The USS America

The United States enters its 250th year afloat as a grand but battered cruise ship, navigating the roughest ideological seas of its modern existence. As cruise ships go, it looks more like a floating dumpster fire in a Cat-5 hurricane. In this nautical drama, the two major political parties act not as a unified crew, but as rival factions fighting for exclusive control of the wheel. The Democrats pull hard toward port, envisioning a course through collective security, social safety nets, systemic reforms, and organic life vests. Meanwhile, the Republicans wrestle the wheel toward starboard, arguing that the true path to safety involves privatizing the lifeboats and firing the meteorologists.

As the ship violently zigzags through the tempest, the citizen-passengers are vomiting in the unfinished grand ballroom from terminal seasickness. Keeping everyone calm is Captain Donald Trump, who has abandoned the traditional captain’s intercom entirely. Instead, he locks himself on the bridge and screams his official naval commands directly into X. The digital feed is a non-stop barrage of ALL-CAPS weather updates, personal grievances against the iceberg ahead, and immediate firings of first mates who suggested looking at a map. Half the passengers treat these posts as divine navigation, while the other half are frantically trying to build rafts out of cocktail napkins.

This 250th anniversary cruise has degenerated into nautical anarchy. At the helm we now find a cross-eyed and drunk Kash Patel, whose erratic depth perception ensures the ship steers simultaneously toward three icebergs. This is happening while Pete Hegseth patrols the decks with a clipboard and a bucket of syringes, concerned only with testing the testosterone levels of the crew. He immediately court-martials any sailor whose hormone levels fall below “tactical lumberjack.” Completely misinterpreting the meteorological data, Trump storms onto X to blast a series of furious, midnight posts, thoroughly convinced the newscasters are talking about Stormy Daniels.

As our shifting political ambitions continually fight to control the course of our 349 million passenger ship, the current hard starboard helm has us sailing in circles. Gone are the days of compromise where minor course corrections allowed us to move forward. This “iceberg be damned, full speed ahead, who cares where we are headed” approach is more than dangerous. Before we join the likes of so many other great civilizations who are but historical memories, we need to realize that our very own Captain Queeg is not using “geometric logic” to get to the bottom of the criminal theft of a quart of strawberries. He has headed us for disaster. Wait, here comes another ALL-CAPS weather update.

Donald Trump’s fixation on minor grievances, his deep-seated sense of betrayal, and his insistence that hidden enemies are undermining his authority, are merely the paranoid delusions of a man no longer in control of all his faculties. The Deep State is his Wardroom with a duplicate key and missing quart of strawberries. His perceived victimhood is victimizing others on the global political stage. While I don’t expect a dramatic witness stand moment where Trump nervously rolls ball bearings in his hand, his unscripted press conferences and late-night social media rampages are all signs that he is no longer fit to be captain of the USS America.

Presidential Zugzwang

In a recent N.Y. Times column, Thomas B. Edsall described Donald Trump as the black-thumb president for his ability to turn success into failure.  A black thumb is the opposite of a green thumb in gardening where a person kills plants through over care or neglect. My brother Rick Dallas just sent me a German chess term, “zugzwang” that describes a situation where any move you make, makes matters worse.  I like it, our Zugzwang presidency.

In Edsall’s article he mentioned when Trump persuaded FIFA to quash a suspension of U.S. striker Balogun and the U.S. team went on to be humiliated with a 4-1 loss to Belgium.  After the loss, Balogun said that the whole controversy made the team uneasy and got on their nerves.  The article also mentioned the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation that was to cost $1.5 million and last a century.  It ended up costing over $16 million and lasted only a couple of days.

Yes, this has been a presidency wrought with mishaps and misadventures.  The article then quoted Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University as saying:

“Governing via conspiracy theories, personal whim and wish-casting, Trump has taken his place as the most consistently inept president of this century. At home and abroad, in many cabinet and sub-cabinet agencies, the administration’s culture is dominated by incompetence.”

The war with Iran was prominently featured as an example of Trump’s reverse Midas touch.  It seems that the president was quoted 24 times during one three-month period as saying that the Strait of Hormuz was open or controlled by the U.S.  On Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” (April 2, 2025) he announced his tariff program to bring back American manufacturing jobs.  By June of 2026 we had lost 75,000 manufacturing sector jobs.  He turned his DOGE boys loose with a budget scythe to indiscriminately slash jobs and cut government services as part of his One Big Beautiful Bill Act.  The result was an increase in the national debt of $3.3 trillion.

