donald-trump – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Trump’s Name Finally Comes Off The Kennedy Center

May his named be erased from so much more.

Well, that happened. Finally. Trump’s desecrating name was finally removed from The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a judge ruled to make it so.

Photo of worker removing Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center by AP photographer Cliff Owen

It took a while, thanks to some legal cry-babying from Trump’s legal bunglers trying to soothe his injured and fragile ego. The act didn’t quite meet the June 12th deadline, but eventually under the cover of darkness and behind a curtain, the name came down after the public, via live streams on the Internet, got lessons in erecting scaffolding. The photo above was captured by Cliff Owen of the Associated Press and so far is the only one I’ve seen with a worker’s hands removing one of the letters.

The Kennedy Center has told the judge that all references to name have been removed from the building, website, and printed materials.

Of course the pedophile-in-chief’s name should have never been put there in the first place. It was a perversion. The removal is a small victory. Even if largely symbolic in a wellspring of atrocities. There’s no telling how long it will take to rebuild the damage he’s done to the Kennedy Center as an institution and the rest of what he’s destroyed.

But it is a bright moment in all of the darkness and hopefully breeds more anger and anticipation for ripping to shreds any of the other atrocious marks this less than human, but very real human monstrosity has visited on all of us.

The facade certainly looks better.

As Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times reminds us:

I want to live long enough to dance in the street when that happens. Let there be bonfires to light the night skies.

Update: The photo above of the facade with Trump’s name removed is from pre-Trump days. Apparently the tarp that covered the removal is still there and may be for some time.

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

The Old Man

Life cycles we pretend we can conquer

The title of this post does not refer to the title of a streaming TV series that is one of the best examples out there of a show having a winning first season and then completely deteriorating in its second. But perhaps that show’s failure the second time around could be a metaphor.

an elderly person wearing a dark jacket and a light-colored baseball cap sits alone on a long wooden park bench with metal support brackets. The bench faces a vast, calm body of water under a hazy, overcast sky. In the far distance, a large cargo ship is faintly visible on the horizon. Low green grass lines the foreground.

The title actually refers to what is happening before our eyes with Donald Trump. He’s physically breaking down fast in this, his second term. I don’t need to know his medical condition to see it. Neither do most. He and his enablers he’s assembled around him are lying to us and themselves about whatever is ailing him. For some reason they think they can pull that off. They can’t.

Here’s why.

Too many people in their lives have been faced with an aging or sick relative and had to watch the deterioration first hand. It’s a saga of life that everyone but only the very young knows. In these cases, the parent eventually becomes the child again, to be cared for by the child they raised.

Difficult moments present themselves all along the journey. Drivers license and car keys are taken away. Financial and medical decisions are assigned to others. Houses get rearranged. Sadly at some point for some they get moved into some form of long term care, which is nothing more than a way station warehouse before the end eventually arrives.

And those are the lucky ones who have family willing to do the work and bear the burden.

I’ve lived through these situations more times than I would have liked. It’s challenging and changes everything for everyone it touches.

There are always moments of denial and deflection before rationality sets in and necessary steps are taken. That pushback comes from those suffering and those supporting them. The conversations and confrontations are never easy. Someone once told me that you don’t really grow up until you face these challenges with an elderly loved one. I think they might be right.

It’s so familiar that it’s one of those oft repeated situations in life that when the loved one and/or their families finally admit what they’re dealing with to everyone around them, everyone around them breathes a sigh of relief and delivers those painful looks that say they’ve known all along.

In and of itself, those moments are a part of life’s cycles we can’t seem to break.

That so many have experienced something similar in their families shows just how irrational and afraid those enabling Trump must be to pretend that what most can see with their own eyes isn’t real. Being politically astute and thinking you’re smart enough to survive are two completely different skill sets.

Perhaps if their pardons were already signed things might be different.

Set aside just how awful this old man has been for the world. I don’t mean to extend any pity or sympathy towards him by saying that. He deserves none. But as we watch him continue to whither away, dragging the country approaching it’s 250th anniversary down with him, it’s a damn shame no one had the courage to tell the old man his time was up, instead of letting him, and us, linger in a farce of fog.

Putting this on a political stage, we’ve seen ailing and dying leaders propped up before. So, that’s nothing new. I would just offer that the propping up is more about those doing the propping than the old man they keep lying to protect.

