The Press Conference That Wasn't

Aberdeen Times :

So I caught part of President Trump’s latest press conference while eating lunch Thursday. I’ve since watched the whole thing on video. I’ve reviewed the transcript of it online. And I have come to an inescapable conclusion: There is something seriously wrong inside the head of the President of the United States.  What began as an opportunity to introduce Mr. Trump’s new nominee for Labor Secretary, R. Alexander Acosta, rapidly degenerated into the usual airing of the grievances, resentments, and narcissistic obsessions of one Donald J. Trump.

His favorite whipping boy, of course, was what he calls “the dishonest media,” a designation which might have been somewhat more compelling had Mr. Trump himself not told so many outright lies. He claimed “the biggest electoral college win since Reagan” (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all had greater margins).  He claimed to have given a news conference “every time I made a speech, which was like every day. OK?” (As the Toronto Star noted, this was “not even close to true. Trump indeed gave near-daily speeches during the campaign, but he did not do a single news conference over the last three months of the campaign”).  He claimed a “smooth rollout” of his Muslim travel ban  (the chaos and confusion caused by the ban is well-documented). He said his administration is running like “a fine-tuned machine” (except, one supposes, for the National Security Adviser forced to resign for lying to the Vice President; the freelancing “spokesperson” who’s been barred from both the usually friendly “Morning Joe” and from CNN; the labor secretary nominee even some Republicans couldn’t stomach; and so on).

To Trump, however, any fact that contradicts what he says is “fake news.” This is the case even if , for example,  said “fake news” led him to fire National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn for lying to the Vice President about his contacts with Russia--after which Trump griped about how unfairly Gen Flynn was treated.  

Supposedly it’s also “fake news” that his campaign was in contact with agents of Russian intelligence at about the time the Russians were hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee.  The leaks that led to those stories, however, are serious business, “so unfair,” according to Trump, and need to be investigated. When pressed on the apparent contradiction, Trump explained that leaks are real but the news that comes from them is fake, “because so much of the  news is fake.” Get it now?

See, here’s something Mr. Trump probably doesn’t get about this whole leak business. I’ve tried cases in criminal and domestic courts for over 25 years now, and “where did you get that?! You’re not supposed to have that!” when confronted with damning evidence is the cry of a guilty man.

Mr. Trump spent a lot of time complaining, as he always does, about how unfair everything is to him.  After all, he said, “I inherited a mess.” Funny, I seem to recall every time President Obama mentioned the mess he’d inherited, including the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the wingnuts shrieked “When is Obama going to stop blaming Bush for all his problems and show some leadership!?” 

A real low point (there were so many) was when Trump responded to a question from  April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks as to whether the Congressional Black Caucus was going to be included in meetings on Trump’s “urban agenda.” “Do you know them?” Trump said challengingly. “Do you want to set up the meeting?” When Ryan noted that she was only a reporter, Trump snapped “well then, set up the meeting.”

Oh, and he also rudely dismissed a Jewish reporter in a yarmulke for asking about rising anti-semitism in the country. “Not a fair question,” he snapped.  “Sit down.” This must have reassured his large and devoted neo-Nazi following that he’s still on their side.

All of this is just catnip,  of course, to Trump’s hard core supporters. Sure, the leader of the Free World sounded like an angry drunk at the end of the bar raging at the TV when the bartender flips it to CNN. But Trump could have done the conference in a clown nose and rubber duck hat, honking a bicycle horn and speaking in pig Latin, and his base would eat it up, so long as he attacked the press and put a black reporter—a woman, no less-- in her place. All it lacked to make it like the good old days of the campaign was some random old white dude smacking April Ryan in the face as she was led out.  

 In the end, this wasn’t a press conference. It was another rally for the troops, yet another campaign event for the man who’d rather keep campaigning than actually govern.

Gaslighter In Chief

Aberdeen Times:

Hi! I’m J.D. Rhoades, and I’ll be (hopefully) entertaining you here at the Aberdeen Times every Sunday. Some of you may know me and my work already, some may not. If you don’t, let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I was born and raised here in the Sandhills, and I’m the result of a one night stand between then-president John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, who JFK snuck down and stashed for an evening of romance at the old Charlton Motel on U.S. Highway 1. After Ms. Monroe delivered me at the old Moore Memorial Hospital, I was raised by a kindly pharmacist and his beautiful wife until the age of 12, where my inherent genius was noticed by Harvard University, who arranged for my entry on a full scholarship. I graduated Harvard in two years and completed Yale Law School in one. Since my graduation and admission to the bars of seven states, I’ve made a living arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. At one point, my brief in a case involving a water rights dispute between Nevada and Colorado actually reduced Justice William Brennan to tears. “It’s so beautiful,” he sobbed. In my spare time I’ve amused myself by writing several New York Times bestsellers, two of which have been nominated for both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.