Through a series of threats, intimidation, and financial awards, Donald Trump has maintained a death-grip on the Republican party.  Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the U of Michigan, identified three categories of Trump failures: disasters of mismanagement, disasters by design, and disasters of greed.  Much of what we would define as disasters are just implementations of Trump’s vision for America.  It would seem that his vision is another’s nightmare.  By his vision, whatever is good for his financial well-being will be good for America…, or not…, he doesn’t care.

Marvel Comics and the American Presidency

Nowhere in the Marvel Cinematic Universe could they have ever conceived of this American presidency and its ever-changing cast of oddball characters. Sure they have Thunderbolts where a team of reformed supervillains act as government sanctioned heroes blurring the lines between heroism and villainy. That, however, doesn’t come close to the Trump administration’s collection of misfits and ne’er-do-wells. Close your eyes for a moment and picture Stephen Miller, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Kash Patel, and Pete Hegseth and tell me they didn’t step right out of central casting to star as villains in our comic book presidency.

For their leader, we have the perfect supervillain in Donald Trump. As I have not been a follower of comic books since puberty, I had to turn to A.I. to ask the question, “What comic book supervillain best fits Donald Trump?” The response was that “No single comic book villain perfectly captures Donald Trump…” The reply went on to stipulate a favorite in Lex Luthor as he is an ambitious, ego-driven billionaire who entered politics to run for President. Both Trump and Luthor used their wealth as a stepping-stone to global power and influence. Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin was also discussed as a controversial figure who overcomes legal issues and felony convictions but still is elected to office. Then there is Bizarro who is a comically twisted supervillain who is a mirror-image of Superman who speaks in reverse.

My favorite find in this trip down the Internet rabbit hole was M.O.D.A.A.K. That acronym stands for Mental Organism Designed As America’s King. It seems that Marvel Comics created MODAAK as an explicit satire to parody Donald Trump. It was featured in 2016 in a Spider Gwen book where he clashes with Captain America over border patrol and immigration. He should not be confused with M.O.D.O.K. which stands for Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing. Someone also noted that this moniker is close to the term “mudak” which is Russian slang for asshole. Interesting, but I doubt that was their intent.

Our National Parks

Our National Parks are an American treasure. Over 323 million recreational visits are recorded annually at over 400 sites managed by the National Parks Service. In surveys, 95% of Americans place an incredibly high value on their national parks and feel they should be protected. That feeling is not shared by our current president.

Donald Trump doesn't use our national parks except for political purposes. For him, the National Parks Service budget is just another cash bucket he can dip into for his own purposes. Now the Trump administration has proposed a further 25% reduction to park operations budgets all while diverting over $90 million of what they did have for Trump vanity projects around Washington, D.C.

Trump seems to only visit National Parks when he can use them as a backdrop as he did at Mt. Rushmore. He has never visited Yosemite National Park for instance. He even called it “Yo-semites” during a White House ceremony for the Great American Outdoors Act (August 2020). He has regularly traveled to Montana and Wyoming for campaign events, political rallies, and high-dollar fund raisers, but has never set foot in Yellowstone National Park.

In addition to budget cuts to the National Parks budget, he has continued his war on the environment and our cultural heritage by opening up millions of acres within national monuments for fossil fuel exploration and drilling and hard-rock mining. He has also worked to censor climate data. If it were up to him The Badlands would be a par 4 golf course and Old Faithful would be in a water themepark called Trumpland.

I feel lucky to have visited most of our major national parks, some several times. It is a shame that this president places his own personal enrichment and glorification above the desires of the American public who value our national treasures.

[The accompanying video slideshow was made from images I have taken in various National Parks and across the U.S.]

Smoking Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

 

Our resident idiot-in-chief has decided that Canada will be held responsible for the smoke coming to the United States from their wildfires. Canada has roughly 911 million acres of forested land, covering about 40% of the country's total landmass. This makes Canada the third most forested nation on Earth. Trump thinks that Canada should have done a better job of raking the leaves and pine needles. He will penalize them with higher tariffs.

As most of us know, you and I pay for the tariffs in higher costs for goods. Higher tariffs on Canadian goods will hit paper and plastic products as Canada is a major supplier of wood pulp and timber. Expect higher prices on toilet paper, paper towels, and bakery packaging. Fridges, HVAC, and washing machines will be more expensive. Canada also makes automobiles and auto parts so those items will cost more. Crude oil and energy supplies will increase sending gas and diesel prices higher. Some furniture, cabinetry, groceries, and beverages will cost more.

The Donald seems to think that Americans haven’t figured out that his tariffs are just another tax on us. He thinks it is “free money” and a weapon he can threaten to use to get his way. It is another, “If you don’t do things my way, I’m going to take all the toys and go home.” Some of his less intelligent followers are still fooled into thinking that he is working in their interest.