(Image from Apostolos Vamvouras on Unsplash)

The Kennedy Center Saga Continues

A glimpse of hope for the future

With so many things fundamentally broken during this second Trump administration there’s a momentary sigh of relief when it appears that something, anything might be put back together again.

This week U.S.District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Trump’s appointed Kennedy Center board exceeded its authority when they decided to slap Trump’s name on the building and remake the building in his imagined image. Taking a look at any photo of the remade Oval Office and the plans for his ballroom, his gigantic arch, and the wrestling ring he’s built for his birthday beat down, which he somehow likens to the Eiffel Tower, is enough to make anyone with any semblance of taste in their mouth spit in disgust.

The ruling essentially says stop and take the offensive name off of the building. The Kennedy Center administration has already ordered employees to remove the sign and also strip all references from other signage, brochures, the website and to remove email signatures and letterhead by June 12th. The move is being hailed as a victory.

Cathartic and symbolic as removing the name may be, it can’t possibly make up for the damage done to the revered national center for the arts. It’s a start, and it certainly kindles hopes and dreams of doing the same to much of the defacing and defecating this one man wrecking crew has visited on Washington DC and the rest of the country.

Take for example the story of the National Symphony Orchestra. After many acts and organizations cut ties with the Kennedy Center rather than being associated with the madness, Trump closed the Kennedy Center for a two-year period of renovations, leaving the NSO without a home. Ben Folds, previous artistic advisor, (previous only because he stepped down when Trump took over), has released a letter calling for an “outpouring of public support.” Saying without such a push the NSO may not survive. You can read the full letter at this Instagram link. That will be a hard task and I wish them success.

I’ve said ever since Donald Trump came on the political scene that given the grifter and sexual predator’s previous life as a real estate developer we needed to understand that in order to construct something new a developer in his/her heart needed to also love demolishing something first. He’s certainly more than demonstrated a penchant for demolition and desecrating.

Here’s hoping one day we all get a chance to enjoying demolishing the things he’s touched in this horrible age.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

Pusillanimous Pardons and Immutable Immunity

The old rules no longer apply

When I check in on social media these days there’s a disturbing, yet comical, theme that runs through my feeds. Every time Trump or his toady enablers whips out some wide open act of corruption like a perverted exhibitionist my feeds fill up with naive anguish, hair pulling, and occasionally the gnashing of teeth.

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“Someone needs to stop this!”

“Congress must stand up!”

“How can they get away with this?”

What a waste of bandwidth and AI training.

In the first two instances there is no one left to stop any of this. Those folks have all gone home, or they’re cashing in after joining the circus. Congress doesn’t exist as anything other than a way to accrue vacation days, pensions, and fundraising opportunities.

As to “How can they get away with this?” One word folks.

Pardons.

Ok, two words.

Pardons and immunity.

When SCOTUS let Trump off the hook by conferring presidential immunity for official acts, he got permission to double down and do whatever he wants to do. Who knew gleefully committing crimes could be official acts?

Those following and enabling him, do so knowing full well that unless he dies before signing their pardons (he probably already has), they’re home free as well. Remember, accepting a pardon doesn’t erase the underlying crime, it just pardons you for criming in the company of a friend with pardon power and immunity.

For those who haven’t figured it out, it’s a risk free criminal enterprise.

It’s amazing how brave you might think you are, when you know you won’t be held accountable. It’s not bravery. It’s actually servitude.

It’s also amazing how naive we can be thinking any of the old rules still apply or that someone is going to ride to the rescue. No one wants to admit the jig is up because that ends the outrage gravy train, and is painful to contemplate.

But here we are.

(Image from Kelly Marken on Shutterstock)

Virginia Rejoins The Confederacy With Supreme Court Action On Voting Acts

Time to get off high horses on the high road

After the U.S Supreme Court decided to to do away with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Virginia Supreme Court said hold my beer and rejoined the Confederacy, rushing to throw out the results of a recent redistricting referendum, which allowed the Commonwealth to redraw legislative districts.

A high curving road in the mountains. Photo by ARRitz on Shutterstock

These turn back the clock on civil and voting rights efforts are moving at a rapid and dizzying pace. You can certainly say that those who’ve been harboring their south will rise again dreams are sensing their chance and seizing upon it, thanks to the U.S Supreme Court Callais vs Louisiana ruling.