What’s that you say? That sounds like a pack of outrageous and easily refuted lies? Pshaw. That’s pre-Donald Trump thinking. As of January 20th, we live in the world of “alternative facts.” That’s the term Trump spokesgoblin Kellyanne Conway used when NBC’s Chuck Todd used his newly acquired backbone to point out that claims by press secretary Sean Spicer that the turnout for President Tweety’s inauguration was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period” were refuted by photographs, counts by the DC Metro system of people traveling into DC, and pretty much every source connected with objective reality. The claims were, in fact, lies.

But Ms. Conway scoffed at any suggestion of the “l” word. Don’t be so dramatic, she chided Todd. Spicer had “alternative facts.”

Now, the rest of us don’t get to claim the use of “alternative facts.” If I get popped by the Highway Patrol for going 75 miles per hour in a 35 mile an hour school zone, I don’t get to stand in court and say “The alternative facts, your honor, are that I was driving a perfectly legal speed, and besides, I was actually on the German Autobahn.” If I come home at 3 AM stinking of rum and cigarettes and covered in stripper glitter, I don’t get to claim “alternative facts” that it’s only 9 PM, that smell is chamomile tea, and I’ve been at Bible study.

The Trump camp’s tactic very closely resembles a sinister game played in interpersonal relationships known as “gaslighting.” It’s named for the classic 1944 suspense film “Gas Light” in which Charles Boyer attempts to convince his spouse, played by Ingrid Bergman, that she’s going insane.



 A number of odd things happen (such as the sudden random dimming of the gas lighting in their home), which Boyer insists to Bergman are all figments of her imagination. Gaslighting is a favorite tactic of sociopaths and spousal abusers, who’ll try to create “alternative facts” (“I didn’t hit you, I never threatened you, you’re making it up because you’re crazy”) to keep their victims off-balance and in line.

You have to wonder how many times Donald Trump has seen that movie, because he seems to be basing a lot of his communication strategy around it:

• “I never mocked a disabled reporter, you’re making it up because you’re trying to discredit me.”
• “Three to five million people voted illegally. Everybody knows it. You know it. You don’t need evidence. You’re just denying it because you’re partisan.”
• “I never compared the intelligence services to Nazis. I love the intelligence services. You’re just saying otherwise for political gain.”
• “I had the biggest inaugural turnout ever. Who are you going to believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?”

The wingnuts spent years falsely dubbing Barack Obama “Liar in Chief”. So who do they elect to replace him? A man who, along with his henchpeople, will lie to your face about things that can be easily disproved, then call you crazy or partisan for standing up for reality. Donald Trump has become, in the space of one short week, America’s Gaslighter in Chief.

A Pack of Little Yappy Car Chasing Dogs

Opinion | thepilot.com

A few years ago, I lived on a street in Southern Pines, near the airport. One of my neighbors on that street owned a feisty little dog who would chase my car down the street every day, barking his fool head off.

One day, I slammed on the brakes, looked out the car window, and told the baffled pooch “OK, pal, you caught it! Now what are you gonna do with it?”

Needless to say, he didn’t have an answer.

I’ve been thinking about that dog a lot as I watch the new Republican Congress members try to follow through on the promise they and Russian-backed President-elect Donald Trump made to “repeal and replace Obamacare on Day One.”

You may not have noticed, what with the New Year and all, but Day One has come and gone, and, well, they’re still trying to figure out how to do it.

They’ve whipped up a “budget resolution” that says, in effect, “Yessiree, we’re sure ’nuff going to repeal that nasty Obamacare, just you wait and see,” but how it’s going to be done, and what will replace it, remain as much a mystery as why McDonald’s keeps bringing back the awful McRib sandwich or why “Dating Naked” is an actual TV show.

Meanwhile, Comrade Trumpovitch took a break from his busy schedule of writing thank-you notes to Vladimir Putin and throwing online shade at Meryl Streep to let the Congress know that delays would be unacceptable, and he wants both repeal and replace right now, dang it. He told The New York Times he wants a repeal vote “next week” and a replacement bill “very quickly or simultaneously.”

Trump demanded that no more than “a few weeks” must pass before an entirely new health care bill must be plucked from out of the vast roaring void that is the Republican source of health care ideas. Then it has to pass through the legislative process and be voted on.

Oh, and according to Trump’s prior fiats, it has to keep the things that Americans like, like the prohibition against denying insurance because of pre-existing conditions and letting people keep their offspring on their family health plan until they’re 26. And it has to bring costs down. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Rep. Chris Collins, a Republican from New York and a member of Trump’s transition team, fell back on what’s become a standard Trump response: The guy whose supporters love him because he says what he means doesn’t really mean what he says. Collins told CNN that “I'm not reading it literally literally” when Trump says he wants it done right away.

