Trump Derangement Syndrome

Rand Paul is not a guy I would vote for, but his diagnosis of CNN, PBS, and a host of other networks is manifestly correct. 


He dismisses the whole Trump/Russian collusion story as "Trump Derangement Syndrome," which is motivated by an underlying desire to see Trump driven from office the way Nixon was, by investigations, charges of criminality. So a self important fool like former intelligence chief Brennan says Trump's behavior in Helsinki was "treason" gets big play, Cuomo, Camerota are quoting it, when in fact, Trump isn't smart enough to commit treason if he wanted to.

Of course the Russians wanted to see Trump win, just as a variety of conservative Americans did, and they fomented false stories on social media, just as a whole host of Trumpees did. As Rand says, every nation spies on other nations; every nation tries to influence the outcome of elections in other countries in a way which will benefit their own countries.


No country has tried harder to do this than the United States, in many Asian, South American and African nations, and likely in Europe on occasion.

It's the height of hypocrisy for government officials here to get all sanctimonious about "Russian interference" in American elections, when America has interposed itself in elections and governance in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Brazil, the Philippines, Cuba, Nicaragua, Viet Nam, Chile, Venezuela, Indonesia, and these are only the countries somebody has bothered to write a book or an article about.


Americans in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and the entire Confederacy voted for Trump not because Russia fooled them but because Trump fooled them, or maybe not. Maybe he was just giving them the racist red meat they hungered for.

Watching Chris Cuomo, Alisyn Camerota, Judy Woodruff, Mika Brezynski, Mark Shields carry on about smoking guns and illegal behavior, obstruction of justice because they suffer from the delusion this can be another Watergate leaves Mad Dog frothing.


Trump told you he fired Comey because he could. No such thing as obstruction of justice when he came to Comey. Comey should have been fired for politicizing the FBI and he was.


Trump has done nothing but what he said he would do when he was campaigning.
We want him out. We got to beat him on building the wall, vilifying Hispanic immigrants, killing Obamacare, trying to reverse Roe v Wade with Supreme Court appointments.  If we cannot beat him on the issues, we got no right to be in power.

Trump Balloon: Where's that American Entrepreurnial Spirit?

The Tea Party had its yellow Don't Tread on Me flag.

What the Democratic Party, Indivisible, Resist and all the other folks who see Trump as they do in London need is a Trump balloon.

So, I went on line to see where I can order my version of that London Trump balloon, and nada, none, empty!  I want several, each in different sizes.

Amazon, don't fail me now!
Esty, where are you when I need you.

God save the Republic! Someone out there needs to get those Chinese factories churning out Trump balloons.

Or, better yet, factories in West Virginia!

Of course, Mad Dog productions is hoping for a hand puppet version.

But really, people, here is a need crying out to be met.

Something's Not Right With That Boy

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H. L. Mencken

Today, Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, the man who sits in the same building where Abraham Lincoln once sat, tweeted:


Thank you to all of my great supporters, really big progress being made. Other countries wanting to fix crazy trade deals. Economy is ROARING. Supreme Court pick getting GREAT REVIEWS. New Poll says Trump, at over 90%, is the most popular Republican in history of the Party. Wow!




Wow, indeed.

You have to give him credit for his sunny disposition, except of course, when he sucks his thumb and pouts.

But really, when you read that tweet to his supporters, what do they say? Do they not see a problem here?

Meritocracy, Affirmative Action, Harvard, America, Trump: Ugh

If ever there was a topic which screams "political correctness," affirmative action has got to be it.

How well I remember when one of my classmates in college asked our English professor if we could set aside the discussion of Sheridan's "School for Scandal" to discuss instead a proposal to insure 12% of the college's next freshman class would be Black students. That would be 77 of the 640 members of the class.

I thought then, and I do now, that finding 77 Black students should not be a problem. Our Dean of Admissions, greeting us on the first day told us he could have filled the freshman class with "qualified applicants" from New York City alone.  Typically the college got 5000 applications for those 640 slots and accepted 1,000. The 360 extras went to Harvard, Yale and Princeton. They had applied to my college as a "safety school."

