Where’s the Real Donald Trump?
Somehow, while I was distracted watching the Democrats trying to deal with the first two stages of grief — denial and anger — someone pulled off a switcheroo and exchanged a body and hair double for the actual Donald Trump.
Somehow, while I was distracted watching the Democrats trying to deal with the first two stages of grief — denial and anger — someone pulled off a switcheroo and exchanged a body and hair double for the actual Donald Trump.
I first became suspicious when this Trump listed the items he intended to deal with during his first 100 days, and no place on the list was there a border wall or a prohibition on bringing Muslims into America. Okay, I figured, so he’d get to them on Day 101. But then he announced that he had no intention of prosecuting Hillary Clinton because the Clintons “are nice people” and he didn’t wish to “hurt them.”
First off, the Clintons are not nice people. They have repeatedly shown themselves to be avaricious and totally unconcerned about damaging the nation in their insatiable hunger for money and power.
I understand that there are some people, Charles Krauthammer chief among them, who think it’s laudable that Trump isn’t seeking revenge on his erstwhile political rival. He compares it to Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon. This is a totally illogical comparison. Aside from the fact that Ford and Nixon weren’t adversaries, Watergate was a stupid political act in which ill-advised Republicans tried to find out what tricks the DNC were planning to pull off in the 1972 election.
What Hillary did by exposing classified information to our enemies and using her office as Secretary of State as a cover for the Clinton Foundation’s money-laundering operation were serious felonies. If spies were caught committing the first act, they could be executed; if members of the Mafia were found guilty of the second crime, they would be trading in their camelhair coats for prison stripes.
The notion that the Clintons could ride off into the sunset with their ill-gotten gains to keep them warm in their dotage should outrage anyone who believes that just as elections have consequences, so do criminal acts.
We’re about to transition from an administration that was sleazy from top to bottom and we were hoping we were on the verge of a new era that revered the rule of law. To be once again reminded that some people play by very different rules and are impervious to prosecution is the worst possible message for the President-elect to be delivering.
Trump needn’t make it a personal vendetta. The truth is, it’s really none of his business what the FBI and Attorney General Jeff Sessions decide to do about the Clintons. In fact, his statement is eerily reminiscent of Barack Obama telling us earlier this year that there wasn’t the slightest possibility that James Comey and Loretta Lynch would come up with evidence of wrong-doing by Mrs. Clinton. It sure didn’t sound like he was guessing or engaging in wishful thinking, either. It sounded like a foregone conclusion, signaling that the fix was in and he was fully prepared to make a very large bet on the outcome of the investigation.
Trump needs to let everyone know that it’s no longer business as usual in D.C. or his vow to drain the swamp will be seen as just another empty promise made in order to fool us gullible voters. In short, it would sound like the system is rigged.
In a somewhat related matter, Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department has hit the Sheriff’s Department of Denver with a $10,000 fine for — please sit down — excluding non-citizens when it recently added 200 officers to the force.
When I heard about this lunacy, my initial reaction was that January 20th can’t arrive soon enough. Then I heard from Donald Trump and found myself wondering if this kinder, gentler Trump might also decide that Denver’s hiring practices weren’t inclusive enough.
On the other hand, in Bill DiBlasio’s New York they’re far too inclusive. Recently, nine felons were hired as firefighters for no other reason than to foster diversity. Apparently, these days, even criminals belong to a protected class.
At least I hope Trump isn’t bluffing about bringing Marine Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis (ret.) aboard. The General is a man with a 6,000-book library, who was once asked about the importance of reading. He replied: “The problem with being too busy to read is that it means you can only learn by experience — or by your men’s experience; the hard way. By reading, you learn through the experience of others, generally a better way to do business; especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.”
Other Mattis gems include: “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet” and “The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears. You are part of the world’s most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.”
Apparently, the problem is that there’s a rule or a law that Congress would have to repeal and replace that requires a seven-year cooling off period before a retired general can enter government service. As an example of how much draining Trump will have to do if he’s serious about changing the culture of Washington is that retired or defeated members of Congress can be out of office on Friday and show up as lobbyists bright and early on Monday morning.
At the risk of sounding boastful, I would like to point out that not only did I predict that the foolishly anticipated Arab Spring would turn out to be an Arctic Winter, but that when Barack Obama announced Syrian dictator Assad’s days were numbered, I remarked that everyone’s days are numbered, but that Assad would remain in power long after Obama had vacated the White House.
It hardly took an oracle, I say modestly, but anyone who expects Arabs to do the right thing or expected Obama to respond to Assad’s crossing the red line in the sand by using chemical weapons just hadn’t been paying attention.
Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a black Muslim who has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and the notorious black separatist Jew-hater, Louis Farrakhan, is the front-runner to become the next head of the DNC. You have to hand it to the Democrats. Whether you’re talking about Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or Donna Brazile, when it comes to party leaders, those guys really know how to pick ‘em.
But it’s not just their politicians who reek. At the American Music Awards, co-host Gigi Hadid chose the occasion to mock Mrs. Trump’s accent. Rudeness aside, the fact is that Ms. Hadid’s own parents are immigrants and very likely to have foreign accents of their own. Furthermore, Milania Trump, who was born in Slovenia and worked all over Europe as a model, probably speaks 738 languages, whereas Ms. Hadid can barely manage one.
One of my favorite awards is the Darwin because, unlike the Nobel Peace Prize, the Pulitzer, the Oscar and the American Music Award, you actually have to go out and earn it. It is awarded annually to those who do the most to prove that Darwin knew what he was talking about when he theorized that Mother Nature favors the fittest by letting them survive.
This year, as is sometimes the case with Time magazine’s Man or Woman of the Year, the Darwin may have to go to a group of individuals. In this case, it would be those people who died while taking selfies in dangerous or exotic places.
In the past few years, 127 people have met their Maker while engaged in taking pictures of themselves. In each case, their last words or, rather, word, was “Whoops” or the local equivalent. Of the 127, India, of all places, led the pack with 76, while the U.S. accounted for a measly eight.
Many of these goofballs fell off mountains and rooftops. Others met their end by means of electricity, cars, weapons, animals and water. My personal favorite mode of dispatch is the locomotive. A great many of these people were so fixated on getting just the right shot to impress their friends and relatives, they remained on the train tracks, seemingly oblivious to the noise and vibrations, dedicated artists to the very end.
The first death by selfie was recorded in 2014. By the end of that year, 14 others had contributed to the thinning of the herd. There were 39 more in 2015, and we will easily surpass 100 by the time Baby New Year shows up, wearing the traditional banner and diaper, but not, one hopes, toting a camera on a stick.
Clearly, as the doubling and tripling of the numbers indicate, we’re getting better and better at it. Frankly, I have no idea how high the number will eventually reach. So far as I can see, the sky’s the limit. But of one thing I am certain. My fellow Americans will never be satisfied to eat the dust of a third world nation such as India.
So, Hindus, step aside if you know what’s good for you. The United States and the Southern Pacific are coming through.