He’s a CEO, Collins Trumpsplained, and he’s “using that mindset.” Perhaps my favorite bit of Trumpsplaining comes from Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidey: “I think (Trump) speaks in concepts, and I accept his concept.”

OK, let me just say right now, I am totally stealing “speaks in concepts.” I can see it now: “Sure, honey, I said I’d be home by 11 and it’s 3 a.m., but, you know, I was just speaking in concepts. You should know not to take me literally literally.” I could also use it at work: “Your Honor, I know I said I’d have that order to you by Friday, but I was, you know, speaking in concepts.”

In any case, the actual timeline for full “repeal and replace” (which, unlike a simple budget resolution, will most likely take some Democratic votes in the Senate), could take months. If they keep the promise made by House GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who said, “Let me be clear: No one who has coverage because of Obamacare today will lose that coverage,” the timeline might stretch out even further, as in “never.”

In that case, one can only imagine the Twitter storm to follow. It’ll be like that famous and often-parodied scene in the movie “Downfall,” in which a certain German dictator goes completely berserk when told that the units he’s ordering into brilliant counterattacks against the encroaching Allies don’t exist anymore. Except from Trump it’ll be 140 characters at a time.

But don’t worry, Congress. Before long, Alec Baldwin or a Dixie Chick will say something President Tweety doesn’t like and he’ll get distracted and leave you alone while he goes off on them, and you can get back to failing at your jobs. Once again, the Republicans have shown that while they can win elections, they’re incapable of doing the actual work of governing.

2017: The Year in Preview

Opinion | thepilot.com

Once again, as everyone else looks back, this column looks forward. Therefore, here’s the Year in Preview:

JANUARY: Frustrated by their inability to secure A-list performers for the inauguration of Donald Trump, the inauguration committee is saved at the last minute when Vladimir Putin sends a delegation consisting of the remaining members of the Red Army Chorus, the Bolshoi Ballet, and pop groups Plazma and Code Red. “Is least Putin could do,” the Russian president announces over Twitter, “considering.”

FEBRUARY: Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton emerges from seclusion on Feb. 2, sees her shadow and retreats again, thus signaling that we will have at least six more weeks of winter.

MARCH: After the sudden and unexpected retirement of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Trump announces his nomination for her replacement: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Palin immediately announces her support of overruling not only Roe v. Wade, but also New York Times v. Sullivan, Marbury vs. Madison, and Kramer v. Kramer. When reporters point out that the last one is actually a fictional 1979 movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, Palin angrily tells them that “real Bible-readin’ gun-clingin’ Americans are tired of your coastal-elitin’ fake-newsin’ p.c. flibberdefloo, always talkin’ about your so-called Hollywood facts, you betcha.” Palin’s confirmation hearing is delayed as the Senate searches frantically for a translator.

APRIL: House Speaker Paul Ryan announces his plans for Medicare reform. Controversy ensues when it’s discovered that the bill mostly consists of funding to put the ailing elderly on ice floes in the Arctic and letting them drift away to die. Ryan defends the plan by saying, “The American people are tired of political correctness and want bold solutions to the Medicare crisis, so long as those solutions involve more tax cuts for wealthy people. This plan accomplishes that.”

MAY: President Trump announces that he’s canceling plans to put abolitionist heroine Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Instead, Trump promises a “big, beautiful new currency” with the face of his daughter Ivanka on the 20, sons Eric, Donald Junior and little Barron on the 5, 10 and 50 respectively, wife Melania on the 100, and daughter Tiffany on the quarter. The visage of Trump himself will be on the newly announced $3 bill. The motto on the back of the bills will be changed from “In God We Trust” to “Suck It Up, Buttercup.”

JUNE: Energy Secretary Rick Perry announces that the Department of Energy has been disbanded. “I’m not sure how it happened, but I showed up for work yesterday and it was gone. Yay me.” Later, it’s revealed that Perry had actually just forgotten where the department was and gone to the wrong building.

JULY: Speaker Ryan’s Medicare plan is derailed when scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are unable to locate any Arctic ice floes due to global warming. Congress responds by banning the use of the words “global warming” and any mention of “ice floes” in official documents before leaving town for their summer recess.

AUGUST: Unable to come up with a plan to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act that doesn’t cause 20 million Americans to lose insurance coverage, President Trump announces via Twitter that “Obamacare is gone. It’s called Trumpcare from now on. Problem solved. Trump = awesome!”

SEPTEMBER: Undaunted by the failure of his Medicare reform plan, Speaker Ryan unveils his plan to reform Medicaid in a bill titled “The Let the Poor Die Act of 2017.” Ryan responds to criticism with a terse statement: “Political correctness. Bold solutions. Tax cuts for the wealthy.”