Today, the argument persists that one of the best way to address the problem of systematic discrimination against Black people is to place them in elite colleges, because, you know, all you have to do is get into one of those colleges and your ticket has been punched; you will be handed a lucrative job at the best banks, corporations, or you will move on to one of the best law schools or medical schools. Once you had that name "Harvard" or really any Ivy League school next to yours, it didn't matter if your name was Keesha, or Latisha or Keyshawn, you could start looking for a mansion in any upscale neighborhood and shopping for your Mercedes.

There were a lot of underlying assumptions to that argument, among them, that simply being present in the college would assure later success, that the students selected were no better than those rejected and anyone could be placed on that campus and go on to live happily ever after. When you put it that way, advocates said, "Of course, we don't believe that. But these students of color ought to be given the chance to compete."

Choosing the best musicians for the New York City philharmonic, the candidates are placed behind a screen and the judges listen to the music they make. Nothing could be a better mechanism for choosing for merit than that.  But there is no screen like that for college admission. Even if you could devise one, advocates for affirmative action would say the game is rigged: Black students haven't had the advantages of years of private lessons, getting toted from one teacher to the next by "Tiger Moms."

But if you are really interested in a meritocracy, the disadvantages endured by Black kids should not matter. All that should matter is how well they can play that violin at the time you need to choose the best violinist.

But no, the argument goes, that college admission can be the make up mechanism for all those violin lessons never received over the prior 12 years.

Well, if you want to remedy that disadvantage, the reply comes, you have to start 12 years earlier, unless you don't really care about merit so much as about giving some lucky students a break, at least for a few years.

The other outcome, not desired by anyone, is that if there is any advantage to having that Harvard name on your application, if the other name on that application is Keyshawn or Latisha, the person reading the application says, "Oh, she may be Harvard, but she's Black, so we know what Harvard means in her case."

Trying to solve the disparities in opportunity, income inequality and class by admitting Blacks to elite colleges is trying to solve a maze of complex problems with a simple one step solution:  As if you had an automobile run off the road, sitting in a ditch on its top, wheels spinning, frame  bent, windows blown out and you go down and put on a set of new tires.

It's the old problem of process vs results. If the Civil Rights movement is about process, equal opportunity, right to vote, right to use public accommodation, that's as it should be. But when you look to make the measure of success results, well then, you've got another problem entirely.

Headline Dissonance

While we focus on the bestial practice of separating children from their mothers at the border, we fail to aude alteram partem. 
Decent, well meaning liberals have fallen into the trap inadvertently set for them by Trump and Co.

Or, more likely, liberals like "Crying Chuck Schumer" have instinctively tried to show how compassionate, feeling, warm and fuzzy they are by focusing on the children.

Available for your next garden party

But in the bars I hang in, you hear, "Hey, what do you think happens right here in New Hampshire, when a mother gets jailed for shop lifting? You do the crime; you do the time."

Of, course there is a difference in sympathies here and a misunderstanding of the "crime" of crossing the border undocumented.

What we really need now is an Al Franken in the Senate, someone who could ridicule Trump and Sessions effectively, as Pia Guerra has done.

Pia Guerra

But, no, all the Dems rushed to expel Franken because he was accused of sexual harassment, mugging for a photo he clearly knew was being taken, while placing his hand on the flak jacket of a reporter at breast level. Oh, for shame!

Democrats are still into shame, where Trump laughs at shame, and that is a kind of strength the Democrats cannot wrap their minds around.

Pia Guerra

Our problem with Central Americans from 3 desperately dysfunctional Central American countries (whose total population adds up to 21 million) is different from what the Europeans face. 

The Europeans have absorbed a million refugees and some, but not most, of these are men who reject basic European values, like allowing women to walk outside without a male guardian, allowing women to vote, allowing anyone to dance, allowing anyone to imbibe alcohol. These are not the rapists Trumps sees in Hispanic gate crashers; these men are far more dangerous because they arrive seeking refuge and then, in a graft v host reaction, they reject the very nations which offered them refuge.

So they grope blonde German women in the public square in Cologne Christmas eve.
Groping any unaccompanied woman in the market in an Arabic country is fair play. Not so much in Germany, Sweden or Britain.

