Words Matter

Mainstream media have been hesitant to use plain language to report on Donald Trump. We need them to start calling things by their right names. Three words in particular have been notably tip-toed around: "Lies" when discussing the statements from Trump and his propaganda machine, "treason" when talking about the collusion around Russian meddling in the election, and "senile" when talking about Trump's deteriorating mental condition.

Let's call a spade a spade. Donald Trump is a traitorous liar who is rapidly going senile.

New York Times Lets Trump Babble

Donald Trump gave an unscheduled interview to the New York Times, a newspaper he has been referring to as "failing" and "fake news" (neither of which is true). During the interview, Trump obsessed, unprovoked, over the Russia investigation and repeated the words "no collusion" dozens of times, before he hilariously tried to pin the collusion on the Democrats and Hillary Clinton. No kidding. The rest of the interview was equally disturbing and exposed Trump for the kind of man he is: a lying malignant narcissist with severe and worsening cognitive problems, low intelligence and very little education.

The man is crazy, plain and simple, and he can't be allowed to run the country.

Bad Faith

There is a tradition among Republicans to claim a Christian faith and sprinkle "God bless" and "thank God" into their speeches, to the extent that a secular European like myself finds it distracting. I would still be OK with it if they didn't do ungodly things in private and then disparage others for doing far lesser sins.
Their false image of godliness is now cracking. Adultery, pedophilia, grifting and treason against your country are incompatible with "Christian values" no matter how badly you read the Bible, and it runs contrary to basic human decency.
Behind a thin paint job aimed at fooling the most gullible voters, many Republicans are very far from good Christians, and some are in fact truly despicable people.

Just A Reminder

25th Amendment to the US Constitution, Section 4:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Now, "Acting President Mike Pence" is not a happy thought, but there will be indictments against him, and he will not get much of a chance to push his faux-Christian agenda on the country.

Throwing In The Towel

Previous efforts from Trump's handlers to rein him in and try to prevent his most rabid and crazy moments from affecting his public image are now history. Nobody around him seems to care any longer, as most of them are busy blaming each other, and trying but failing to abandon the sinking ship.
If this had been a boxing match, now would be the time to throw in the towel as an act of mercy. Instead, we get to watch a delusional, senile lunatic illegally occupying the Oval Office take random swings at thin air while his opponent carefully moves into position for the knockout punch. It's going to be ugly and humiliating, and it's probably going to take a while longer, but the game is over. Whatever remains is just for show.

Angry Old White Men

The Trump voter base, roughly 15 to 20 percent of the US population, consists largely of disgruntled white men of somewhat advanced age and comparably little education. These people are easily swayed by arguments of white supremacy, will more readily believe outright lies, and often trust a single source for their news, without questioning its integrity or accuracy. This is the kind of people who would vote for Donald Trump again, if given the chance.

Everybody else is now seeing the truth: Donald Trump is a fraud, a person who is completely unable to perform the duties of a US President, and on top of that he is also  a traitor who stole the election with help from Russia, plus a long time common criminal who has been using ill-gotten Russian money to extend the time required for running his inherited family business into the ground.

Fortunately, there are not enough angry old white men in the US to prop up the bad joke that is "President" Trump.  The Republican party will suffer woefully, and rightfully, for standing behind a fraudulent, racist criminal moron.

"The Best People"

Remember how Donald Trump bragged during his campaign that he was going to hire "the best people" for his administration? As it turned out, he hired the worst. Almost every person he hand picked for a cabinet position, as his advisor or as the director of some government agency has turned out to be not only pathetically unqualified and unfit for the job, but also stupid, evil and outright criminal. Much like Trump himself.

The presidency of Donald Trump will go down in history as a freak accident. Fortunately, his attempt at hijacking the democratic system with help from Russia is failing on all fronts, and Trump and his entire team of traitors are very likely going to prison. Shame that he should drag an entire nation in the dirt before anything could be done about him.

Cringeworthy

Mike Pence and Paul Ryan both embarrassed themselves in public by praising Donald Trump to appease him. Perhaps he requires this kind if treatment not to throw a tantrum or do something even more rash and stupid than usual, but doing it in public makes the United States look like a banana republic under a stupid dictator.

Mike Pence gave a two minute speech on the theme "I feel truly blessed to be allowed to serve under Your Highness", to the visible discomfort of bystanders who were caught unprepared in a moment of groundless worship of a Supreme Leader.

Paul Ryan praised Trump's "exquisite leadership", when in fact he has failed to lead whenever the opportunity has presented itself. Donald Trump is not a leader - he is a bumbling moron who cheated his way to the Oval Office.

Cringeworthy. Truly. Yuck.

Lies, Damn Lies And The White House

Since Donald Trump's inauguration, we have been fed constant lies from the president and both of his press secretaries. It has now come to the point where everybody simply assumes that anything that comes from the mouth of Donald Trump or Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a lie. Most of the lies are even bad: sloppy, weird and easily exposed.

Liars usually step back a bit if you call out their lies. The current White House administration, however, seem not to care that they are being found out, double down on the disproven statements and continue with their lies unabashed. Now, here's the part I really don't understand:

If everybody, including yourself, knows that you are telling a lie and pays no real attention to what you are saying, what is the point of even speaking?

Newspeak

Fortunately, Donald Trump is failing at everything, but today we saw a glimpse of what kind of governing he would have liked to engage in if he had been given free reign. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, was instructed not to use certain words in their budget preparation documents for 2019. Forbidden words include "evidence-based”, “science-based", “transgender”, “fetus”, "diversity”, “vulnerable", and “entitlement".

Yes, seriously. Those words and phrases are not allowed in CDC documents.

Forbidding the use of certain words is a thought police thing: suppressing ideas by preventing their discussion. No democracy should ever engage in that kind of authoritarian exercises. Donald Trump's illegitimate presidency needs to be terminated now.

Infernal Machines

With each small revelation about aberrations in the 2016 US election, it is becoming more plausible that the voting totals were changed in Republicans' favor by Russian hacking. No wonder, because the system is wide open to exploit. The reason? Voting machines.

Almost every other country in the world manages perfectly well with paper ballots and manual counting, and still has a vote count ready during the night after election day. This includes India with a population of more than a billion people. Paper ballots are incredibly secure compared to the cheap and outdated equipment used by most states for electronic voting. Reports on security tests by white hat hackers tell horror stories of laughably insecure machines that can be hacked in seconds and reprogrammed to yield any desired result. It's time for the US to realize that voting machines are nothing but a huge security risk and a threat to democracy.

If paper ballots are used for the 2018 and 2020 elections, we can at least be reasonably certain that the vote count actually reflects the opinion of the voters.

Suicide By Twitter

I wouldn't be surprised if Donald Trump is literally found dead by his own hand one morning because he is too much of a coward to face justice, but I'm not talking about that kind of suicide here. Rather, what the grotesque and disgusting Trump has been tweeting lately amounts to political suicide and a character self-assassination, not to mention a ticket to jail. The things he now chooses to type with his stubby fingers in his Twitter feed are disgraceful, pathetic, sad, appalling and just a short step away from bat-shit crazy.
He might get marched out of the White House in a straitjacket.

Mask Off

As his aides are giving up on trying to rein him in, we are seeing the unmasked Donald Trump tweeting his way to jail. What was passed off as a presidential candidate is obviously a caveman: a racist and serial sex offender who can't control his impulses to lash out at black people and say digustingly sexist things about women. The person occupying the White House is not a president. At best, he is a couch potato, but lately he has become something that isn't even a proper human being. Crazy, stupid, evil, senile and delusional are, sadly, traits of his which we have been accustomed to. Now, add "angry" and "scared shitless" on top of that, and you get the shivering orange blob of fat that is Donald Trump.

Anyone still backing this stinking pile of garbage as president deserves to be thrown out of politics for the rest of their career. An actual pile of garbage would do a better job. The same amount of work would get done, i.e. nothing, but there would at least be less embarrassment, and no risk of setting the world on fire to distract from personal crimes and scandals.

Lights Out

Donald Trump's mental state has been described with the klichė "the lights are on, but nobody's home". I think the situation would be better described by the opposite: the occupant is home, but all lights are out and he is fumbling in the dark, completely lost. This has been going on since day one of his presidency, but right now it is very quickly getting worse.

Missing In Inaction

Donald Trump has stayed off Twitter for several days straight. That hasn't happened before. He also stays hidden. Has he finally realized that he is screwed, and rolled up into a sad little shivering ball under his desk?
In any case: enjoy the silence.

Dry Mouth

Donald Trump's announcenent of his asinine intention to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was supposed to be a big moment for him, pandering to his supporters and making a bold (but stupid) move in international politics. However, his performance ended up being a monotone, indifferent reading from a script. What's more, he started slurring so badly halfway through it that people spent more effort speculating whether he suffered a minor stroke, or if his dentures came loose. Either way, the speech was an epic fail, and the explanation given by the White House was that "he had a dry mouth".

When Trump had a dry mouth on TV a couple of weeks ago, he had a cringeworthy   awkward moment looking for a water bottle that was right in front of him, and laboriously using both hands to take a sip from it. A dry mouth does not make a person say  "God blesh the United Shesh", which was what Trump's closing words sounded like.

Something is physically wrong with Trump, and his people are not even trying to make up plausible explanations any more.

Guilty

Today, Michael Flynn cut a deal with Robert Mueller and pleaded guilty. Pretty soon now, Donald Trump and most of his administration will be forced to give up and quit.

The Real Donald Trump

Under stress and near defeat, Donald Trump is dropping the bad act and showing us his real personality: a petty, aggressive, vindictive, needy and deeply insecure little man. he is very clearly racist, and it is also becoming obvious that he is delusional and that his grip on reality is slipping with each passing day. On top of all this, he is also utterly stupid. He needs to be removed immediately.

