Chaos

Well what should we call it?  Over the last couple days I’ve heard; shit show, train wreck, a mess, chaos, turmoil and unprepared.  How about fucked up?  The first week of the Donnie Trump roadshow was rocky to say the least. And then last Friday things really got screwy.  But maybe we should cut our POTUS a little slack.  After all, Trump is used to starring in television shows.  Getting the lead role in the whole world isn’t something you master overnight.  Maybe Trump and cast just need a few takes.  There’s only one problem here, the Presidency isn’t a TV show.  In this job you don’t get dress rehearsals.  In this job when take one goes in the toilet a lot of other things get caught up in the vortex of crap and go down the sewer with it. You don’t get to say “Cut,” and then do take two.  

Sorry. We're Closed

Trumptrocities of Note

* More assaults on the First Amendment

                The Trump Administration, in the form of attack dog and white supremacist Steve Bannon, issues a statement calling the media the “opposition party,” and warning that the media should “keep its mouth shut.”

                Donald Trump turned to Twitter (again) to denounce the New York Times and The Washington Post.  “Thr coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost gas been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its dwindling subscribers and readers.”

“FAKE NEWS!” 

It would be a little less embarrassing if this guy would use spell check. 

There doesn’t seem to be any specific event or article that set him off this time.  I suppose he was sitting on the shitter with nothing else to do and…well…had a little extra shit to get rid of.

* Endangered Species Act and endangered species.  While no specific action has yet been taken, The Endangered Species Act is in the crosshairs of the GOP. Why you ask? Because, silly rabbit, those pesky animals are getting in the way of big business making money.  This is a Trumptrocity to look for in the near future.

*The Trumptrocity piece de resistance however is:

Sorry. We’re Closed.

Remember the date Friday, January 27^th 2017.

On that date Donald Trump signed an executive order banning nationals of 7 Muslim countries from entering the United States.  Those countries are; Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

This ban will last at least 90 days. 

On that date in the same executive order Donald Trump banned indefinitely, the entry of those fleeing from war-torn Syria.

On that date America turned off the beacon of hope and plunged America further into a bleak blackness of hate and bigotry and Islamophobia. 

On that date America took another step backward in a new retreat back to the bad old days. 

Detaching

Trumptrocities of Note

* Donald Trump calls for an investigation of voter fraud in the election.  Not only is he convinced that 3 – 5 million votes were fraudulent, he’s also certain that he was 100% on the short end of the electoral chicanery. Said Trump, "Of those votes cast, none of them come to me. None of them come to me. They would all be to the other side. None of them come to me.”  This is all a couple of months after Trump insisted that there was no voter fraud when Jill Stein funded recounts.  Sort of reminds me of the old song lyric, “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby.” 

* We’re building a wall folks.  While Mike Pence and an assortment of knaves and cronies looked on in white privileged glee Trump signed a directive ordering the commencement of the wall.  In keeping his promise that Mexico would pay for the wall he cooked up the brilliant idea of slapping Mexico with a 20% tariff – take that Mexico.  Oh wait, that 20% is eventually going to come out of the wallets of Americans. Well, we’ve sure been snookered haven’t we.

* Trump is looking into renewing the use of torture in interrogations. On the use of torture Trump said, “do I feel it works? Absolutely I feel it works." He might be right. After less than a week he’s been torturing the shit out of the entire thinking world.  I know I’m ready to cry “uncle.” 

* Trump signed an executive order authorizing the resumption of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines.  Once again Native Americans get screwed but I don’t imagine that Trump is at all phased.  He probably learned the history of the American West by watching John Wayne movies. 

We March

January 21^st, 2017

Trumptrocities of Note

* The Spanish language version of the White House website is taken down.  Why not?  Why limit yourself to that concrete wall when you can put up a communications wall?

* Donald Trump speaks to the CIA in front of the memorial wall that honors CIA officers killed in the line of duty.  Most of his speech veers off topic to the crowd size at his inauguration.  His fictitious account claims up to 1.5 million people even though the actual estimates hovered around 250,000.  In the same speech, Trump vilifies journalists as “among the most dishonest people on Earth.” The remark drew laughs; apparently from the studio audience that Trump hired to be at the speech. 

* Former CIA director John Brennan later criticizes Trump for disrespecting the fallen agents.

* Later in the day Sean Spicer lambastes the press for dishonest reporting about the inaugural crowd size.  His rant includes some statements that are easily revealed as lies.  Spicer ends by threatening to “hold the press accountable.” 

First Amendment? We don’t got to show you no stinkin’ First Amendment.

We March

Walnut Creek is a small middle class town in the shadow of Mount Diablo in the East Bay region of The San Francisco Bay Area.  It’s where you go in the East Bay if you want go shopping for the elegant, the frou frou and the overpriced and then head to a chic little bistro for some sort of ‘tini drink.  

Day One - Inauguration

January 20^th 2017 – Inauguration Day.

Dow 19,819

NASDAQ 5560.7

Unemployment 4.7% (Not 42%)

Was there ever a more appropriate morning to fling your alarm clock out the window than January 20^th 2017?  Launch it, curse the day and roll over and go to sleep – for four years.  Hell I’m willing to bet that even the sun itself was trying to figure out a way to bail.  That day was, as we are all so painfully aware, Inauguration Day for the 45^th President of the United States – Donald J. Trump. 

It was the beginning of the next stage of a journey that’s lasted a good (or bad) 20 months.  Or as Jerome J. Garcia and his band mates once put it “a long strange trip.”  Yes the Trump stage show has been held over. "We're playing this lounge for 4 years folks. It's gonna be really great. Like nothing you've ever seen."