"Uncompromisin', Enterprisin', Anything But Tranquilizin'...."

Some American history, sitcom style.

Lady Godiva / was a freedom rider /
She didn't care if the whole world looked
Joan of Arc / with the Lord to guide her
She was a sister who really cooked
And when the country was falling apart /
Betsy Ross got it all sewed up

And then......

There's Joe.

Joe Biden released a video this week in which he announced that he is, as expected, a candidate for the Democratic nomination to become President of the United States.

The pre-pre-pre-pre exit polling on his entry into the ring, race, battle or whatever predictably overly sensationalized description American culture has come to expect of the electoral process, tends to place him in one of the, also predictable, two choices American politics seems to have available these days.

Lovers love love love love love.  
  

Haters hate hate hate hate hate.

Takes a committed, if not just a little naive, optimist to resist falling victim to the cynical suspicion that we...are never ever getting back together.

But that's kinda who we, the people are now, aren't we?

One side versus the other. Them vs. us. Fer us or agin us.

If American politics, or just everyday life in America, for that matter, were a poker game, there would be no time wasted on pointless pursuits like betting, or seeing the bet and raising, or checking or bluffing or calling a bluff.

Every hand would be "I'm all in...oh, yeah?....well, I'm all in, too....oh, yeah, whatya got?....oh, yeah? whatta you got?"

And, lately, what every body seems to "got", doesn't amount to a pair of twos.

Which makes the notion of how much "winning" was promised a while back as hilariously ironic as it is darkly tragic.

But the sociological perspective on this whole "you, no, you, no, you, no, you" bicker and bitch business is the stuff of term papers and masters' theses and therapy sessions.

For our purposes here, let's just say that if you're the kind of person who likes a little leg room in your life, make sure and book your journey through life for the foreseeable somewhere in the middle.

Lots...and lots...of room there.

Meanwhile...then there's Joe.

And with the official, if predictable, entry of Biden, the, likewise, predictable questions pop up like a verbal version of Whack-A-Mole.....

...is he too old?....is he too out of touch?...is he too creepy and/or handsy to be taken seriously?.....he's run and failed numerous times, what makes this time any different?....is he the only candidate who can defeat Donald?....doesn't this coming election require someone new and fresh and dynamic and not someone who is symbolic of an earlier, now arguably, obsolete time?......

It's worth noting, at this moment, that there's something very telling about the fact that the most readily, and often, asked questions, and not just about Biden, spring from the well of murky, dirty water as opposed to any pretense of seeking the cool refreshment of fresh, clear, new water.

Water, for those who are metaphor challenged, represents ideas and directions and visions of a better life for me and mine and you and yours.

Old saying about how we, the people, tend to set others up just to knock them down.  In the updated, re-booted version, some streamlining is apparent, given that the process now often tends to skip bothering with the set up and simply goes for the knock down from the get go.

And ironic as it might seem, coming from where they come from so much of the time, a lot of your average, everyday we, of we, the people fame, profess to be tired...and tired of being tired....of political campaigns that offer nothing but trashing of the other side.

Ask not, what your candidate might do to actually make America better and safer, even greater. Ask what kind of shit the other guy is pulling that can be used to knock them off the podium and send them back to being a cable news contributor where they belong.

How about what will you specifically, exactly and, in simple sentences we can all understand, do, for example, to make America safer including, but not stir up the fires of fear and bigotry limited to, border security.

Well, first, if you're thinking anything like "yeah...that makes sense....it's a fair question....what specifically and exactly, would you do?"....

..hi, welcome to America. First time here?

Quick Cliff Notes explain on the whole politics thing.

We don't do specific and exactly and simple sentences.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

Mostly because any candidate that, even however well intended, gives that approach a shot is going to disappear in the preference polls faster than McRibs come and go off the big menu board in the drive thru lane.

Politics, all politics, actually, but American politics, in particular, is about scoring at least 5.1 out of every 10 votes. Put more practically, six out of every ten voters have to like what they hear. In order to do that, of course, it is critically necessary to tell pretty much all ten of those voters what they want, even need, to hear.

And if you're telling ten out of ten people what they want and need to hear, I'm gonna go "all in" and bet the farm that you're not telling the truth to all ten of those people.

Because the truth might set you free. But it will put a bullet right between the eyes of a candidacy faster than you can say "I will build a wall...and Mexico will pay for it."

Meanwhile, then there's Joe.

And that list of questions that is already raining down and around cable news and social media like April showers, and/or pollen, on the hood of your car.

There is, turns out, though, one question that I'm, again, willing to go "all in" on and bet will not be asked as this election plays itself out.

A question that's actually user friendly. Because it's a question you only have to ask....

...yourself.

And when will I tell you what that question is?

You have to ask?

Hi. Welcome to S.E.P.

First time here?

Once upon a time......

A friend and colleague of mine in the broadcasting biz appeared in the doorway of my studio and asked if I had a moment to chat.

He shared that he had been offered another job and was struggling with the decision making process. He went on to explain that, in addition to dealing with the always challenging issues of any kind of major life change, this particular choice was complicated by the fact that the job being offered was not in broadcasting, his profession since he was old enough to have a profession, an occupation that he had enjoyed and in which he had excelled for a long time.

He had, meanwhile, made no secret, at the time, that he was going through a season of discontent with that profession, although he was honest in offering that he couldn't tell whether he was burned out on broadcasting itself or was merely dissatisfied with his current gig. The job he was being offered, again, was not in broadcasting, but it held the promise of reasonable money, some new challenges and, perhaps, even some new beginnings.

No one who knows me at all thinks for a second that I'm ever at loss for an opinion, let alone words, but, most who know me well would also tell you that I'm not inclined to simply draw and shoot with those opinions, especially when it comes to important issues and, in this case, important decisions. And, knowing my friend as I do, I knew that he wasn't asking so much for direction or even a suggestion as to how he should decide as he was looking for a perspective.

Which is exactly what I gave him. Not an answer. But a question.

And, metaphor and analogy enthusiast that I am, I offered up a point of view on his occupational crossroad by putting it into a context to which I knew we could both expertly relate.

Love and marriage.

Pretend, I said, that you've been married to someone for a very long time. Let's say that while the marriage is not unbearable, it's not particularly happy anymore. Maybe you're going through what optimists call a rough patch, and cynics call a living hell, or maybe the marriage is really just a body waiting to be pronounced dead, but, you're a grown up who understands that making a major life change involves pretty much turning your life basket on its side, if not upside down.

