Oprah Winfrey’s speech last night at the Golden Globes was inspirational and motivating.  It was as good as it gets, and sounded to me more like a campaign kickoff speech than a gold-statue award thank you.  And, of course, social media lit up with Oprah 2020 memes.  I have to say I like the idea; she’s nationally known with super high recognition; she’s a successful television and movie star; she has high approval ratings; she’s started and run several very successful businesses; and she’s been involved in politics for years.  She’s a great choice in my book, and brings many of the positives that Obama did, with fewer negatives.  I would say if she’s game, I think she would be the perfect counterpoint to that thing currently infesting the White House.

Speaking of movie stars, what about Tom Hanks?  He would also be good, though not as strong as Oprah, but I could get behind that candidacy, too.  So lets look at the others considered by the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago when they provided their ranking of 15 possible candidates, starting with number 15 (with my own reaction):

15. Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson – B grade movie star, former pro wrestler. Uh, NO.

14. Terry McCauliffe – Gov. of Virginia.  Clinton attack dog.  NO.

13. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz – Good businessman, no recognition, no political base.  NO.

12. Deval Patrick – Former Gov. of Massachusetts – Highly qualified, good political base.  POSSIBLE.

11.  Oprah – See above.  A definite YES.

10. Andrew Quomo – Gov. of New York.  Waffled on sexual harassment.  Good record as governor, but not very inspiring.  MAYBE

9.  Sherrod Brown – Sen. from Ohio.  Firebrand, strong progressive voice.  Good with labor.  Good political base.  YES.

8.  Jerry Brown – Gov. of California.  Great progressive voice.  Turned California around.  Great governor.  Too old.  NO.

7.  Chris Murphy – Sen. of Connecticut.  Tim Kaine-like.  Great senator, progressive voice.  Not strong enough. NO.

6.  Cory Booker – Sen. of New Jersey.  New Jersey; ’nuff said.  He’d be compared continuously to Obama to the negative.  Weak MAYBE.

5.  Kamala Harris – Sen. of California.  Great candidate, highly qualified, well spoken, inspirational.  But can she carry the middle working class whites?  Give her the benefit of the doubt.  YES.

4.  Kirsten Gillibrand – Sen. of New York.  Great possibility until she kneecapped Al Franken for her own benefit.  NO.

3.  Elizabeth Warren – Sen. of Massachusetts.  Great progressive voice, highly qualified.  It would be hard for her to carry the center.  MAYBE.

2.  Joe Biden – Love me some Joe Biden, but he’ll be 75 in 2020.  He should have run in 2016.  Too old.  He should go back to the Senate. NO.

1.  Bernie Sanders – Great progressive voice, inspirational to millions.  Too old, unelectable.  NO.

The other one missing from the list here is Hillary.  That’s good, since her time is done, she’s a two time loser, and will be too old.  Oh, and the Castro brothers don’t have enough seasoning yet. One of them needs to be governor, the other senator. And what about Sally Yates?  She’s a former US attorney, former Deputy Attorney General.  She needs to run for US Senate from Georgia in 2020 and knock out David Perdue.  Better yet, she could run for  governor, knock off Nathan Deal THIS YEAR, then run for president.  Having said all that, here’s my ranking, and I would like to know what you think, or if you have other candidate ideas:

1. Oprah ★
2. Kamala Harris
3. Sherrod Brown
4. Deval Patrick
5. Elizabeth Warren
6. Cory Booker
7. Andrew Cuomo

And then there’s always Tom Hanks, right?

Come to find out, Axios got to see a copy of Trump’s real schedule, not the sanitized one for the general public, and you will not be surprised to learn:

The schedule says Trump has “Executive Time” in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. Trump comes down for his first meeting of the day, which is often an intelligence briefing, at 11am.

I have recently had an opportunity to learn that all the good daytime teevee is on in the afternoon – American Pickers, Alton Brown, Ancient Aliens, Aerial America, and, Honey, that’s just the A’s. So, if he’s watching from 9:00 – 11:00, he’s only seeing those stinkin’ Good Morning shows.  Which suck.

It’s probably as bad as you think it might be:

• On Tuesday, Trump has his first meeting of the day with Chief of Staff John Kelly at11am. He then has “Executive Time” for an hour followed by an hour lunch in the private dining room. Then it’s another 1 hour 15 minutes of “Executive Time” followed by a 45 minute meeting with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Then another 15 minutes of “Executive Time” before Trump takes his last meeting of the day — a 3:45pm meeting with the head of Presidential Personnel Johnny DeStefano — before ending his official day at 4:15pm.

Hell, Honey, I’m retired and I have a busier schedule than that.

On the other hand, fixing that hair of his has got to take a whole mess of time.

Trump sent out his Little Boy Nazi this morning on the morning talk shows to do his bidding by weaving a fantastical argument that his boss’s uncontrolled tweeting is actually true and normal.  On CNN, Steven Miller with his Great White Shark Dead Eyes and acidic lies peddled hatred and bullshit for a full 12 minutes until Jake Tapper finally got a belly full of it and cut him off.  I simply can’t believe that major television networks give this little cretin even one second of airtime.  Here’s the video.  If you just ate, skip the first twelve minutes and just watch Tapper eject the little turd blossom.

It’s a pop-up copy of Fire and Fury!

Go see it all!

You’ve all read it – Trump calls himself  “a very stable genius” on the Twitter. Setting aside the stupidity of that and other idiotic tweets yesterday, the entertainment value of responses was very high.  The Hill summarized some of those responses, and here’s my favorite:

Yup.

I often tell you good stories from the little Texas counties surrounding me.  Goliad, just to the southwest of me, is one of them.  I have friends there who keep me up to date.

I want you to meet the Goliad County Judge …

Goliad County Judge Pat Calhoun admits he should not have told county officials he planned to get human hunting tags for them – even if it was just a joke.

He, of course, is a Republican. He has difficulty getting along with … well, I dunno … people.

In Texas, county judges are administrative jobs.  They aren’t real judges. The county judge in my county is a high school graduate with a phony college degree.

Back to Calhoun.  Listen up.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Mickey White, who also filed a complaint, said Calhoun “got in my face” and attempted to intimidate him. White said the judge also told him that he might seek a hunting license that would allow him to kill another official.

“He thinks he is above the law,” White said.

And Buelter said Calhoun’s language and intimidation fell on members of the public, elected officials and county employees.

She said Calhoun told another county department head he would bury the official where “the dogs wouldn’t find them” and shouted and screamed at those attending juvenile court, which Calhoun presides over.

“He gets loud,” she said.

His excuse?  He’s a former Marine Corp major, which under Texas law gives him to right to threaten people’s lives and behave like a total jerk.

He has opponents in the upcoming November election so he has promised to clean up his language.  You know that’s not gonna happen, right?