Month: July 2017

I’m still on the road and was inclined to give Trump one more week off, but I can’t. I just can’t.

1. Always prepared. So Trump spoke at the Boy Scout Jamboree, pointing out that Obama had never done so. Which wasn’t true: Obama had recorded a video message addressing the 2010 Jamboree. Obama was also a Boy Scout in his youth, as were George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. But not Trump, of course. Trump made his speech quite memorable, violating eighty years of presidential tradition by presenting a highly partisan speech in which he slammed his predecessor and Hillary Clinton, and told them a long, rambling story about a multi-millionaire who wound up buying a yacht and presumably having sexual activities on it. The Scouts ate it up while the organization quickly released a statement emphasizing that the organization is non partisan. Apparently inviting the president to speak at the jamboree is tradition, but I will be very surprised if they maintain that tradition and invite him ever again. Hëll, let them invite Obama next year. I bet he’ll come.

2) Anyone else getting sick of Health Care? Once again, for something like the sixty second time in the past seven years, the GOP endeavored to get rid of health care and failed. Naturally all the Democrats voted against it, but of greater interest was that enough GOPers voted against it as well. Granted, some of them believed that it was gutted too much while others thought it wasn’t gutted enough. Fortunately even the notion of just scrapping Obamacare while replacing it with nothing didn’t go over. Yet the GOP still won’t let it go, now actively discussing a brand new plan that is a “slimmed down” version of the ACA. One wonders how many rejections they are going to have to endure before they give up. Even Trump is now advocating that they just wait for Obamacare to crash and burn, which–to my understanding–it’s showing no sign of doing, although it is saving countless lives. It’s impressive how something can last when the process is done correctly, over a period of months with public hearings, as opposed to the way the GOP has been attempting to do it.

3) We’ll have a gay old time. People are declaring that the LGBTQ community has been “betrayed” by Trump’s recent declarations that transgender individuals would not be permitted into the army, effectively firing something like 15,000 people. And then the White House built upon that as the Justice Department filed court papers stating that the 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn’t protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation. But this is not remotely a betrayal because, I’m sorry, any LGBTQ individual who believed Trump was on their side is quite simply too stupid to have his or her feelings seriously considered.

Of COURSE Trump went back on his word. Trump ALWAYS goes back on his word. Trump ALWAYS betrays you. Just ask his old pal, Jeff Sessions, the first senator to support him who Trump is now relentlessly assaulting on Twitter.

And the truth is of no relevance to him. He declared he spoke with his Generals. The Pentagon said no, he didn’t. He said that he didn’t want to deal with the “tremendous medical costs.” Interesting. The Rand corporation did a study. According to AOL, they “found that the costs of allowing transgender people to serve in the military would have a ‘minimal impact’ on the budget, amounting to $2.4 million to $8.4 million each year, or 0.04 percent to 0.13 percent of the military health care budget. That’s little more than a rounding error when compared to the total U.S. military budget of roughly $700 billion.”

So Trump’s reasons are BS, as is everything he says. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the fact that he doesn’t like gays, period, close quote, end of story. The hilarious thing is that some critics are declaring that Trump’s reasoning is sound because the army has other medical restrictions. For instance, people with cancer, diabetes, etc., can’t join. Because apparently they are stupid enough to think that being transgender is somehow physically debilitating. Idiots.

Did he do anything right? No. It was a solid week of saying and doing stupid things.

PAD

May I highly recommend a new biography, A Lit Fuse, that covers the life of one Harlan Ellison. Harlan gave the writer carte blanche to cover whatever he wanted–the good, the bad, and the ugly. He speaks quite highly of the result, and that is certainly good enough for me. Plus it features commentary by such individuals as Patton Oswalt, Neil Gaiman, and, well, me. So head to Amazon and snatch yourself a copy.

PAD

It’s kind of last minute, but I just wanted to let everyone know that Kathleen, Caroline and I will be at the Florida Supercon this weekend. Swing on by and say hi. I’ll be at booth #930.