Now, you meet someone. They have captured your fancy, wet your whistle, they ring your bell, shake your tambourine, make you smile and, for the first time in a while, make you think that maybe, just maybe, you have another chance to realize, not just happiness, but enthusiasm, excitement, new day, new dawn, all that stuff your brain feeds you when you're suddenly smelling roses after having been in the horse stall for so long.

Your current gig here in broadcasting, and maybe your whole feeling about broadcasting, is, of course, the horse stall. And that job offer is coming up roses. You don't know what to do. Should you stay or should you go?

That's a reasonable, and obvious, question to ask in a situation like this.

It's just not the right question.

Only you can know what you want, what you need, what it will take to make you feel hopeful, where there has been hopelessness; energy, where there has been malaise and fatigue; even joy, where there has been joylessness, no one can tell you what it's going to take to make those things happen for you.

But when making the decision as to whether to endure the horse stall a little longer and see how things turn or make the move and pick the roses..or....endure the horse stall but keep looking for just the right garden and just the right roses, the answer is to be found in the answer to this question.

Is what, or who, you're being offered going to be better?

Or just different?

Better, obviously, is improvement.

Different, meanwhile, could go either way.

Better is about an improved quality of life and, ideally, a path out of darkness.

Different, on the other hand, could be a stairway to heaven...or a highway to hell.

And, more importantly, better is a state of being that, ideally, lasts a lifetime.

Different is a novelty. And novelties wear off.

In marriage, the "other man or other woman" might be the answer to a prayer, the love of a lifetime.

Or Glenn Close, complete with boiled bunny and remarkable prowess with a butcher knife.

When it comes to making political decisions, "the other man or other woman" might lead the way out of darkness.

Or.....

It's reasonable, even wise, to ask questions when it comes to choosing candidates for public office. And, if recent history has taught us anything, it's taught us that being informed, educated, knowledgeable about candidates, who they are, what they are, where they stand and what they are really offering has become critical at this point in the timeline of American history.

Not being bothered to do the due diligence of really learning about those who are running and making those informed, educated, knowledgeable decisions on Election Day is a luxury that we, of we, the people fame simply cannot afford and indulge at our own extreme peril.

My friend was looking for an answer to a lot of questions, one in particular, should I stay or should I go?

We, of we, the people fame, are looking for answers to a lot of questions, many more to come, to be sure, but not asking the one question that really hits the nail.

And it doesn't matter, necessarily, whether the question is being asked about Bernie or Pete or Kamala or Amy or Tulsi or Kirsten or Elizabeth or Seth or Beto.....

...and then there's Joe.

It's a one size fits all kind of query.

And the answer, all other answers aside, makes all the difference in the world.

Is having them as President of the United States going to be better?

Or just different?

Better is state of being.

Different is a novelty.

Novelties wear off.

And, turns out, we have the advantage, such as it is, of knowing now what happens when we, of we, the people fame, decide not to give "better" its due at the poker table and go "all in" on "different".

For no other good reason than it's different.

Better is a state of being.

And then...there's Donald.



 

We're Not The Jet Set...We're The Divided As It Gets Set

Bobby Braddock is an award winning, internationally known, admired and respected songwriter. His list of accomplishments in popular music includes such, now standards, as Tammy Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E", the delightful Toby Keith hit, "I Wanna Talk About Me", the more recent Billy Currington ode to mankind, "People Are Crazy" and the song that will likely be a part of the headline when, to paraphrase fellow Nashville artist Vince Gill, Bobby's time on Earth is through, the iconic George Jones classic, "He Stopped Loving Her Today".

And if the youngsters in the audience tonight still aren't making a connection, try this. Bobby discovered and produced the first hits for a guy you all enjoy watching each week as he trades quips and judges new talent on "The Voice"....Blake Shelton.

Bobby Braddock is, by his own admission, not a particularly "political" person. His writings over the past 50 plus years have, obviously, been more prolific than partisan, more down home than dogmatic.

But, of late, he, like many of us whose craft is wordsmithing, has been moved to speak out. With an eloquence difficult to refute because it comes, not from a political party mouthpiece or a White House staffer on a quest to deflect legitimate criticism of a runaway train of a presidency and/or simply save their own jobs in that administration.    

Whatever your position, there is no denying that what Mr. Braddock offers in his comments is balanced and reasonable.

And important. If only because 'reasonable' in the America that put Donald Trump in the White House is joining clean air, clean water and civil discussion on the list of endangered species.

What follows is a recent post from Bobby Braddock's Facebook page.

From a guy with an iconic way with words, no more important words could be offered.

THEN AND NOW: "The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I know how many of my Trump friends will think, "stick to songwriting," which is sort of like telling a woman to stick to cooking. I don't love writing about politics, the result always leaves me feeling yukky. I love much more the good feelings generated by writing about music and music history. But every once in awhile I see something so wrong that I have to say something, otherwise I'll be one of those people Dr. King was referring to. So I'll just have to risk losing the opportunity of getting a song recorded, or making a friend mad at me. I think I could have done a lot more for my country when I was younger, so I guess I'm trying to make up for it now.

President Trump is at it again, dividing us, playing on people's fears and prejudices, never mind the toll it takes on our country, the objective being to fire up his base and hoping, through fear, to get enough additional people on board to eke out another victory in another election, caring nothing about the wreckage strewn along the way. He reminds me of the rabble-rousing Southern politicians of yesteryear. All they had to do to win an election was yell "n****r, n****r, n****r." Trump's not a Southerner (in fact he makes fun of Southerners like he does everyone else, ever heard him trying to mock Jeff Sessions's Alabama accent?), but he does practically the same thing as the old demagogues, characterizing Mexicans as rapists and murderers, blacks as "low IQ," and all Muslims as potential terrorists.

