Sarah Sanders was recently asked to leave a Virginia restaurant because of the administration that employs her, and the restaurant owner said that it was also because several LGBT people work there and they were uncomfortable serving her. Keep in mind that Sanders’ boss, his Attorney General, and essentially the entire Republican party he controls are harshly critical of anyone who is LGBT and have worked to allow discrimination against an entire group of people. Sanders’ Bible-thumping, bigoted father is one of the worst of the bunch. Sanders tweeted;
“Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.”
Yep, she actually tweeted that, and violated federal law about using her official account to do so. This is the same Sarah Huckabee Sanders who, as the White House Press Secretary, routinely lies and repeats lies, refuses to answer questions and evades answering truthfully and openly when the press attempts to get her to do her job, and is often rude, condescending and insulting to what she and her boss call “Fake News.”
Trump promised to “drain the swamp” and it appears he has – but only so he could refill it with the contents of a moral cesspool. That seems to be the only place he and his entire administration, and the party he now controls, can function. Before we can ever hope to “Make American Great Again” we’ll have to hope somehow we can make it clean again.

Brian Kilmeade of Fox News recently commented that it doesn’t matter what Trump and his policies do to immigrant children, they “aren’t our kids.” He later walked it back a little and Geraldo Rivera walked it back a little more, but Fox News said nothing and the rest of Fox’s “opinion” contributors remained silent, or said worse things. But it does matter, and they are “our kids” – every child torn from a parent is our child, every child who goes to bed alone or afraid or hungry is ours, they belong to all of us. All the Donald Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s, every Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity who dehumanize and demonize children because of where they were born or the color of their skin or the beliefs of their parents will never be enough to stamp approval on cruelty and will never change the fact that it takes more than a village to raise a child, it takes all of us, the whole world, to raise every child, and it always will. When we fail to protect just one child, we are all diminished. Trump and his sycophantic minions are rapidly diminishing our collective well of decency and we are approaching the point where we may never be able to replenish it.

Children have no choice in who their parents will be, nor the circumstances or geography wherein they start life. But if they did, and I were a child facing that choice, I would want parents with the courage to sacrifice everything trying to keep me safe and make my life better than theirs. Better to find those parents in a third-world country than choose a posturing, preening father utterly devoid of moral courage or compassion, even though that father might be rich, might even have somehow become the leader of a powerful nation – if that father were Donald Trump, I would decline and look south, where I could start life with good and decent people who are not governed by a ruling party utterly devoid of principle and courage. Better that third-world country than the most powerful nation in history when that once great and proud nation is becoming the worst shithole in history.

As part of its unrelenting attacks on immigrants the Trump administration is now stepping up efforts to find naturalized citizens who may not have been truthful on their citizenship applications; if it’s found they were not truthful their citizenship could be revoked and expose them to deportation.
The first target of that office should be Melania Trump, who originally came to the U.S. not on a work visa but on a visitor’s visa, and promptly took modeling jobs, having been paid $20,000 before she obtained the appropriate work visa. She quickly bypassed the standard path to citizenship by applying for an “Einstein visa,” i.e., she claimed to have exceptional ability – as a model, though it seems she was never an especially successful model. She also claimed to have a college degree in design and architecture, though college records indicate she dropped out after one year to begin modeling in Slovenia. With this string of deception and violations her citizenship should be revoked, and she should be immediately scheduled for deportation back to Slovenia. And Melania’s parents should also be arrested and deported since she brought them here through “chain migration,” based on her own fraudulent application.
If Baron Trump is left in the care of his father he would be well on his way to becoming another of the vapid, spoiled, useless offspring of Donald Trump – just like his four half brothers and sisters. Maybe when his mother is deported ICE could grab him and lose him in the system, along with several hundred other children torn from their parents – but only for his own good.

The government has shut down – again. Who’s to blame? The American people, those who voted to put Congress in the hands of the Keystone Cops and the Presidency in the hands of a posturing, utterly dishonest narcissist who surrounds himself with sycophants and xenophobes, and who can’t stop pandering to his “base” of bigots.

Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives since January 3rd, 2011, and the Senate since January 3rd, 2015. They ignored the DACA issue until Trump made it an emergency by rescinding an Obama executive order that protected more than 700,000 “dreamers,” and putting them at risk for deportation in March of this year. They continue to ignore the problem, whining that they don’t want immigration to be a part of a funding bill, i.e., a “continuing resolution” to keep funding government without a budget – and the Republican majority has chosen to ignore the budget issue since October 1st of last year, when a new fiscal year began.

Trump’s position is that he doesn’t want that “CR” unless he gets funding for his idiotic border wall, the one that he insists Mexico will pay for, making immigration “reform” a part of a major budget crisis, a crisis created by the Republican majority in both houses. And nine million children are on the brink of losing health insurance by CHIP not being funded, the CDC will not have funding to fight the worst, most lethal flu outbreak in decades. Trump, McConnell and Ryan are calling this the “Schumer shutdown,” ignoring the fact that all of these issues could and should have been resolved by the majority party – their own.

Trump was thoroughly and rightly criticized for his recent “shithole country” remark, but an even worse tragedy is that he’s turning this country – my country, whose uniform I proudly wore a long time ago – into a real shithole. But the far right continues to adore him. What an appalling state of affairs.