PAD

I can’t. I’m on vacation in Disney World and I’m having much too good a time to think about Donald Trump or his idiot family. So this week, you guys can talk about them. Say whatever you want.

PAD

The old saying is “Like father, like son.” And it apparently both applies and does not apply to Donald and Donald Junior.

1) Running off at the mouth. Junior is the opposite in that he seems to be obsessed with telling the truth. That could be a good thing. The bad thing is that he shares his father’s stupidity in that he doesn’t know when to shut the hëll up.

Junior released on Tuesday an email chain in which he was offered damaging evidence by a British journalist in relation to Hillary Clinton during the election, and was informed that the material was Russian and confidential. Now: the law clearly states, A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in connection with any Federal, State, or local election. Did Junior therefore realize that information is a thing of value and therefore turn it down? Of course not. He said, “I love it.” He flat out admitted that he was contacted and embraced the entire concept.

Yet experts are divided on whether this acceptance constitutes a crime, because…well, because he’s GOP, really. If the situation were reversed and the exchange had been with Chelsea Clinton, Trump’s forces would be up in arms, the GOP would be shouting “Lock her up” every time Clinton (any of them) showed their faces, and Trump himself would be condemning her every hour on Twitter, instead of declaring his support for Junior.

One really wonders what, if anything, was going through Junior’s head. One is forced to the conclusion that he really doesn’t understand that what he did was wrong. It’s a foreign government. It’s the Russians. Anyone with a brain in his head would have known to write back, “No thanks,” and be done with it, but he embraced it.

What a freaking moron.

2) One is the loneliest number. I loved that a picture was released of him at the G-20 conference where every other world leader is engaged in discussion and Trump is sitting by himself alone. Could you imagine Obama sitting by himself and everyone else steering clear?

Did he do anything right? Maybe. At a press conference, he stated, in regards to his decision to pull out of the Paris environmental accord, “Something could happen with respect to the Paris accords, let’s see what happens. If it happens, that will be wonderful, and if it doesn’t, that’ll be OK too.” That is maddeningly vague, but some are seeing it as a hint that he might be thinking of reversing his decision to pull out of the agreement. Granted, it’s amusing that the one positive thing he did was hint that he might overturn his own stupid decision, but one gets one’s triumphs where one can.

PAD

Well, Trump has been fairly quiet this week, but some things have been occurring around him that are, honestly, pretty dámņëd funny.

1). When in the course of human stupidity…. Some years ago, a reporter sent around the script of “Casablanca” to a bevy of agents and producers to get their opinions without the title attached (I think he used the original title of “Everybody Comes to Ricks.”). While a handful recognized it for what it was, many were disparaging of it, relentlessly criticizing the script for the greatest film ever made and saying it simply wouldn’t be successful. Well, this week we had the chance to see American cluelessness at its most divine. NPR, as it does every year, had famous people assemble on July 4th to read the Declaration of Independence. They also tweeted it, line by line. And ignorant Trump supporters (or as we should more properly call them, Trump supporters) attacked. Without recognizing what they were reading, they declared that NPR was calling Trump a tyrant and demanding revolution. It was a delightful orgy of bone chilling ignorance watching dedicated Americans taking the words of Thomas Jefferson, written two and a half centuries ago, as an assault on Trump. Bad enough that William Shakespeare is being condemned for writing a play five hundred years ago that is being interpreted as a Trump attack, but our own country’s Declaration? Seriously, what the hëll?

2). No room at the inn.. Donald Trump can’t get a hotel room at the G20 summit. Let me repeat that: the President of the United States can’t get a room. For some reason–either deliberate or incompetence–his staff failed to get him a reservation at his preferred hotel, and by the time they realized it, every other hotel was booked. Put aside that he’s the president; a guy whose business is running hotels couldn’t find a place to stay. How freaking hilarious is that?

Did he do anything right?. Any week where he does nothing is a good week.

PAD