2017 Feb 18^th

Our national embarrassment, Donald J. Trump, will be holding rally is Melbourne, FL at 5:00 P.M. today. This government-funded trip on Air Force One will cost us taxpayers 200 thousand dollars an hour (That’s just for the plane and doesn’t include enhanced Secret Service protection.) Trump complained mightily about the cost of Obama’s use of this plane; now he never mentions the cost. And why you ask? It is because this junket to Trump’s adoring Melbourne crowds is billed as…a working vacation. OK, you can stop laughing now.

The press—that’s the evil press—has shown crowds lined up ready to try to get close enough to “touch the hem of his garment” and perhaps get the benefit of him pointing his index finger at them. Few will be so fortunate but they all dream of this salvation. (One adoring fan did get invited up on the stage. In an interview later he said it would be the highpoint of his life. He’s probably right.)

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we continue with the fall-out from Trump’s press conference. Many fake-news outlets have called attention to the lies about his electoral college win margin. He claimed that it was the largest since Ronald Reagan’s; it wasn’t of course. When an evil reporter pointed this out to him, Trump excused his gaffe by saying, “Well, that’s what I was told.” (Hail to hearsay!) Trump’s respect for the truth is nugatory, but that fact has rarely been as obvious as he made it at this press conference.

Kellyanne Conway has referred to “an enemies list.” She did this back in November shortly after Trump was elected; she said people would have to be careful about how they criticized Trump. Part of that is nonsense; you can say almost whatever you like about the president, many people did that with Obama and short of physical threats, your immunity from prosecution for negative comments is guaranteed by the constitution, so there should be no worry about federal officers at the door.

(Much of this is beginning to look like a redo of poor Richard Nixon. Nixon also had an enemies list; Nixon also had a war with the press because they kept after him much as they are doing with Trump. Curiously, both Nixon and Trump had and have the enthusiastic support of Patrick J. Buchanan.)

It seems now that there really is an enemies list. On Wednesday, without consulting his recently appointed HUD cabinet secretary, Dr. Ben Carson, Carson’s selection to be his right hand man, Shermichael Singleton, was abruptly fired. Singleton’s crime was to speak ill of Trump during Trump’s effort to win the primary. Singleton was handed a cardboard box, told to pack his desk’s contents in it, and then he was escorted from the building. Carson, whose assistant he was, found out about it later.

This administration’s gaffes in the month they’ve been in office are not credible if we assume that Trump is an accomplished businessman. The most recent is firing a cabinet member’s assistant without conferring with the cabinet member. If Carson had a backbone he would resign and then Trump would be left twisting in the wind.

 Admiral Harward, who was offered the NSA post, turned trump’s offer down. You should never make an offer like that without some assurance that the offer will be accepted. Trump’s offer was simply arrogant…he must have thought, “How could Harward refuse me!” and it was amateurish.

The executive order banning certain immigrants would have been modified by any constitutionalist, but not by the unschooled authors who constructed it; Trump is made to look like an idiot once more.

The Pence affair need not be mentioned again, but it also counts and may have consequences we have yet to see.

This is just in one month; will he last a full year, much less four. Will we?