Trumpists can never defend their support of the criminal sitting in the Oval Office without bringing up 2 subjects: 1) What about Hillary, and 2) The economy is booming.  The problem is that both answers are bullshit.  The whole Hillary thing is a simple dodge that Trump and his sycophants use on a daily basis to deflect attention away from the damage he is inflicting with the deepening constitutional crisis of his own making; but what about the economy?  True, the stock market (at least the S&P) touched an all time high on Friday, a whopping $2.00 over the previous high attained in January of this year.  The Dow remains about $1,000 below its January high.  Never hesitant to give himself credit for something, Trump tweeted this just as John McCain passed away:

Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder aside, is the economy really booming?  The answer depends on where you actually sit.  For those who received unnecessary tax cuts that are now overheating the economy, exploding the national debt, and kicking off inflation, yes, they are receiving a windfall that they are using for stock buybacks and acquiring more personal goods.  For those who are on the other end, not so much.  Wages have been stagnated since Reagan.  42% of Americans earn below $15 per hour.  One third of Americans earn less than $12.  The minimum wage has stagnated at $7.25 since 2009.  Wages are only rising at 2.9% per year, and inflation is now outpacing increases in wages.  Interest rates are rising to keep the economy from overheating further, and debt rates are increasing because of the supply of more and more federal debt.  To make matters worse, healthcare costs are rising 20% this year, credit card debt is now over $1 trillion, and student loan debt is burdening a huge part of the next generation of Americans.

In short, the economy is NOT booming for working classes of Americans.  The income gap is widening, and anger is increasing as Republicans in Congress and state houses step up their efforts to destroy the healthcare system, defund public schools, refuse to raise the minimum wage, keep the homeless in the streets, refuse to fund infrastructure, refuse to fix our voting system, ignore Russian interference in our lives, ignore the opioid crisis, refuse to reform the immigration system, jail children on the border, and pile on the national debt by spending over $700 billion a year on defense (not counting military retirement and healthcare) while slashing taxes. Pile on top of that Trump’s idiotic trade war based on lies that’s destroying jobs and kicking off hyper-inflation is some sectors, and you have a volatile combination that is unsustainable.

Conservative leaders all over the country pledging fealty to His Orangeness do so at their own peril.  However, we can begin to fix this only if normal people show up at the polls and vote.  If we do that, then we can declare an end to this long national nightmare and rebuild our much damaged society.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

While the nation was reeling under the tsunami of convictions, plea deals, and indictments yesterday, John Cornyn was blithely unconcerned.  In a media scrum late yesterday he dismissed courtroom events, saying,

“People who do bad things, who break the law, need to be held accountable, but this doesn’t add anything to the allegations of misconduct relative to the Russia investigation.  How does this implicate the president? I don’t think it implicates him at all, especially on the Russia investigation.”

To say this, Cornyn would have to be simply bald-faced lying or be the victim of a very effective lobotomy.  The point: Cohen pleaded guilty to illegally paying off a Playboy model and porn star to keep them silent and influence an election for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  He said UNDER OATH in a federal court that he did it at the direction of his former boss, Trump.  It doesn’t get much more illegal (or obvious) than that.  For Cornyn to stupidly proclaim that it doesn’t implicate Trump in that crime lays bare his own corruption and unsuitability for high office (or any office for that matter).

The Trump clown car, now with two flat tires and a leaking head gasket, is still running enough to keep only the sell outs aboard.  Everybody else has fallen off (or are on their way to jail).

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

A few days ago, MarketWatch posted an historical perspective of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution.  Article 1, Section 9.  Specifically,

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

The Founders knew that corrupting the President would corrupt the entire US government, and gave Congress the power to remove that corruption.  Over 230 years ago, they envisioned a Donald Trump.  What they didn’t envision, though, was Congress being just as corrupt and complicit. The result is that Trump, a living, breathing, walking, and screaming violation of the Emoluments Clause is ripping the country apart while running the US government like it’s some gigantic reality television show.  He’s illegally sitting in the Oval Office, working full-time to honor himself, destroy Barack Obama’s legacy, appoint dozens of unqualified partisans to the federal bench, wage trade wars based on lies, collude with enemies, jail innocent children and undo regulations that protect health and the environment.

None of this should be happening, but it is.  And it will continue to happen until we change the Congress by getting people in there who will do their goddam jobs.  And THAT can’t happen too soon.

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.