Sad and Irrelevant

By tweeting a load of idiotic and false garbage, Donald Trump made Democrat leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi cancel a bipartisan meeting with him about avoiding a government shutdown in December. Their statement was that meeting the President would be a waste if time, and that their efforts in the matter are better spent working with Republicans in Congress. They are, of course, right.

So, it has come to the point where the President of the United States is considered irrelevant and is ignored. These are sad times indeed.

Man Of Yesteryear

For some bizarre reason, Donald Trump chose to distract from today's explosive development in his Russia scandal with a very obvious lie: that TIME Magazine had called him, saying that he would "probably" be named their Person of the Year for the second year in a row, but that he turned the offer down, saying "probably isn't good enough".

The man is batshit crazy. Even TIME Magazine called his lie and explained that their choice is never revealed, not even to the recipient, before the official announcement.

If anyone around the corrupt puppet president #45 is to be awarded the title, it's his special appointed nemesis, Robert Mueller. Now, there's a person to admire. He has his most memorable accomplishments ahead of him, though, and the big case against Donald Trump and his inept cronies will not play out in full until 2018. Perhaps Mueller should be named Person of the Year for 2018 instead.

In any case, nobody but Donald Trump himself would believe his insame delusion that he is somehow still relevant.

Thirty-five Percent

The approval rating of Donald Trump is now around 35 percent. This is lower than any president since Nixon right before his disgraceful resignation.


I find it appalling that one in every three US citizens actually think that Donald Trump is doing a good job. They must really not be paying any attention to current events.

Thisisnotnormal

A US President who becomes consumed with rage over insignificant small things and takes it out in public through Twitter on various people of colour. A President who seems to be absent-minded and confused and doesn't even try to do his job. A President who obsesses over his predecessor and his opponent from the election, and lives in deep delusion concerning his own popularity. A President who has trouble maintaining focus for more than a few minutes at a time. A President who has his entire staff suspected of various crimes. A President who lies about everything, all the time.

What the fuck happened?

President Alzheimer

Although I am not a medical expert, the signs are becoming so clear that anyone can see it: Donald Trump is senile. He is confused and disoriented, he is losing words, struggling with simple motor skills, like his failure to perform the collective arms-crossed handshake during his Asia trip, or him having to use both hands to take a sip of water. The man was a moron before, but now he's an idiot.

It's not even appropriate to use the phrase "the lights are on, but there's nobody home". With Donald Trump, the lights are out, and on the increasingly rare occasions when there happens to be someone home, he is fumbling in the dark, lost and without aim, and with no sense of direction.

Alt-Right Control Delete

All of Donald Trump's tweets between Nov 5 and Nov 14 have been deleted, most likely by someone in his staff trying to take control of the situation. Most of those tweets were very clearly ramblings from a sick and deluded mind, and the world is probably better without them, but it's very disconcerting that a US President is so mentally unstable that his handlers need to step in and censor his public statements. Donald Trump can no longer control himself. He was never fit for office in the first place, but now he is completely falling apart before our eyes.

Doesn't know. Doesn't care. Doesn't matter.

Today, Donald Trump was probably told by his caretakers to act presidential, so he tweeted a generic message to address the school shooting in California the day before. The problem is that he confused it with a shooting that happened ten days earlier in Texas.

The senile, criminal creep pretending to be the President doesn't care enough about the incident and its victims to even get the basic facts straight before he makes a statement. But no matter. The world stopped paying attention to the disturbing and demented things he says. We are merely waiting for "President Trump" to be nothing but a bad memory.

Gullible's Travels

For a person who lies every time he opens his mouth, Donald Trump is surprisingly gullible and naive. During his Asia trip, it has become more clear than ever that he fails to realise that dishonest and shrewd people like Vladimir Putin are playing him for the fool he is and manipulate him. His mental condition, whatever it is, clearly makes him follow the lead of whomever he spoke to most recently.

Trump isn't just a moron. There is actually no independent mind inside him. He is truly a puppet ruler, and the puppet master is Vladimir Putin.

Lunatic Old Man

Kim Jong-Un called Donald Trump a "lunatic old man" recently, and Trump took offense, but not at what you would expect. No, he tweeted "Why does Kim Jong-Un insult me by calling me 'old' when I would never call him 'short and fat'?"
Earth to Donald Trump: you are 70 years of age. That's old. The insult is that he called you a lunatic. You see, a sitting US President should not actually be insane, which you very obviously are.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

The headline is a quote from the movie Forrest Gump, originally uttered in defense against accusations of stupidity. The meaning is that people should be judged by their actions rather than by what they say or how they look.

The same phrase describes the Trump administration in a nutshell, only the other way around. Judging by their actions during the past year of a failed presidency, there is only one conclusion to be drawn: These people are stupid. Evil racist creeps, yes, and criminal lying bastards as well the lot of them, but first and foremost they are not very smart.

Faux News

Fox News sunk to a new low last night. When the gubernatorial elections were going terribly bad for the Republican candidates and the Democrats were winning big, the channel simply stopped reporting on the election. It was almost as if they tried to pretend it didn't happen. The poor suckers who rely on Fox to report daily events were kept in the dark and never heard that Democrats won big.

Fox News has become a full-fledged propaganda outlet for Donald Trump. They should be taken to court for spreading misinformation for political purposes. It is absolutely astounding that Fox chooses to continue its blind support of an illegitimate president even as he is going down in flames.

Moribund

It looks like Donald Trump, most of his staff and a large chunk of the upper echelons of the Republican party are going to jail. I'm going to need more popcorn.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

Donald Trump is desperately trying to distract from the recent developments in Muller's Trump-Russia investigation. It's not working. Instead, he incriminates himself further by lying about almost everything. With a few notable exceptions, his former allies in Congress are no longer supporting his lies, and what few apologists he has left are having their arguments torn to shreds on live TV. The game has changed and his luck has turned, but Trump is still reading from the same worn-out page in his old playbook. His frustration over the fact that his trick is not working suggests that he doesn't know any more tricks, and that he is too stupid, or too senile, or both, to think of something else.

Not that it would have helped. Hopefully, it won't be much longer until we can stop saying "President Trump". It never felt right in the first place.

Unpresidented

Whatever Donald Trump is suffering from that makes him a scumbag, it appears to be contagious. His entire staff appears to be corrupt and criminal, even those who were once respected generals. We have never seen such a massive scandal. This goes way beyond the charges that are currently being brought against a few individuals. When all is said and done and Robert Mueller's many cases are wrapped up and closed, the political landscape will look very different. One of the two dominant parties in the US will be in shambles, having bet their house on a senile, criminal, sexist, racist, stupid lying Russian puppet who failed utterly even at playing the President on TV. The Republican Party has painted themselves into a very dark corner.

Using one of his misspellings against him for a cheap laugh, Donald Trump is being "unpresidented". And it's about time. Nothing about his presidency was ever right to begin with.

Clutching At Straws

Donald Trump's presidency is effectively over. He has no credibility left, not even with his own base of uneducated white men. He is still hanging on by a thread, trying desperately to distract from the incriminating revelations, but it won't work for long. Chances are he will go down without having a single major accomplishment to show for his time in office. He will truly be remembered as the president who wasn't - the fake president.

The Not-So-Great Pretender

A "pretender" to a title of power is a person laying a potentially valid claim to the title. The United States currently has a different kind of "pretender" as their president, in the sense that Donald Trump is merely faking it, in every possible way. He never had the capability to be the President for real, and with his rapidly progressing case of brain rot, he isn't even keeping up appearances.

It should now be obvious even to the gullible fools who were tricked into voting for him that the United States' highest office is occupied by a senile criminal narcissist without any governing skills whatsoever. Donald Trump is a pathetic joke of a person, elected illegitimately by Russian meddling, and he is not even trying to do the job.

Etymology

Names of people sometimes take on a meaning of its own because of what their bearers did. In politics, Gerrymander was originally the name of the person who first came up with the nefarious idea of redrawing the map of electoral districts in order to achieve a desired election result, but now it's a verb: "gerrymandering". In Scandinavia, a "quisling" was synonymous with a traitor long after Vidkun Quisling's despicable actions during the second world war.

The problem with the name "Trump" in this respect is that it already has a literal meaning: to "trump" something means to make something better which was already good. Donald J Trump, illegitimate and unbelievably incompetent 45th President of the United States, has done the exact opposite: he took a country that mostly worked sort of OK and broke it.

To "trump" something is not obviously going to become a neologism meaning "to make a complete mess of something out of incompetence". On the other hand, Donald Trump is doing some truly appalling things, so we might see a word shift in meaning from positive to negative because of what he is doing.

In any case, the name Trump will forever be tainted, for good reason.

Reset

As the Russia scandal is unraveling, it's turning out to be much bigger and more serious than most people imagined. The election was stolen by a scheme that involved not only Donald Trump and his closest circle of confidants, but lots of high ranking Republicans as well. Even more people have become complicit by joining the attempts at covering up the acts of treason with lies. The Republican Party has dug a hole for itself so deep that it's hard to imagine them ever getting out if it.

When all is said and done, the Republicans should either call for an early 2018 election for the next president, or simply concede the election to the rightful winners, and then go and try to rebuild their party to regain at least some trust and dignity.

Fortunately, He's a Quitter

As Donald Trump's presidency is coming apart, he has taken to figuratively torching the country out of spite, and even his closest allies are beginning to fear that his deranged mind will decide to do something really bad, like starting a nuclear war for made-up reasons.

