This is what I said over a year ago – okay, so I got part right and part not so right. But sheesh! Who’d a thunk it?

Well, gentle readers, I’m back, talkin’ about next year’s Presidential election, which is 445 days away. A lot can happen in 445 days, but I’m still clear about a couple of things.

HILLARY CLINTON CANNOT WIN AND SHOULD NOT RUN

I have previously stated that Hillary Chillary cannot win the Presidency in 2016, and that Joe Biden should be the Democrat to lose the White House. It’s fitting and proper, and makes sense. Why suffer? In the latest Quinnipiac polls in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania – three key states in the presidential election – Joe Biden does well – particularly since he isn’t even a declared candidate in the race. Biden does very well in matchups against the Republican knucklehead du jour, Hairball Trump. But against Jeb in those three states, neither Joe nor Hillary beats Jeb. So unless Donald Trump runs as a third party candidate – which the Republican Party will pay him not to do – Jeb wins, as predicted.

TRUMP TOWERS TODAY BUT TANKS TOMORROW

It’s just a question of time before he’s a distant memory. I’ll give him another 60 days, maybe even 90, but then voters will begin to be a bit more serious. The interesting question will be: how much will it cost the Republican partyRepublican party to be rid of El Donaldo the Trumpeter? Gotta cost at least a cool mill – maybe two. It’ll be fun watching how they try to hide it. His ‘candidacy’ has been performance art all along, and he’ll expect to be paid for the performance. Eh?

THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE RACE WON’T BE WHAT YOU EXPECT

Yesterday’s issues: Obamacare, Bengazi and the IRS – won’t resurface since people have such short attention spans. Today’s issues: opening trade with embassy in Cuba, the nuclear deal with Iran and immigration – won’t be the key issues that will sway voters as we get closer to election time. What will be the key issue in the election? That varies according to the candidate. If it’s Hillary vs Jeb, for Hill there will be a plethora of issues regarding integrity, the Clinton Foundation and whether or not she’s a good grandmother. For Jeb it will be getting past his brother’s mission accomplished missteps and having to pledge not to repeat them. That shouldn’t be hard for Jeb. The Jeb as Satan devil will promise anything to get his way. And if I get my wish and it’s Joe Biden? Who cares? He’ll just be Biden the mouthfun to watch.

You heard it here first.

The only thing I’m sure of at this moment is that NOBODY knows what is going to happen next with this new government – I don’t even think they know. So there’ll be lots of ‘stay tuned’ messages for the next, oh say six to twelve months? Oh my Gawd…

Well, fodder for the mill..fodder for the mill.,.

Here’s what’s cookin’ at our house for Thanksgiving:

Roast Pig 11 am
Small Turkey brine at 11
Smoked Brisket 11 am
Pickled Beets
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy 2:15
Green Been Casserole 3:00
Collards 2:15
Cornbread/Biscuits/Popovers 3:00
Pumpkin Tart
Pecan Pie
Cheesecake
Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
Creme Fraiche or Whipped Cream for the pies

Al Fresco Dining on the Porch

Sound good? I’ll say!

Here’s my next commentary on DtheT from Facebook:

Donald Trump is really a Progressive who used the Republicans to win. His agenda will look very much like Bernie’s: preserve Medicare and Social Security, a health plan for all Americans with HSA as the cornerstone, vastly increased federal spending on infrastructure projects – can you see the Republicans going nuts yet? The market is currently going way up since they see what’s happening. Trump will replace Paul Ryan with someone he can manage: maybe Jim Jordan of Ohio. When he does, McConnell will read the tea leaves and get in line..Dems would be wise to quietly step back and watch Trump destroy the Republican Party as it currently exists. Taxes will go down and spending up…the deficit will go from $19 trillion to $30 trillion by the end of his first term. And what gives me leave to say all this? I just listened to what he had to say. And have we seen this all before? You betcha: his name was Ronald Reagan. But where Reagan had to kill inflation (which he and Paul Volcker did), Trump has to get the economy going again, and I agree with his plan to do it! So Dems, let’s all unite, and for once in our lives, let’s be smart and find ways to work with DtheT to get something done. That’s all: now you can question my sanity or throw rocks..your choice

So the question on the table, now that Priebus in the Chief of Staff: will Trump be wise enough to use little Paul’s buddy Rence to persuade Ryan to step down? Or will Ryan continue to be the Speaker of the House, and spend two years doing everything in his power to thwart DtheT’s agenda? Wait and see…wait and see.

