If you’re like me when that Trump “Goldengate” story broke you immediately started searching the internet for pertinent information.  Also if you’re like me, when you found it you realized fairly quickly it was so bazaar it was in need of some serious fact checking.  In case you are fortunate enough to somehow be unaware of the sordid details, just google “Buzzfeed golden shower”.  You can find how the media handled the situation here.  Personally I don’t think CNN can claim to be totally blameless for the blowback.  True, what they reported was factual, but they opened the door that BuzzFeed saw as opportunity to release the entirety of the salacious document.  Maybe there is something to this story, maybe not.  But our media had better resist the temptation to be first on the block to disclose a story when it is unsubstantiated.

Of course this story is not without irony.  As explained here President Trump is a notorious liar and this can easily be considered a case of receiving a deserved dose of his own medicine.  But it has never been more important that the fourth estate kept us informed of that which is fact.    It’s bad enough when the president and his surrogates make their “alternative facts” seem believable, but passing  them a blatant lie on a silver platter is something they will absolutely feast on.  Zeke Miller! Get your head out of your ass.

It is apparent to most that President Trump has trouble dwelling in the realm of truth.  Take for instance his insistence that no one cares about his tax returns. Total bull shit.  I know because i did my very own survey just the other day.  I got pretty riled up after I heard him once again dodge and deflect about that during his pre-inageral news conference.  I laced up my shoes and went door to door on my block and asked my neighbors how they felt about the issue.  And I didn’t just collect information from the left. I wanted to be fair and hear from both sides, so I weaved my way right, then left, then right and so on till I reached the end of the block.   It’s a long block too.  More like two blocks.  There is sort of an alleyway halfway down that intersects our street at a right angle.  It doesn’t go through though,  It just ends at our street.  I don’t know what the fuck it’s doing there, but it comes in handy sometimes.

Now on my way back I noticed the left was now on my right.  So just to make sure opinions hadn’t changed I solicited each house again.  And sure enough nothing changed.  Each of my neighbors gave me the same answer they had previously.  Actually I didn’t get a second answer from everyone.  About half way back I decided since I was so consistently receiving the same answer from everybody the second time, continuing on with my questioning seemed pointless.  But just to make sure everything stayed on the up and up, I walked the rest of the way home backwards.  That way my left was still on my left and my right was on my right, just as it was when I departed. I wanted to be sure no one would think I was tampering with the results of my survey.  It’s important people know I wasn’t dicking around with facts.

Just as I suspected, overwhelmingly the public wants Mr. Trump to release his tax returns.  Of the 21 people I surveyed, none said absolutely not, 2 said it didn’t matter one way or the other, and 18 said yes, he should cough them up.  And all 18 were vehemently adamant about it.  Actually one of the 18 was a little more vehement about  Joey “No Socks”   than Mr. Trump and his tax returns.  That was a guy we call Bugsy.  He lives five houses down the block and kind of keeps to himself.  After I got a “yes” out of him he went on a rampaging dialog about Mr. “No Socks” owing him 30 G’s for some kind of painting he found somewhere and how he was going to take care of Mr. No Socks as soon as he completed his house arrest.  I couldn’t quite follow the whole thing but thought it would be more prudent to get the hell out of there than ask for clarification.

Trump and Mr. No Socks

You’re probably wondering about that one person that is unaccounted for.  Number 21 would be Marlborough Man.  He’s a stay at home dad and no one has ever seen him without a lit cigarette.  He lives clear at the end of the block and his yard is strewn with dog shit and dead animal parts.  The entire environment shouts stay away.  Another thing in his yard, even to this day, is a “Vote for Trump” sign, so to eliminate the risk of defiling my shoes with something untoward,  I just chalked  Marlborough Man up to a big NO that is duly logged, though that result is properly marked with an asterisk.