Fortunately, history shows that Donald Trump is a quitter. When he realises that his shenanigans no longer work to distract from reality, he has a habit of declaring victory and walking away. He has declared bankruptcy six times, each time falsely claiming that his failed business was actually a success and blaming everyone but himself for the bankruptcy.

It has taken him unusually long to see where this is going, but now it appears to have finally sunk in. We can expect him to resign soon.

Of course, this time he won't be shielded by a bankruptcy. He will still face charges for his crimes and go to prison for the rest of his life. There isn't much life left in him, and he might actually become totally senile before any verdict is reached, but he will at least face the charges.

Falling Apart

Donald Trump is finally falling apart. His mind is gone, his voter support is dwindling, he is running out of friends in the Republican party and in his friendly media channels, and now even his own appointees in the White House are losing their patience with his erratic behavior, his irritable mood and his general stupidity. We can only hope he is removed from office before he can start a war.

This Is How Democracy Dies

Today, Donald Trump showed that he would rather be dictator than have to deal with all the inconveniences of a democracy, like a free press and the limits to his executive power. He flouted the idea of revoking the network license for NBC, as if that was something he could do, or something he should even consider doing in a million years.

Donald Trump may be so far gone mentally that he lives in an alternate reality, truly believing that the media is conspiring against him when they are in fact only doing their job, but even if that is the case, the president of  a democracy should not even discuss censorship or attempts at controlling the press. Fake or not, and CNN and NBC are definitely not fake, a free and independent press is fundamental to a democracy.

The President suggesting that NBC should be taken off the air simply because he doesn't like what they are reporting is a very serious matter. It is, quite frankly, reason enough in itself to have him impeached. The destruction of the free press is a first and serious step towards dictatorship and oppression.

Mid-Stage Dementia

Looking at Donald Trump's recent public appearances, and seeing the reports on his behavior in more private settings, it's striking how closely his symptoms match those of a person suffering from dementia and approaching stage 5 of 7, the "middle stage" where the patient suffers from a more severe loss of cognitive functions and exhibits disorientation, delusions and denial.

Leaving the US in the hands of an invalid doesn't exactly strike me as a wise choice. Donald Trump needs to be examined for dementia right away.

Me, Me, Me

Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist, and no matter the issue, he always tries to make it all about him.
Well, at the moment it IS all about him. But it shouldn't be.
He needs to go.

A Party Like There's No Tomorrow

We are watching the Republican Party crumble. It's being poisoned from within due to the infighting, lies, shady connections, bribes and the Russia cloud. Donald Trump is going to take the party down with him, and the phrase "Vote Republican" will become an insult instead of a rally cry.

The "Party of Lincoln" has some really tough times ahead. And they deserve it.

Nambia

"Nambia" is not a country in Africa, but Donald Trump doesn't know that. Reading from a teleprompter, he either misread "Namibia", or someone slipped up in typing his script. Either way, the incident shows that the President of the United states knows less about the world than a fifth grader, doesn't care to learn, and can't even be bothered to rehearse his speeches.

Next up: Leaders of Uzpakistan, Manymar and Sebria join up and ask Trump to stop referring to their non-existent countries.

Out Of It

Donald Trump is out of ideas, out of options, out of time, out of friends and out of his mind. We can only hope the trend continues, and that his behavior sends him out of the White House.

Wealth Care

Amidst the chaos caused by the avalanche of revelations concerning Mueller's Russia investigation, the Republicans are still trying to argue that the current health insurance system is collapsing and dying, and that the US health care system should basically be taken out back and shot. What's more, they argue that the money saved by letting people die should be handed to the richest people in the country by giving them tax cuts. To a European observer, like me, nothing of that makes any sense at all.

It's Getting Worse

The cognitive functions seem to be leaving Donald Trump at an alarming speed. Whatever debilitating disease he is suffering from, it's not your garden variety Alzheimer's, which is a cruel but slowly progressing condition. There is such a thing as rapid progress dementia, with concrete diagnoses like LBD (Lewy body dementia) and CJD (Creuzfeldt-Jacobs disease, "Mad Cow disease"). While I am in no position to offer a diagnose, what we are seeing from Donald Trump right now is certainly consistent with some sort of rapidly progressing dementia. In any case, he is literally losing his mind right before our eyes, and he seems to be moving very rapidly into the fog.

A House Divided

In the aftermath of Steve Bannon leaving the White House, a feud is brewing between two billionaire financiers for the Republicans. The Mercer family is standing by Bannon, while the Koch brothers are sticking with Trump, and they are starting to attack each other.

The Republican party is in disarray and has a deep existential crisis. It is hard to imagine it emerging from this debacle without taking serious and lasting damage. It might even end up splitting the party into moderates and conservatives. The situation in Congress, where the struggle to find common ground between the widely separated extremes of the GOP representatives, is an indication that a split would be needed to create a functioing political party.

Who knows, breaking up the GOP might be a first step towards creating a more healthy political landscape in the US. A system so strongly focused on having only two parties is not a proper democracy. Discourse and development benefits from diversity.

It would be interesting to see the Democrats split up as well. Some moderate Democrats would probably be better off joining the moderate Republicans, leaving the more liberal Democrats with more freedom to advocate for a stronger left leaning policy. Perhaps we would even see a social democrat or "labor" party with views that actually lean true left even in an international perspective. And of course, the right wing extremists and the religious nuts could be pushed to form their own parties (something like "nationalists" and "evangelists"), instead of poisoning the Republicans with their bigotry and racism.

A new constellation of moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats could actually be a party of, you know, reasonable people trying to govern. Wouldn't that be nice?

Living In The State Of Denial

Donald Trump is big on denial.

Didn't win the popular vote? Deny it and invent a story about massive voter fraud to back up your denial. Not getting anything done? Deny it and make an outlandish claim that you have done more in six months than any other president in modern time. Problems accepting the overwhelming scientific evidence on global warming? Deny science and claim thay you know better. Failing to attract a large crowd in your "rallies"? Deny it and inflate the number of participants far beyond credibility. Accused of crimes? Deny everything. Said stupid things? Deny it, even in the face of recordings. Problems facing reality? Deny it and substitute your own fantasy world where you are smart and successful instead of a failing, stupid loser.

Denial doesn't work. At least, not for long.

Protection From What?

Recent reports on the behavior of the orange scary clown currently occupying the White House tell of a president consumed by rage and obsessed with ending the Russia investigation. Trump has been lashing out at senators for not protecting him against Robert Muller's investigations, and anything that has been revealed in the matter of collusion with Russian interests during his campaign has been met with his feeble and ineffective, often counterproductive, attempts at sweeping it under the rug.

This is not the behavior of an innocent person. If he is obsessed with the issue and thinks he needs protection from a criminal investigation, he obviously has something to hide. Donald Trump is a complete and utter failure on the job, and in trying to hide and deny his crimes in a manner that would be embarrassing to a six year old child, he is now his own worst enemy. The president only needs to be protected from himself.

And the country, sadly enough, needs to he protected from its president.

Trump Unmasked

Donald Trump has cut the act and is showing his real self, and it's ugly. He is now so toxic that he is shunned by his own party. Nobody wants to go on TV and defend him. His chief of staff is visibly embarrassed by his increasingly open fascist, racist views and the usual incessant lying. He is attacking senators of his own party. The press has stopped pretending that they need to present an unbiased view, and many journalists are now calling out his lies, pointing out his ever more frequent displays of mental breakdown, and calling crazy by name out loud. Donald Trump is going to have to resign soon, or he will turn both parties against him. Impeachment by the current Republican majority Congress is looking more like a real possibility for each failed public appearance.

Afgh Aniston?

In his hastily put together and obviously teleprompted address to the nation about Afghanistan, read half asleep while snivelling much too frequently, Donald Trump claimed that he had "studied Afghanistan extensively from every possible angle", but he still referred to "the Prime Minister of Afghanistan". There is no such person. Whoever wrote that speech is almost as clueless as Trump himself.

This isn't funny any more. The US needs a real president.

Exodus

People are leaving in droves from Donald Trump's administration, either by being fired or of their own accord. In a situation where Trump already had trouble filling important positions, this spells the end of any remaining hope that he would ever be able to pull his act together and make his White House actually work.

Some say the Trump presidency is over. I say he never even had a presidency. He made a brief and feeble attempt at one, but he failed spectacularly. I expect Donald Trump will go down in history as the president that never was, and he will be referred to as "45".

A Stranger To Truth

During an unbelievable rant, where Donald Trump claimed that some white supremacists and Nazis are "very fine people", he also managed to squeeze in two completely unnecessary and stupid lies in one sentence. Speaking about Charlottesville, he went off on a tangent and mentioned that he owned one of the largest wineries in the country, and that it was located in Charlottesville. There is indeed a Trump Winery in Charlottesville, but it is nowhere near the largest in the country, and Donald Trump doesn't own it. It belongs to his son, Eric, and the conpany actually goes to some length to point out that it is not affiliated with Donald Trump and the Trump organization.

Now, why would anyone lie about something so small and insignificant, and something which is so easily checked and falsified? Apparently, Donald Trump is incapable of not telling lies. He is living in a dreamworld of his own making, built from lies that make him feel important and smart, and his tenuous grasp of reality seems to have slipped to the point where he is no longer able to tell the difference between the truth and his constant self-aggrandizing lies. It is unwise to believe anything he says, about anything, ever.

"Campaign Rally" ?

There is something fundamentally wrong with the so-called "campaign rallies" of Donald Trump. A president should not need to be cheered on by his fans, and mass meetings where people of dissenting views are threatened and turned away is a trick taken from a dictator's playbook. Donald Trump may have been a good public speaker once, but now he is mostly ranting and raving, spouting lies big and small at an alarming rate.