This is what I wrote on Facebook on July 31st of this year about DtheT.

Donald Trump will end up being a great disappointment to all Christians in this country. He is not a conservative. He is, more than likely, a Progressive cloaked in rhetoric that will get him this “deal” called the presidency. When he gets it – and surely he will succeed and become the president – it won’t take very long for the “real” Donald to come out. The problem with that is he will be the same erratic and unstable individual you have seen for the past year. Mike Pence will have no choice but to serve as the surrogate president, a job he was not elected to perform. Why? Because Trump will have finally made a deal he cannot bleed dry and then throw away through bankruptcy. The pressure will eventually push him over the edge into a breakdown that will incapacitate him. But his outsized ego will not allow him to admit it, resulting in a Constitutional crisis that will make Richard Nixon’s impeachment proceedings look tame by comparison. This will put Republicans in Congress in a position that will force them to finally do what they should have done all along: admit his candidacy is a terrible mistake and impeach and convict him. Meanwhile, Russia will be looking at their old friends in Latvia and Slovenia for a reunification that NATO cannot prevent, because we won’t be there. The government will be in a state of paralysis, resulting in a default on our debt. The impact will be felt world-wide. But we will survive. The difference between us and Germany in 1933 is that the Founders of the country put mechanisms in place to allow us to fix our folly. But the impact on the GOP will last for at least a generation for having created this disaster. So, to my thinking, the GOP can admit now they made a mistake and take a one term Hillary, electing Paul Ryan in 2020. Or they can let this go on and have a devastating impact on the party, the nation and the world. Their choice.

Well, DtheT is the president-elect, and it appears he is going to focus on spending for infrastructure as a first priority. There’s also a fair amount of chatter about Mike Pence being delegated the bulk of ‘presidenting’ to free DtheT up to concentrate on more important matters. What those matters are nobody is quite sure. So there you have it.

I find myself in the strange position of defending DtheT on Facebook. Well, maybe not exactly defending: more explaining. Telling folk he really isn’t a Republican or a Conservative – that his policies look more like Bernie Sanders than the Tea Party. But how is this possible, they ask? How do you know that? Because I listened to what he said.

Building infrastructure is a good thing. Yes, he’ll add to the deficit – some estimates are $10 trillion over ten years – but what the hell: austerity did nothing for the economy, but the deficit goes up anyway. So that’s a good thing, right? Well, yeah, but then there’s that temperament thing.

My position is that folk that voted for DtheT were willing to roll the dice and take the risk that he could kill us all in order to change Washington. That’s how desperately we want change. Well, be careful what you wish for, ’cause you’re gonna see change like you haven’t seen since 1980 when Reagan took over. Some of it may very well be good; some of it problematic. But cancelling the Iran nuclear deal is a big deal. And the cost associated with it may, in the end, have made it not a very good gamble to put him in charge of the nuclear codes.
Oops..

This is the second day and the second post on the topic of the election and DtheT. I will continue to refer to our president-elect that way, as saying President Trump out loud makes me wince. As I often called President Obama “Barry” when I was annoyed with him, Trump will remain DtheT. He deserves no more respect than that – unless he changes, which isn’t going to happen.

Yesterday I calculated that I will have 1,610 opportunities to write on this topic, assuming a once per day blog post. I intend to use every single one of them, so gird your loins, it’s comin’ atcha.

Back to the topic at hand: core of decency. President Obama’s and Secretary Clinton’s concession speeches were dignified and thoughtful. They both ask us to give DtheT a chance. Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have a core of decency, no matter what. DtheT has no moral center. He is an opportunist of the worst stripe. He has taken advantage of people’s fears – inchoate tho’ they may be – and used that fear against the country. We will give him a chance, but we’ll be watching him very closely. There won’t be a honeymoon period, of that I am sure.

Remember Ren and Stimpy? The goofy cartoon enjoyed by GenX’ers with two creatures of indeterminate identity. One of them (I forget which was which) had a catch phrase: “You Iiidddiioot”. Well, I’m invoking that now: You Idiots.

Oh my God. What have you done? You have elected a sociopathic personality to be the leader of the free world. You have given that sociopath’s party control of both houses of Congress, and allowed them to appoint the next Supreme Court judge. You idiots.

The NY Times has a slew of editorialists moaning about the effects of the American voter’s choice. Only one mentioned that this man is now in charge of the nuclear codes. Oh my God! You idiots.