So as you can see Mr. Trump, people absolutely DO want to see your tax returns and by saying we are not interested you are promoting fake news.  And speaking of fake, those fake folders you displayed during that January 11th news conference were quite the nice touch.  If nothing else at least your well polished skills as a con-man remain factually consistent.   I look forward to seeing just how far you can push that envelope of public gullibility now that you are actually our president.

2/20/18- Dear Diary:

Well we made it through the first year Diary, and boy what a year!  I think America should be damn proud of what president Trump got done.  The wall is under way, that silly Obamacare is caput, and we rounded up all those bad muslims and Mexicans.  I think that’s a pretty impressive  list of accomplishments.  Of course the dishonest media is making a big stink about all of this stuff.  I think Gitmo was a great idea.  Our prisons are all filled up, so what better place to stuff all those muslims.   We’ll figure out what do with those guys someday.  And what a clever idea it was to use all those school busses to transport the Mexicans back to Tijuana.  They just collect dust in the summer anyway.

And we kind of need a way to cut expenses.  The dishonest press said a bunch of people were upset when they found out they were going to have to pay for the wall after all, but Ms. Conway came in and got that all straighten out and did a pretty good job explaining it was President Obama’s fault for letting all those Mexicans into America in the first place.  For some reason just mentioning Obama’s name like that seems to make people realize what a great president Mr. Trump is.   But really, like Mr. Trump says, the funding problem is on Congress anyway.  It’s their job to figure out where 26 billion dollars comes from.  He tried his best to get Mexico to pay up.  You  know about the twitter war he’s having with Vicente Fox.  I know he’s not the the Mexican president in office anymore, but he really should watch his potty mouth.  Using the “f” word and all.  I’m so glad our president doesn’t stoop that low. He might not know a lot of words, but like he says he knows all the good ones.

3/02/18- Dear Diary:

Well the dishonest media is at it again Diary.  They’re saying there’s some sort of conflict of interest with those new golf courses Mr. Trump has going on in Russia and Syria.  Everyone knows his sons are the ones involved in that.  He’s way too busy managing his Twitter account to have time for any outside business.  That damn Vicente is just a constant bother the president has to deal with.  They’ve been going back and forth now for over a year.   Right off I kept telling him to just let it go. As assistant press secretary (How I Became Assistant Press Secretary) I get to sit in on a lot of the office conversation, and I have to tell you if he comes across a tweet or something on TV that bothers him, that Oval Office is likely in for some  overheating.  Nothing seems to lather him up like ol’ Vicente though.

Of course I told you a year ago what set him off was Vicente’s tweet about him being all illegitimate and stuff since he lost so bad to Hillary in the popular and then he just had to bring up that awkward intelligence information about Russia pushing the election his way.  It’s got to the point now the two of them pass insulting tweets to each other pretty much every other day.  I have to say I’m a little worried where this is headed.  Like that tweet he sent today.  “Roses are red, violets are blue; Mexicans are losers, that means Vicente too. So sad!”

3/10/18- Dear Diary:

Well wouldn’t you know it those prissy environmentalists got their underwear in a bunch over the president’s executive order to have all the wind turbines in the country dismantled.  He really hates those things and made sure we understood  he did it out of concern for all the poor birds that those murderous machines kill.  His complimentary directive to switch all the electrical facilities back to coal is just the thing to help out our feathered friends.

And what is up with all those tree huggers anyway.  Geezus if anyone knows the best places to drill for oil it’s EPA Secretary Pruitt.  Mr. Trump stayed up all night tweet bashing critics objecting to the Trans Yellowstone Pipeline.  God what a bunch of whiners.  Maybe all that fracking wasn’t such a good idea in Oklahoma, but this is Yellowstone for Pete’s sake. Thousands of earthquakes rumble through there every day.  What difference will a few hundred more make anyway?