Donald Trump is incapable of getting his facts straight; in a speech to the “March For Life” gathering of pro-life (anti-choice) marchers he stated that the first right guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence is the “right to life,” using that misinformation to justify his recent “conversion” to a “pro-life” stance. That’s bullshit – the first right mentioned in the Declaration is the right of oppressed men to dissolve the government they have adhered to and establish a new government, one that will guarantee “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – in that situation, rights for white men with property. Women were not mentioned in the Declaration and at the time were considered little more than chattel property. That view is consistent with “right to life” attitudes; women are seen as little more than reproductive engines, incapable of functioning as independent moral agents equal to men. Trump went on to say that only 12% of Americans favor abortion on demand. More bullshit – the most recent Pew poll (from 2017) indicated that 57% of Americans are pro-choice on abortion rights. And finally, it should be noted that the Declaration of Independence is not the governing law of the land. The Constitution is.

Donald Trump is semi-literate, completely lacking in knowledge of history and law, and overall a fucking idiot.

Republicans (and some Democrats) are calling for John Conyers to resign his seat in the House because of some clearly reprehensible sexual harassment and probably sexual assault while he was a member of Congress. Some Republicans are calling on Al Franken to resign because of his sexual misconduct (some of which he’s admitted) before he was elected to any office. But those same Republicans seem to take the position that it’s up to the voters of Alabama to decide if they want to elect Roy Moore to the Senate, despite compelling evidence that he’s a pedophile and sexual predator. Wouldn’t it be more consistent if they let the voters in Conyers’ district decide next year if they want to return him to Congress, and let Minnesota voters make the same decision about Franken?

During his presidential campaign Donald Trump boasted that he could walk out to 5th Ave and shoot someone and not lose any votes – apparently he was right, just as his history and his own words clearly indicated that he’s a serial sexual predator who hits on women, kisses them against their will, gropes them and grabs them by the pussy. So why wouldn’t he endorse Roy Moore for the U.S. Senate? Moore has supported keeping segregation in the Alabama constitution, he has written that women are unfit for office, he claims that anyone criticizing his pedophilia is a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, or a socialist, “socialist” apparently being defined by Moore as anyone who is not a white male Southern Baptist Republican. Listening to the female governor of Alabama, it’s their choice if they support him, and no one’s business outside Alabama. I wonder if he’d lose much support if he formed a lynch mob and went after Muslims, African Americans or Democrats? Probably not. He’d probably still be in a dead heat in the polls if he molested a 14-year-old girl on Alabama public access cable. Fucking amazing.

Mike Flynn was fired by the Obama administration, and his security clearance was revoked. Trump was advised that Flynn was a security risk, yet Trump made him National Security Adviser, even though Flynn had already sold out to foreign governments, particularly Russia. Paul Mantafort is awaiting indictment for selling his soul as well – and managed Trump’s campaign.

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are using a private email server, both are White House advisers and on the federal payroll – after Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing, and continues to attack her.

Trump wants more violence and harder hits in pro football, at a time when football at all levels is working to reduce injuries, especially brain trauma. Aaron Hernandez killed himself at age 27, and yesterday it was announced that he suffered from stage 3 CTE.

We don’t have a president, we have a self-defined emperor – Caligula Trump.

My digestive system can only take Trump speeches in short bursts, but Friday night I took some Pepto and toughed it out longer than usual, watching and listening as he campaigned for Luther Strange in Alabama. Of course he never really campaigns for anyone but himself, he feeds off the frenzy of his followers, wallowing in their ignorance, hatred and blind adoration.

I’ve been trying to categorize our 45th President. Is he a narcissist? Definitely. Is he a sociopath? Arguably. I see elements of a televangelist preaching absurd interpretations of the Bible and lining his own pockets as he does so, as well as an old-time snake oil salesman, peddling toxic waste as a panacea for every ill in the country. “Drink my message, only I can make America great again!” I also see a carnival barker at a freak show, though in this case the freaks aren’t inside a big top tent, they’re sitting in Trump’s audience. Yesterday morning when I got up it finally hit me, what I really see in Donald Trump – a hybrid of Huey Long and Benito Mussolini; poor speaking skills, exaggerated and inappropriate gestures and pandering to the lowest elements in the audience, just as Long and Mussolini did. Long and Mussolini never had the best interests of their respective countries in mind, nor of their fellow citizens, certainly not of humankind. And neither does Donald Trump.

The current controversy stirred up by Trump is about NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem, and it’s amazing Trump is critical – this is the same Donald Trump who hid behind rich kid deferments throughout the Vietnam era. He equated his attendance at military school to active duty, ignoring the fact that his teachers didn’t shoot students who missed class or didn’t get good grades. He criticized John McCain, saying he preferred heroes who didn’t get captured. And he said his most difficult decisions during that awful time were about which starlet or socialite he was going to pick up at trendy clubs, then take them home and fuck them.

Nearly 9 million Americans served in the military during the Vietnam era, 2.7 million in Vietnam – Donald J. Trump was not among them, and apparently never gave it a thought. More than 60,000 Americans died in Vietnam, and some are still dying because of Agent Orange. And Donald Trump has the audacity to tell anyone how they can use their first amendment right to free speech, and tell team owners who they can employ? What a fucking hypocrite.