I am still in shock, and since it’s 4:38 in the morning, I haven’t had a chance to parse the numbers. But I’m not sure I’m going to. What’s the point?

You idiots need to be afraid. I am.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Leo Tolstoy,

Anna Karenina.

Brother, you said a mouthful.

So I’m going to have lunch Saturday with two of my favorite lady friends, Pat and Susan. Pat is a triathlete who wants to become a writer. Sue is a gifted artist who likes to talk about writing, and is most encouraging. What could make for a nicer luncheon? I have a book to give Pat, entitled Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It’s a book about writing. I read it about 20 years ago, and many of its lessons stuck with me when I began to write in earnest. Guess they got into my subconscious, because I didn’t recall reading the book or hearing her advice. Isn’t that the best way to learn something?

In preparation for this luncheon, I summoned my inner voice, and we had a dialogue about writing, which led to some thoughts about literary criticism. You know the old saw: those who can write, those who can’t become critics? Christopher Hitchens may be the exception: didn’t he write “I am a Camera”, from whence cometh Cabaret? I think so – have to look it up, but I don’t want to lose my train of thought, so stay tuned on this one.

OK – so I asked my inner voice, “What is our favorite book of all time?”

Inner voice: “Gee, that’s easy: Diary of a Mad Housewife by Sue Kaufman. You noodlehead, you were just reading some early chapters of the book this morning when you couldn’t sleep.”

Me: “Oh yeah – that’s right.”

So I thought I’d ask the ladies whether they have that kind of book – a ‘go-to’ book in times of trouble and/or happiness – just for the pleasure of reading it again?

Then I recalled that when I was a charter member of the Millstone Book Club from 2010 to our departure in 2016, I only recommended two books to the group: Temple Grandin’s book, Animals in Translation and, of course, Diary of a Mad Housewife.

They ladies in the group didn’t understand or appreciate either one of them.

I’ll dispense with a discussion about Grandin’s book, because it was just not something they had any interest in. But we had a most lively discussion about “Diary” and the main character, Tina Balser. The book club ladies fell into two very distinct camps: liked it; hated it. Loved the main character; despised the woman. Hmm.

But here’s the thing: I recall going into writer’s mode, so as not to get defensive when one of the more vocal ladies trashed the book I’d read 162 times (well, maybe I’m exaggerating, but likely not by much). Going into writer’s mode allowed me to probe why she hated the character and the book. Here’s what she said, and the gaggle of haters vehemently agreed that this was the problem:

“I could not understand why this woman was so unhappy. She had everything a woman could possibly want or ask for. And for that woman to jeopardize it all by having an affair was disgusting.”

Wow.

Okay!

The likers couldn’t overcome the animus of the haters, but that’s not important here. Because the most vocal hater then asked me the magic question: “Why did you like this book enough to recommend that we read it?”

I recall being surprised by the question, and hence had a most inarticulate response, something like “I first read it at a very difficult time in my life and it helped me cope with stress and difficulty.” How’s that for lame?

But I loved the book because it was intelligent. The main character was nothing like me, yet because Kaufman likely wrote about her own life, she did so with total authenticity. I didn’t necessarily want to be her – I wanted to know her and have her as a friend. Sort of brings to mind the friends in the movie An Unmarried Woman. It also brings to mind Anna Karenina, because – as I figured out so many years later – “Diary” is just another version of “Anna” set in New York in the 1960’s. The difference is Anna loses everything and throws herself in front of a train. Tina loses nothing and decides to settle for urban mediocrity. But I think it’s fair to point out that Sue Kaufman jumped off the balcony of her 18th floor apartment at age 50. That was the real end of Tina Balser.

So now I have two friends that are intelligent, artistic and just great fun to be with. I hope we have regular times together, lunches, social gatherings, whatever, that allows us to talk about art, books, movies and writing. Because there is nothing better than taking that cocktail party in your head and transferring it to real dialogue with real women you really like.

Post script: Oops – big time wrong. It wasn’t Christopher Hitchens – it was Christopher Isherwood, who was not a critic. So no exceptions to the rule, I suppose. Hmm..

First of all, let me say I’m frankly sick and tired of hearing about Donald Trump. All this attention he’s getting from everyone and everywhere just feeds his endless narcissistic, insecure and pathetic little ego. Have you seen those statues of him placed all over the country? Somebody’s gonna go down for that – someone named Ginger. Very cool sculpture. Oh, you say you haven’t seen them? Here ya go!