You can also sense that there’s a bit of panic in the air on their part. If they miss this chance, it’ll be a while before there is another one, seeing that the leader they’ve chosen to lead their fight is losing popularity as quickly as he’s losing what’s left of his mind and dragging down what used to be the GOP with it. But I fear that’s not going to even matter.

As I said in this post a couple of days ago, this is the continuation of a struggle that has gone on since the birth of this country. And while many of the southern states that made up the Confederacy during the American Civil War can’t wait for their chance to rip out the pages of history, they can really only do so because of a racist hatred and nakedly corrupted criminal influence that has taken hold in all corners of the U.S.

As to that sense of panic, I wish I could sense some of that panic in this from the other side. Quite frankly, it’s time to get off the high horse on the high road and get a little dirty in this fight. I haven’t seen or heard it yet in any of the statements made in the wake of these decisions, or the recent special session in Tennessee that effectively turned that states representation possibilities into a joke. Tennessee didn’t have this easy of a time choosing to eventually secede the first time around.

I’m not sure what makes me angrier. The open nakedly racist aggression against voting rights, or the milk-toast almost resigned reactions by Democrats. That politicians yanking us back into an unwanted past and into a dismal future are doing so with glee in their cold dead hearts. It makes the weak kneed attempts of their opponents seem even weaker. Jellyfish have stiffer spines. You can’t have a country supposedly ruled by laws, if those charged with carrying out those laws bathe openly in criminal corruption.

Given all of the efforts at election interference and obstruction that have already taken place and that will continue, these redistricting battles are creating a scenario in which it doesn’t matter how big a turnout Democrats can muster or how evil these leeches on humanity are.

We haven’t seen a roll back of rights like this since the ancestors of those leading this one rolled back Reconstruction efforts.

(Photo by ARRITtz on Shutterstock)

Insanity Marches On. Now’s The Time To Stop It

You don’t see any borders between countries from space.

Insanity has been on the march for the last decade or so in the guise of Donald Trump. In his latest flight of madness, a wounded ego-fueled and dementia-addled rant, he’s declared that if Iran doesn’t capitulate to his terms by 8pm EDT, then at his hands, “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” I guess he’s hoping for big ratings.

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It may be Taco Tuesday, and this may indeed all be another bluff. It may be a real threat. Who knows? I don’t think it matters. It’s a dangerous corner he’s backed himself and the world into. Either way, everyone is going to lose more than anyone stands to gain.

Don’t get me wrong. Certainly it matters if he launches an attack, regardless of whatever form that might take. But the sheer inane insanity of making such a statement proves for, I don’t know, about the millionth time that he doesn’t belong anywhere near any decision making process that can affect other humans.

Possible bomb damage assessments aside, the damage has already been done. Those words have further pried open the lid to Pandora’s box and led to a much more dangerous future, regardless of what happens, and further frayed whatever is left of the reputation the American fabric stands for. You can argue that he’s already destroyed one civilization hours before his 8pm deadline.

I’m glad to see that emergency protests are being hastily arranged around the country.

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As dangerous as the chaos of this moment is, in my opinion we’ve reached the point when piling chaos on top of chaos might be the only way out of this moment’s danger and the larger incipient danger behind it. I’m sorry to say that. But in my view, that’s the truth of it.

I’m even sorrier (and angrier) to say that the Democratic political leadership continues adding to its reputation for feckless fighting back. Calls for Congress to come back to Washington from a vacation, or the cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment are as feeble as they come in the face of the cowardly dynamic in a capital populated by political eunuchs.

If ever there was a Democrat who wanted to separate him or herself from the pack of wannabe future contenders, assuming there is another presidential election of consequence, today might just be the opportune moment to come out of hiding and meme making and call people to the streets instead of falling back on modes of legislative and constitutional provisions essentially rendered moot. Leading in picking up the pieces won’t count for much if you continue to allow the pieces to shatter.

Who knows how this day will end. I believe it could end differently if enough citizens, yearning for leadership, found someone willing to lead, or lacking that and tired of waiting, take matters into their own hands. It won’t be pretty. It’s happened in other countries. It’s never been pretty. But there’s nothing about tomorrow that promises to be pretty regardless of whether Trump backs down (again) or sends humanity backsliding.

Certainly makes one wonder what perspective the astronauts currently circling the Moon might have looking back on this troubled planet. As former astronaut Sunita Williams once said,

You don’t see any borders between countries from space. That’s hand-made and one experiences it only when you return to Earth.

