Archives for May 2019

Day 855 Saturday May 11, 2019

541 Days to the 2020 election and 619 Days to Inauguration Day

Liars are lying and the time to choose is drawing nigh. 

A few days ago I caught a bit of an interview with Chris Christie. It was hard to watch, because Christie is such a despicable human being. Eventually, I turned it off. No, not eventually, I turned it off after a minute, maybe two. He was asked about something involving a statement Andrew McCabe made. Christie said he wouldn’t believe anything McCabe said because McCabe was a liar. “What about Trump?” was the next question. 

And here is where the interview turned into the classic kind of Christie bullying and lying that makes him so despicable. His autobiography is aptly named, “Let Me Finish,” which is what his style of argument seems to be most, if not all, the time. 

The response of Christie went like this: “What about Trump? McCabe is a liar. He was found to be lying by the … I wouldn’t trust anything Andy McCabe said. Trump is a totally different situation. It’s up to the American people to decide…”

He reiterated these points over and over again. He wouldn’t move off of it. I turned off the TV.

I read McCabe’s book. I had to think to myself, “Did McCabe lie?” 

It took awhile to recall, and there is a difference of opinion, based on the recollections of McCabe and James Comey, of exactly what was said and how it was interpreted with a legal entity accepting Comey’s opinion. (I don’t remember the name of the legal entity. It was one of those titles like Office of …) But the circumstances I remember. A newspaper was getting ready to publish a report. They asked the FBI for comment. The report was incorrect in a number of places. McCabe’s job at that time was to interact with the media. He was in a difficult position in this case because the story was incorrect and it was about an ongoing investigation. He couldn’t tell the news anything about the ongoing investigation, yet the report was factually incorrect. He had to steer the conversation and the report in such a way so as to make sure the reporter understood. Whatever he did, Comey had one opinion and McCabe had another, as to what was said and how it was interpreted. A review of the matter agreed with Comey. In other words, this was a difference of opinion, hardly a lie, but Christie took this as reason to never trust anything McCabe said.

What is becoming all to common is this kind of argument by conservatives, Republicans, Trumpers, and their enablers and their sycophants. When I listen to people like McCabe, Comey, Bharara, Chuck Rosenstein,  James Baker (the former FBI legal counsel) I am struck by their sense of duty, of fairness, of commitment to doing the right thing. 

When I listen to people like Christie, Trump, Gulliani, or any of a host of others that support Trump I am struck by the casualness of their lying, prevaricating, and dishonesty. The lack of genuineness is so apparent.

In the same week I listened to Christie say McCabe was a liar I listened to Christie’s former deputy chief of staff Bridgette Kelly speak about her role in what is called Bridgegate. She wrote the infamous email saying, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” For this she is going to serve 13 months in prison.

When I heard Kelly speak, I was struck by her genuineness and how she had been set up. Christie had something to gain (in his mind) by causing traffic problems in Fort Lee, and Kelly who had nothing to gain and seemed to only be carrying out the wishes of her boss. She was told that it was a traffic study and she understood very well that this would cause huge traffic problems in Fort Lee and was engaged in friendly banter with the guy behind the real scheme, hence her email message. To bolster her evidence as to that thinking on her part you have only ask why a good friend of Christie offered to be her lawyer and then backed out after gathering all the information she had in her defense. Now Christie knew he could lie about saying he knew nothing and Kelly didn’t have absolute proof that he did know.  How slimy can you be? How does Chris Christie sleep at night? What mental hurdles and hoops do you have to go through to convince yourself that this is okay?

Meanwhile, Congress’ head of The Ways and Means Committee has issued subpoenas for Trump’s tax returns of the last six years to the treasury secretary and the head of the IRS. It is coming to a head and either the rule of law will prevail, or it won’t. There is no other course that I see. It is a sad time that it has come to this.

Trump and McConnell have rammed through many conservative, and unqualified, judges. Will there be enough sycophants to overturn the rule of law? We’ll have to wait and see.

