A few hours ago the New York Times published an op-ed from who they say is a senior Trump administration official.  File this piece under nuclear war with Trump.  The piece claims that their are “adults in the room” who are part of a secret resistance to “frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations” and protect the nation from his impulsiveness and proclivity to support despots while denigrating long standing allies.  The writer clarifies that their opposition of Trump’s worst traits is not some left wing effort – quite the opposite; he/she says this:

“That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”

After the op-ed exploded onto social media, Dan Rather tweeted,

Trump is presently going apeshit on Twitter, and just posted this:

I had a mixed reaction to this piece – First, it’s a Holy Crap moment where even insiders are talking about THE PROBLEM.  Second, I find the piece oddly comforting that there really are normal people in the WH diligently working to stop this lunatic from burning down the planet.  It’s somewhat cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless.

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

Since his death last Saturday, I’ve stayed pretty quiet about John McCain and the legacy he left behind, but wanted to share a few of my own thoughts about that legacy.  With 60 years of public service, which included 5 1/2 years as a POW in Hanoi, McCain certainly earned every bit of respect he’s now receiving by millions around the world.  He was a creature of the Republican party, but also stood against that party many times, especially when it was dead wrong and pushing some idiotic or cruel policy that helped no one except its base of bigots and special interests.  That part of John McCain I’ll miss greatly.

Having said that, there is one huge stain on his legacy for which I’ll never forgive him.  When he he ran for the presidency in 2008,  McCain abandoned the straight talk express and, as Stephen Colbert aptly put it, “climbed onto the the crazy train”.  Remember that?  McCain, always known for common sense and a fierce adherence to the truth, starting ranting like a teabagger and social warrior trying to get the base behind him instead of Romney (who was doing the same thing), and ideologues Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.  It was shameful.  But the worst thing he did after winning the nomination?  He gave a voice and a face to the Know-Nothing Idiotic Wing of the Republican party by naming Sarah Palin to the ticket.  That one action opened the floodgates to a tsunami of bullshit, lies, and coded racist rants that the fringes of the party lapped up like spilled Boone’s Farm on a dance hall floor.  My God, what a disaster.  Palin would spout word salad about “death panels” or “palling around with terrorists”, and all of a sudden the airwaves were full of it.  Literally.  She inflicted a new low of stupidity and falsehood never before seen in American politics.

McCain gave the alt-right exactly what we didn’t need, which was a megaphone that has metastasized into the slow motion train wreck that now assaults our senses on a daily basis.  The GOP bears no resemblance to the business and freedom friendly party of the last half of the 20th century, having morphed into a Russian-loving, fascist movement that actually believes that Trump is some God-fearing messiah rather than the spray painted, hair weaved, lying shitbag that is reality.  The GOP of Lincoln is dead and has become the Trumpist Party which gushes about the beauty and grace of the nude model from Slovenia who is now the First Lady, and actually believes that the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Homeland Security, and all non-Trumpists are corrupt conspirators out to get him.  They believe his denials about Russian interference in our elections and his campaign’s involvement in it, and support the convicted criminals who ran his campaign while refusing to honor McCain, who ironically paved the way for this rot that is coming from the head.

In total, McCain’s 60 years of public service is not totally negated by his selection of Palin, but that decision surely did a tremendous amount of damage to our country that will take decades to reverse (if ever), and history will not look kindly upon it.

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.

From the very early days of the campaign, His Orangeness has railed against all things not White American Male – all dark skinned people, especially women, ALL women, for that matter, and immigration, both legal and undocumented.  His rhetoric is continuously over the top, hateful, and racist.  He loves to dehumanize migrants with inflammatory terms like “illegals”, “animals”, and “aliens”.  His favorite pejorative, though, is “chain migration”.  The actual term is “family reunification” which has been allowed by the US government for decades where a documented migrant to the US could sponsor their spouse and children to join them in the states.  In some cases, a migrant’s parents are admitted into the country to join the family.  It’s humane, decent, and, I might add, very difficult.  It takes years to unify families through our broken system.

But in Trumpland, “chain migration” has been weaponized and is now used by Trumpists to be bigots in polite society.  Trump has repeated the falsehood (even during the State of the Union) that “chain migration” allows immigrants to bring “unlimited” people to the United States.  The statement, in short, is simply a lie.  It’s not true, and has never been true, but the term is in high repeat in conservative circles.

Trump’s problem, though, is that the very system he rails against just allowed Melania Trump (You remember her, right?  She’s the nude model from Slovenia who is now our First Lady.) to bring in her parents through “chain migration”.  AND, said parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, became US citizens yesterday.  That’s right, folks, the very system that Trump demands that Congress end just allowed his in-laws to become American citizens. Now, the Knavs are probably perfectly nice people who are fortunate to have friends in high places who could grease the skids for them attain US citizenship, which millions of others have been waiting decades for.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is the now-familiar hypocrisy.

This kind of hypocrisy shouldn’t be surprising.  Trump’s entire personal foundation is built on lies, cheating, and hypocrisy.  Rules apply to everyone else, but not Trump.  He’s immune from common decency or common sense.  Worse, the White House refuses to address any of his hypocrisy, including the “chain migration” lie, and the invertebrates in Congress, terrified of losing their power, do nothing to stop it.  That’s why it’s up to us to shine the light on Trump’s lies and fight fire with fire.

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

There are no factories in the US that make televisions any more.  There is one factory, Element Electronics, that assembles mass market televisions from imported Chinese parts, but that will come to a grinding halt in October.  The company simply cannot survive in Trump’s trade war where their made in China parts are now being heavily taxed.  During the campaign he complained that “we don’t make televisions in the US anymore”;  well, now we don’t even assemble them in the US.  Once closed down, it is very difficult for a company to come back on line.

All of this winning is sure doing a lot of damage.