3/16/18- Dear Diary:

I have to agree with the president on this one.  When Robert Di Nero got on stage during the Oscars and started calling the president a “crazy man,”  well that’s just plain disrespectful, and the president had every right to skip the G8 Summit so he could spend some quality twitter time letting people  know how overrated Di Nero is.  Did you see Taxi Driver?  I really thought the president put Di Nero in his place with his tweet “I could have played that part blindfolded. What a hack!”  Spot on Mr. president!

The last couple of tweets Mr. Trump fired off at Vicente have me even more concerned than before.  Now that the vindictive poetry has regressed to limericks, the president seems to be a little out of his element.

3/20/18- Dear Diary:

Ms. Conway got a little upset with the president today.  Sometimes the two of them get into heated discussions about what’s more important.  Of course Mr. Trump knows he has to deal with all the unflattering tweets and dishonest media and as you might suspect Ms. Conway does her best to remind the president about governing stuff, and every once in awhile the president turns all red and then he and Ms. Conway  leave the room and then they duck into a closet in the hallway.  I don’t know what goes on in there, but every time they come back out of that closet Ms. Conway has Mr. Trump all calmed down.  Boy if you ask me I think that Ms. Conway has really earned her stripes.

3/21/18- Dear Diary:

Well Diary the shit hit the fan today.  Ms. Conway really got in the president’s grill for not studying up on the the speech she prepared for him.  After the stock market crashed yesterday she thought it might be a good idea to have a press conference and tell the people the dishonest media was way overblowing the situation and sort of calm people down. That damn Vicente started the whole thing when he sent out that tweet about GM and Honda moving their SUV production to Mexico and how Walmart and then GE and Verizon were thinking about shifting business across the border too and you better believe Mr. Trump wasn’t about to take that sitting down so he started off with all the threatening tweets, and wouldn’t you know it stupid Wall Street panicked with the huge sell off.  And guess what Diary?  Ms. Conway up and took Mr. Trump’s phone away.  Of course he started getting all red in the face, but Ms. Conway took control of the situation with another trip to the hallway closet.

3/22/18- Dear Diary:

I thought Ms. Conway did a bang up job on TV last night.  With the president still left a little stunned without his cell phone, Ms. Conway was stuck with the job of facing the press.  I think she said it all with her closing statement “It’s time America stopped paying attention to what President Trump says and start listening to what’s in his heart.”  From what I hear quite a few people out there say that makes some kind of sense.

To show you how clever the president is, he got ahold of another cell phone.  Naturally he couldn’t get out of the White House without his security team, so guess what he did Diary? Last night he shimmied out of the master bedroom on a bed-linen rope.  Do you believe it?  Then he took a cab to the nearest Verizon store.  Honest to God!

3/23/18- Dear Diary:

Of course, dear Diary,  you might have figured we all found out about that cell phone episode.  The president didn’t have a credit card on him or anything so he just ran out of the store with his phone and then didn’t have any money to pay the cabbie so the police got all involved.  Mr. Priebus and Ms. Conway were able to straighten things out though.  And take his new phone away.  Tonight I have to sleep in a small office in the Treasury Building so I can keep an eye on the Master Bedroom windows.

3/24/18- Dear Diary:

I don’t know exactly what happened Diary, and I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to retrace all the steps.  In the end we found out it wasn’t Vicente doing all the tweeting after all, at least for the past four months.  It was some 400 pound fatso by the name of Harold Tweedy.  He was just laying around on his bed one day and figured out how to hack into the president’s cell phone.  After he lost his Obamacare coverage he become despondent, and sort of turned vindictive.  He was all set to have bariatric surgery and then all of a sudden Congress up and pulled the rug out from under him.