The rally in Phoenix next week should be cancelled. With the current tension in the US, we might end up with more clashes between protesters and violent Trump supporters, and more people will be hurt. Let's hope Trump listens to reason.

Bwahahaha. Um. Ow.

OK, reason is not his strongest skill. Let's at least hope nobody ends up dead because of the rally.

Stark Raving Mad

In the wake of the white supremacist terror attack in Charlottesville, which Donald Trump refuses to call a terrorist attack, won't attribute to the long standing culture of violence within the white supremacy movement and refuses to even condemn properly and unambiguously, he has been consumed with a misguided rage against the media for criticizing him - a rage so deep that what little presence of mind and restraint he could previously maintain has now left him completely.

What is being revealed is the real Donald Trump, a deeply disturbed individual with racist, fascist views - a person who has no business being the President of the United States.

Not My Flag

In a belated and weak statement following the domestic terror attack in Charlottesville, Donald Trump tried to downplay the hatred and bigotry by saying that Americans should work together, because "we all pledge allegiance to the same flag".

No. The flag I saw waving amidst the angry white male losers in their twenties was a Nazi banner. As in, a real Nazi banner, not some thinly veiled attempt at a graphic redesign of the swastika in order to pretend that you are not really a Nazi. The old WWII symbol, flown openly and proudly by racist Nazi scum, in the streets of an American city.

These people are terrorists, plain and simple, seeking to take society back to dark times by pushing their hateful, vindictive agenda of white supremacy. They do not deserve respect or collaboration. There is no way to "work together" with them without losing your dignity, your decency, your very soul.

Under the lack of leadership from Donald Trump, and his reluctance to call a spade a spade if said spade is wielded by a white person of Christian faith, the United States is turning into an ugly place.

A Small Man In A Big Suit

A lifetime of crime is rapidly catching up to Donald Trump. He probably thought he would get away with running the White House in the same way he used to run his company: by lying a lot, pushing his employees around and pitting them against each other, and by ignoring the law whenever it's profitable. For a real estate developer in New York, that seems to have worked OK over the years. For the President of the United States, not so much. Thousands of journalists and millions of people are watching him, and not only has it been impossible for him to get away with lies, bullying and bribery; his past transgressions are being uncovered, and his former life is coming back to bite him.

Becoming president was probably the worst that could have happened to Donald Trump. He is no longer in control of the situation, and he is going down in flames.

Shady Oligarchs

The past weekend, we saw Donald Trump ditch his press pool to sneak away and presumably do something he didn't want people to know about. This coincides with a Russian oligarch's private jet landing near his resort in Bedminster. The same thing has happened before, in Mar-a-Lago with a different Russian oligarch.

What is Donald Trump doing with these Russians? Let's hope the investigation will come up with some answers.

Lying Is Hard Work

It's not surprising that Donald Trump can't seem to get any actual governing done. Between his frequent visits to the golf course and his long hours of watching TV, he has been busy trying to manage a huge pack of lies to cover up his crimes. Lying is hard work even if you're good at it: you always need to remember what you said in all your lies and stick with your fabricated story, and you need to keep your lies rooted in reality and make them mesh with the truth in a reasonably plausible manner.

Now, Donald Trump is not even a good liar, and that makes it a lot more difficult for him. As his bad lies are exposed, he needs to make up more lies to maintain his shaky narrative. Bad lies covered up with more bad lies lead to a downward spiral where he has to spend more time defending himself and telling more lies instead of doing anything useful and constructive. That takes a lot of work, and a lot of time. He is bad even at the cover-up, which makes him end up spending most of his time trying to micro-manage his many falsehoods, failing at every turn.

Even if he could do his job, which he very obviously can't, Donald Trump has no time for doing any presidential stuff. Lying to try to stay out of jail is his full time job. And he is as bad at that as he is at everything else.

Fire At Will

Donald Trump seems to think Mike Pence is plotting against him to invoke the 25th amendment and force him out. That might actually be true. However, doing so requires a majority of the cabinet members to agree that the President is unable to fulfil his duties. The reaction we see is that potential threats are being neutralized by Trump by firing people in his cabinet who are less likely to support him, or shuffle them around a bit so they are no longer formally a part of his cabinet.

He might be able to fend off the 25th, but the end is coming, and Trump knows it.

Disgraceful Exit

Donald Trump seems hell-bent on not admitting guilt and keep clinging to his dysfunctional presidency for as long as he possibly can, even though his chances of actually getting anything done are now slim to none. His downfall will require either a lengthy impeachment process or the Vice President invoking the 25th amendment.

Unfortunately, the latter seems far fetched, because it would require a majority of cabinet members to be at least marginally competent and have a spine. People like Rex Tillerson and James Mattis seem to be fed up with Trump's constant failures, but Trump's cabinet includes people who were specifically chosen to be personally loyal to him. Betsy DeVos, for example, has no relevant skills whatsoever for her job and would be out in a second as soon as any other person than Trump would claim the President's seat.

It even appears as if Donald Trump is trying to further defuse the threat of the 25th amendment by getting rid of cabinet members who might call for him to step down. John Kelly, a person with no obvious ties to Trump, was just moved from a cabinet position to be chief of staff. H R McMasters is reportedly facing a risk of being fired after getting rid of a holdout from the brief reign of Mike Flynn. The rumored candidate for his replacement is Mike Pompeo, an obvious Trump loyalist. Getting a majority of this cabinet to oppose Trump seems unlikely. With Trump being a constantly growing embarrassment to the United States, both at home and abroad, it might not be totally impossible, but having high hopes for it to happen would be unwise.

Impeachment is a lengthy and humiliating path to defeat which will do great harm to the nation, but right now it seems like the only option.

Fox And Fiends

President-but-not-really Donald Trump has now gone completely bonkers. Based on one crazy, contrived and fundamentally false story on Fox News, he now claims that Russia was actually opposed to him winning the 2016 election, and could therefore not have been responsible for any attacks on Hillary Clinton or any meddling with the US election process.

That's right. The so-called President is choosing to believe a half-assed lie from an already thoroughly debunked fake news source over the reports from his own intelligence community, plus nearly every other source with any credibility.

This president is broken. We need a new one.

"Sleazy"

In his latest characteristic self-referential insult, Donald Trump really nailed it. By calling the ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee "sleazy Adam Schiff" we realized what epithet to put on the president.

Donald Trump is sleazy. That's not a presidential quality. At all.

Junior Meltdown

I suspected one of Donald Trump's stupid sons would slip up and incriminate him, but I assumed it would be Eric, because he seems to be the most dim-witted of the two. As it turned out, it was Donald Trump Jr who figuratively drenched himself in gasoline and set himself on fire while the nation was watching. He doesn't even seem to understand that soliciting or accepting "help" from a foreign actor to unfairly influence an election is a crime. With his pathetic attempts at a defense he only managed to further incriminate himself, and drag his father down with him in the process.

The level of stupidity he showed is almost hard to understand, and his expensive lawyer must be gnashing his teeth. John Oliver's name for the Trump-Russia scandal, "Stupid Watergate" is very appropriate indeed: it's a big mess, and all the people involved are bad at what they do.

Putin's Puppet

Today, we saw reality fight with Donald Trump and lose. No less than four intelligence communities in the US have issued a joint statement that Russia was meddling in the 2016 presidential election, that there is ample evidence to support it, that it was a large, state-sponsored effort that simply had to be ordered by President Putin, and that there are no signs of any other sources for the hacking.

Despite this, Donald Trump has been strangely reluctant to admit that the attack came from Russia. He has claimed that it might be a fat kid sitting on a bed somewhere, or the Chinese, or sometimes even claimed that the entire thing is a hoax created by the Democrats because they are sore losers. His most admissive stance (it changes rapidly over time) has been that it "probably happened", but that "nobody knows for sure who did it" and that it "didn't change a single vote". This is all pure and utter nonsense.

When Trump met Putin today, he mentioned the issue. Naturally, Putin denied that he had any part in it. After the meeting, Putin claimed that Trump accepted it as truth, although the White House later denied that. When asked, however, Trump still won't believe his intelligence services and admit that the hacker attacks on the election emanated from Russia. The reason? Because Putin said so. The collected intelligence apparatus of the United States says otherwise, but Trump instead chooses to believe a criminal, homicidal dictator who plays him like a fiddle.

This is the stuff of nightmares.

Fifty States Of Nay

Now that the final responses are in, it turn out that all 50 states have responded with a refusal to the request to turn over voter registration data to the Trump administration to aid the investigation of the totally made-up accusations of voter fraud favoring the losing side in the election. No wonder. The same people who are under investigation for stealing sensitive voter data and using them to gain unfair advantage in the election are now asking the states to voluntarily turn over the same kind of data to them. You can't really blame them for their lack of trust in the matter.

Pekoral

There is a word in Swedish that has no direct counterpart in English: "pekoral". It means "something written or composed in total earnest and solemnity, but so severely lacking in literary or musical quality that it becomes embarrassing, sometimes even crossing over into unintended humour".

Donald Trump's commissioned personal anthem "Make America Great Again", premiered to a cringing population on the 4th of July 2017, is that kind of bad.

No. Don't listen to it. Don't... oh well. I can't stop you, really. Knock yourself out. But remember you were warned.

An Audience Of One

Donald Trump's tweets have now definitely descended into crazy territory. He is trying to reinforce his crumbling pack of lies with even more lies, and apparently he assumes that his readers won't bother checking with other sources or even think for themselves.

His recent attack on the hosts of MSNBC's show Morning Joe is telling. Over the course of just a few short, incomplete and badly crafted sentences, he managed to pack in a surprising number of lies, even by his own standards. Every single one of those lies are easily disproven. From the look of it, he isn't even trying any longer. The case might be that he is now only pandering to himself, clinging to his own Trump-centric version of reality in a last feverish dream of being a real president while everything is coming apart around him.