Birthright Citizenship and April Fools’ Day

The joke’s on us. All of us.

There’s something entirely appropriate and also ironic about the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments about birthright citizenship on April Fools’ Day. Don’t get me wrong, they shouldn’t be hearing the case in the first place. But they are and here we are.

The first section of the 14th Amendment, guarantees that any person born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens of the United States. Given how language can get tortured and twisted around by lawyers and scholars, the text of Section 1 is pretty clear on its face and doesn’t require a legal degree to understand.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

But, as I said, there’s a case (Trump v. Barbara) being heard tomorrow on April Fools’ Day. Traditionally a day for jokesters and pranksters to have some fun, this unfunny joke, in my opinion, is on us. All of us.

Bottom line, it’s yet another blatant attempt at remaking America, continuing the white supremacist myth that one race is superior to any other. The fools perpetuating this lampoon of law don’t really have the courage to spell it out so succinctly. But you have to grant SCOTUS some sort of sickly ironic gift for timing of the hearing. It comes a day after announcing a block of a Colorado law that banned “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ kids on the Transgender Day of Visibility.

The bad joke that this U.S. Supreme Court has become, along with most the rest of our government is anything but funny. In the wake of a fear so deeply held by this confederacy of dunces that their somehow supreme race is heading into some sort of imagined abyss so deep that too many are constructing doomsday bunkers, I have a dim view of the possible outcome. I cant predict how it will end up. With this sad excuse of a president planning to attend the hearing tomorrow, making even more of a mockery of the episode, you just know we’re heading into another of those moments that are no laughing matter, but makes us all all victims of this dangerous prank.

Bull(shit) in the Tariff Shop

Breaking. Things continue to break.

Well, let’s see. Having previously castrated Congress, Trump is now setting out to do the same to the Supreme Court. After SCOTUS ruled against his administration’s tariffs that were levied based on made up emergencies, Trump has essentially said that he’ll just keep them in place using other authorities.

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Of course that begs the question as to why he didn’t use those authorities in the first place. Oh, and he’s going to level an additional 10% tariff on the rest of the world in addition to piling that on top of those he’s allowed to keep. But set that aside. Any way you look at the 6-3 SCOTUS decision it’s a political and legal loss for POTUS. But then, hell hath no fury like a pedophile scorned.

Sulking like a scolded child, Trump’s typical insult laden bullying remarks also went after the justices (both conservative and liberal) that did not vote in his favor, so you know he’s he’s doing that sulking like a wounded beast in a corner waiting to strike back.

So, all and all Trump is basically giving a big middle finger to the Supreme Court the same way he has the rest of the country’s institutions, as he continues to make a world that only he sees in what’s left of his delusional mind. SCOTUS may have tried to reset the tricky balance between Congress and the Executive Branch with this decision, but asking that castrated branch to get it up and act feels comically painful now that Trump is kicking them in the balls as well. Justice Gorsuch’s eunuch-like plea for a divided system of government sounds almost lullaby-like in its longing.

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Lots of words will be written and spoken about what it all means. They won’t mean much. Given the SCOTUS decision and the pouty sour grapes speech following it, no one really knows what the economic damage will or won’t be at this point. But the political wreckage is easy to see. Suffice it to say, the situation is more than a messy minefield that will take some time to find a path through. We’d probably be better off just letting this wild bullshit artist rampage through it.

Shit’s gonna need to be cleaned up anyway.

UPDATE: After stewing in whatever the juices are they feed him intravenously, Trump upped his 10% global tariff tantrum tax to 15% the day after the SCOTUS decision came down.

(image from Igor Zakowski on Shutterstock)

If There Are Better Angels, What Does That Make The Rest Of Us?

Dual or duelling realities?

Abraham Lincoln trying to find a middle ground and attempting to hold the Union together proclaimed in his 1861 inaugural address that the “better angels of our nature” would help the country persevere. James Madison, writing in Federalist 51 said “if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

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We’ve always looked to angels, either to save ourselves from ourselves, or excuse ourselves from those parts of humanity we know exist within or alongside us. The countless cartoons of angels and devils sitting on opposite shoulders illustrate this duality quite well. Even so, those who see the world as the brutal place it can be and act accordingly can just as often be found in pulpits praying to those better angels for guidance and protection.