Roland Laurenzo, son of famed restauranteur Mama Ninfa Laurenzo and owner of Houston’s popular El Tiempo cantinas, really stepped in his refried beans yesterday.  His Navigation Blvd. Facebook page posted this photo of Jeff Sessions with Domenic Laurenzo (Roland’s son) taken while Sessions was having dinner there:

To make matters worse, they cross posted the photo on their other locations’ social media pages.  Predictably, the social media world erupted in protest.  Apparently unprepared for the firestorm, Laurenzo (or his employees) first tried to quell it by deleting negative comments, but finally gave up and simply deleted the original posts.  By the time they did that, though, the post had gone viral, but not in a good way.  Still trying to make this all go away, Laurenzo posted this statement last night:

It didn’t work.  At the time of this post, there have been 509 comments, virtually all pretty ugly.  Many have been deleted.

So, the question is this: How could Laurenzo be so stupid?  I’m not talking about serving Sessions his dinner, I’m talking about Laurenzo bragging about it on Facebook where he knows that thousands of customers and social media users would see it.  The decision to serve a shitbag like Sessions is his decision.  Personally, I couldn’t do it, but a business owner runs his own business, right?  The fact that Jeff Sessions stands against common decency, common sense, humanity, diversity, justice, equality, and honesty is well documented.  Since El Tiempo is a Mexican restaurant whose staff is 100% Latino and whose customers are as diverse as Houston itself, you would think that Laurenzo would never dream of saying to the world that he was “honored” to serve him even adding a little little American flag emoji as the crowning blow.

In his flurry of excuses/explanations, Laurenzo says he was only told by the Secret Service that a “government official” was coming to dinner, and didn’t know it was Sessions until he walked through the door.  He’s also said that the braggadocios Facebook post was made by an employee and had not been approved. Those explanations don’t pass the straight-face test.  First, just how many people NOT a Trump official/family have Secret Service protection? Answer: none, except past presidents.  Second, it appears that Laurenzo himself is a Trumpist.  How do we suspect that?  In October of 2016, Laurenzo approved a pro-Trump rally at the Navigation El Tiempo location.  A pro-Trump music video was produced at the same location on the same day.  Third, I’ve eaten at El Tiempo restaurants all over Houston for years.  I’ve NEVER seen either Roland Laurenzo or his son Domenic at any location where I’ve eaten.  That’s not to say that they don’t ever visit his restaurants, but what are the chances that he or Domenic just happened to be at the precise location in a personalized chef jacket at the precise time Sessions showed up for a photo op?  Answer: not likely.  Let’s face it…Sessions was doing some reputation polishing (See: Trump’s taco bowl moment) and arranged a few show ups in Houston after his speech announcing a crackdown on violent crime, which happens to be at a 40 year low.  Laurenzo gave an assist.  As a side note, Sessions had breakfast at La Mexicana yesterday morning, but, unlike Laurenzo, the Treviño family wisely kept their mouths shut about it, especially on Facebook.

What’s happening to Laurenzo is what often happens to people who are tone deaf (like Trumpists) and who live in an echo chamber.  When people live in that echo chamber, they are often caught flat footed when normal people are violently repulsed by something they do or say.  I’m sure that Laurenzo was all starry-eyed that Sessions came to dinner and then had to brag about it on social media.  The easily predicted backlash was 100% self inflicted, and will likely have long lasting effects on Laurenzo and his business.  It’s a shame, but he should have seen that coming.

As for me, I’m certainly going to miss the Dos Lunch special along with my Tecate.  Dammit.

UPDATE: Laurenzo threw in the towel yesterday and shut down all of El Tiempo’s social media accounts.  Was he humble and apologetic?  Of course not.  He’s a Trumpist. In several interviews, Laurenzo has called the brouhaha “a big misunderstanding” and that “we never intended to offend anyone.”  He also again threw a nameless employee under the bus for the original post.  Yesterday, explaining why he shut down El Tiempo’s social media pages, he said, “People are insulting us in such a dramatic fashion, and we feel like we don’t deserve it.  At least temporarily I had it taken down because I don’t want to be insulted, my children to be insulted, my family to be insulted.” Well, I’m pretty insulted that the owner of my formerly favorite TexMex restaurant openly supports easily the worst president in US history and his merry band of criminals tearing my country apart as fast as they can. If he’s so worried about being insulted, I’m wondering if he’s as insulted by the fact that 360 children remain locked up in detention centers after their parents were deported without them.  I think not.  He’s worried about his own family and his own business.  Besides – these newly orphaned kids will probably make good dishwashers and waiters for him, right?

There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.