Perhaps we could loan Canada that rake Trump is always talking about that cleans up forests. I’m sure cleaning up over 900 million acres of timberland will be easy. Maybe they could hire Trump’s pool guy as I hear he will be having some free time soon. He could put a liner on the forest floor that will last until it gets wet, some animal walks on it, or some idiot drives a motorcade of armored SUVs on it.

Let me “go out on a limb” here, in keeping with the forest metaphor, and say maybe this is related to climate change. What if this is the result of decades of pushing fossil fuels and moving away from renewable energy. No, that idea costs time, effort, money, and commitment. So, for folks who live near a jet stream originating in Canada…, you just took up smoking. It may be time to buy an air conditioner, seal your windows, and plan on enjoying more time indoors several months of the year.

Contrary to science deniers, climate change is the primary driver behind the increasing severity, frequency, and scale of wildfires around the globe. According to scientists (not politicians), hotter and drier weather, longer fire seasons, increased lightning, and a carbon cycle loop (forests burn, release carbon dioxide, ozone layer thins, earth gets hotter) are the culprits.

Donald Trump has long cited the common misconception that forest mismanagement is responsible. While this was true in the U.S. for many years, it was not so in Canada. In many of our western states, we used to use extensive fire suppression techniques causing excess fuel to build and create a “fire deficit.” Canada’s remote unmanaged northern boreal forests rely on natural ecosystems.

The recent Canadian wildfires are a direct result of climate change and not forest mismanagement. New Canadian tariffs just make Americans more miserable than they already are. Perhaps we will begin to see this once the smoke clears.

Holiday Mascots, Something New

 

Like most Americans, I grew up with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Great Pumpkin. Over time I grew to accept them for the fantasies of youth. Now, as adults, we are being asked to accept a new holiday entity, Invisible Immigrants and Dead People on Election Day casting ballots. Not only are they voting, but they are doing so in such great numbers as to invalidate our election process and this will require onerous validation procedures for all.

On Thursday, Donald Trump plans to address the nation to make his case regarding this perceived threat. He plans to release newly declassified intelligence on investigations into voting machine vulnerabilities. Given all previous attempts by Mr. Trump to claim that U.S. elections are rigged have been found to be bogus, we can expect another trip down the Yellow Brick Road that makes a right turn into Wonderland with hookah-smoking caterpillars. Numerous courts, ballot audits, and Trump’s own first-term Justice Department found no such fraud or proof that U.S. elections are rigged.

His motive is clear. He wants more control over the elections process. He wants to override the Constitution to take power away from the states. Facing a difficult November midterm election, he wants to see what he can do to tip the scales in favor of his MAGA republicans. It is Trump Classic, all elections we win are fair and all elections we lose are rigged. All of this is from a man who called Georgia’s Sec. of State to request that he “find” 11,780 votes. Yes, if there is any evidence of attempted voter fraud, we know where to look.

Populist Etatism

While researching the ideological differences between traditional Republican conservatism and the newer MAGA movement, I came across an unfamiliar term: Populist Etatism. This term describes a government taking a central role in directing the economy. It uses anti-elite rhetoric framed as a moral crusade for the “pure people”. In this political model, a strongman leader implements policies ostensibly protecting the working class from greedy corporations and a corrupt elite.

Within the concept of Populist Etatism is a movement that seeks to justify the expansion of state power as it sidelines traditional checks and balances. I would say that this part of the description fits the MAGA movement. Where it differs is in its substitution of immigrants and now communists, for the evil corrupt elite. Corporations and the wealthy elite just seem to benefit more substantially with reforms we are told are designed to protect jobs and benefit the working class. The reality for the working class is that they are told that they need to be more patient

Also, among the core characteristics of Populist Etatism, is a distribution of benefits and subsidies directed at the leader’s base thus cultivating political loyalty. In this last characteristic I see some elements where their MAGA leader has promised many of these things for his faithful base, but that much of that promise is like the carrot at the end of the stick the horse never gets to enjoy.

By way of anecdote, I recently read an article where a small gas station chain had lowered gas prices to $3.47 a gallon. The 47 cents was in honor of the 47th president. A truck driver who had just saved $25 on his fill up was quoted as saying, “Thank you President Trump.” This statement of course ignores the fact that it was Trump’s war in Iran that caused the high gas prices in the first place.

The shift away from Reagan conservativism in this new MAGA movement is a populism that treats state power, not as evil, but as a weapon used on behalf of its base. They seek to occupy and purge federal institutions to force a targeted agenda. The promise to use this new power to benefit “the base” sounds good to those who assume that they are part of that group of beneficiaries. It is only later that they realize “the base,” is a more exclusive monied conclave than would ever include them. That’s when it is too late.