Which begs the question, if there are “better angels” what does that make the rest of us? Are they divided into good, better, best ratings? To say they are all demons and devils is a shortcut that typically has led those holier than thou turning their own plowshares into swords of retribution just as sharp as those they hope to defeat.

So, I’m not a fan of the metaphor. First, it implies some sort of fairy tale-like savior(s) from beyond, heavenly or no, to right wrongs and dole out punishment, or caring and consoling those less fortunate. Second, depending on which religious texts you cling to, angels haven’t all been the “angels” we fantasize about and commercialize. Biblical texts, some still sworn by (Genesis), and some not (The Book of Enoch), talk about Angels sexually cavorting with humans, although just like anything else you can pick your side of that theological debate.

I’m sure many of those finding their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, who are now the subject of scrutiny they thought they’d avoided, didn’t think twice in the moment about brushing off the better angels on their shoulders.

So, it’s no wonder we dwell in our duality. Sticking to the biblical for the moment, theoretically and theologically there was only one rule in the beginning. “Don’t eat the damn apple.” We’ve been adding and breaking rules ever since. Insert something about them made to be broken here.

It doesn’t matter which sphere of life you wander through, that duality is going to exist. I happen to believe that the vast majority of people start out to do something they think is a good thing, and then perhaps find their morality or their principals challenged along the they way. At that fork in the road, some choose a path that doesn’t comprise their belief systems, others the opposite.

That’s the test. There may be many gray areas in life, but that test is only pass/fail. Some may try to erase the result from their permanent record, but I think they call it permanent for a reason. Even if they can be redacted, deleted, or discarded.

On a more earthly level than spirituality, in sports there are those who play by the rules and those who will do anything it takes to win. There are admirers and fans of both. The same is true in business. The language often used in either competitive arena certainly isn’t always what I would call better angel-ish.

And then there’s politics. As my grandmother used to say, “politics is a dirty business for dirty people.” She nailed that one.

Good friend and fellow gadfly, David Todd McCarty, recently wrote about our America’s Dual State, more specifically about the dual state theory of Ernst Frankel wherein we exist in two different realities, the Normative State and the Prerogative State. As David distills it,

He called the first reality, the Normative State, where everything felt normal, and people were protected by laws and courts, and life functioned as before. The other, he called the Prerogative State, which was governed entirely by the Party, outside of the rule of law, existing in an arbitrary state of violent oppression.

Frankel was speaking about Nazi Germany, and today’s parallels have been far too easy to see or avoid. Except for those living in the Normative State, or those relishing in the performance of those pushing us towards the Prerogative State.

While I’m not a fan of the dueling angels on opposite shoulders metaphor in and of itself, pair it up with Frankel’s theory and I think those cartoons lift the animated dilemma closer to our own reality than most want to admit, but find themselves increasingly coming to terms with as those two realities increasingly converge.

I freely admit there are days when I’m hearing more from my darker angels than I want to. I like to think those thoughts come from a place of good I can return to once this is all over. But then I’m reminded of Madison more than I am of Lincoln.

(image from Alexander_P on Shutterstock)

A Question for Senate Democrats: Which Side Are You On?

Showing up is half the battle

Each time I try to lower my blood pressure a bit and calm down about the abhorrent political situation we’re living through in this country, something else pops and causes it to spike again. This time it’s the Democrats in the Senate.

It’s bad enough that we have to deal with the shit that’s continually dumped on us from the Trump regime, but when the Democrats have a chance to at least show up and threaten a fight they seem to forget that showing up is more than half the battle.

Both branches of Congress decided to split out DHS funding from the recently passed appropriations bills, leading to what most presume is a ridiculous two week timeline to debate changes for that appropriation. Call me skeptical, but I see that as another Lucy and the football moment just waiting to play out.

But it gets worse. The Democrats, according to this report from Politico, decided to strip from their demands a requirement banning ICE agents from polling sites.

If it seems feckless, that’s because it is.

At the very least include the requirement as a demand and make the GOP work to negotiate it away. Given words coming out of the White House about nationalizing voting and the pot stirring of its allies, you’d think they’d at least pay lip service to the threat. From a pure political standpoint I don’t understand the rationalization for this move given what we’ve seen with our own eyes and the words we’re hearing.

If Pete Seeger was alive today I’m sure he’d still be singing.