Distractions

The first law of Trumpism:  Everything is a distraction from whatever you believe to be the number one scandal of the moment -- the Russian hacking, the Three Stooges federal budget, the Muslim ban, the wiretapping slander, the HHS Secretary's insider trading, the Attorney General's perjury, etc., etc.  No one can concentrate on just one; it's like watching the Flying Karamazov Brothers juggle chainsaws.

There were many this week, and some were even amusing.  I particularly enjoyed watching the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, school Trumputin on the topic of immigration.  (By the way, Sean, it's pronounced "tessick."  You couldn't know that unless you took ten seconds out of your busy schedule of snorting Xanax and cavity-searching the staff and, you know, called the Irish Embassy.)  Orange Fats couldn't interrupt or grab for his magic tweeter; he had to stand there and take it.  Then, with uncanny timing, Angela Merkel arrived a day after the Dutch rejected their racist neo-Nazi.  Standing beside ours, she implicitly asked German voters, "Will you re-elect me or return to barbarism?"  We'll see.  At the photo-op she brought out all Trump's fear and loathing in the presence of strong women -- he wouldn't look at her or shake her hand, because that's how you treat an equal.  He had already tried to rope her into his lunatic obsession that he was spied upon in the Fortress of Turpitude; the Chancellor ignored him, something our media must learn to do.  Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, called Merkel "the leader of the free world," and it's hard to argue.  Trump waited until she left town to whine that Germany ought to pay more for NATO.  "Such a nasty woman," he didn't add.

Oh, and the lunatic obsession?  Another country got dragged in, when Trump decided (prompted by yet another Fox fantasist) that British security services were doing Obama's dirty work:

The comments prompted a furious response from GCHQ, which in a break from normal practice issued a public statement: “Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”

(Yes, they should.  This guy was a jerk in high school and he's a jerk now.  Don't ask me how I know.)

Everyone with access to actual intelligence has pronounced the wiretap claims to be purest dung, but facts don't interest this gang.  James "Emails" Comey will be testifying on Monday.  Won't matter. 

The budget is, needless to say, an affront to all human decency, but the item that caught everyone's eye was the elimination of Meals on Wheels, which was pronounced a failure by the Budget Director, decked out like a centerpiece for a St. Patrick's banquet.  Let's see, hundred of volunteers bring food to thousands of Americans who otherwise would not eat, and it costs less for a year than hauling your boss's fat ass to Florida every weekend.  What improvements would you suggest, you disgusting pile of shit?  Oh, and pogue mahone.

The dumbest distraction of the week was the mysterious appearance of some fragmentary ten-year-old Trump tax returns in the mailbox of David Cay Johnston, and their subsequent overhyping by the normally sensible, if didactic, Rachel Maddow.  Clearly leaked by Trump himself (marked "client copy," for fuck's sake), they told us nothing about the sources of his income or the circumstances of their filing except that he paid taxes.  MSNBC really needs to calm down.

There's a real outrage plaguing the Marine Corps with the discovery of nude pictures of female Marines posted at several websites.  I recommend the aggressive recruitment of more gay Marines.  If the movies have taught us anything, it's that ISIS wouldn't have a chance against female Marines and their gay best friends.  I know I sound facetious about this, and I'm sorry, but so many women in all the services have been assaulted and raped, photos seem a minor problem.  Young men get a lot of mixed signals.  When the First (for lack of a better word) Lady displays her cooch on the Internet, some men may think all women are like that.  That's the problem with trash in prominent places -- when they go low, others feel licensed to do the same.  When you hire Nazis to work in the White House, you don't get to act shocked at bomb threats and vandalized cemeteries.  Yeah, it's still going on.

Distracted.  Outraged.  Exhausted.  I haven't even mentioned Rex "Nap Time" Tillerson, North Korea, the famine in Sudan, the sudden dearth of U.S. Attorneys, or the horrifying probability that Neil Gorsuch will soon join the Dread Pirate Roberts and his theocrats on the Supreme Court.  Another time.