Donald Trump! The world has given up on you and is waiting for you to resign, so we can get on with things that actually matter. Your delusional attacks on media are unfit for a leader of a free country, your monetary transactions are shady to the extreme, and you had your grubby little hands deep into the mess with Russian meddling with the election. Please just resign and let the investigators do their job in peace. You will probably end up in jail for the rest of your life, but you deserve that, and you know it. While you are waiting   for the hammer to fall, you have absolutely no business being the President of the United States.

Right Back At Ya

Donald Trump has no imagination when it comes to insults. Whenever he is criticizing others or calling people names, it seems like he ends up opening a window into his psyche to blurt out something that is actually a reflection of himself. During the campaign he used slurs like "crooked Hillary", "lying Ted", "low energy Jeb", "little Marco" and, tellingly, "crazy Bernie". All of these epithets can be rightfully attached to Trump: a criminal and habitual liar who often appears aloof and disinterested, who is fundamentally insecure despite his wealth and power, and who is increasingly mentally unstable. After taking office, he went after media calling them "fake news", but his own lies are obviously aimed at creating a false narrative where Trump is good, and everyone criticizing him is bad. When his ratings plummet, he says that CNN and NY Times are "failing" despite evidence that both are very successful and attract more viewers/readers than ever before. Trump, however, is losing support from his voters with every tweet.

A while ago, he called Chuck Tood at NBC "sleepy eyes Chuck" for no apparent reason, just when the taxing task of governing started to make Trump lose sleep and feel miserable about his job. Now, he accuses the hosts of Morning Joe on MSNBC, Joe Scarborouh and Mika Brzesinski, for the faults he should see in himself. He makes a full frontal attack through Twitter, calling them "psycho Joe" and "low IQ crazy Mika". Neither label sticks on them, but Trump is obviously not right in the head, and it might start to dawn on him that he is not nearly as smart as he would need to be to occupy the oval Office.

"low IQ crazy psycho Trump". Yep. Sounds right.

An American Hero

Brian Karen, journalist for the little known publication The Sentinel Newspaper, did something today that someone should have done long ago: he ripped into the lies of the White House, as told by complicit tool Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She repeated Trump's preposterous claim that the Russian meddling in the election is a hoax. When she went on a rant, called CNN a "disgrace to media" and claimed that mainstream media are constantly making up their own news at will, Brian Karen interrupted her and told her that her accusation was inflammatory to every reporter in the room, and that her job is to answer questions, not to wrongfully accuse honest, hard working reporters of spreading "fake news".

Sanders responded that she "totally disagreed" with what Brian Karen said, and moved on to taking a couple of softball questions from Fox News. She didn't admit to anything, but the ice has been broken, and we can perhaps hope for this to start a trend. The constant lies from the White House need to be called out for what they are instead of being ignored but accepted as normal, or as in the case of Fox News and other right wing outlets, swallowed and repeated to the world without shame.

Panic Mode

Donald Trump is in panic mode. He is trying to blame Obama for the Russian meddling in the election, accusing him of "collusion" and "obstruction" in a futile attempt to deflect and to diminish the seriousness of those terms, he is suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, fervently denying the existence of "tapes" proving his team's collusion with Russia and demanding an apology, and to top it all off, he threatened Syria over their alleged preparations for another chemical attack, catching his central command off guard and making them ask themselves what their commander in chief is doing.

Something is about to drop in the Russia scandal, and Trump seems to think it's bad and imminent. Let's hope he is right about that.

Why?

The latest Republican attempt at a health care bill has finally been released for scrutiny, after having been drafted in ridiculous secrecy. The text is everything people feared: it's not really about reforming health care, it's about dismantling "Obamacare" and removing access to affordable health care insurance for tens of millions of people. The money saved will be used to give large tax cuts to the very rich, mostly the top 0.1% of Americans.

What the Republicans are trying to do is a massively unpopular move, even among their own voter base. Taking health care away from people in great need will result in the death of thousands each year, and for what? Giving money to those who don't actually need it? This looks like political suicide from the Republican party. Their financers and their inner circle might think it's a great idea, but they still need voters to remain in power. Their strategy so far has been to first keep the legislation secret for as long as possible, and then to tell blatant lies about what it will mean to citizens. It's not working, and they are being called out for it. The bill is being characterized as "heartless", "evil", even "homicidal". And still, they try to ram it through.
 
This is not how to govern in a democracy. It's reminiscent of the plutocracy in countries like Russia, where a small group of extremely wealthy people are allowed to enrich themselves further by government-administered robbing of ordinary people.

Seriously, what are they thinking? Why are they doing this? How do they think they are going to survive politically if the bill passes?

The President Who Wasn't

President Donald Trump is going down. Everything he has done as President, which isn't a lot, and anything he does before he is ousted, which probably won't be a whole lot more, is going to be tainted by the knowledge that he was deeply corrupt and a criminal. He has failed to do anything right on the job so far, and it's not likely he will suddenly learn now. What use is it to keep denying his crimes? What can he possibly hope to gain from clinging to an empty title and sullying it even more with his disgraceful behavior? His legacy will be "the president who wasn't", not some bill he signed that was repealed soon thereafter.

Resign, Donald Trump.

Losing It

President* Trump is losing everything. He is losing every fight with the courts on his travel ban. He is losing his support among voters and Republican members of Congress. He is losing members of his administration. He is losing control over the news, as he is trying in vain to suppress the flow of information from a White House in disarray. He is losing his wife, seeing how she publicly keeps her distance, sometimes even treating him with scournful disdain. Donald Trump is even losing his mind. Whether his increasing cognitive problems are due to dementia, mental illness, exhaustion, age or plain stupidity, or some combination of those, he is no longer making any sense. He never did, really, but now it's more obvious than ever that there is no deep thought behind anything he says. From the look of it, he is losing his grip on reality, and pretty soon he will be losing his job.

Trump is a dragonfly president, putting all focus on getting through the day and assuming he will be gone tomorrow. And at every single turn, he is losing.

Dunning, Kruger and Trump

In psychology, there is a term called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which says that a person with a very low level of skill for something also lacks the ability to recognize higher skill in others, or even fails to acknowledge that skill is required to perform the task well.

The United States has an extremely unskilled president. He might not even understand why people think he is bad at his job. No wonder he throws tantrums and obsesses over conspiracy theories.

Of course, this is not an excuse. It only makes Trump even less suited for his job.

Reality Check

Ten people, perhaps more, in Donald Trump's administration have now hired expensive defense lawyers specializing in corruption and financial crime. They are expecting a lawsuit, and they are expecting to need high powered representation in the upcoming legal fight.

It's very likely that the United States is currently governed by a bunch of criminals. Let that sink in for a while. Criminals. How did we even get to this point? And how much longer is it going to take to set things straight?

A Tale Of Ties And Tape

Taped ties:

1. Red ties worn by Trump, knotted too long for some inexplicable reason, with a piece of Scotch tape on the back to stop the short end from peeking out. Pathetic, but not very interesting.

2. Russian ties being set up or discussed by Trump or his associates in a situation where the conversation is recorded, i.e. "caught on tape". Quite interesting indeed.

There are rumors aplenty of recordings where hapless Trump associates are caught in the act of committing crimes, or discussing crimes they either committed or are planning to commit. The most recent rumor of that kind is that there are recordings of Newt Gingrich arranging shady deals with the Russians, but he is not the first to be mentioned, nor will he be the last. Donald Trump's mantra "there is no evidence" is most definitely not true. Over the past few months, evidence has been piling up as it is collected, and soon it will be released in a big, fat batch of lawsuits that will be both fascinating and depressing to watch.

Old Man Yells At Cloud

The peculiar construct that is President Donald Trump is coming apart at the seams. No wonder, because it was old and worn and not very well built. Reports tell stories of a man obsessing over the "cloud" of the Russia scandal, yelling at his TV and talking crazy conspiracy theories. Whatever attempts he made to do his job and run the country are no longer on the agenda. His focus is now entirely on the investigations about him and his staff, and the White House is in disarray, paralyzed by the lack of leadership.

The attempts at pretending that everything is fine are failing as well. As the intelligence leaks gradually reveal the depth and extent of the scandal surrounding the President, and as the suspects lawyer up, it becomes abundantly clear that Donald Trump is finished, not only as president, but as a businessman, as a brand, and as a person. He will not be missed by many.

Lalala, I'm Not Listening

Imagine Donald Trump putting his hands over his ears, closing his eyes firmly and shouting "Lalala, I'm not listening!". That is more or less what he is doing right now. He used to grip for a straw that is no longer there: "I'm not under investigation". His favorite comforting mantra now seems to be "Nobody has found any evidence". That, however, is most likely wrong.

Donald Trump does not seem to understand how a criminal investigation works. When proof or circumstantial evidence is found, you don't announce it to the world and to the suspects. You keep it under cover and dig for more until your case is solid enough to press charges. It's very likely that several people in the White House are facing serious charges over various crimes, but the hammer won't fall just yet. We can rest assured, though, that the various investigators have found a lot more than rumors, or else the probes would have ended long ago.

Amateur Hour

Donald Trump has made almost nothing but dubious personnel choices for his administration, but today's announcement went beyond ludicrous and straight into crazy territory. To run the New York federal housing programme, overseeing the distribution of billions of dollars in grants and subsidies, he picked Lynne Patton, Eric Trump's wedding planner and the organiser of some golf tournaments for the Trump family business. She appears to have no relevant experience whatsoever in property administration or construction planning. She previously had a job at the equally incompetent Ben Carson's HUD department.

