This morning, as I listen to all the MoJo talking heads recounting the stream of lies spewing out of the White House I am actually physically revulsed. Since the night of November 8th, my emotions have ranged from anger to despair.  My anger was directed at virtually everyone – those who supported Hillary’s nomination when her flaws were obvious to those not devoted to her (I know, I know), those who didn’t bother to vote, those who voted for third parties, and especially those who were so stupid as to vote for the worst presidential candidate in US history.  Those people were overcome with Trump’s celebrity, his crass word salad, his tacky gold-plated lifestyle, his obvious mental instability, and his absolutely undeniable immoral existence.  After he took office, despair overwhelmed me as my worst fears were realized.  Not only was Trump as bad as I feared, he surrounded himself with the worst WH staff imaginable.  It seemed his priority was to pick the absolute worst nominee you could imagine for each role, from an education secretary who opposes education, a housing secretary who knows nothing of housing, to a strategist who is a known bigot.

Trump also tightened his grip on power with the judiciary in his pocket and a cowed legislature.  I had hoped that the career professionals around him could at least hold him in check, but he’s now fired an acting attorney general, every single ambassador around the world, 46 US attorneys including Preet Bharara, the head of the Census Bureau, and now the head of the FBI who was investigating his corruption and ties to Russia.

Just this week, after firing Comey, Trump mustered his merry band of liars to go in front of the cameras and blatantly spin tales, not bothering to even try to square those tales with actual timelines or even with each other.  The only consistent lie that night was that Cheeto Jesus took “swift and decisive action”, and that was most certainly one of the worst lies after he later admitted to Lester Holt that he had decided long ago to fire Comey.  I sat and watched Holt try to get Trump to answer for his lies, and the result was the most concentrated collection of falsehood that has ever been emitted on national television.

As I watch this rolling disaster, I’m nostalgic for past days where we had a president who was precisely the opposite of  this creature now infesting OUR White House.  Barack Obama was known for his steadiness, his caution (some would say too cautious), his ability to speak to the nation’s heart at times of tragedy.  He occupied this very same house for a scandal-free 8 years, leading the country through some of its toughest times.

So I have to ask: Do you miss him yet?

As for me, I answer, you’re damned right I do, every single day.

Where to start, where to start – In the last 24 hours it’s come to light, despite the frantic efforts of the WH to spin the story differently, that Trump was outraged at Comey’s investigation of his ties to Russia. His impatience with Comey boiled over when, while testifying before the Congress Comey said that he was “mildly nauseous” to think that he had a hand in electing Trump. He then decided to fire Comey, and ordered the letter from Rosenstein to make a case against him.  When the letter was finished, Jeff Sessions, who had supposedly recused himself from the Russia investigation, was called to the Oval Office where Trump told him he was using the letter as justification to fire Comey.

That evening and yesterday morning, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway went on national television and lied on every network that Rosenstein had acted on his own when, in fact, he was ordered to write the letter.  The evening of the firing, a clearly rattled Sean Spicer was cornered by the press apparently hiding from reporters behind the bushes on the north lawn of the WH.  When discovered, he reluctantly gave an interview in the dark, insisting he didn’t want to be on camera.

THEN, the next day, Trump was played by the Russians when foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak were invited to the Oval Office for a closed door meeting.  The only photographs of the meeting were from an agent of Tass, the Russian state news agency who tweeted them out live.  That’s correct, US press photographers were blocked from the meeting, while the Trump WH allowed a Russian propaganda agent into the Oval Office who live tweeted the meeting through the Tass website.   No breach of security there, eh?

This morning, the aftershocks of this latest disaster are actually getting worse.  The NY Times has published an open letter to Rosenstein urging him to appoint an independent counsel from outside the FBI and DOJ to run a fully independent investigation of the Trump-Russia connection, telling him that is his only choice.  The talking heads on MoJo are exploding today.

We may be closer to the end that even the most optimistic among us can imagine.  Reports of Trump sitting in the residence shouting at his television are common, and I can imagine that most WH staff are preparing resumes to get the hell out of there.  The Republicans on the Hill will reluctantly begin to acknowledge that they’re being herded over the cliff as part of this slow motion catastrophe and begin to move against him.

I see no scenario where this presidency doesn’t end disastrously, and it can’t come soon enough.

George Will’s column in the Washington Post last week was as jolting as it was insightful.  I don’t often describe George Will’s writings with these adjectives since almost every word out of his mouth and keyboard is abhorrent to me.  But we do share a common opinion, and that is of Donald Trump’s utter unfitness for the office of president.  Will’s been vocal and frequent in his criticisms, but in this most recent piece and follow up television appearances, he offers a unique solution to minimizing the damage Trump can inflict on the country: quarantine.  In his piece Will’s argument is this:

“Americans have placed vast military power at the discretion of this mind, a presidential discretion that is largely immune to restraint by the Madisonian system of institutional checks and balances. So, it is up to the public to quarantine this presidency by insistently communicating to its elected representatives a steady, rational fear of this man whose combination of impulsivity and credulity render him uniquely unfit to take the nation into a military conflict.” [emphasis mine]

Will suggests that not only is Trump subject to serious gaffes, historically inaccurate statements, and offensive speech, but, “Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something.”  Will argues that not only is he slothful and lacks basic civics knowledge, but lacks the ability to even absorb knowledge.