It is now plainly evident to anyone who still gets real news and not fake news littered with lies that Trump is a terrible businessman. Perhaps, one of the worst in U.S. history. He has done a great job of covering that up and hiding it, all the while burnishing the opposite image. He is the original “media influencer.”

Will his lies, distortions, bullying, and criminal behavior be enough to protect him from the truth?

Once again, it’s not clear.

541 Days to the 2020 election and 619 Days to Inauguration Day

PS Let’s be Fabulous

Day 854 Friday May 10, 2019

542 Days to the 2020 election and 620 Days to Inauguration Day

Last night I saw an interview with the man who wrote Trump’s second book, “Trump, Surviving at The Top”.

What was interesting about the interview was how it clarified some things for me about Trump that I kind of already knew, but this really focused them. There’s something about saying something out loud, something you were thinking about, that makes it clearer, more real. That’s what this interview with the ghostwriter of the book did for me about Trump and his personality.

Here’s the gist of it. 

Many thought after Trump’s first book, “Art of The Deal” came out that he was a great businessman. He wasn’t. In fact, he wasn’t interested in the things you have to know to run a business. He liked the openings, the buying of a business, that kind of stuff, but actually running it? No. He was uninterested. He wasn’t good with math, which explains why he overpaid for things. He liked the buying, not the running. 

He sat around in his office and let stuff come to him and he’d react. When this author, the ghostwriter, saw when visiting Donald was him looking at fabric swatches. He seemed obsessed with them. There were these business Trump had bought, and they needed attention, but he was looking at fabric swatches. Why? Because that was something he could handle. The businesses, he couldn’t handle, so he ignored them.

Bang, there it is.

Now that we’ve had a glimpse at Trump’s taxes we know he lost a lot of money, his money, his dad’s money, the bank’s money – lost it all. Why? He wasn’t interested. He didn’t really know, or care, to run a business.

But he managed to promote an image of himself as this business mogul, this big deal maker, and as the real author of “Trump, Surviving at the Top” says, banks ignored what they saw on paper (or the papers were false???) and bought the image, that is until they were in too deep, then they figured out a way to survive and with it Trump managed to survive as well.

Here’s where it gets scary for us. Ask yourself why was it that Trump was so pro Russia during his campaign? Why did he say disparaging things about our allies, about NATO, and so many things that were exactly what Putin and the Russians wanted to hear? 

We now know that during the campaign Michael Cohen was negotiating a deal with the Russians to build a huge building in Moscow. Cohen said that he’d be at a rally where Trump would say he had no dealings with Russians and as Trump exited the rally he’d ask Cohen how things were going with Moscow, meaning building the building in Russia, in Moscow. Trump was saying positive things about Russia in order to make a deal to have a building in Moscow. 

In other words, he was willing to sell us: the American people, our friends and allies, and all of western democracy out. For what? A tower in Moscow. 

Spin it any way you want. For a building in Moscow, Trump was willing to stab us and everyone else in the back. He lied to his supporters, to their faces, at his rallies. He lied on twitter. He lied to the press. He lied. To build a building in Russia. 

The art of the deal. Surviving at the top. 

PS Do what you gotta do. 

Day 853 Thursday May 9, 2019

543 Days to the 2020 election and 621 Days to Inauguration Day

I became aware of Donald Trump about the time his book “The Art of the Deal” came out. I read it. I took away from it that he had gotten cement poured on the Wohlman Skating Rink in New York’s Central Park, when it was delayed in bureaucratic snafus. 

I was quite familiar with the skating rink. In the summertime Schaeffer Beer held concerts there. Almost, every night in the summer someone was performing. They were big names too! The tickets were $2 general admission and $4 to sit in the bleachers at the back end of the rink, opposite the stage. The stage was arranged in such a way that if you got too close you couldn’t see the act. It was raised about twenty feet. I saw Sly and the Family Stone there, and Led Zeppelin ( They weren’t very good. I think it was one of their first shows. Maybe, we just weren’t used to the music? ) People would sit out on the hills around the park and listen for free. It’s where Simon and Garfunkel recorded their well known album.