Picking someone so ridiculously unqualified for this job is either crazy, a sign of unprecedented nepotism, or a desperate choice because nobody else wants to work for Donald Trump. Either way, the choice is deeply unsettling.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Is it possible that Donald Trump was unaware of the financial and political ties between people in his administration and Russian interests? Yes. He might be a bystander to all this. It's unlikely, but possible. It would certainly explain his bitternness towards journalists if he truly doesn't know that Russia interfered with the election in several ways.

Would that be an excuse? No. He is obsessing over the story instead of letting the investigations run their course, he is grossly incompetent and refuses to understand even the most basic facts of democratic government, and his erratic behavior is a sign of a person who is not well in the head. His fan base is leaving him, both in Congress and in public, and he has no business being the President of the United States of America. His own lack of restraint has made matters much worse for him lately, and his unhinged crazy tweets have made him look a like a guilty liar rather than a hapless, innocent bystander. He might be going down because of his own tweets and careless public statements, but he is going down nonetheless.

Draco Dormiens Nihil Titillandum

Trump and his allies are mounting desperate counterattacks to the revelations that more and more of them are being sucked up into the criminal investigations by the FBI, Congress and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Because they have run out of other options, their strategy is to attack the messenger. However, with Mueller it backfired spectacularly. He has a solid reputation for being fair and impartial, and those who try to discredit him now are making enemies of the entire intelligence community. As a result, there has been an increased stream of leaks from within the intelligence agencies, hinting at a much bigger and more serious scandal than expected, and also mentioning the existence of audio recordings that prove both collusion with Russian interests and financial corruption by several top people in Trump's campaign, his transition team and his administration.

For Donald Trump and several of his associates, it's time to stop talking and prepare for legal action against them. This is big, it's ugly, and it's not going to go away no matter what they say or do. Their day of reckoning is approaching.

Great Comedy

Malcolm Turnbull, prime minister of Australia, was caught on tape performing a monologue mocking Donald Trump. The performance was supposed to have been off the record, but frankly, it would have been a shame. Turnbull happens to be great at comedy. His timing and delivery is spot on, the clip is hilarious, and it went viral. Great material, masterfully delivered, with feeling, to a captive audience. I won't link to it, because the audio is likely to be taken down and move around, but it will probably remain on the Internet indefinitely. Google it. It's short, sweet and burning.

We should probably expect Donald Trump to declare trade war with Australia or something like that in return. He clearly has no humor when it comes to himself. In any case, Turnbull will probably not be invited to the White House again for as long as Trump is the President. In other words, not for at least several weeks.

Sinking And Stinking

Republicans are finally starting to distance themselves from the disaster that is Trump's presidency. It's shameful that they kept supporting him for this long, and they should be held accountable for being complicit in making America dysfunctional, but at long last, they are seeing that the stench from his corruption, collusion and confusion is too strong to ignore and impossible to hide. Donald Trump is stinking, and sinking, and Republicans are no longer betting on his survival as president.

Just Like A Real President

June 14, 2017: The Senate Judiciary Committee finally opened an investigation into Donald Trump's attempts at derailing, suppressing or outright ending the investigations into the suspicious activities of his associates. Shortly thereafter, Special Counsel Robert Mueller made it known that he is doing the same, and met with the Senate investigators to make sure the two investigations don't end up interfering with each other.

With this, Donald Trump is now finally on the path to do something that a real President has done before: have his ass handed to him by Congress for obstruction of justice. True, the president he takes after is Nixon, who might not exactly be the best role model, but still.

Irony Is dead

This tweet from Donald Trump takes some sort of prize:

Fake News is at an all time high. Where is their apology to me for all of the incorrect stories???

Mr. Trump, what are you trying to do? Play the pity card? It's way too late for that. Your lies are no longer working, your crimes are catching up to you, you have no control whatsoever over the news flow about you, and you are going to be exposed for the fraud you are. You need to apologize to the people of the United States and to the world for what you have done, but we are not going to whine and ask for that from you. We just want you gone.

Spatial Unawareness

There is something seriously wrong with Donald Trump. His presence of mind and his awareness of his surroundings seem to be severely limited, and his facial recognition skills appear strangely degraded. In his first full cabinet meeting, he said "Let's start with the Vice President. Where's the Vice President?" and swiveled his head. Mike Pence was seated right in front of Trump, on the other side of the table, in the designated seat of the Vice President. Trump had just made a small but laughably untrue speech about his own greatness, giving him plenty of time to take in the room, but he was unaware of who was seated next to him, and it visibly required some effort on his behalf to recognize Pence.

A person with dementia will gradually lose the abilities that Donald Trump appears to be losing: awareness, focus, face recognition, logic reasoning. It's not just his shrinking vocabulary that has people worried. His entire appearance is now screaming of a senile old man.

Asking For Trouble

President* Donald Trump is stupid, dishonest and absolutely terrible at what he does, but now he is also very obviously miserable on the job. His cabinet tried to lift his spirits by putting on a bizarre show which could have been taken from Kim Jong-Uns North Korea: his cabinet secretaries took turns to heap grossly exaggerated and undeserved praise on him while the media covered the meeting. By the look of it, it didn't help.

Once again, Trump is contemplating the worst possible move in the current situation: he is reportedly considering firing independent counsel Robert Mueller, the person responsible for investigating the Russia scandal.

Firing Robert Mueller would be the direct equivalent of what made Congress finally turn on Richard Nixon. Not even Trump, with his loose grip on reality, can be unaware of that. Is he actively trying to get himself impeached? Quitting is not his thing, but he might finally realize that his attempts at staying on the job are futile and looking for an exit where he can claim unfair treatment and go down fighting, at least in his own mind to stroke his huge but brittle ego.

We may actually be looking at Donald Trump trying to get fired.

Or, we are looking at a person so detached from reality that he simply doesn't understand that the world wants him gone. Given his track record, both options sound plausible.

Good At Being Stupid

There is no doubt that Donald Trump is dim-witted, although it's unclear whether it's by birth or by dementia, and many of the people around him appear to be stupid as well. What's more, their stupidity appears to be bad enough for them not to realize that they are indeed stupid. Some of them, like Trump himself, even sem to think they are smarter than everyone else. Psychologists describe the Dunning-Kruger effect: people of some talent recognize better skill in others, but people without talent fail to see the difference between good and bad work.

Most people in the Trump administration seem blissfully unaware of their own lack of skill and talent for what they do. They actually think they are doing a good job. Sadly, this makes it very unlikely that they will ever improve. They are good at being stupid, and they will keep it up until they are removed from office.

Mind Over Matter

As the matter of the Russia investigation has closed in on the President and his close associates, the question arises: what is really on Donald Trump's mind? Does he honestly believe that he is innocent? Does he consider himself invincible, untouchable and above the law? Is he just trying to stay on the job for one more day at a a time, or does he have a long term plan? Is he really the hapless fool he appears to be? Or, is he an evil, calculating criminal who should be removed from power immediately, before he can do any more damage?

Is it wise to allow him to remain on the job while being investigated for serious crimes? I really don't think so.

Caught Up In Audio Tape

Just like in the Watergate scandal, the circus around Donald Trump and his alleged crimes has come down to a dispute over an audio recording. James Comey claims that Donald Trump asked him to drop an ongoing investigation of Mike Flynn, and to pledge his loyalty to Trump personally in order to keep his job. Trump says he never said what Comey claims he said, and that he might have tapes to prove it.

Trump might actually have recordings. It wouldn't be a big surprise if conversations in and near the Oval Office were recorded. Several other presidents have routinely done it. The one-on-one conversations with Comey were a breach of protocol, but Trump doesn't seem to care or know about such things. However, it is also probable that any such recordings support Comey's story rather than Trump's, and that Trump had no intention of releasing them. He just wanted to intimidate Comey, but it backfired. Comey seems fine with any such recordings being released, and the Trump administration has now been ordered to release them if they exist.

Trump drags his feet in response, apparently to stall for time. Questions of the day are: Do the tapes exist? If so, will they be released? And will Trump try to alter the recordings to make them less incriminating for him? Technology has come a long way since Nixon, and we will not get anything as obvious as the 16 seconds silence where Nixon had deleted his direct admission of guilt. However, there are still methods to detect if a recording has been altered, even if Trump enlists the help of his Russian hacker friends to doctor the surveillance recordings before he releases them.

Those 16 seconds of silence on the Watergate tape was what ultimately brought Nixon down. Donald Trump had better think carefully before making alterations to any tapes he might have.

Disgraceful Exit?

Now that we can see the end of President Trump, one question is whether he will ever admit to any wrongdoings. He never does that, ever, but his gullible base of die-hard Trump supporters need to hear him say something to make them understand that he conned them into voting for a crook. If he goes down claiming his innocence and sticking to the pathetic story that this is all a witch hunt directed by the deep state, there will be a large amount of people in the United States who genuinely believe that they had "their" president taken away from them. They are already disregarding the fact that he obviously favors only already wealthy people, that he doesn't care one bit about his voter base, and that he actually tries to pass legislation that would make lives harder for most ordinary citizens. It's not hard to imagine that they can ignore more facts. They will believe Trump if he keeps claiming that he is innocent, no matter how much evidence is presented or how many case are brought against him.

It is important that Donald Trump confesses and apologizes at the end of this crazy episode in US politics or, if he is too embarrassed or too stubborn to face the nation, that someone close to him makes the apology on his behalf. If his voter base is left wondering whether he was innocent, USA is facing domestic trouble with a risk of violent riots against whomever succeedsTrump as president.