So, Will puts it on us, the public, to pressure our representatives and senators to quarantine this menace until we can get him out of office.  He wants a bipartisan effort to not cooperate with his agenda; refuse to support his crazy ideas; repudiate his fascination with despots.  Correct him when he blatantly lies.

Perhaps quarantine will stop the epidemic of stupidity and hatefulness now running rampant from DC throughout the country.

After watching the cynical self-congratulatory beer bust in the WH rose garden on Thursday, I found myself not just angry or disappointed; I was enraged.  The arrogant, taunting, narcissistic, boasting Cheeto-skinned parasite currently infesting Our House, along with virtually every gerrymandered-in weirdo and screwball in DC made me want to throw my shoe through the screen.

That rage came alive on Friday morning when, on Facebook, one of my conservative friends expressed frustration with Republicans voting to strip him of his healthcare because of his pre-existing condition. Immediately, one of his more conservative friends responded about how wonderful the new bill was and that it would “help many”.   Enough was enough; I launched on him, pointing out that the bill was rushed through the House without representatives reading it, it wasn’t scored by the CBO, and that early readings by the media were pointing out its legion of flaws, including re-introducing lifetime and annual caps, restoring exclusion of pre-existing conditions, slashing of Medicaid, slashing healthcare for special needs kids, etc., etc.  His defense?  Lying.  Not just spinning, outright lying.

He argued that they caps are not part of the bill when they are.  He argued that health savings accounts would cover the shortfalls (which is laughable; when’s the last time you saw someone pay a $300,000 chemotherapy bill with an HSA?); he argued that this bill was an actual effort to improve healthcare when, in fact, it was just a disguised tax cut.  When challenged, he said, “Well, the bill’s not finished.”  Not finished?  They already voted for it in the House!  They went to the WH and celebrated!

In fact, this last statement was the only thing that he had said that was true…it wasn’t finished.  It still must go to the Senate where it most certainly won’t survive, at least in its current form.  The defense of this bill is built on lies.  It has to, because math is math.  You cut a trillion dollars out of healthcare, and millions will suffer, and no lie justifying it can change that.  You place caps on coverage, people will die.  You exclude pre-existing conditions, people will die.  It’s like gravity; those truths are just there.

So, what was this all about?  That’s easy – it’s Kabuki.  It’s a glittery show for the base voters of this crowd in DC who waste a lot of oxygen trying to meet there demands of erasing President Obama’s name from history regardless of damage to millions of Americans.  I believe that Trump and conservatives in the House realize that the chance of actually repealing the ACA is slim, therefore the shameful display in the rose garden.  With any luck, this will be the only celebration they hold cheering on the deaths of millions of Americans.

You know that piñata you got for your kid’s birthday party?  Trite, cheap, and lowbrow.

Enjoy!

Donald Trump knows how to entertain!

Speaking at some fancy pants conservative think tank thing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recalled his time at Mar-a-Lago with the Chinese president.

“Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria,” Ross said. “It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.”

As the crowd laughed, Ross added: “The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment.”

And tonight’s after dinner entertainment will be watching Arkansas execute prisoners.

And as a small aside, I fret when the Commerce Secretary thinks missiles are free.  On the other hand, I am pretty certain that it didn’t cost Trump anything since he doesn’t pay taxes.

Thanks to Deb for the heads up.

I think you’d have to be deaf and blind or a Republican not to see that Donald Trump is cuddling-up to people we used to call the enemy.

As he settles into office, President Trump’s affection for totalitarian leaders has grown beyond Russia’s president to include strongmen around the globe.

Egyptian President Abdel ­Fatah al-Sissi has had his opponents gunned down, but Trump praised him for doing “a fantastic job.” Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is a junta chief whose military jailed dissidents after taking power in a coup, yet Trump offered to meet with him at the White House. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has eroded basic freedoms, but after a recent political victory, he got a congratulatory call from Trump.

Then there’s the case of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. He is accused of the extrajudicial killing of hundreds of drug users, and he maligned President Barack Obama as a “son of a whore” at an international summit last year.

Trump is peddling his theory that the only way to beat Isis is with totalitarianism.  So we give them permission to kill their political enemies and build up their reputations, meanwhile insulting democracies all over the world.

I don’t get it. I bet a plate of Momma’s fajitas that Trump doesn’t get it either.

Verdelia says that Trump admires these leader for their ability to kill people in cold blood.  Nobody will let Trump have a gun, so he’s using his health care plan to do it.