After he got caught Harold admitted getting the stock market to crash was particularly satisfying to him, but he didn’t expect things to go this far.  Since the president hasn’t had a phone for a few days we were all wondering what in the world North Korea got so jacked up about.  After a little CIA and FBI research, kind of concentrated on who all had nuclear weapons at their disposal, they were able to trace back some tweets between Harold and Kim Jong-Un.  Harold had him believing he was President Trump and tweeted off one disparaging remark after another.  Well that guy is even less receptive to criticism than our president, if you can believe it, and as you can imagine, Diary, it was just a matter of time before Harold pushed Kim Jong-Un’s button.  And as it turned out that was the button that triggered the button that sent that ICBM into the heart of Los Angeles.  It’s just a big mess.  Late this afternoon we found out North Korea isn’t the only country Harold poked a stick at.  President Assad got a little miffed at all the personal insults he thought Mr. Trump was tweeting and decided to barrel bomb all 36 holes of the Trump’s fancy golf course in Damascus.  Surprisingly Mr. Trump is taking things pretty well, but Ms. Conway is the one turning all red.  Since things are kind of in reverse order, I’m not sure if that hallway closet will work out like before.

IN THE END THESE PEOPLE SAW LITTLE HUMOR IN TWITTERGATE

NOTE:  Due to the length of this blog, in the interest of saving time for our esteemed electoral college delegates  I have bold typed supportive information.  Some of you are probably on your way to wherever it is that you do your electoral college stuff.  I would appreciate it if you would give sober consideration to everything highlighted.  For the rest of you, it might be smart if you stopped tweeting and read the entire article word for word.   It won’t kill you to learn something for a change.

I think it is time to reevaluate our system of presidential elections in our country.  Personally  I’m all for keeping it simple.  The popular vote should be the one that counts. Even Donald Trump says the electoral college is rigged.  If you are in the mood for a nice migraine headache just try hacking your way through the Wikipedia narrative about that thing.  And if you’re like me you  wonder what in the hell were our founding fathers thinking?  It couldn’t be any more confusing.  I do know a couple of things about the institution though.  There were two reasons for it’s implementation.  First, it was an accommodation for the slave states.  They were afraid they would be unfairly represented in the voting process because their states were generally less populated.  By white folks anyway.  There were plenty of black folks walking around down there, but of course they didn’t count.  Well, one counted as three fifths of a white person for census purposes, but they weren’t allowed to vote.   And who can blame  the constitutional delegation for that.  Would you want to do all that fractional math without a calculator?

The guys that brainstormed over all this were for the most part really smart fellows.  At least they thought so, because the second reason they decided the electoral college was a good idea was they were afraid that people for the most part were a bunch of rubes who might have misconceptions of what was actually required to hold the highest office in the land, and they wanted to establish a method for overriding the general election results.  The whole idea was to make sure we avoided a country ruled by kings or dictators.  Or crazy people.   To me these criteria are as outdated as capri pants and powdered wigs, and we should do some housecleaning- except for now.  I do not think there could possibly be a more relevant time to put this concept to the ultimate test.  The electoral college is set to meet on December 19th, the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Or is it the other way around?  I really don’t want to walk over to my desk and peek at my calendar.  I’m no constitutionalist, but if it were me I would just make it the first Thursday of the month.  After all that work who’s going to blame you for not showing up at your job the next day.   You take a long weekend.  Forget all that first after the second business. Personally I think our forefathers got a bit carried away with that notion.

Electoral College                                                     Regular College

So on the 19th of December members of the electoral college could actually do something  historical– change a presidential election. The one and only time a similar situation occurred was after the 1836 election of Martin Van Buren.  Strangely it was Richard M Johnson, Van Buren’s running mate, that caused the stir. He must have been a real dick.  But the senate, who’s job it is to declare the winner in a VP controversy,  ended up choosing Johnson anyway.

I’m not saying those who voted for Mr. Trump are a load of hayseeds.  Believe me I am as disgusted as anyone with political elitism and indifference.   We do need to shake things up, to the point of amending the constitution here and there if you ask me.  But it has became abundantly clear our president-elect is not any kind of instrument for constructive change.  When your record of attending intelligence briefings is one out of six,  I think it’s a pretty good indication you really aren’t that interested in the job in the first place.  It seems standing in front of an adoring crowd is much more important to Mr. Trump.