So enter freshman Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. a Somali refugee and a Muslim, who several weeks ago made a statement that was ill-spoken and inappropriate but more anti-Israel than anti-Semitic, and certainly not as bad as the remark made by enthusiastic Trump supporter and Ku Klux Klan guru David Duke, who said that Jews made up their Holocaust survival stories in order to get more money for Israel. Trump immediately said that "Ilhan Omar is the voice of the Democratic Party" and "anti-Semitism is the face of the Democratic Party." So untrue because almost every Jewish member of Congress is a Democrat, and Jews are the strongest and most reliable Democratic-voting demographic in America, except for African Americans. He knew exactly what he was doing; he was trying to please right-wing Republican donor and Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, and he's trying to bring the normal Jewish 30% Republican-vote up a few points for next year's election.
Now he's at it again. Congresswoman Omar said in a speech the other day that "some people did something" that resulted in Muslims losing their civil liberties. Trump jumped on it, said she was trivializing 9/11 by calling it "some people" doing "something" that she's a horrible person, and implying that she has sympathy for the terrorists. Now Trump is saying once more that she's the face of the Democratic Party. Most people don't know who she is. He's determined to change all that, wants to make her famous, and a rallying cry to get people to vote for him out of fear, so he can warn America about this new, dangerous Democratic socialist party. Forget the reality that a majority of Democrats in a recent Wall Street Journal poll call themselves moderates or even conservatives, and that Joe Biden who leads in the Democratic polls, is a centrist who derides the smaller "socialist" branch of the Democratic Party. Many of the Democratic candidates came to her defense, but I think they would have been better served if they had told the politically incorrect but factually correct truth, that Ms. Omar never spoke English until she came here to seek asylum in her teens, and she may not be the most articulate person in the world (in English), but she was attempting to say that SOME, not a majority, of Muslims, did some despicable things, causing many Americans to turn against all Muslims, and as a result they started losing their civil liberties. We have a president who just throws anything out there that he thinks will help him, he says it and automatically it is believed by his followers. As a result truth matters less and less, and we are becoming a culture of lies. I would say to my Trump friends, you should hate this for the sake of your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. I think most of us had parents who taught us that it's a sin to tell a lie.

My friends, I would welcome anyone but this man to be at the helm of our ship of state. I would welcome Mike Pence. I wouldn't vote for him, but at least we would be back to battling over the merit of issues, instead of being in the middle of a red hot, name-calling, threat-making culture war. Our president is consistently dishonest but surprisingly transparent at the same time, tweeting threats of investigating those who oppose his policies, threatening TV networks with the possibility of looking at their licenses, expressing his admiration for dictators, saying he wishes our people would show him the loyalty that the North Korean people show Kim Jong Un, and tweeting that he likes the sound of Chinese President Xi's position of "president for life." His base is listening to him, because now showing up on social media are memes that read "Trump for President For Life." I would bet you my very life, my heartbeat, that if given the opportunity to have authoritarian rule in America, he would seize it in a second, and he would have solid support from at least a sizable portion of his base. I've always said if his approval rating ever got past 50% we would be in serious trouble.

And while I'm letting it all hang out today, I want to call B.S. on something else. If Trump were a real leader, he would be calling meetings about there being so many people at the border, so all the leadership in America could put their heads together and help solve this. He would be calling the mayors of the sanctuary cities and asking them would they be willing to take in a certain number of refugees, and most would probably welcome it, rather than him playing the roll of the bully, the "big man." threatening to put them on buses into those cities like it's some kind of a high school prank. The art of that kind of deal is B.S. The Bible, which he's probably never read since it is, after all, a book, says "Let us come and reason together," and Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." He didn't say "blessed are the troublemakers."

The telling thing here is the president is saying, "We're full. No more room." So this is not about illegal immigration. These are people who are following the right protocol, they are coming to our border asking for asylum. People are being murdered by gangs in their home countries, and Trump hasn't helped matters by cutting off aid to those countries. So I think the problem, since it's not illegal immigration, is that he's playing on the fears and prejudices of people who do not want ANY more foreigners in this country, especially people from Mexico, who unlike Cubans who are basically Spanish and European, instead are heavily of Amerindian origin, and people from Central America who are Amerindian and sometimes African in origin. In other words, people of color.

If we want to cut back on the number of immigrants that we allow into our country, there is a way to do that, and that is through Congress. But the president isn't saying "less," he's saying NONE, he's saying we're FULL. Really? The United States has all of THIRTY-FIVE people per square mile. The UK has 275 per square mile, India has 455 per square mile, but we have THIRTY-FIVE. We're full?
If we really think America is full and we don't have any more room, consider this. During what was called the Great Migration, from 1890 to 1920, there were as many as 160,000 a year coming here from Italy, and as many as 100,000 Jews a year coming here from Eastern Europe. There were a lot of people saying NO to that, thankfully no presidents were. This is already getting too long, so I won't recite a huge roll call of famous Italian Americans, past and present, or famous Jewish Americans, past and present, who lived the American dream and who also made our lives better. But thank God we let their forebears in. If we're going to be with the president on this, and declare America to be full, with no more room, we need to remove that bronze plaque on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty that reads

 “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” 

Or better yet, take the statue down, box it up in crates, and ship it back to the people of France who gave it to us in 1886.

I'm old enough to remember seeing it on TV, and most of you have seen it in documentaries or on the History Channel, the people in foreign countries going wild over JFK. And then twenty years later, the people over there going wild over Ronald Reagan. But they don't like our current president. A lot of his supporters will say "Well we don't care what other countries think about us." They're nationalists, like our president, our first nationalist president. 

Nationalists believe, "Our country is better than yours." 

All our other presidents have been patriots. 

Patriots believe, "I love my country."  

That's the big difference between then and now.



The poignancy of Bobby Braddock's commentaries, aside from their sincere "every man" tone is what his commenting, in the first place, means.

That a good and decent man, with no particular self-interested political axe to grind,  is prepared to risk push back from a lot of hostiles who will, bet the farm, so to speak, push back... but feels sufficiently motivated, even, perhaps inspired to not simply sit on the sideline, tsk tsk the chaos in the atmosphere of America and go on about his business as if that chaos were someone else's problem.

It's not someone else's problem.

Patriots understand that.

Nationalists don't believe there is a problem now that Donald Trump has come along.

And that....is also....a big difference between then and now.

Einstein In Need Of A Little Refurb...

Three things pretty much guaranteed to prove exhausting.

Running uphill with a backpack full of rocks.

Keeping up with an average two year old, throw in hyperactivity and it's a done deal.

Talking politics.

For that matter, in the days of Donald, the mere mention of politics has become enough to send a sizable number, if not majority, of people head shaking, eye rolling and/or sigh generating themselves as far away from the eye of whatever dust storm disguised as discussion blows in their direction.

In at least one sense, that reaction and the accompanying behavior, is unfortunate.

Because while its understandable that those things in life that wear us down, wear us out or simply just turn us off are naturally the first things we are inclined to want to avoid.

The problem with avoiding things that need to be addressed, though, is that avoiding those things simply allows them to continue....if not flourish.

Very often and, again, these days, just like a tumor, politics can be harmful, even fatal, if ignored for too long.

All that is necessary for evil to flourish and all those other poetic perspectives on this mortal experience we share for eighty years, give or take.

Still, human beings, and, again, these days, American human beings in particular, by nature, have a tendency to, if only unconsciously, adopt and live by a credo that combines the most self serving bits of several life axioms and/or idioms.


