Incoming!

I really do hate re-quoting myself, but given all that is happening, I'm reminded of a quote I used awhile back from "A Year at the Circus" by Jon Sopel, the BBC North America editor who covered the first Trump administration and described the ADHD symptoms felt by most White House reporters...

"Our symptoms are that we think that whatever is happening at any given moment in the White House is the most important thing the world has ever seen and is going to shake the very foundations of the most powerful country in the world. And the next day, we can't remember what it was we were so vexed about because, invariably, we have gone on to the next earth-shattering event emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

I mean, where do we start? If I were to take any one thing that happened this week alone and write a piece about it, I would miss 10 others that happened in the interim. ADHD indeed. I mean, the list of things both important and trivial is never ending.

• Blowing up a civilian boat in international waters. And when challenged about it being against international law, the Vice-President replies with Oscar Wildean wit, "I don't give a shit."

• Calling Jeffrey Epstein yesterday's news and the questions about him somehow a "Democrat Hoax." Meanwhile, your Department of Justice is trying to keep the names of two Epstein associates who were bribed by him secret.

• Excusing dismal jobs and inflation numbers with the refrain used by Houston Astros fans in the 1980's, "Wait 'till next year."

• Somehow endorsing the firehose of BS emanating from RFK, Jr's pie hole as perfectly OK. Spoiler alert: It isn't, and it will kill people.

• Letting this same loon also claim that autism is caused by Tylenol used in pregnancy. Spoiler Alert: It isn't.

• Changing the Defense Department to the War Department because it sounds more butch. And then claiming that President Truman had gone "woke" when he changed it. Yeah, that Truman. You know, the one who dropped the bomb and actually served in the military...

• Touting foreign investment in the US, and then raiding a Hyundai plant under construction and rounding up Korean workers the automaker had brought over to build it.

• Reacting to continued Russian atrocities against civilians in Ukraine with "I'm very unhappy with Putin."

• Denying knowledge of a Navy SEAL mission in North Korea in your first term that went bad and got civilians killed, a mission you had to have approved.

• NASA is now out of the science business and FEMA is now out of the disaster business. This is the equivalent of running your car into a tree to save on gasoline.

• Using a tip from your Housing Secretary who runs a (checks notes), home building company, to fire a Federal Reserve Governor so you can get interest rates lowered to, well, build more homes.

• Your Treasury Secretary authoring a Times Op-Ed claiming the Federal Reserve is just too darned independent.

• Filling your social media feed with dumb AI images stolen from the film "Apocalypse Now" that, again, make you look so butch as you joke about essentially invading Chicago. You know, Chicago, USA.

• That, of course, is when you aren't filling it with your head on Stallone's body...

And that is just this past week, people! So what is an observer to think of this? First of all, to paraphrase Brian Cox in "Succession," 'these are not serious people.'

Secondly, that our supine Congress is so afraid of MAGA, that they will gladly forfeit any powers they have in that Constitution thingy we all claim to love, just to keep their phony, baloney jobs.

Or, just to keep a secret (Looking at you, Lindsay).

Thirdly, Democrats have also forfeited any resemblance to a loyal opposition by offering enfeebled pushback that is the equivalent of a stern letter to the Times expressing how acrimonious they feel. That'll show them!

At least Corey Booker is finally engaged. Well, you know, technically.

I mean, guys. Gavin Newsom is just as much an internet troll as Trump now. Is that the strategy? Try to picture JFK or FDR snarking at Trump on Twitter. That sound you hear, Gavin, is both of them spinning like a dreidel.

Are these our choices, now? Can I get a Harumph!

Tariffs are already killing farmers, we are hemorrhaging jobs, inflation is rising, tourism to the US has virtually disappeared, restaurants are having trouble staffing up as are construction companies, world leaders, both good and bad, are figuring out ways to basically live without us.

And we are only 9 months into this.

Trump says the Epstein stuff is just a way to distract Americans from the successes of this administration. My question is, what successes? Please, name one.

Perhaps the fact that the White House Rose Garden is now a glorified Cheesecake Factory outdoor dining location qualifies.

Or, the fact that the next G7 conference will be held at a Trump country club? No doubt the gift shop will be offering Trump watches, pens, guitars, crypto coins, and signed Bibles for the gathered dignitaries.

Frankly, all of this would be fodder for comedy, except it also involves people's livelihoods, medical care, children's education, Ukrainian lives, and the post-WWII world order. But, at least egg prices are down. Oh, wait. That was the end of the bird flu epidemic. Never mind.

I am reminded of something former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said about his tenure in the first Trump term...

‘'What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented ExxonMobil corporation was to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just says, 'This is what I believe.”'

I opined early on that ultimately, these guys will overstep and get too far out over their skis. Honestly, I didn't expect it this quickly, but other than the die-hard MAGAverse, it seems that many are already weary at the pace of the deconstruction of all that we have known and depended upon.

Understand, though, that if we so desire, all this is reversible by both sensible Republicans and Democrats who care more about the country than "owning" the other guys.

The government can be staffed up again, with actual experts. We can continue educating kids without worrying about whatever the hell "woke" is. We can continue scientific research in medicine, physics, and space. We can have universities that are again the envy of the world. We can have trade policies that aren't the product of a whim based on ignorance of economics.

But that can only happen if common sense isn't now on a deportation plane bound for Uganda.