To me one of the curious benefits of the electoral college is during the interceding time between the general election and the time the college convenes, we can get a glimpse of how our president-elect will fashion his administration.  It is pretty clear from Donald Trump’s choices for his cabinet and advisors he couldn’t give a shit about the future of this country or planet.  He is in this thing for his own self promotion.  Then there is all the legal difficulty the man has.  The law suits he has to deal with currently are bad enough.  But our already productivity challenged congress will have to spend an inordinate amount of time on congressional investigations and possible litigation of Trump’s conflict of interests if he does not divest himself of his business holdings.  That emollients clause has been waiting to get dusted off for about 240 years.  

 Sure Mr. Trump is entitled to select his own advisers,  but how comfortable are you with his picks when he has shown complete disregard for information from a professional intelligence staff, particularly their conclusions about Russian involvement in the election,  and is manipulated by the likes of Steve Bannon.  Trump’s EPA director and Secretary of Education both embrace  policies that essentially will encourage dissolution of the very departments they are in charge of.  His Secretary of Commerce and Treasury Secretary are the same old Wall Street types Trump vowed to purge from government involvement.  In fact Steven Mnuchin profited millions off of the Bernie Madoff scheme, ran OneWest bank where he made money off the backs of suffering California homeowners, then sold the failing enterprise for a profit of 1.5 billion.  The alt-right even hates this guy.  His National Security Advisor is a fake news promoter and avowed Islamophobe.  His Labor Secretary choice is anti-labor.  HUD should have someone really smart in charge, but I’m not sure a brain surgeon is the way to go.   His Secretary of State is another wealthy elitist with close business ties to Vladimir Putin.  And how in the hell can you justify having an insurrectional racist like Steve Bannon as your right-hand man?

But even worse, Mr. Trump  showed  his true colors by attacking a private citizen with a relentless procession of cyber bullying.  Geezuz kreist you get kicked out of high school for doing that shit.  Chuck Jones, the unfortunate Carrier Company union boss who dared point out one of Mr. Trump’s lies, now has to put up with unwarranted social media harassment thanks to Trump’s bazaar habit of retaliatory tweeting.  It is a despicable reaction for someone with presidential authority.  I am sorry but Donald Trump is not only too thin skinned for the job, but there is something wrong with his head.

The members of the electoral college have a chance to save us. The odds of that happening are about the same as Frosty the Snow Man being elected president, but let’s face it Donald Trump started out with similar odds.  With that in mind one more unexpected development might be in order.  Come on man!  Vote your conscience and country, not your party.

Whether the electoral college comes to our rescue or not, it is clear we need to install popular vote for our presidential elections.  How do we assure nut jobs won’t get elected if we abandon the electoral college?  Simple.  Science.  Besides a complete physical, we make every presidential candidate take a full psychiatric exam including a thorough battery of psychological tests.  We should send them off for an EEG and do some poking around inside the old hat rack too. We need to know what in the heck we are getting for our money.   When I was in college I participated in a psychophysiological study involving an experimental drug  that one of my professors was developing.  And for the effort It also involved me getting a better grade in his pharmacy class that I wasn’t exactly acing.  Here is a picture of me during the lab  participation. It looks scary but believe it or not it’s a piece of cake.  For the record you should know those many electrodes discovered nothing out of place.   That was 1969.  I am sure by now modifications have been implemented that make the science a lot less cumbersome. I think you have to agree It’s a small inconvenience  to insure the competency of our leaders.

Please SHARE.  Who knows.  Maybe if some of our electors at least pay attention to  the highlighted parts of this or read similar blogs, it will jolt them to accept reality and we can show the world constitutional democracy makes sense after all.