We are now at somewhat of a tipping point where that realization is taking hold. Disillusionment is already chipping away at Trump’s support. The original 50 percent of Americans that were the MAGA base, are now counted somewhere in the mid-thirties. This remaining MAGA core consists of those willing to sacrifice long-standing conservative stances for an expression of personal loyalty bordering on a cult-like idolatry of their leader.

The three-week war with Iran is now in its fifth month with no end in sight. The base is still dealing with inflation and high gas prices. Cuts to healthcare, education, and other social benefits have added to their ire. While they may be happy with the result of the immigration round up, some may feel it got out of hand. The killing of innocent individuals by mistake with the excuse of “public safety” is wearing thin.

The Trump imposed tariffs have resulted in job losses in the manufacturing sector and increased production costs for American businesses. Factories have shed over 100,000 jobs in the first year of the tariffs. Higher prices for imported materials have forced companies to downsize. While the administration can reference isolated blue-collar wage growth, the net effect has been negative. Pointing to almost giddy stock market numbers that have little impact on wage earners, brings no joy to Mudville.

The MAGA movement has scrambled modern alliances within conservative America. Free market conservatism has been replaced by right-wing populism. The old coalition of high-earning professionals who provided fiscal ideology and a working-class drawn by social conservatism, is no more. Will the MAGA Magician be able to pull another rabbit out of his comb-over? The mid-terms in a few months will answer some of these questions.

Reality Check

 

I see certain factions of our political spectrum announcing that they are the ones who want freedom defined by less government. This same group actively supports a president who has become so authoritarian and intrusive in our lives that people have literally found it necessary to march in the streets in protest.

An all-controlling authoritarian leader is not less government. I would never define the current Imperial Presidency as one that advances the cause of personal freedom. It is a government of selective personal oppression to advance an ideology.

Under the guise of lowering taxes, we have seen the time-honored technique of bait and switch. While lowering the taxes of the poor a little, they managed to lower the taxes of the rich even more. They did this by removing many of the social benefits long taken for granted by the wage-earning public, forcing them to pay for such services themselves. That small tax break is gone, and the middle- and lower-income brackets are worse off. Trump and his fellow billionaires measure their success by pointing to the stock market. Millionaires are now billionaires and we have our first trillionaire.

No, you can’t support a Trump concept of Executive Governance while advocating for freedom from government intrusions. This same hypocrisy is at work when we hear this president break out his Communist rhetoric and claim that America is under attack by godless Commie heathens. He claims this Communist label fits all that oppose him as they have no respect for the law, justice, principle, or tradition.

This coming from a man who regularly breaks the law, ignores court decisions, abuses the justice system, takes payments from criminals who then get exonerated, ignores time-honored principles, and takes pride in breaking with tradition. This from a man who claims a love of religion while holding top-secret skiff meetings to figure ways in which to keep the contents of the Epstein files away from judgmental eyes. If he is as innocent as he claims, he should have no problem releasing the files. His claims of religious piety are laughable.

In another reality check, I have seen where the Trump tariffs are extolled as having created a budget surplus. This fiction is only accurate if you look at select months where temporary cuts and tariff inflows have created isolated monthly surpluses. This happens while the annual picture remains in a deep deficit.

Scrolling back a few months I stumbled upon a post that lauded Trump’s eight claimed global peace agreements that should have landed him a Nobel Peace Prize. In this list were such lasting peace agreements as the Israel-Gaza peace. There are thousands of people who have died since that October “agreement” who would beg to differ that this has been a stable ceasefire.

A similar situation exists in Armenia and Azerbaijan where a lasting peace is in diplomatic limbo. Like the “Mission Accomplished” banner claiming premature victory in Iraq, most of these claimed peace agreements are a long way from an end to hostilities. Our so-called peace agreement with Iran is currently teetering like Kash Patel in the U.S. men’s ice hockey locker room at the Winter Olympics.

This government has been compared to Germany under Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Russia under Stalin. I would offer another analogy, Iran under the Ayatollahs. While Trump would never be confused with a pious religious cleric, he does like to falsely project a god-like presence. He has promoted white Christian nationalism to the delight of many.

Trump appeals to both those of true religious faith and those whose faith is nothing more than religious aggrandizement used to boost personal power, wealth, status, or political influence. Trump’s faith is self-glorification over any genuine spiritual service. The scriptures' warning against pride is ignored. Like the Ayatollahs, Trump has advanced toxic masculinity epitomized by Pete Hegseth. American women may never be forced to wear a Burka, but their relevance is being coerced into subservience.

