily blocked “Dumps” from implementing new tariffs,
Donald exploded. Leo, he insisted, was a “real
‘sleazebag’” and a “bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America.”
(Have you ever
noticed how many people Donald claims “hate” America?)
HOT: Waffles. ICE agents
made America “safer” recently when they arrested Carol, who waited tables at
John’s Waffle and Pancake House in Kennett, Missouri. Carol, whose legal name
is Ming Li Hui, had been filling up coffee cups, and cleaning houses around
town for twenty years, since coming to America from Hong Kong.
In fact, said one city
councilwoman, “Everyone knows Carol.” But she had overstayed a tourist visa,
probably by almost twenty years, and now to “Make America Great Again,” it was
time to deport her, and she could wave goodbye to her two American-born sons,
one of whom had just graduated from eighth grade.
She missed the
ceremony because she was in jail.
“No one voted to
deport moms,” said Vanessa Cowart, Carol’s friend from church. “We were all
under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came
here in droves.”
(Fooled you,
Vanessa.)
NOT HOT: “MAHA”. While
you were eating your third bowl of Fruit Loops® last Tuesday morning, HHS
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was out with his “Make America Healthy Again”
report. It was full of good science. Such as: The cereal companies are trying
to kill you by adding more and more sugar to your breakfast favorites.
The problem
with the report was that it turned out that health suggestions offered by
the MAHA crew were based on scientific reports that…um…did not exist. I think the
first clue was when a footnote identified Dr. Bigfoot as the author of a key
study on healthy exercise, such as taking long walks in the woods.
Kennedy had
promised that his report would be the “gold standard” for good health for all
Americans. Sadly, its looking more like the “tin standard,” or worse. For
example, a cited study by epidemiologist Katherine Keyes which is said to have
examined anxiety in adolescents was not written by Keyes, nor, apparently, anyone
else. It does not exist. The New York Times was good enough to suggest
that all Americans read the report. Then reporters
started digging and found a variety of scientists and experts who said, “Yes,
we did write the studies the MAHA folks say we did.”
Which is good.
“Only, we didn’t
come to the conclusions that the MAHA folks say we did.”
Which is bad.
Dr. Ivan Oransky,
who teaches medical journalism at New York University, told the Times he
suspected that “generative
artificial intelligence” may have been used to compile the report. Which is even
worse.
(The MAHA mess is
not nearly as funny as the pathetic legal
brief filed
by MAGA Mike Lindell in his battle to prove the 2020 election was stolen.)
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