"Live and let live"....meet..."let George do it."

Especially when the "it", in whatever form, format or circumstance is involved, is something that comes up on the to-do list under the heading "chores" as opposed to the column labled "recreations".

If it seems like the implication here is that America, in the year of whatever deity you profess 2019, is a nation in the grip of historically prolific laziness, self gratification or just good old fashioned textbook narcissism, then allow me an opportunity to clarify.

There's no implication intended whatsoever. What's being said here is that America, in the year of whatever deity you profess 2019, is a nation in the grip of historically prolific laziness, self gratification or just good old fashioned textbook narcissism.

The one asterisk offered here is that, just as with everything else in life, the only thing that is absolute (besides the proverbial death and taxes) is that there are no absolutes.

Which is by way of conceding, even celebrating, that there are still people in America who understand the value of, and subscribe to the theory that a life well lived is lived in the spirit of, a roll up your sleeves, grab a hammer and get busy building this much needed barn mindset.

Debates on specific numbers are best left to statisticians and Donald, who knows pretty much everything there is to know about anything being discussed at any given time (just ask him), but I'd put my staggeringly yuuge tax refund this year up against your staggeringly yuuge tax refund this year that the various and sundry balances that affect us all shake out pretty much like this at the moment.

Republicans are a majority of the Senate.

Democrats are a majority of the House.

Lazy, self gratifying narcissists are,if only by a percentage point or two, a majority of the nation.

As well as being a majority of those who hear "Hail To The Chief" played for them every time they show up at a fancy dinner.

Meanwhile, back to exhaustion.

While our national psyche, not to mention processes, can easily be seen as complicated beyond simple understanding, the fact is, that sometimes, actually more often than you might think, the root reason for, and/or cause of, things is not at all beyond simple understanding.

They are, in fact, as simple as simple ever gets.

The root reason for, and/or cause of, the aforementioned national epidemic of exhaustion.....just ahead.

Stephen Miller is a little rat weasel who needs to be punched in the side of the head until he runs sobbing back to his mommy.

His "official" title, in the WeTV dark comedy/satire/reality show thinly and cheaply disguised as a presidential administration, is "presidential advisor".

Here's a quick hits list of the shiniest jewels on his resume'.

Helped write the stirring, inspirational call to unity and brotherhood commonly referred to as Trump's Inaugural address.

Chief architect of the Trump immigration fubar (calling it a policy insults the intelligence of even those whose bright red cap is the centerpiece of their wardrobe).

Primary advocate of the methodology tearing migrant children from their parents and handing them over to God knows what, God knows where for God knows how long.

Is a loud, shrill, slimy and often heard voice filling the air and airwaves with claims about widespread voter fraud.

Wait. Sorry. Apologies. That should read filling the air and airwaves with moronic, totally unsubstantiated, if not totally fabricated, bullshit claims about widespread voter fraud.

And, a while back, in the early months of this WeTV dark comedy/satire/reality show thinly and cheaply disguised as a presidential administration, had this to publicly spew when a judge had the audacity to essentially tell Stevie's boss to step off.

".....the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."

Okay. First, calling Miller a presidential advisor is like calling Goering or Goebbels "executive directors of the Final Solution".

But the lampooning Nazi reference is not only, like so much of our thematic today, wearying to the point of heavy sighing, it's not particularly applicable.

Goering and Goebbels and their Death Star Emperor had a vision and a plan and the stones to damn the torpedoes and surge full speed ahead, dropping the bombs, kicking the tires, lighting the fires and gassing up the ovens like genocide was an Olympic event.

Not that there's anything that isn't horrifically and obscenely wrong with that.  

Miller, meanwhile, and his wanna be Caesar in a clown car, are like a really, really badly executed shot at a late night comedy sketch.

Throw in some silly walking and a big mackerel with which Donald smacks Stephen in the face and you're talking Monty Python.

Fifth rate Monty Python.

Apologies to the gentlemen of Python.

But all of this is, first, not the opening salvo of an extended bombing run on Stephen Miller or even yet another inevitable sixty megaton sortie on Trump, for all the good yet another sixty megatons of ka-boom will do.

This is about that root reason for, and cause of, the exhaustion so, so many are feeling in the America of 2019.

And Stephen Miller just happened to be the mole that first popped up today in the Whack-A-Mole that is the day to day, these days, in the year of whatever deity you profess 2019 America.

There are many more. Many, many more.

Cue Mr. T.

"A whole lotta mo".

So many, in fact, that it's.......

...yes....exhausting.

But that's what it is.

Not why it is.

And here's that root reason and/or cause.

The dictionary defines the word "having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense".

An America that is long on selfies and short on time to waste on boring pursuits like knowledge and insight whittles that eleven words down to a handy, user friendly single six letter snap.

Stupid.

Grammatically speaking, of course, when applied to the "root reason/cause of" thing we're going for here, the correct usage would be "stupidity"

But "stupid" sells it.

And that's three less letters that have to be bothered with before we can get back to loving to hate to love Jon Snow.

The temptation, and suspicion, at this point, is that we're now going to meander down the path of put downs and intelligence insulting, one side assuming repeated lambastings of MAGA's as stupid, the other side assuming repeated lambastings of MAGA's because of their assumed stupidity in being MAGA's in the first place.

But that's a lot of lambasting with very little benefit to show for it.

Because, as I mentioned earlier, some times root reasons for, and/or causes of, are as simple as simple ever gets.

Yes, the positions that Miller takes on important social, cultural, even life changing issues are extreme, harsh and, arguably, abhorrent.

But, simply put, the real transgression here is that they are stupid.

Because they don't work. They never have worked. And they never will work.

There is no argument to be made in which evil cannot be proven to be an inevitable factor ever present in the human experience.

But, to this moment, there is no history yet written in which that evil, or any evil, has not been ultimately overcome.

Even through the generations behind us, in which good men actually did do nothing where something could have been done, here we are, in the year 2019, still climbing every mountain, fording every stream, following every rainbow.

And not necessarily because of the theoretically unsinkable human spirit.

Perhaps, it's simply a matter of spiritual physics.

You can push a basketball down into a swimming pool and hold it down with all your strength for as long as you can endure. You can even attempt to sit on it, again, for as long as you endure. But until, and unless, you put a massive hole in that ball, in essence, massively wound it, it's going to bob back up and rise through the surface once again.

Again. And again.

Every.

Time.

Putting, or taking, someone...or a group....or a nation....or an entire race...down as a means to an end or even the end itself.....

....is making the mistake of thinking, for a single second, that they will be kept down in the end.

Given what we know of mankind and mankind's history, to date, that's a silly mistake to make.