Politics has always made for strange bedfellows, as the saying goes, and neither side can claim the exclusive moral high ground. It remains to be seen who among the leaders of both political camps will rise above the fray to right this ship foundering under the weight of hypocrisy. It’s time for a reality check.

TRXMP: A July 4, 2026, Review

 

I spell his name that way because there is no “U” in anything he does. “You” are unimportant. The “U” is silent. The only people who might have some relevance are those who can be of use in his insatiable quest for power and money. Just as there is no “I” in Team, there is no “U” in Trxmp.

I got a 91-sleep score last night, which means I was in bed by 10 p.m. and missed the planned 3 hr. presidential speech. I understand Mother Nature and advancing age cut his speech by 142 minutes, thus proving the point that old windbags do run out of air when they continually blow it out both orifices.

I asked my friend, Artie Intel, aka A.I., to summarize what I missed during my slumber. Per its’ synopsis, Trxmp claimed that we are now entering the dawn of a “golden age of America”. I guess that is true if your name is Trxmp. I would have to agree that this is a golden time for his family and financial friends. Socialism is alive and well, but only if you are rich. Which of us wouldn't trade our "socialist benefits" for those congress bestowed upon its members? For the rest of us the glitter of the golden age is more like the sparkle of fools gold.

Like a melting glacier, America has spent the last 46 years moving toward Authoritarian Capitalism. Beginning with Reagan’s Laissez-Faire free market capitalism which advocated unregulated markets, we have evolved into a more authoritarian, non-democratic government. We are now at a place where corporate power and wealth generation are fiercely prioritized over civil liberties and democratic dissent and compromise.

The AI summary of the 38-minute speech went on to say that he paid historical tributes mixed with policy messaging. He promoted the SAVE act to disenfranchise voters who may not have easy access to birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce papers, passports, or naturalization papers. Echos of "Papiere, bitte!" sound once again.

The SAVE act also makes voting harder for the elderly, infirm, or others for whom physically traveling to a polling place and standing in long lines to vote may be difficult or impossible. The 24th amendment may have eliminated the poll tax, but voter disenfranchisement may accomplish the same goal.

The speech raised the specter of a new boogeyman to replace the dreaded immigrant criminals, enter the “Communist Menace”. It worked for Sen. McCarthy, why not Pres. Trxmp. Communism is a label that requires no evidence, provides guilt by association, and allows for indiscriminate blacklisting. Trxmp has been president for over five of the past nine plus years yet still blames Obama and Biden for almost everything. When he couldn’t blame either of them, he would point to immigrants. Now that immigrants are locked up, he has dusted off the old McCarthy playbook, and we have Commies and the 1950s Red Scare.

He then joked about a third term and went on to discuss the Second Amendment and Equal Justice. While he loves the Second Amendment, the other 26 seem to be of little value. Free speech and free press only get his backing when they support his agenda. All dissenting opinions are a threat to “national security”. Warrantless searches, due process, speedy trials, and state’s rights guaranteed by other amendments are of little value. Gun ownership is where the votes are to be found.

As for Equal Justice, he claimed, “I wasn’t treated that well, but I won’t get into that.” For him, equal justice is reminiscent of Animal Farm where all pigs are equal, but some are more equal than others. If you have lots of money and are willing to send cash or non-traceable bitcoins to the Trxmp coffers, you can buy a Get Out Of Jail Free card. If you commit a crime in support of Trxmp, you can get “justice” in the form of a pardon.

Yes, we are headed for a “golden age in America.” Buildings, statues, and monuments will be covered in gold adornment and tributes to his name. If he can’t build a new tribute, he will gladly steal an existing one. Airports, libraries, coins, arches, ballrooms, highways, and buildings will bear his name. Hail Caesar, I mean Trxmp.

I slept well on July 4, 2026, knowing that I wasn’t missing much after 10 p.m. I spent the day watching Air Force One and Independence Day. I then watched the Boston Pops and some Boston fireworks before switching to the NYC celebration. I had hot dogs, baked beans, and watermelon. I drank a Sam Adams. I wore my blue USA shirt with the embroidered flag and red, white and blue collar. The next morning, I watched a YouTube recording of the Boston drone show I had missed. Amazing.

Postscript: Historical note, there was a RUMP in the ancestral family surname as his paternal grandfather was Friedrich Drumpf. Friedrich would set the tone for future generations as he fled Germany in1885 to avoid mandatory military conscription. In 1905, Bavarian authorities stripped him of his Bavarian citizenship and declared him an illegal draft dodger.

Clean energy for AI data centers?