NOTE:  if you disliked this blog, you will absolutely hate these: 28th Amendment  Make Mars Great Again  Second Coming  Our Closet Comedian

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”  Maya Angelou

I know three days after the election I said we should hang tough and hope for the best for our president-elect.  Less than two weeks later so many negative developments have occurred that at this point I have serious doubts that Mr. Trump’s administration will be anything close to principled.  His choice for Treasury Secretary is exactly the type of candidate Mr. Trump said he was going to purge from our governing payroll while he was campaigning.  Same goes for his Commerce Secretary,  As a matter of fact Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with such a vast array of Wall Streeters his administration is being labeled the richest in modern political history.  What we have is more alligators in the swamp.   His Secretary of Education is another elitist with no public school background who’s agenda is likely to provide the best education only to the wealthy.  Worst of all, having Steve Bannon roaming the White House at all, let alone in a capacity of counsel, is appalling.  So much for uniting the country.  Mr. Trump’s words of promise during his acceptance speech that he is going to be president for all Americans could not possibly ring any more hollow.

Mr. Trump knows full well the mountain of conflict of interest issues that surround him are jarring,  yet he has the gall to state that because he was elected he is entitled to do whatever he wants.  Recently he  made the comment that he is going to take care of his conflicting connections, but I personally don’t believe he will ever  totally divest himself from his business interests as the government ethics office has strongly suggested.  It’s the right thing to do, but ethics and Donald Trump do not often travel on the same path.

All of these transition affairs are starting to converge into a political shit storm.  Still there might be a dim ray of hope on the horizon.  Mr. Trump and Mike Pence should be praised for negotiating with Carrier and saving 800 jobs.  At least it shows big business is paying attention to Trump’s threats, and if threatening works, so be it. But look what happened here.  First of all, Carrier still intends to send 1,300 jobs to Mexico. Second of all, instead of following through on all the blusterous rhetoric of his campaign and punishing Carrier, he rewarded the company with tax incentives and subsidies.  Guess who gets to pay for the lost revenue?  The Indiana taxpayers.  What has thus been established is a very bad precedent.  Now any CEO worth his/her salt will threaten to leave the country in order to reap the type of benefits awarded to Carrier.  At this point this was a well publicized PR coup, but little else.  Just  a mile down the road from this particular Carrier plant is the ball bearing manufacturer Rexnord.  Manitowoc Foodservices is situated In southern Indiana.  They are both relocating in Mexico next year.  Neither business has been contacted by Trump or Pence.

What the Trump transition develops into in the way of his official administration is, of course, conjecture.  But these political appointments are telling, and Mr. Trump’s present lack of attention that has been on display these past few weeks is alarming.  According to his own staff he has declined to attend many intelligence briefings.  With less than two months remaining before he officially assumes the office you would think he would start taking the job seriously.  He does not seem to know what he doesn’t know, and shows little interest in learning anything, something that should be apparent to his closest advisors.  He is unfamiliar with diplomatic protocol and even lacks important historical knowledge of politically volatile parts of the world. Trump’s bizarre conversation Kellyanne!  Reince!  Where in the hell are you? Stay out of this Steve!! The guy needs help!  And what in the hell is with all the tweeting?  Now he is taking his “Thank you tour” when he should be boning up on current events.  He is in constant need of admiration and ego stroking.  He appears to watch television with every free moment and reacts to whatever he sees with a new tweet.  These are disturbing patterns of behavior.

NERO                                                             TRUMPO

Checklist of Trump campaign promises to date:  Drain the swamp- forget about it.  Punish  corporate outsourcing-  guess we’ll try the complete opposite.  Unite the country-  never really cared in the first place.

One small moment in time of this past, gut wrenching campaign process gnaws at me daily- the words “I’m getting sick and tired of hearing about all your damn e-mails.”  Had Bernie Sanders never uttered those words, there is a good possibility I would be blogging about the upcoming Sanders administration.  As it is, please keep in mind we elected a president, not a king.  The man is supposed to work for us, not line his own pockets by stretching conventional ethics and constitutional law.