Our refugees are different. Much as Trump, Louie Gomhert and Kris Kobach want to depict them as MS-13 rapists, they are not.

Trump's West Side Story

For the most part, the Hispanic families cross our Southern border share certain characteristics: The family unit is strong. They work hard at low paying jobs Americans tend to eschew. Far more of the men are skilled carpenters than MS-13 types.  Many real estate developers, construction company magnates say their Hispanic employees are the best workers they have, as a group, if you want to generalize. 

Democrats should begin every discussion with the statement: Nobody is suggesting it would be a good thing for the United States to admit 130 million Chinese and 130 immigrants from India and 21 million from Central America tomorrow.  We wouldn't be helping either them or us if we did. But what we are saying is with a population of 300 million, we can admit, and actually need to admit (given our falling birth rates), immigrants in a controlled way.  Immigrants are not an infestation simply because they are not as blond as Ivanka.  Think of the Spanish speaking folks you know. Do they look more like MS-13 or Lin Manuel? 

Adolf's demon seeds

Safe Spaces and Binge Watching Bill Maher

When Jon Stewart left the air, Mad Dog thought it was the last gasp of liberal persuasion in America.

Lately, however, he has been binge watching Bill Maher and he realizes, maybe there's hope.

Maher

He has done at least two shows on "safe spaces" on college campuses, where the delicate flowers at Middlebury College, Yale and other erstwhile pillars of American elite grooming institutions can seek refuge from upsetting thoughts in places where they do not have to hear racist invective, Donald Trump, neo Nazis, Steve Bannon, Huckabee, Rush Limbaugh or anyone else who is obnoxious, with whom they vehemently disagree.

Barney Frank

Of course, there is, as Barney Frank says, so much wrong with the idea of shutting down debate and discussion on a college campus, it's hard to know where to begin, but this idea that we are so right and righteous and sanctimonious we should not even hear the other side has become a religion of the left.
Watch this. It's lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wvfxh0PbTQ

Moving from one Maher Real Time show to the next, Michael Moore came on and said what Mad Dog has been saying: Donald Trump will win re election. You'll recall, Moore predicted months before the last election Trump would win. 

"Market Place," the NPR business program, interviewed workers on the assembly line at Harley Davidson motorcycles in Wisconsin, who said even though Trump's tariffs will likely mean Harley will move some production to Europe and Thailand, they are still 100% behind Trump. They love the guy.

Talk about something you want to run away to a safe room to not hear.

Mr. Michael Moore

Moore is apoplectic about the prospect of a Trump supreme court, but so far, apart from Terence O'Rourke, nobody is talking about packing it.

O'Rourke

Mad Dog hates the idea of safe rooms. You have to love the fight.  You have to take pleasure in sticking your nose in the face of the thugs and daring them to throw a punch. 

Tough Guy Heel Spurs

But, it is bracing sometimes, to simply luxuriate in listening to people who think like you do, maybe even who think beyond, and better than you do. 

Bill Maher is not a bad place to start.

He hates kids, and maybe dogs: How bad could be be?

Sob Sister Democrats

Images of children weeping in front of United States Border Patrolmen, great expostulations from Democratic politicians are met with churlish replies from Trump and friends:  Those kids are facing this harsh reality because their parents put them in harm's way.

This is the essence of the divide:  Why should my Congressman care more about that kid on the border than he cares about my kid?

Don't we face a threat from this velvet invasion? 
Aren't those scary MS-13 gangs coming in with those kids?

Where is your concern about the families of all the kids these immigrants will murder?

So Trump quickly assembles families who have lost love ones to the immigrant/criminals who the Democrats invited in to ravage our country.

The fact is, Trump trumped these charges. There is no real immigrant crisis. The fact one illegal immigrant murders a woman in San Francisco does not mean we have an immigrant crisis. Immigration is not a problem of isolated crimes, of anecdote, it is a matter of numbers.

But we lose our listeners when we start sobbing.  Crying Chuck Schumer plays right into Trump's hands when he gnashes his teeth and weeps over the fate of immigrants.
You don't need to get all teary eyed to defend the 30 year old who has done everything right after being brought here at age 3. She should not have to pay for the sins of her father.