While the good versus evil debate continues about artificial intelligence, one of its negative aspects is nearing a solution. That problem is the environmental impact of massive data centers that support AI. Traditional domestic power sources designed for our cities, are being tested when an AI data center moves in. The massive power requirements of these centers can overwhelm existing systems not to mention the impact on the local environement.

Nuclear power plants might be a consideration but they are massive systems that take a decade or more to build and they rely heavily on huge amounts of water for their cooling needs. These nuclear power systems have been in use since 1957 in the U.S.

A newly designed microreactor nuclear power system has been successfully tested, and it could provide the needed power without the drawbacks of traditional nuclear systems. The new designs are much safer, use Low-Enriched Uranium, are easy to build in a factory, can fit on a truck, and use near-zero water. These systems could be ready in the 2027-2030 timeframe.

While a single TRISCO-fueled microreactor is not large enough at 20-50 megawatts to power a large AI datacenter, they can be clustered to scale to the gigawatt needs of these power-hungry installations. This seems to be another area where AI may be replacing many menial jobs while creating other opportunities.

Welcome to the Kakistocracy

The Oxford English Dictionary recognizes roughly 171,000 words in the English language. The term kakistocracy refers to a system of government run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. It is not to be confused with kleptocracy which is a government ruled by thieves with a primary goal of stealing the state’s wealth. We also find oligarchy where the government is run by a small elite group of people determined by wealth or family ties. This is similar to plutocracy where all power is concentrated in the hands of the richest class.

So many words to choose from and all would fit POTUS 47 and his political dynasty of family members, misfits, cronies, and sycophants. Never in the 250 years of this great nation’s history has the world seen a more openly corrupt group. The door was first cracked open and then it was removed from its hinges by a corrupt Supreme Court operating under the written guidebook of Project 2025. Through that gaping hole paraded Donald John Trump and his band of merry thieves.

Even JD Vance mused that today, an event like Watergate might not even make the evening news. He argued that if the Watergate scandal happened today, it would be "like a 12-hour news story". He added, "The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy". Vance blamed Nixon’s downfall on his favorite bogeyman, the “deep state”. It’s good to be able to explain everything with the nebulous conspiratorial term, “deep state”.

That Nixon tried to use the C.I.A. to block an F.B.I. investigation of the Watergate break-in of the DNC headquarters is seen by Vance as a big nothing burger. It the nation of Trumpistan, neither the C.I.A. nor the F.B.I. would be bothered as both are ultimately controlled by the president. Vance’s statement serves to only shine a spotlight on the corruption of this administration and how its corruption is accepted by the current GOP. It is business as usual.

Sadly, the current corruption is so common that the perpetrators feel secure in the fact that they can steal as much as they want and the presidential pardon pen can wipe the slate clean. The Trump sons are wheeling and dealing their little hearts out with investments, paid board appointments, and financial maneuvering in advance of high-level government decisions that benefit the companies with which they coincidentally have connections. It will take an army of accountants and lawyers to untangle and prosecute this mess while trying to get around the pardons we know will be coming.

Nothing is more telling than the ongoing disaster we are witnessing for our 250th birthday celebration. It was to have been a bipartisan, decentralized, nationwide grassroots set of events called America 250. Congress approved it and appropriated money for it. That plan has been co-opted by Donald Trump because it was too much about America and not enough about Trump. He has set about rebranding the bipartisan event to be more partisan. He has not only diverted the $100 million of congressional funding for the bipartisan America 250 for his use, but he has also taken their private donations as well.

So far, Freedom 250 has been a bust. Plagued by sparse crowds, state withdrawals, and performer cancellations, pavilions are empty, vendors are confused, and power outages have rained on Trump’s parade. He did manage to book Milli Vanilli. If you forgot, they were the 1998 German pop group who were plagued by scandal when it was discovered that they were lip syncing vocals sung by uncredited session artists. He almost had Vanilla Ice perform but the that performance was cancelled due to bad weather. With Trump’s affinity for his Immigration Customs Enforcement goon squad, I’m sure he was disappointed that he didn’t hear Robert Matthew Van Winkle sing his famous “Ice Ice Baby”.

Yes, Freedom 250 has begun like the destruction of the East Wing of the White House, the war in Iran debacle, the algae-laden reflection pool with peeling blue liner, a couple of failed New Jersey casinos, and a joy ride on Trump Shuttle rolled into one. We are on day 5 of this 16-day celebration. If anyone could screw up a birthday event with a $150 million budget, it’s Donny. Welcome to the kakistocracy.