One might even rightly offer that it's a stupid mistake.

In the case of one of history's latest lackeys, Stephen Miller's stupidity is that he's cocky, confident and convinced that his head butts are going to readily succeed at bringing down the barn.

Yo, Stevie.

Barn knows better.

Really, dude. Do you not understand how stupid what you're doing is?

Sorry. Look who I'm asking. And look who you're pimping for.

My bad. Or stupid, as the case may be.

Once the "stupid principle" is applied (and we need a catchier, more practical label here, because "stupid principle" is from that same problematic word basket as visiting the Hoover and being told by the dam guide that we're going to take the dam tour and you should save your dam questions till the end).....once applied, it becomes fairly simple to see how stupidity and futility have a tighter lock on each other than Jamie and Cersei.

Giving big tax breaks to the very rich and indifferently sticking it to the middle and lower classes. Not that it can't happen because it just did...and has before. But the end result is always, sooner or late, some form of taxpayer rebellion whether it's tossing crates of tea in a harbor...or tossing reckless office holders out of office on their under-taxed asses.

Trying to turn the population, as a whole, against the free press. Even though, until Donald, you had to practically go back to a time where Lin Manuel Miranda would have been inspired to write to hear the extreme stupidity of splashing "real enemy of the people" in the direction of journalists, the population, again, as a whole, understands the reality that without the sunlight that a free press shines on the day to day of life in America and the world, real, life changing, even life ending damage would fester and grow in the darkness. Thinking otherwise might be more common than usual these days. But not any less stupid.

Undermining, disrespecting, even calling for the dismantling of foundational American institutions like the intelligence agencies....the FBI......the....wait for it.....entire judicial system? All of the red capped, flag waving, cult like Imhotep devoted to Donald voice chanting approval notwithstanding, the very large lion's share (make that bald eagle share) of everyday, this is our country Americans are just as respectful, and protective, of our foundationals as they are our flag. Over the past two hundred years, millions of Americans have come together and millions of American lives have been freely given to prevent foreign nations from destroying the foundations of this nation. What special level of stupid do you have to be to think, for a second, that more than many millions of Americans wouldn't energize, and then some, to prevent that very destruction from an enemy within?

And so it goes. And so it would go.

Einstein once satirically defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time".

One safely bets that were Albert relatively around these days, he would be doing a contemporary re-boot to substitute the word "insanity" with the word "stupidity".

By the way, quick awareness check.....while lackeys like Miller and Bannon and Conway and Huckabee Sanders and Hannity and Curly, Moe and Larry might be "jump off a cliff if you asked me" sycophants aboard the Trump train, the not so great and way less than powerful Oz himself has no interest, intention or plan to actually commit, or accomplish, any of the assaults he blusters, taunts and tweets.

Dude's cashing in on riding the train for as long the tracks last. And thirty seconds before the huge log pile in the center finally shows up, guess who will already be helicoptered out like a tenth rate Bond villain in a tenth rate Bond film.

Ernst Stavro Blowhard.

But, many, if not most, of you reading this right now already know that don't you?

Of course you do.

Because you're not stupid.

And, on top of that, you, like me and a lot, a whole lot, of us are tired.

Of course you are.

Stupidity is exhausting.

The Irony Of "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid" Is Going To Be Epic

America 2019, among its other unique challenges, seems to be bigly afflicted with a malicious malady that has a deceptively impish, almost playful nickname.

Potty mouth.

For those who enjoy knowing where things that come out of your mouth come from, the term is obviously a slang version of a more formal. much less impish "toilet mouth". "Potty", itself, being a slang term for "pot" or, more accurately, "chamber pot" which was, in the barbaric days before indoor plumbing,  simply a bowl kept in the bedroom to be used as a urinal during those nighttime moments when sweet dreams were interrupted by the need, the need for pee.

The delightfully simple invention was also known as a piss pot (for, one, again, assumes obvious reasons)...a thunder pot (not really sure we want to know exactly why)....and....a potty.

Doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar or a linguistics expert, then, to explain the evolution of toilet to potty to potty mouth as a way of describing people whose language, at any given moment, takes a turn for the tasteless.

Put simply for those without access to a thesaurus, you start pissin and moanin and talk some shit and people gonna call you a potty mouth.   

Most of the words that would qualify one as an authentic PM are of the four letter variety. There are a few multi-lettered exceptions to that rule, in fact, two very prolific profanities made the cut in George Carlin's classic 1972 monologue, "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television."

Of course, this was 1972. Long before the less eloquent amongst us found outstretched arms and open ears for their vile vocabulary, be they graduates of Marriage Boot Camp, clownish caricatures going from not to hot or once and momentary occupants of the Oval Office who charmed throngs of patriotic followers with inspiring orations on the "bullshit" nature of felony investigations into possible malfeasance, corruption and/or treason.

But, fuck all that. Let's cut the shit and get back to the four letter utterances.

Here's a thing.

Not all derisive, destructive, damaging four letter words are as immediately derisive, destructive and damaging as you might think.

One, in particular, is alive and well in the American mainstream. And, by "alive and well", we're not talking healthy and flourishing. We're talking dangerous, even deadly. Like a virus or bacteria that is alive...and well....and capable of putting an end to lives.

A four letter word that does, in fact, have the potential to end the life of a nation.

Now...that's some scary shit.

Four letters coming up.

Pete Buttigeig is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He is an American war veteran, currently a lieutenant in the United States Navy Reserve. He is an Oxford Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Harvard University.

He is also gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And, at the moment, he is an announced candidate for the Democratic Party nomination to be President of the United States.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, either.

Regardless of what you will, bet the farm, baby, hear in the coming days, weeks and months from The Kardashians of Comic Corruption.....Trump, McConnell, Hannity and Voldemort.

Redundancy duly noted.

Surprisingly, the loudest gloom and doomers objection to Buttigeig is less, even not at all, about his sexuality as it is about his pro-choice stand.

But, this piece isn't about the yays or nays of the candidacy of Pete Buttigeig.

It's about his articulate, insightful, even delightfully refreshing understanding of that seemingly
innocuous four letter word.


It's both disingenuous and condescending to point out that Buttigeig's powerful P.O.V. is even more refreshing, and impacting, given his youth.

He is, at this writng, 37 years old.

Yes, traditionalists, purists and patriots who still don't have a clue how to get that DVD player to stop blinking 12:00, Pete Buttigeig is a Millennial.

(and, now, a short break while we wait out the inevitable gasps........)

(and....back to our show...)

Time will tell whether this candidacy soars, sinks, explodes, implodes or charms and inspires its way all the way to the inauguration of the first gay president in American history.