We need to find somebody who can sound tough while defending the defenseless.

Here is my ideal Democratic candidate for Congress:
1/ White
2/ Male
Why? Because, like it or not, the last election was a rejection of having tried Obama and every Cory Booker or Kirsten Gillebrand will be seen as more Obama and Hillary. 

3/ Tough guy who doesn't need to tell you how tough he is. 
It would be nice if he was a veteran, undeniably macho.  Arnold Schwarzenegger type tough. Doesn't have to do the Trump boast. The evidence is in front of you.
Be nice if he had some sort of military medal, or were a Seal or something heroic.

4/ A guy who reads history, who can quote it.

5/ Someone who speaks grammatical English, hopefully with a Reagan sense of humor, one liners, which can be thrown out with good timing, delivery honed on stage and screen perhaps. 
Remember when Reagan was asked about his age and wasn't that a problem and he replied, "I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue in this campaigan. I am not going to exploit for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."
Remember Reagan was great at delivering well  rehearsed zingers and it was not apparent to most observers until about a year after he left office how deeply into Alzheimer's he actually was.
Someone who has watched enough Bill Mahrer to trot out a lancinating put down every time Trump tweets. 
"I would have thought we could all agree, as Americans" on one thing: There is no such thing as a Nazi who is a 'very fine person.'" 
That's nice. 

6/ A policy wonk, who really loves thinking about the issues, who believes that healthcare ought to be revolutionized in this country by taking the profit motive out of it, which means more than just a fix to health insurance but a basic restructuring of the entire enterprize; someone who thinks we need more infrastructure, public transportation, renewable energy, renewed cooperation with our trading partners, not trade wars. And someone who doesn't compromise his dreams before he even describes them: Pack the Supreme Court. Sure, it may not happen, but that's what we should be shooting for.

7/ Someone young, strong, vigorous enough to put his nose in the face of Jim Jordan on the floor of Congress and dare him to take a swing.


Among the 10 candidates running for the Democratic nomination currently in the New Hampshire First only three meet this fantasy creation, and none of them meet this fully, but among those three, we might actually see a star who could one day run for President and generate enough excitement to win.

1. Lincoln Soldati:  He is funny, likes people, loves to engage the crowd, unapologetic, forceful.  But he is an experienced pol, who has been a mayor and a school board member. He is always aware of the possible and that gets in the way of his idea of the desirable. He is not willing to embrace radical change to the Supreme Court, not just because he thinks Democrats will never get the super majorities in Congress and a President in the White House to enable this to happen but because he does not want to do violence to the system we have.

2. Deaglan McEachern:  Here is an articulate 30 something, who listens well and learns and is something of a white Obama. He speaks well, has his lines well rehearsed without seeming too politically correct. But what has he done in life? He went to college, spent 10 years rowing on a national crew team and then signed on as a high tech entrepreneur. When he answers questions he can only make reference to his experience in these protected, privileged and limited arenas. 

3. Terrence O'Rourke:  We should begin by examining where O'Rourke fails to meet the description of the fantasy player.  He has not taken enough theater classes.  When he speaks, he is not Ronald Reagan. His  mind is working so fast his tongue trips over his thoughts.  He's got to rehearse more, get that delivery down to a speed his slow witted audience can follow. He doesn't have to be the amiable Reagan; he can be the rapier witted Churchill, cutting his opponents with--the line about the fine Nazi's was his, and he delivered it well. He needs about 100 more like it.

No matter what happens to him in this primary, he should be the shooting star of the future, if we could only get George Soros or somebody with money to buy him some ads.

Of course, O'Rourke would never stand for a rich patron. That would have to happen without O'Rourke's involvement. But the Koch brothers have figured out how to buy elections; sure Democrats could do the same. 

But the guy won a Bronze Star in combat, has prosecuted bad guys, and he doesn't need to show he's a tough guy by bragging about how big his dick is; he's already shown he's tough enough. When he first started his campaign, he barely mentioned his time in the military but obviously someone has advised him to advertise that now. I would not have done that. It's better if it just comes up. But he's the genuine article, until Captain Heel Spurs. 
 Now, he just needs to sell that other side, and work on his presentation.