America the Beautiful

As dysfunctional families go, our American family is rather typical. It is a chaotic mix of overlapping archetypes. We have the matriarchs, the patriarchs, the scapegoats, the enablers, the martyrs, the rebels, cynics and lost children, we have peacemakers, and the much-needed mascots for some comic relief. It is this hodgepodge of mismatched socks that make this country great despite its many flaws.

I will steal a quote I read recently, “If you want to hate America, watch the news. If you want to love America, drive across it.” This quote ended an editorial about the trials, tribulations, and observations of foreigners here for the FIFA World Cup. It started rather ominously as it mentioned the clash between our recent swing toward isolation where 19 countries faced an outright ban on travel and 20 others ran into pauses on visa applications. Over two dozen players, staff, and officials faced significant travel difficulties. There were the disappointed fans who had spent thousands of dollars for travel, hotels, and tickets, only to find their visas had been denied.

On the brighter side there were those who made it and found the beautiful America we have come to love. There were social media posts of amazement at our landscape, food trucks with fusion cuisine, Texas barbecue and steakhouse fries, Waffle House hash browns, and the wonderment of a Bass Pro Shop. One German fan posted after coming upon a Buc-ee’s, “DUDE LMAO THIS IS A GAS STATION.”

The overwhelming observation was that they were greeted with friendliness and generosity. I have made this same observation many times. I have driven across this country perhaps a dozen times. From Florida to California and back again via Mexico and Canada. Up and down the eastern seaboard from Miami to Nova Scotia. I’ve taken the southern route, northern route, and central route and driven in Hawaii and Alaska. I have been to all 50 states.

I am always amazed when I talk to people who may have otherwise traveled in Europe and Asia or elsewhere in the world, but who have not seen the bounty we have between our two oceans. I remember stopping in a small southern town restaurant for a late lunch and talking to a twenty-something waitress. She said that she had never been outside her hometown except to visit the Walmart in a slightly larger nearby town. She marveled when she saw our maps (this goes back a few years before GPS) and the route highlighted by AAA.

Yes, we need to look up from our everywhere-screens and smell the roses. If the lens through which you view this great country is just the summary of the evening news or the cacophony of disenchanted voices on social media, then I will understand your cynicism. I hope our 250th birthday celebration in just over a week will be cause to set aside our differences and just relish the moment.

When the fireworks light up the sky and the sounds of Stars and Stripes Forever ring out, the goosebumps on the arms of Republicans, Democrats, Independents, liberals, conservatives, and other fine Americans are of equal size. I leave you with a Rodney King quote from 1992, "Can we all just get along?"

Postscript: The accompanying image is a collection of images from a single vacation drive in 2009.

Pool Vandals

I know this president “rested his eyes” while in biology class, so I thought I would provide him with a quick update. You see, blaming an algae bloom on vandals is a bit like his claiming he contracted that venereal disease from a toilet seat. It just doesn’t pass the sniff test, if I can be so gross.

Algae have been a persistent and recurring issue in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool since it was completed in the early 1920s. The broad, shallow (6.75 million-gallon) basin features stagnant water and acts as an optimal biological incubator for rapid algae blooms when combined with Washington, D.C.'s hot summer weather and high levels of sunlight.

If Trump had stayed awake in that biology class or knew just a little about the field of water resources and environmental engineering, he might have realized it was time to consult with an expert. He might have known a simple “nano bubbler" would be overwhelmed because the pool's outdated and leaking infrastructure, pumps in warm, raw river water that is a constant source of nutrients for algae. This was not a “nano bubble” problem.

This same logical thinking would quickly debunk the Trump attempt to blame vandals for the delamination of the pool liner. No liberal Antifa commando (like Commando Bernie) entered the pool under the cover of darkness to cut a 275-foot slit in the pool liner. No newsman in a suit ruined your multi-million dollar no-bid project. No bicyclist stopping by for a look at the liner already documented to be floating in the algae, caused the liner to fail. It was a rushed inexperienced contractor who didn’t do the job properly.

I leave you with a line from Bob Dylan’s 1965 Subterranean Homesick Blues, “The pump don’t work ‘cause the vandals took the handle.” That line acts as a metaphor as it symbolizes societal decay, deliberate sabotage, and broken systems

MAGA, AMERICA’S BREXIT

Most know of Great Britain’s break with the European Union referred to as Brexit. One decade ago, Britain voted to leave the EU to go it alone. The exit took four years to implement. The chief architect of Brexit was Boris Johnson, Donald Trump’s doppelganger. A key motivation in this British effort was an attempt to better control immigration and manage its borders. A former Conservative prime minister from the 1990s recently summarized the result, “Brexit has left Britain poorer, weaker, and locked out of the richest free trade market in history.” It is estimated that, because of Brexit, the UK GDP is lower by around 7% costing each person about 3,300 pounds ($4,375) each year.