Trump had a reputation as a big deal maker. He was called “The Donald.” My impression was he was the biggest name in New York City real estate. It was all kind of tangential information. Then he opened his casino.

It was about that time I went out to Long Island to visit some in-laws. I was talking to the wife of a son of a … it’s a long story, but she said she worked for a collection agency. 

“Oh yeah? So what does that mean?”

“Donald Trump is our main client.”

“Really? How so?”

“He has a casino in New Jersey. He extends credit to folks who want to keep gambling by letting them sign over their homes.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you can sign over your house. If you lose we are the ones that collect.”

“You kick people out of their homes?”

“Yes. Every week Mr. Trump rides out in a limo to see how many homes we have collected on.”

“Every week?”

“Every week.”

And that’s when I started to pay attention. That’s when I saw the first shred of the real Donald Trump.

It seemed odd to me. Why would a multi-millionaire go out every week to see how many homes he had acquired? Why would he let people put their homes up for collateral to continue gambling? It didn’t make sense, and it seemed really low.

Then came The Apprentice. This continued the Trump as a business mogul motif. I can’t watch those kind of shows. It’s like watching “Let’s Make a Deal” or “Queen for a Day.” The question in all of them is “How far are you willing to go? How deep are you willing to debase yourself? How pathetic are you willing to appear?” I remember watching “Queen for a Day.” Once. The woman who won that day lived in a double wide. Her dryer had caught fire and burned the laundry area. She wanted money to get a new dryer, linoleum, and some paint. They put the Applause-o-meter over her and the decibel meter gave her the highest number. They slapped what looked like to me the Imperial Margarine Crown on her head, hung the robe that looked like it was a second for The Miss America Pageant around her shoulders, and the guy who was the MC, who looked liked the slimy owner of Frederick’s of Hollywood, would sing in a slightly flat off key way, “There she is she’s Queen for a Day.” Even as a kid I remember distinctly thinking that something was wrong about all this. That it was weird, but when you’re young; satire, and odd behavior isn’t something you necessarily understand or grasp.

Then when Trump ran for president more stories came out. He didn’t pay contractors. He used foreign scab labor and didn’t pay them. When they complained he threatened to deport them. His casino in New Jersey went bankrupt. Many of the slot machines weren’t working when the first opened. He said they were used so much they broke down. It wasn’t true. He was sued by many people including people who had invested thousands to learn the secrets of real estate from Trump University, which he said had “the best people.” That he had selected those teachers. None of that was true. His airline went under. There were murmurings of his holding the Miss Universe Pageant in Russia and that there was some shady stuff  that went on. There were rumors that he decided to run for President when Barrack Obama made fun of him at the Correspondence’s Dinner. He had been touting conspiracy theories about Obama, not being born in Hawaii. He said he had people out in Hawaii investigating and “You’d be surprised what they are finding.” We never heard what they found. 

There was a pattern to his talk. He seemed to use the same phrases in every situation. He repeated things like: he’s very smart; he went to the best schools; he knows the best people. There were stories that yes he went to Wharton, but was a lackadaisical student. The people he knew were kind of sleazy. He said things during his campaign that were stupid, racist, and seemed to lack any real knowledge of what he was talking about. There were rumors that women were groped by him, that the models in his modeling agency were underage, that he walked in on the Miss Universe contestants when they were changing clothes. Yet, he painted Hillary with her husband’s past indiscretions. 

It turned out that everything he accused Hillary or Bill about he had done and worse. In fact, some of it he was doing as he accused them. 

Now it’s been revealed that for ten years he paid no taxes and in fact lost more money than perhaps any person in the U.S. The only thing that kept him afloat was his daddy’s money, all of which he squandered. When you look at the money he lost and the loans he couldn’t pay it came to over $3.7 billion dollars. Yet, he was thought to be a great business man. Some of the commentators at Fox still think so. (“He had his name on the side of a plane!” “It’s more money than we can think of.”) 

Hopefully, those who have been conned for so long are waking up from their deep sleep.

543 Days to the 2020 election and 621 Days to Inauguration Day

PS The White Mandala