Actually, that's unintentionally misleading. Conventional, if merely whispered, wisdom estimates that approximately 10% of the population is gay....there have been, to date, 44 presidents (Grover Cleveland was two of them, Mr and Miss Helpers)....so, the math would suggest that at least four of America's past heads of state would have been just as happy with "It's Raining Men" in place of "Hail To The Chief".

Not that there would have been anything wrong with that.

But, from the get-go and from here on out, come what may, or may not, it's clear that the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana has a laser lock on the damage being done, and the potential damage still possible, to the land of the free, home of the brave by that not so profane but unimaginably powerful four letter word.

Fear.

Franklin Roosevelt was spot on, dead center, right on target in 1933.

In his first inaugural address, he zeroed right in on the real "enemy" in America's midst in the midst of the Great Depression.

"The only thing we have to fear", FDR insisted, "is fear itself."

While over eighty years later, that catchphrase is, to many, if not most, currently living Americans, simply the stuff of scratchy History Channel video,  those words ring just as truthfully, insightfully and accurately today as they did then.

With the proviso that what's called for is a smidge of updating,

The only things we have to fear....are fear....and those who would exploit that, even create more, fear in people, lying and making false, empty promises to them for no other purpose than to reap financial rewards.

And futilely attempt to fill a bottomless pit of the need for ego gratification.

Demagogue spelled D-O-N-A-L-D, notwithstanding, practical political perspective suddenly comes to mind from the comic mind of Jerry Seinfeld,

Just as there is good naked...and bad naked....there is bad fear....and good fear.

Charles Kaiser, writing for The Guardian, describes a plausible scenario in which this 37 year old gay Millennial might, in fact, find himself solemnly swearing a year from this January.

Is it too much to imagine that America could elect a gay president? I don’t think so. If the disaster of George Bush’s administration was sufficient to elect the first black president, I believe the catastrophe of Donald Trump could be just enough to put the first openly gay man in the White House. Especially a man like this.

Can't be sure whether "especially a man like this" is meant to be complimentary or a not so thinly veiled shot of bigotry, but, either way, one thing is certain.

Like Donald Trump, Pete Buttigeig has an absolute understanding of the fear living and breathing in so many people.

The people whose level of fear makes them vulnerable to any medicine offered up that promises to ease those fears.

Whether that medicine is proven safe and effective by years of research and experience....or is nothing more than snake oil in a bright orange bottle.

Unlike Donald Trump, though, Pete Buttigeig clearly has a handle on who he is, what part he can play in alleviating many of those fears and in no need, whatsoever, of making false promises to vulnerable people for no other reason than to reap financial rewards.

And futilely attempt to fill a bottomless pit of the need for ego gratification.

2016 was about the cynical, and ultimately heartless, exploitation of people's fear.

The non-profane four letter word.

Come 2020 and the emergence of young, fresh, positive, and, legitimately, brave advocates like Pete Buttigeig, the four letter word, as concept, becomes both ironic and poetic.

Because it's a sure bet that, in the House of Trump, McConnell, Hannity and Voldemort, Pete Buttigeig has already had a profound, four letter word effect.

He scares the living shit out of them.

Time To Clean Out The Closet, The Garage And That Odd Little Office Next To The Rose Garden...

If the first robin chirping, petunia blooming days of the season have already got your back aching and/or your allergies allergy-ing, blame Iran.

And not just because blaming Iran has, in recent years, become the easy, go-to person, place or thing to blame for whatever you feel like blaming.

It's because, researchers tell us, it is Iran we have to thank for that most back aching/allergy allergy-ing inaugural ritual as the hazy shade of winter gives way to the bright sunshine of March, April showers and May flowers.

Talkin' spring cleaning, here, kids.

According to some historians, the origin of spring cleaning traces back to the Iranian Nowruz, which is the Persian New Year. As opposed to the mild, mature Times Square gathering America enjoys each December 31, the Iranians ball, or balls, drops on the first day of Spring and locals, to this day, continue the practice of "khooneh tekouni", literal translation "shaking the house".

The primary purpose and/or goal for all of us who greet the new buds of begonias with a bucket in one hand and a Swifter mop in the other remain the same.  

Cleaning up the old to, if only symbolically and/or metaphorically, begin the new... fresh, clean and tidy.

A lot of that springtime un-sullying has a lot to do with the more material meaning of the cleansing catchphrase, "out with the old, in with the new".

And there need not be any new, per se, involved in the process at all.

Replacement is not a mandatory requirement in the practice of purging.

Put simply, those ratty, filthy, old, once upon a time pink and fluffy bedroom slippers, that are now clinically qualified to be used in bacteria testing, just need to go, lady.

Spring cleaning, in fact, presents a lot of situations and opportunities to rid ourselves of clutter in our sheds, pantries, closets and lives.

And de-cluttering, turns out, is not just an activity limited to the lower stratas of society.

Those in possession of multiple bank accounts also, occasionally, do a little tagging and bagging when it comes to things they find worn out, obsolete or simply impractical to use any longer.

Even people who live in big houses...with rolling grounds, beautiful gardens...and magnificent columns front and back.

One such house (no pun sought, but a nice tie-in) springs to mind.

At 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C.

We'll talk a little about some Oval Office level designations of debris in just two shakes of an Iranian house.

Here's something you probably need to know.

If you're planning on, or even just thinking about, needing some kind of useful, helpful, even life saving affordable health care in, say, the next couple of years, congratulations.......

...you're the proud winner of another think comin.'

Donald has announced that the Republican "great, terrific, just terrific healthcare program" they, read: "he", promised in the 2016 campaign has two chances of showing up in any way, shape or form before the results of the 2020 election are in.

Actually, make that three chances. If you throw in an ice cube.

The rude, ungracious, certainly cynical observer would observe that what's happening there is nothing more, or less, than a threat and/or warning, wrapped in a remarkably bad attempt to make a promise for the future.

If you want that healthcare I promised you three years ago, you're going to have to wait another year and a half and then vote for me.

If you don't, then, I'm not going to be able to keep that promise I made to you over three years ago, not coincidentally, the same promise that I'm making to you now and will make to you for the next year and a half.

Oh, and by the way, if you do vote for me, than I'll have four more years to lie to your eager, hopeful glistening faces about why, well, see, the thing is, it's just not gonna happen.

A lot of factors weighing in there. But let's just save time and cut to the chase.

He doesn't know what the hell he's doing. And he's not likely to ever figure it out.