By now, the word has spread about these statues, and they are everywhere on the net. Because they’re everywhere, there’s no way to stop the laughing and ridicule. As I’ve noted before in previous blogs, relative to ISIS, the best way to destroy evil is to get people to laugh at it. It makes evil’s little johnson wilt and eventually it makes evil go away.

But now to the serious part of this blog post. By his very nature, Donald Trump has made a mockery of this year’s presidential election. It would have been inconceivable – ever – in the past for a presidential candidate to be so hated and yes feared, that a mocking statue of him in the buff would appear in at least five different cities simultaneously. There’s even a YouTube video of how the statue was made – quite a stunning likeness of his … face.

Sorry – I really am trying to be serious. But I guess that’s my point. He isn’t a serious candidate, and never has been. After the better part of a year trying to figure out what this is all about, I think I’m finally onto it. Hence the title. Still don’t get it? Let me ‘splain.

Think

Hitler and the National Socialist Movement in 1929. They had staged an attempted coup which was a complete disaster. Hitler had been thrown in jail, where he dictated Mein Kampf and his little buddy Rudolph Hess typed it. After serving 9 months of a five year sentence for treason (?!?) Hitler comes out and loses election after election. In 1929, he is ridiculed and laughed at – just like Trump.

Then comes the Depression. Fear and inflation come to Germany. Within a very short time, Hitler has become the leader of the most popular movement in Germany. He gets appointed Chancellor, with the politicians thinking they could control him if he’s a member of the cabinet. Unfortunately, the president, Paul von Hindenburg, dies and guess who becomes President? Yes indeedee.

That was 1933. So Trump is the equivalent of Hitler in 1929 – laughed at and ridiculed by the media, by people other than his fanatical followers (sound familiar?) and by the rest of the world. They weren’t laughing so hard after he took over Austria five short years later. And you know the rest of that story.

So here’s the point: Donald will lose this election – but he knew he would. He will use this loss to generate bitterness, fear and hatred for the ‘ruling class’ – anybody that knows anything about anything. He will virtually destroy the Republican Party, accusing it of every possible failure, leading to his loss. The ‘experts’ are on their way out, and Trump, aided and abetted by Breitbart News, Roger Ailes and the other toadies that speak for him (shudder) will create Trump Media. This they will use for another run in four years – a run that will allow him – or his surrogate – to be successful in winning the presidency. All we need are a few more terror attacks and an economic slowdown, with a pinch of inflation to leaven the mix.

So don’t be heaving a sigh of relief on November 9th. He’ll be back, and when he returns, it’ll be Adolph all over again. And it won’t just be in the US – it will be half the world, including Britain, France, Russia and goodness knows which other countries. Nationalism is, once again, rearing its ugly head, but this time in the nuclear age. That makes for a uniquely dangerous reality.

Maybe after the war is over and America (and likely the rest of the civilized world) is reduced to rubble, generations will go by without anybody naming their son Donald. It’s the least we can hope for.

I’ve been semi-binge-watching the show Community thanks to Hulu. One of the episodes in the third season featured six different timelines imagined by Abed, one of the more colorful characters. What’s that, you say? It depicts six different versions of what happened when six different members of the Community College study group are each sent to answer the door and retrieve pizzas from a delivery guy.

I liked the episode and thought I’d apply the concept to the presidential election. So here’s six different timelines for the outcome.

Timeline 1: Donald Trump wins, but dies before the inauguration, having been trampled in a gay pride parade.

Timeline 2: Donald Trump loses, but moves into the White House by declaring squatter’s rights, an idea he got from a Disney movie.

Timeline 3: Donald Trump wins, and the first act of the 2017 Congress is Articles of Impeachment of Donald Trump after he sells the White House to China. Trump got the idea watching a History Channel show about Warren G. Harding, who gambled away the White House China.

Timeline 4: Donald Trump loses the election, but wins the states of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas in the electoral college. The rest of the United States expels those five states from the union. They reform and are henceforth known as the Trump Republic, with Donald as their President for Life. President Hillary builds a wall around the Trump Republic to keep out the riff raff.

Timeline 5: Donald Trump loses, but insists that he won in some parallel universe, and therefore should be co-president.

Timeline 6: Donald Trump loses, but then declares himself the winner when he is able to produce a birth certificate showing Hillary Clinton was really born in Antarctica and is, in fact, really a penguin. Or maybe THE Penguin. Hey, you know she does walk kinda funny.

So there you have it – six different options – pick the one you like best. My personal favorite is Timeline 4. Good riddance to those idgits.