Let's hope that Donald Trump, despite his deeply deluded mind, can find a way to come clean in public after the bitter end. It would be a better way to go than to deny everything.

Sarah Through The Looking Glass

In the press conference following James Comeys testimony, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, quote:

"I can definitely say the President is not a liar."

You could hear people struggling to hold back laughter. This is beyond silly. We are entering a Bizarro world where the only defense Trump can muster is a denial of reality.

Ooh. Burn.

James Comey on why he thinks he was fired:
"I take the President at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation."
Burn.
Then, he added:
"Although the President may not be telling the truth."
Double burn.
He started his testimony by saying that the initial reasons given for his firing were defamatory lies, plain and simple.  If the hearing continues like this, there won't be much left of Donald Trump's presidency when Comey is done speaking.

Defending the Indefensible

At what point will the Republicans in Congress stop closing their ranks behind President Trump, stop supporting him and start asking for his head? Wity every new piece of information coming out concerning Trump's complete lack of talent for the job, his strange economy and shady dealings with Russians, his backers in the House and the Senate are making themselves look like active accomplices by not crying foul and asking him to resign.

The Republican Party is tethering itself to a sinking ship in hope of keeping it afloat for just a little bit longer, when the right thing to do would be to cut loose and leave the ship to sink. The chances of getting anything done under this president are slim to none. Wouldn't it be better to simply face reality, get out while they can still save face, rebuild the party while there is still something left to save, and try to win an election for real next time?

Republicans ought to be ashamed. In fact, they should be beyond shame and bring out the pitchforks. But I guess they don't think anything like me.

Going Down Like Al Capone

Al Capone, famous for his violent and ruthless booze smuggling syndicate during the prohibition, did not actually go to jail for his main crimes, because he made sure to keep his distance and let his minions do the dirty work. Instead, his demise was a massive case of tax evasion, which earned him a long sentence. It was of course a disappointment to the prosecutors who had hoped to nail him for his main crimes, which were heinous and brutal, but the end result was the same: he ended up in jail and never regained control of his organization.

Donald Trump may have committed treason by his conspiration with Russia, but he also appears to have had enough shady dealings in money laundering to die in jail. Whatever gets him incarcerated and out of the Oval Office is fine with me. I'm not picky.

His Own Worst Enemy

Donald Trump has been instructed by his lawyers not to tweet without thinking, but he obviously can't think. Today he decided "screw it" and tweeted some more about what he yesterday referred to as his "Muslim ban" that he must not call a Muslim ban, but instead called it a "travel ban" after his lawyers have spent months trying to argue that it isn't a ban at all. He then went on to claim that what he really wants is the original, unconstitutional version, and then some.

His lawyers must have all made facepalms when they saw this. Donald Trump went straight against their advice and sabotaged any chances he might have had in getting the not-a-ban approved in court. He is truly a moron. But we knew that already.

Scared, Stupid And Stubborn

Following the terrorist attack on London Bridge, world leaders responded through the proper official channels with a unified message: we grieve with Britain, and we stand united against terror. Donald Trump, however, started off with a premature tweet before the story was confirmed, long before the London Police had announced that they were treating the heinous act as a terrorist attack, and what he chose to put into that tweet was basically "OMG WE NEED TO BAN ALL MUSLIMS *NOW* FROM ENTERING THE U.S!".

Trying to immediately use the attack for his own political gain. Ugly.

He followed up the next morning with a tweet based on a stupid misunderstanding of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Trump is not a good listener, and his brain is obviously not working right. Khan had told people not to be alarmed by the increased presence of police in the streets, but the bigot Trump who seems genuinely disturbed by the fact that Khan is a muslim, tweeted (paraphrased): "OMG PEOPLE ARE DEAD AND HE SAYS NO CAUSE FOR ALARM!"

Attacking the Mayor of London over a stupid misunderstanding the day after a terrorist attack struck his city. A new low, even for Trump.

Then something extraordinary happened. The Mayor of London was asked to comment, and he said "I have more important things to do than respond to a tweet from Donald Trump." Using his name and not his title sent a clear message: Donald Trump is not a proper President, but a twittering fool.

The President of the United States is being ignored and openly dismissed as a nuisance. Over the course of just a few months, Donald Trump has transformed the United States from the de facto leader of the free world to an annoying disturbance. He is an embarrassment and a disgrace, and he needs to go. Now.

Update: the following day, Khan made a comment on Trump's tweet, pointing out that the quote was taken out of context and misrepresented. Trump, refusing to admit that he just misread, made an even bigger fool of himself by calling that a "pathetic excuse". That's right. Donald Trump, President of the United States, took to insulting the Mayor of London in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack, which he and the London Police handled admirably. Is Donald Trump so filled with hatred of Islam that he simply cannot see that Khan, who happens to be Muslim, is a far better leader than him?

Donald Trump is actually claiming, with angry fervour, that the rest of the world read Khan's message wrong, and that only he, Donald Trump, read it right. For a person who can barely read, that is a pretty bold claim.

Trump is not just uneducated and unintelligent. His angry tweets are starting to look like the ravings of a madman. As if it weren't enough that he is ignorant, stupid and mean, he is also crazy, in the literal sense: irrational, erratic, paranoid.

The President is crazy. We really, really can't have that.

Spacing Out

"White House detaching from reality in 3... 2... 1... Mark."
"Disconnection confirmed. WH, you are now in moral and ethical free fall. No arguments will reach you, and your narrative will be unhampered by facts."
"Commencing tests. Donald Trump, our great leader, today received congratulations from everyone for his bold decision to unilaterally pull out of the Paris Climate Accord and join the proud nations of Nicaragua and Syria in forging its own path ahead."
"It seems to be working. You said that with a straight face."
"What? Sorry, I can't hear you. But I really don't want to. The White House wishes everyone to know that President Donald Trump, our glorious and benevolent leader who makes America great again with his every breath, is currently handling international politics by playing golf. He hit five hole-in-ones already on the first round and solved several of the world's long standing problems by sending out carefully worded, perfectly balanced and absolutely correctly spelled tweets. Other world leaders are bowing down to him in awe."
"Hello? I think you may have broken something there. We see some very strange readings on our end. This seems to be backfiring."
"Everything is fine. The President is doing a great job and everybody loves him. There is no Russia story. The future looks bright, and we are so very, very."
"So very what? WH, you're off the scale. That was way too much for the system. You had better come back and do a reality check."
"Lalala, I'm not listening."
"Ground Control to WH, do you read me?"
"Ooh, look, a butterfly! President Trump invented those, you know. Few people know that, but it's true."
"That's it. You're gone. You will crash and burn, and there is nothing we can do. Ground Control signing off."

Big Mouth, Small Brain

Next week, James Comey, the former director of the FBI who was fired by Donald Trump, is going to testify in a public hearing before a Senate committee. His testimony is public by his own request, and it is expected to be incriminating for Trump. Comey will probably  verify under oath what he has already said: that he was inappropriately pressured by Trump to pledge his personal loyalty to him, and asked to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn's dealings with the Russians. By his own admission, firing Comey was meant to take the pressure off of Trump. Needless to say, it didn't work, and Trump is now in deeper trouble than ever.

There was one way Trump could have dodged this bullet: he could have invoked the so-called executive privilege, which gives the President the right to confidentiality in discussions with senior staff. However, Donald Trump does not know anything about the law, or about anything else for that matter, so he has already burned that bridge by running his mouth in public about how great his meetings were with Comey, and how he was assured no less than three times that he was not under investigation himself.

Because Trump has already given a public account of his memory of those meetings, he cannot claim they are secret, and he can't stop Comey from presenting his version of what was said. Comey's recollection is likely to be very different from Trump's, because Comey kept notes, he has a good memory and a fully functioning brain, and he is an honest person.

By lying in public about something that boosted his ego but really didn't matter, like he always does, Donald Trump could actually have become the ultimate leaker, the one to finally expose his own lies.

Trump-to-English

After months of listening to Donald Trump (a true ordeal), I am finally able to present a partial translation guide. It might seem very simple, but he has been using these phrases consistently with the meaning below.

"Fake news": an inconvenient truth
"Everybody knows": I claim this without any evidence
"People are saying": some paid shill tweeted
"Nobody knew": everybody knew but me
"Few people know": most people know but I just found out, although I completely misunderstood it
"When people hear this, they are surprised": I just made this shit up
"I swear": I'm kidding
"I promise you": I really don't give a crap
"Believe me": I am lying to you
"It's true": it's not

Use this parlor to better understand President* Trump!

Everybody Except USA

With the announcement that he intends to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, a deal that was created largely through US leadership and US initiatives, Donald Trump has once again shown that he is isolating the United States from the rest of the world. He has previously distanced himself from the EU, the UN and NATO, as well as his neighbours Mexico and Canada, just to name a few. His isolationist policy is not rational. Its roots are to be found in his obsolete and misinformed view of the world, and it will leave the United States behind when the rest of the world moves forward.

Donald Trump is a sad, lonely person, spending his evenings alone in the White House, obsessing over some imaginary conspiracy or "unfair" treatment, shouting at his TV instead of doing his job. He is a bully and nobody wants to play with him. If his decisions to withdraw from international collaborations continue, it won't be long before the United States is also a sad nation alone against the world, for no good reason.

The President is currently burning bridges and destroying the international reputation of the United States, doing damage that will be hard to undo when he is removed from office either for his financial crimes or his treasonous acts to steal the election. It would be wise to speed up his removal by any legal means that are available.