But enough about the fake news that I'm not going to keep the promise I made in 2016, even though, of course, every one on the planet just heard me, personally, myself, say that there isn't going to be any new healthcare until at least after the 2020 election.

And let's talk about what's important.

Immigration. I know a lot about immigration. I know a lot about wind, too, but this piece isn't about cancer, so let's just stay with what I know about immigration.

And here's what I know.

Those judges? You know the ones who sit behind those big desks, wearing those robes and banging that little hammer?

Yeah. They need to go.

And, by go, I don't mean on vacation to my BFF Putin's magnificent villa on the Tura River in Tyumen.... or to Mar-A-Lago for a fun, filled luxury golf resort weekend, with my personal assurance you will receive the Friends and Family discount.

I'm talking need to go like be gone. No more. Hit the road, RBG, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more.

During a press interview this past week, He Who Knows Much About Immigration And Wind had this to say in answer to a question.

"...and we have to do something about asylum...and, to be honest with you, you have to get rid of judges..."

Predictably, the gasp factor was off the charts and knees jerked from sea to shining sea with op/eds and commentaries (and bears, oh my) repudiating Donald's request to sing "dere go da judge" to his laugh track of an admiring audience.

Never mind that ten seconds of reflection would have any reasonable brain processing what the Terror of the Turbine actually meant when he said what he said.

(And not to wander too far off the road, but, after all this time, isn't it way past time, to appoint some kind of actual, official White House advisor whose sole job is to explain to "we, the people" what Oliver Wind-all Holmes actually means when he says what he says? Kellyanne stumbles around in a candy ass effort to do that during her stand up gigs on CNN, but she's so comprehensively annoying that even her husband has stopped listening to her)

What he meant was:
   ...the system needs to be "repaired" so that fewer, if any, cases actually get to the judge level...in other words, take the judges out of the equation....or take the judges off the table.....a simple "we need judges on the bench who will enforce new, effective immigration law" would have done just fine....but Donald doesn't do simple......a quirk, ironically, not uncommon in people who are simple...

  ..."get rid of judges" is Trump twaddle for "put an uber-right wing judge in every robe behind every bench holding every little hammer" from here to eternity.

Ideally, for eternity.

That said, though, Donald has made no secret of his disdain for the whole judge thing from the get go. It's pretty much the standard issue, garden variety Donaldisdain for anything that prevents Lola, or Donald, from getting whatever Lola, or Donald, wants. Frankly, I'm surprised that he hasn't yet pulled that "enemy of the people" shit when it comes to our jurists.

The free press must have copyrighted that sucker when Donald pulled that shit on them. We'll check on that and get back to you.

It occurs, meanwhile, that the whole notion of "getting rid of" is, at least, intriguing. And since tossing out things that aren't, at least perceived as, useful is in keeping with our spring cleaning theme today, let's take off the red MAGA one size fits all and strap on the old thinking cap.

Get rid of the judges. Hmm. Well, that would certainly solve the problem of the bottle necked, gridlocked condition of the court system in the good old US of A, ya know?

Of course, crime ranging from petty to homicidal might tend to curve upward a skosh or two on the old bar graph chart, what with n'er do wells suddenly freed of the concern that at the end of the lawbreaking timeline there might be someone ready and able to sit in judgment on them.

No judge, no judgement. Pass the Glock, baby, we're going jewelry shopping.

What else could we throw out on the street with the ratty slippers, grungy old mattress and those boxes overflowing with back issues of Maxim?

The free press? Yeah, we've talked about that before. And nothing has changed since then. Let me refresh or reiterate, as applicable.

No matter who makes your political posterior purr, you really don't want to live in a nation without a free press.

Sadly, there's only one way that can be proven to you.

God help you...and the rest of us....if that way ever becomes a reality.

Politicians. Well, hell, who wouldn't be just fine with packing up politicians and dropping the boxes off at the nearest Goodwill box...or ravine?

With the exception, of course, of politicians.

I will say this. (radical, outside the box thought alert): I think we could do with a whole lot of thinning the herd. And by thinning the herd, I don't mean less representation per state in the Senate and House.

I mean let's scale the Federal Government down to the point where it serves three, and only three, functions.

Maintenance of all "national" highways, boulevards, Interstates, etc and corresponding infrastructure.

A "national police force", FBI be cool, that would work co-cooperatively with each state's law enforcement, so as to prevent criminals from pulling heists, rapes, murders in one state and then shooting over the border to a state that wasn't as death penalty crazy as the state where the crime took place.

And...maintenance of the national military, so as to protect us from foreign enemies. Well, except for Putin and Kim Jong, because they're still on the Friends and Family discount dealio.

All the rest?

States rights, mama.

Next to "drain the swamp", "throw the bums out" and "wind causes cancer", the most oft-heard political battle cry of this, or any, century since, say, the days of Ike.

Just between you and me, I never really understood the whole nation notion of a nation made up of states, wherein the nation was in charge of things that the states were also in charge of making for a lot of problems, at least in terms of overlap and conflicting regulations and tribal tendencies.

When a presentation, process and/or program is put in the hands of more than one person, what you got there, then, is a committee.

And a zebra.

A horse...put together by a committee.

Obviously, any notion of neutering the nation after all these decades is limited to whatever amusement and/or entertainment we might experience from it.

Guffaw and chortle, at most, wishful thinking, at least.

And here's a thought like an oversized pill. Gonna be tough to swallow, but, ultimately, good for you.

The system, such as it is, works.

I purposely left off the "just fine" at the end of that sentence because while the system does, in fact, work, it very, very, very seldom works "just fine".

Just like any thing conceived of by man, organized by man and administrated by man, the system that is America is in constant, perpetual, infinite need of upgrading, revision, readjustment and re-booting.

Like your family. Like mine.

Leaders of vision understand that. They walk a path and follow an agenda that accounts for that.

They have an insightful understanding that America is, to metaphor the moment, a baby.

The challenges, obstacles, crises of the week, any given week, every given week, are dirty bath water.

And you don't throw out the baby.

That's an unacceptably extreme approach to spring cleaning.

Earlier, we listed some things we might want to consider throwing out in our quest to de-clutter our lives....and our country.

Some think it's time to consider tossing the whole notion of the presidency.

It has,sometimes eloquently, been described as old, worn, impractical, even obsolete.

The notion of a nation without a single symbol of leadership is actually what's impractical.

And unnecessary.

All that's required is finding and recruiting someone of vision, who walks a path and follows an agenda that accounts for our quirks, challenges, obstacles, crises of the week, any given week, every given week.

It's quite an amazing system. With unlimited potential that could be dramatically realized with the right person walking that path.

Spring cleaning.

