We Have Moved From Theater to Theater of the Absurd
The Tiny King is adrift
We have all rehashed whatever it was that went down in Alaska last week. There is so much about which to talk, but so little to say. An alleged diplomatic meeting to keep the Felon from imposing even worse sanctions agains Russia as leverage for a cease fire in Ukraine to allow for peace talks. When those expectations have been promoted by the White House, we are kind of use to getting our way. Not only did none of that happen, but the Liar in Chief’s rambling vague chatter left us seeing someone broken and adopting Putin’s talking points, especially, no cease fire with battle on as peace talks would commence. And to consider that there is a meeting at this level, and they cancelled the lunch (details in the business center at the crack White House team’s hotel) etc., well, things did not go well.
The once mighty King, still believing that he has the most beautiful robes in all the kingdom, manages somehow to being either noncommittal or comatose; I’m just not sure which it is. After a humiliating weekend, when he could stew over that lost Nobel Peace Prize (theater of the absurd, indeed!) that he deserves (has there ever been a Nobel Laureate that campaigned for an honor?!), he was told that Zelensky was showing up on Monday at the White House with his posse. On the good side, he did not publicly humiliate Zelensky as with the first meeting. But the point worth reviewing was after speaking with the European officials, cue the classic Oval Office score, Trump striding to the phone to call Vlad, and while all eyes wait for the call to end, it ends, and…and….like the Felon would actually say what was said! Dramatic effect to show how powerful he thinks that makes him. Putin must be laughing himself to death; we should be so lucky.
Our country’s strength in international relations has always been its relationships, and with the Felon leading the charge to leave our traditional democratic alliances, others are strengthening their relationships without the U.S. Over the weekend, EU president Ursula von der Leyen stressed that international borders cannot be changed by force. She called for Ukraine to become “a steel porcupine, indigestible for potential invaders.” French president Emmanuel Macron said that Ukraine’s borders must be honored and that “if we show weakness today in front of Russia, we are laying the ground for future conflict.” These allies are standing together against Putin and, if necessary, against Trump. That may be in part why the Felon was almost forced into agreeing on the concept of joining a security force to help Ukraine. It looks sorta good today, but once the Project 2025 gets in his ear, that, too, can change.
Moving on to our path towards something seemingly un-democratic. The policing efforts, and the expansion thereof, should have all of us on edge. Remember when New York had stop and frisk laws? It was a police tactic where officers could briefly detain, question, and search individuals based on reasonable suspicion, not necessarily probable cause. What that meant was that police needed less than the standard due process required for probable cause, so that gave the police the ability to stop anyone they wanted because the standard for stopping was so flimsy. The NY program intended to reduce crime, particularly gun violence, but, surprise, it became highly controversial due to its disproportionate impact on minority communities. The practice was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 and officially ended in 2014. But the Felon still praises it and it had such an impact on his tiny little brain that he is attempting to nationalize the policy. As if that is, in and of itself, still unconstitutional, he has more red state governors willing to and actually sending National Guard troops to Washington to deal with an artificial crisis.
The military deployments against the American people have been a great distraction, and, unfortunately for those of us trying to keep the administration accountable, media mentions of the Epstein files have plummeted. The Theater of the Absurd, presents, The Epstein Files (Nobody Checked). We already know that his name was redacted a whole bunch of times in some Epstein docs. With respect to what physical assets are available for review, it seems a rather convoluted mess. The biggest mess, seems to be the one created by AG Blondie who claimed to have the file, but has been backtracking for months on what she really meant. Uh huh. Might there actually be an unsavory connection between the Felon and Epstein sufficiently heinous enough that the MAGA folks might finally tell him “enough”??
We need a President that does the right thing, a real leader. Sadly, we have someone who values loyalty above all else, and that provides the rest of us viewing a sea of sycophantic crackpots, fellow grifters, and other opportunists who will not provide him any objective or useful feedback about their actions. Tell him what he wants to hear, tell him that all his ideas are great, and you, too, can be called a good person, a person of high intellect, or some other faint praise so that the world knows that he only surrounds himself with the best. Does all the ass kissing keep the real world away from the Felon? It is in this in between world in which the Felon lives that grave mistakes happen, that lead to horrible consequences, and further head us to a totalitarian state.
The Liar in Chief has no understanding of power in a democracy. He wants to be King. While it seems that others in the Cabinet are pushing forward with Project 2025’s goals, particularly with respect to the all powerful CEO, Trumplethinskin is so enamored of being Oz, he has chosen that rather than building domestic coalitions to support the government, he would rather enable what is truly a radical minority, to takeover of the government and use that power to have the government to attack its own people. And the fact that it is happening, is happening more, in more cities, with even more cities threatened, all without any due process, the growth of more prisons in a nation with the highest per capita prison population in the world, is what should keep all of us awake at night! The fact is, under the guise of fighting crime, the administration has quite literally turned guns on the American people.
It is good that some good trouble is underway. Gavin Newsom sued the administration to limit the use of the military in Los Angeles. In the trial, held last week, lawyers for the federal government said troops can protect federal agents wherever they go, effectively asserting that there are no limits to how a president can use troops domestically despite the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act saying the opposite. Needless to say, California called bullshit. Let’s think of the logical consequences: a fleet of Suburbans decide to descend upon a major sporting event, they can arrive with armed National Guard members to protect those agents. Can you say “recipe for disaster?” We don’t need to uproot the lives of these National Guard folks to help in an outright violation of the Constitution.
Finally, today’s final act of this production of It Can’t Happen Here, the Felon announced that he wants not simply to put an end to mail in voting, but to go back to hand counted paper ballots. I mean, there is reactionary and then there is this! We have the safest, most accurate, least corruptible electoral system in the world. The only person that has rabidly attacked it, especially since he got his ass kicked in 2020, is, of course, Don Donny, the Loser. In the conspiracy creases of the internet you can find talk about Republican hacking of voting systems in 2024. I remain convinced that our system works, it is safe, accuarate, and considering 150 million votes to tabulate, timely. Or is it that the Loser knows that it can be done and doesn’t want the Democrats to hack their way to victory. Again, this is just another distraction from his horrible job performance.
In the midst of a terrible series of events that had befallen me sometime around 40 years ago, an Australian mate looked at me and simply said, “ya gotta laugh!” So while this disjointed, grifting, and lying and overly indulgent self promoting clown makes us the embarrassment of the world, not to mention having us question our safety, like my mate said, ya gotta laugh.
Get up. Stand up.