Fake Trump Tweeting

Someone finally took Donald Trump's phone away from him. This morning, his personal Twitter account was very obviously managed by someone else, trying to impersonate him but forgetting that he doesn't know big words like "excoriate". In an apparent attempt at humanizing him, a tweet used self-deprecation and humor, neither of which are concepts he can grasp, and a third tweet expressed concern over how his son Barron reacted to a particularly tasteless image in media. It's doubtful whether he cares enough about Barron, an estranged son living with his estranged wife, to look past himself in the midst of a scandal that is consuming him.

The person who manages @realDonaldTrump can just as well stop trying right now. Even if Donald Trump is somehow still in the loop while a responsible adult tweets in his name, his tweets are definitely no longer his own message, but the product of some coherent and lucid spin doctor. A managed, filtered Trump is a fake Trump, and while we may be better off without Trump himself tweeting at us, these innocuous, ersatz Trump tweets are just boring.

Running The Country Into The Ground

It's very obvious by now that President* Donald Trump is an absolute disaster on his job. Unfortunately, there are no quick and easy means for having him fired. It's a bit like with his family business: if the CEO is also the owner, and is so bad for the company that it suffers damage, there is nobody who can fire that CEO. Unless the CEO has enough insight to see the cause of the problems and voluntarily step down, or some advisors have enough courage and influence to speak up and provide an eye-opener, the ultimate remedy is that the company folds and another takes its place on the market. However, letting an entire nation experience bankruptcy, whether moral or financial or both, is a messy outcome which nobody wants.

Donald Trump is crazy, stupid, dishonest and damaging to USA. There ought to be a better way to get rid of him than just to wait and see while he dismantles the country.

*: Donald Trump is an illegitimate president, elected in a process which was heavily influenced by a foreign hostile power seeking to sabotage the US democracy. He is financially compromised, deeply corrupt and strongly influenced by Vladimir Putin's Russia. Furthermore, he is literally incapable of doing the job. Donald Trump is a pretender, an impostor, a fraud, not a real president. His term will be among the shortest and least effective ever, and history will forever present him as an embarrassment with a disclaimer, not as a real president.

Need. Brain.

Sir, there seems to be a problem with your brain being missing.

This line, uttered by an outspoken friend and crew member to captain Mal in the TV series Firefly, needs to be said out loud in the White House. Donald Trump is woefully bad at his job and needs somebody to tell him that to his face. Someone he trusts, someone he won't just dismiss and fire or push to the sidelines.

Yes, Ivanka, we're looking at you. Before your father is too far gone to listen even to you, make him understand that his brain is going missing and that he has absolutely no business being the President.

At A Loss For Words

Donald Trump is losing his words. His vocabulary is significantly less rich than it was a decade ago, and his speech pattern resembles that of a child. He is even losing common words. When complaining about how he is treated by the press, he said "No politician in history, and I say this with great... surety... has ever been treated worse or more unfairly."

The statement is of course ridiculous. Plenty of politicians in history have been imprisoned, tortured and killed, and US presidents have been assassinated, which is definitely worse than being called out in the press for being a liar. However, his inability to find the right word is a lot more important here. Forgetting the common word "certainty" or "confidence" is a deeply troubling sign of dementia. A normal person with a clear mind just doesn't talk like that.

Donald Trump needs to have his head examined.

Self-deception Or Plain Lies?

Unofficial reports from within the White House tell of a President consumed by the Russia investigations, obsessing over "fake news", trying to discredit leaks and claiming that there is a conspiracy against him within the "deep state".

The thing is, that can't really be what he is thinking. Donald Trump can't reasonably be unaware and innocent in the middle of all this. So, what is the cause if his anxiety, then? Is he just worried that he will spend the rest of his life in jail, or is it possible that he actually feels some remorse over having sold out his country to a hostile power?

Or perhaps he is so far gone that he actually believes his own lies and thinks he can escape this mess without legal repercussions? His brain appears to be deteriorating at an alarming rate, and he might possibly not remember or understand that he and his minions conspired with Russia to rig the election in his favor.

In any case, the end is near for Donald Trump, and he knows it. It would just be slightly sad if he actually believes he's innocent. Not sad enough to pity him, though. He deserves nothing but contempt for what he has done to the United States and to the world.

Silent Treatment

Following the allegations that Jared Kushner asked the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak for a covert back channel of communication with the Kremlin, the White House has adopted a new strategy for dealing with the Russia story: "No comments". They can't possibly hope to put a lid on the story, because the sources are not going to let them get away with treason. The only logical explanation for the "no comments" policy is that the Trump administration has now given up on trying to defend even the people in their inner circle. It's probably for the best. Their lies were becoming too obvious, and everything they said only made things worse.

Still, one cannot help but wonder what Trump is hoping to achieve by clinging to power for just a little while longer. With the very legitimacy and independence of the presidency being disputed, it would probably be better if he just resigned and prepared to face trial.

The Soft Spot

The investigations into the contacts between the Trump administration and Russia is now moving closer to Donald Trump's inner circle. Despite this, he is defiant and denies any contacts, or at least denies having known about any such contacts.

A suggestion for investigators: focus on Ivanka. While she appears to be only a minor player in the illegal activities, she is definitely dirty as well. Ivanka is Donald's favourite, and he would probably do anything to keep her out of jail.

Turning Tricks

President* Donald Trump has a few cheap tricks in his playbook. The book is short and simple, because Donald Trump is barely literate, so the few tricks are being over-used, exposed and rendered ineffective as people learn to counter or avoid them.

The infamous "Trump power handshake" was effectively countered by Canada's Justin Trudeau a while back, but the move backfired hilariously when the newly elected president of France, Emmanuel Macron, shook hands with Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels on May 25. Macron used Trump's own trick, grabbed Trump's hand in a tight grip and shook it vigorously for way too long, maintaining eye contact. Trump visibly tried but failed to escape Macron's power grip, not just once but twice, and slipped into an increasingly uncomfortable grip completely dominated by Macron. There was a clenching of teeth and knuckles literally whitening, but Macron managed not only to render Trump's strange and disturbing handshake ineffective - he turned the table on him.

A handshake should not be a competition, but Trump certainly sees them that way, and he most definitely lost this one bigly. Being beaten at his own game was obviously disturbing for him. Macron later admitted that his handshake was "not innocent" but meant to send a clear signal that neither France nor Macron are going to bow down to Trump.

Macron later continued his not-so subtle humiliation of Trump by denying his outstretched hand and bypassing him to first greet Angela Merkel of Germany. This made Trump fume with rage and shake Macron's hand so hard it looked painful. However, the game was already over, and Trump lost.

We need Trump to be humiliated and ridiculed, because when he switches into fighting mode, he says and does stupid things that only make the situation worse for him. Make him mad and expose him for the fool he is, and we could hopefully be rid of him sooner.

When Reality Hits

Donald Trump has been living in a bubble of his own reality more or less since birth. Now, actual reality comes knocking and is impossible to ignore. How is he going to handle the situation? Blaming others has not worked. Distractions are not working. He is running out of lies. This is on him, and he must see it coming. Reports from White House staff say that Trump is becoming reclusive, irritable, depressed and embittered, but he keeps pretending that the Russia story is all fake, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

When the realization hits that he is a terrible, evil person who has caused severe, possibly irreparable damage to the country he is woefully incapable of leading, what will he do? Will he distance himself from reality altogether, will he try to apologize and face justice, or will he go completely off the hook and do something truly crazy?

Time will tell. Soon.

Core Meltdown And Fallout

Donald Trump is finally going down. Good riddance.

Then comes the aftermath. Too many people are dirty from the Russia scandal, and the effect will be devastating to the Republican party. For the sake of the country, USA needs to figure out how this could happen, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

This has been a scary, bumpy ride. Let's not do it again, OK?

Unfit In Every Way

The first few days of Donald Trump's first trip abroad as president has revealed something troubling about him: he is weak, out of shape and easily exhausted. He has already cancelled several events on his agenda, which was already designed to allow some downtime between events, and his staff attributes the cancellations to exhaustion.

Donald Trump appears to be not only mentally unfit for his job. His performance in Saudi Arabia indicates that he is also physically weak, unfit to travel and unfit to be the President.

Indefensible

In the midst of the current scandal around Donald Trump, it is strange to see some of his pundits not knowing when to quit and abandon the sinking ship. Fox News keeps trying to paint a rosy picture of a failing presidency, and many Republicans refuse to criticise him even as he does things that are unimaginably stupid and completely indefensible.

Why are so many people prepared to go down with a person who is so fundamentally unpleasant, dishonest and, quite frankly, insane?

Deep Rot

The rot runs deep and wide around the Russian meddling in the US presidential election. Sealed indictments have been issued against Trump and several people around him, in his administration as well as in the Republican party. US Marshals are kept ready to move and make several arrests on cue from the Justice Department. The end of the Trump presidency is imminent.

In addition to Trump, it appears that both Mike Pence and Paul Ryan are implicated as well. Next in line in the order of succession is Orrin Hatch, and lately he has been given security briefings to prepare him for the presidency. This is real.

Will the arrests begin before Trump's trip abroad, or after? In any case, a storm is coming .

Fair Treatment

President* Trump has taken to whining again, complaining about how he has been portrayed negatively by media and saying that he has been treated "unfairly".

No, Mr. Trump. You are confused again. You have been treated fairly, but not nicely, and portrayed negatively but accurately. You are an incompetent fool, a bully, a liar and a fraud, and you are being treated accordingly. A fair treatment involves calling out your lies, exposing your corruption and criticizing you for your ineptitude and ignorance. You have been given more than a fair chance to prove yourself, but you have failed at every turn. You are a stupid man on a job that is so far beyond your capabilities that you deserve nothing but disrespect and ridicule.

I'm sure you will get a fair trial as well, but that doesn't mean that you can avoid going to prison. You have been very naughty, Mr. Trump, and you will be punished for it. That's fair.