Lots of useless, impractical, obsolete stuff needs to go.

America doesn't need to include presidents on that list.

America just needs to replace one.

Thank God For The Spoof...Because The Truth Would Be Unbearable

At this writing, spring has sprung, April showers are about to bring May flowers.

And May flowers are about to bring Pilgrims.

Sorry. Turns out there's more than one type of "gag" reflex.

I mention the time of year here only to underscore the paradox of the time of year...versus the mood in which I seem to find myself.

As opposed to following the timeless tenets of Tennyson, the awwww-esque observation that "in the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love", the atmosphere in this medulla is more evocative of a season to come a little later.

The time when the beautiful buds that are currently budding will have lived out their loveliness, turned from green to yellow to orange and are fluttering, if not fully fluttered, signaling the coming end of the year which, at this writing, we just got used to writing on our checks.

Wow. Where does the time go? Especially when I'm talking autumn and, at the moment, we're only a week or so past the first official day of spring.

Again, this is all, and only, for the purpose of providing paradox.  

It's April....but, props to Mr. Billy Joel, I'm in a November state of mind.

Tell you why before you can say "wow, where does the time go?"

Jeanine Pirro is a joke.

Or, to be more accurate, if not more charitable, the persona that Fox News broadcasts named Jeanine Pirro is a joke.

Wiki dryly offers that "Jeanine Ferris Pirro is an American television host, author, conspiracy theorist and a former judge, prosecutor, and politician from New York. Pirro is the host of Fox News Channel's Justice with Judge Jeanine. She was a frequent contributor to NBC News, including frequent appearances on The Today Show."

I always enjoy those little nuggets of nutty hidden in plain sight inside the sugary goodness of these little bios. In this case, the reference to her checkered past days as a "frequent contributor" to NBC News and The Today Show.

From such sixty plus years old American iconics as the National Broadcasting Company and the Today Show to the having a pretty obnoxious adolescence of Fox News, can't seem to avoid the inevitability of phrases running through my head including, but not limited to, "going over to the dark side".

And, don't get me wrong, at some levels, there's nothing wrong with her choosing the dark side as the shop to hang her shingle.

First, if nobody went over, this side would make Times Square on New Year's Eve look like a little get together with a few close friends in terms of room to breathe and crowd control. Kind of like that silliness about staying out of the left lane and keeping to the right.

I mean, come on, everybody in the right lane? We'd never get anywhere fast. Or soon. Or ever.

Congress suddenly comes front and center in the thought process. But, digressing, I am.

Pirro's full bio is colorful, captivating and "the stuff that dreams are made of", if the dream in question happens to be coming up with a character that would draw millions of potential product consumers, code named "viewers", to their flat screens.

And, in the interest of transparency, I don't know Pirro personally, have never met Pirro, wouldn't know Pirro if she showed up on my doorstep or, the way my luck tends to run, ended up sitting behind me at a Barbra Streisand concert singing along with every single word of every single song in a voice that can only be correctly labeled "Noo Yawwk".

Which, come to think of it, makes the word "character" fall a little short of accurate when describing Pirro. At least the Pirro that presents on America's News Channel.

That Pirro, I'm a thinkin', would more correctly be categorized as a caricature.

"...a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect....".

 Or both.

Whether she looks, talks and acts the way she does because that's who she really is or whether she looks, talks and acts the way she does to create a comic or grotesque effect (read: grab a spotlight and refuse to let it go, hanging on like grim death), Jeanine Pirro is the kind of public figure that figures prominently in the nightly prayers of comedy writers from coast to coast.

Thanking God each and every night, for the punchlines, skits, sketches and segments that pretty much write themselves.

Courtesy of Judge Jeanine.





That's SNL cast member Cecily Strong more than doing the "Judge" justice.

Saturday Night Live, of course, while being the lightning rod for a lot of the wrath of the Right (read:self Right-eous) these days, merely one of the many television shows, radio shows, even movies that are feeding off the motherlode of material provided by the caricatures offered up by the characters who inhabit the story line of the daily comedy/satire/farce/surreal series that has been dazzling the democracy for two high ratings tsunami soaked years now.

Trump Nation.

And, not just a little ironically, Trump Nation, let's call it TN, like its counterpart SNL, is a fertile field of performers whose satirical skills are matched only by their seemingly effortless presentations of that satire.

Almost as if TN was, like, the mirror image of SNL. Or....the dark side of the mirror.

Depending entirely, of course, on which side of that mirror is one's real and which side is the reflection.

But that's an existential for another examination.

Let's skip that surreal and simply kick back for a few laughs.

Live, from Washington DC, it's Trump Nation.

With...

Kellyanne Conway.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Mike Pence.

Mick Mulvaney.

Featuring.....

Sean Hannity.

Jeanine Pirro.

Musical guests.....Jared and Ivanka.....

And starring.......

Yeah, well, you get the idea.

For an "administration" that tantrums and whines loudly, frequently and "bigly" about how mean they are treated by late night comedy shows, the irony is jam the needle in the meter powerful, that said administration is, let's just call it what it is, a twenty four/seven comedy show in a league by itself.

Staffed from floor to ceiling with a cast of characters that make SNL's caricatures of them seem almost like putting chocolate sprinkles...on top of chocolate sprinkles.

Keeping in mind, meanwhile, that there is something rock solid true about caricatures.

Author Joseph Conrad said it succinctly.

"...a caricature is putting the face of a joke on the body of truth."

The ratio of truth to joke in every one of the caricatures that is the cast of Trump Nation is practically incalculable.

But, Lord knows, just like your, or mine, favorite cartoon characters, there is a measure of pleasure in the laughs generated. Even if we're talking Snidely Whiplash and not Dudley Do-Right.

Bluto and not Popeye.

The Joker...and not Batman.

Which brings us back around to the feeling of November that I am experiencing as I watch and listen to the dark comedy yammer babble of the caricature of "Judge" Jeanine Pirro while living and enjoying these first few days of spring, not autumn.

A feeling of...gratitude, thankfulness.....thanksgiving.

For the knowledge that Pirro and Conway and Sanders and all the wacky doo cast members of the record breaking ratings hit, Trump Nation are, at the end of the day, absolutely nothing more than caricatures of actual public servants.

Zany, bizarre, ludicrous, absurd, dippy, daft. comical, clownish cartoon characters.

And I couldn't be more thankful than I am for that.

Just imagine, for a moment, what kind of hopelessness you and I and any and all reasonable, and reasonably intelligent, Americans would be feeling......

...if these silly screwballs could be taken seriously.....

...for a single.......scary......second.