Brexit has clear parallels with today’s conservative MAGA and America First anti-globalist movement, especially its focus on border control and restrictive immigration policies. A century has passed since the United States embraced strict isolationism in the 1920s and 1930s. That isolationist turn helped deepen the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1939 and brought mass unemployment, severe deflation, and thousands of bank failures. Protectionist tariffs further intensified the crisis by contributing to a collapse in international trade.

If you read that last paragraph and didn’t see history repeating itself under our conservative MAGA king Don, I think your Kool Aid needs a refill. It has been a century since an American isolationist resolve brought about catastrophe. That experiment with isolation ended with a world war and extreme sacrifices of blood and treasure. In the UK, their more modern isolationist effort has been by most estimates, a failure. Over half of Britons polled would like to undo Brexit and rejoin the EU.

Is it too late for America? Has the die been cast? Certainly, much damage has been done and some of it will take decades to repair. We will be paying the bill for this “administrative cock-up” to use an informal British phrase describing a bureaucratic blunder and gross mismanagement through systemic failure, disorganized process and avoidable mistakes with real-world impact. Trust the Brits to have a simple reference like “cock-up” for organizational disaster. They’ve certainly had some experience. America joins them and may have outdone them this time around.

Answering the question of “too late” we have the upcoming midterms where we can try to right the ship and stop taking on water. A democratic win in the House will slow the damage and a democratic majority in both houses will go a long way to getting the bilge pumps operational. None of which is to claim that Democrats have the answer, they just seem to do less damage.

It’s Time To Strike a Happy Medium

Somewhere between the typical government bureaucracy that bogs things down and, “everything is a national emergency,” lies the middle ground of where we should strive to be. The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool debacle is a microcosm of what lies at the heart of a long-standing problem. No lives were lost in this one and the errant decisions didn’t cause global grief, but it typifies the knee-jerk reaction of a man with no experience in government.

While we would never ask a 35-year-old natural-born citizen of the United States who has lived here at least 14 years with no other skills or education to take over as CEO of a large business, those are the only qualifications needed to run the nation. It’s sort of a, “President Wanted, no experience necessary, will train” situation when it comes to selecting the Commander-in-Chief of the United States. We have higher job requirements for a child’s nanny than we demand of the person who must look out for over 340 million souls.

Running a business and running a government are two very different things. There is a reason why our government has RFIs and RFPs. Those are Request for Information and Request for Proposal. The former is where the government doesn’t have enough expertise to spell out the solution to a problem and asks those with such expertise to offer solutions. The government can then use those responses to develop a Request for Proposal so vendors can bid on the proposed project with clear specs. A qualified low bidder gets the requisition to satisfy the RFP.

Had the government used this normal process, their chances at a properly functioning reflecting pool would have been much better. Following established government policies and procedures might have avoided the war in Iran, tariffs might or might not have been implemented, the east wing of the White House might still be standing, and a proper plan and budget for a new ballroom might be on the horizon.

The conclusion here is that, perhaps we should move the limbo bar up a notch concerning the minimum qualifications to be president. Certainly, we need better restraints on what qualifies as a “national emergency.” Somewhere there is a happy medium.

Reflections

We've all had a good laugh at the expense of our Soylent Green Commander-in-Chief and his failed attempt to "fix" the Washington Monument Reflecting Pool. There is a technical explanation to why it failed. Had the president bothered to take the time (About 5 seconds of my time, your mileage may vary), he might have found out why his "I know a guy" solution might not work.

The ozone micro/nanobubblers struggle to keep up because the pool is an enormous, shallow, and sunlit body of water that is constantly fed by a century-old plumbing system. The technology cannot outpace the blooms due to several compounding factors:

Contaminated Supply Lines: When the system is turned on, stagnant, algae-filled water from the dormant, underground piping system gets pushed directly into the pool, introducing an explosive seed source.

Pool Thermodynamics: The pool is shallow, exposed to direct D.C. summer sunlight, and heavily absorbs heat. The darker "American flag blue" paint used in recent renovations makes the water noticeably warmer, which speeds up algae growth.

Scale and Demand: The pool holds over 6 million gallons of water. The nanobubblers work by creating oxidizing agents, but their capacity is continuously overwhelmed by the massive amount of organic material and nutrients present in the unfiltered river water.

Underlying Root Causes: Ozone bubbles are excellent at killing existing algae, but they do not remove the source nutrients (like phosphorus and nitrogen) that feed the algae in the first place, allowing new blooms to outpace the treatment.