OCTOBER: Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway is appointed head of a new government agency called “Department of Truth.” She issues a statement that “Obamacare never existed. Also, there were never any promises by President Trump to build a wall, lock up Hillary Clinton, or drain any swamp. Any and all evidence to the contrary is hereby declared ‘fake news’ from the ‘unfair liberal media’ and should be ignored.” Unprecedented Earth tremors in the area of Oxfordshire, England, are investigated by geologists and found to be the result of writer George Orwell spinning like a turbine in his grave.

NOVEMBER: Trump takes to Twitter to proclaim, “We should all give thanks that we can say ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ again. Go Trump!” Puzzled Americans note that we never stopped.

DECEMBER: In accordance with ancient prophecy, the Elder God Cthulhu arises from his resting place beneath the sea to begin his millennia-long reign of madness, chaos and violence. He takes one look at the world, goes “Dang, looks like you folks beat me to it,” and goes back to sleep beneath the waves.

Buckle up, buttercups. It’s gonna be another weird one.

Happy New Year!

This Is A Job For...TRUMP-MAN!

Opinion | thepilot.com

High above the teeming streets of the Big Apple, in the secure fortress of Trump Tower, a phone rings. A small, stubby-fingered, but exquisitely manicured hand reaches for the receiver.

“Yeah? What is it? This better be good. I was getting ready to really burn that totally unfunny Alec Baldwin on Twitter.”

“I’m afraid that will have to wait, sir,” the voice on the other end responds. “There’s a problem. It’s the Carrier air conditioning plant in Indiana.”

“You don’t mean …”

“Yes, sir. It’s shipping jobs to Mexico.”

The short-fingered man springs to his feet.

“Not if I can help it! This is a job for … Trump-Man!”

Quickly, mild-mannered billionaire Donald J. Trump dashes into his walk-in closet. When he emerges, he’s clad in a bright orange, skin-tight Spandex suit and turquoise shorts. A mask and cape that match the shorts complete the ensemble. As the cleverly disguised billionaire admires himself in the mirror, a gray-haired man in a dark suit walks in.

“Oh, Lord, not this again,” he mutters.

“Half-Pence, my faithful sidekick!” Trump-Man says. “Just in time! Get into your uniform! There is globalism afoot!”

The gray-haired man sighs.

“Sir, the election’s over. I really don’t think we should be wearing those …”

“No time to waste!” Trump-Man insists. He hustles his sidekick into the closet. After a few minutes, the gray-haired man emerges, shoulders slumped, in similarly tight Spandex, this time colored beige, with the figure “1/2” emblazoned across the chest.

“Excellent!” Trump-Man nods. “Quick! To the Trump-Plane!”

As he dashes off down the corridor, he begins to sing. “Here I come to save the daaaay …”

“Why the heck did I agree to take this stupid job?” the man now known as Half-Pence groans as he trudges off behind his boss.

Two hours later, superhero and sidekick stand in a corporate boardroom in Indiana, in front of a baffled group of Carrier executives.

“You’re on notice, globalists!” Trump-Man bellows. “You’ll not toy with American workers’ lives any more! Conservatives are in control now!”

A man in a Brooks Brothers suit timidly raises his hand. “Um, sir? What’s ‘conservative’ about a single member of the Executive Branch strong-arming companies who make economic decisions based on free market factors?”

“So,” Trump-Man says, with a haughty sneer, “that’s the way you want it, eh?” He turns to his sidekick. “Half-Pence! Show them we mean business! Give them millions of dollars in tax breaks!”

Half-Pence nods confidently, then does a double take. “Wait, what?”

The man who spoke up echoes him. “Wait, what?”

“Shut up, Farley!” the CEO breaks in. “Can’t you see he’s got us right where he wants us?” He turns to Trump-Man. “Curse you, Trump-Man,” he says in a voice strangely devoid of anger. “You’ve won this time. But we’ll be back.”

“And we’ll be here!” Trump-Man says, “Ready with more taxpayer money!”

“Oh, woe,” the CEO says, “Woe is us.”

Later, on the steps of the Carrier plant, Trump-Man stands, hands on hips, basking in the cheers of the crowd. “Feels good, doesn’t it, Half-Pence?” he says. “We saved over 1,100 jobs today.”

“Just like you promised during the campaign, sir,” Half-Pence replies.

“I did? Oh. Yes. Of course I did.”

“Actually,” a man in a hard hat on the steps speaks up, “it’s more like 800 jobs.”

“What?” The superhero’s brow furrows in annoyance.

“Yeah. We got a letter from the company saying the deal with Carrier will save only 730 factory jobs in Indianapolis, plus 70 salaried positions. And 553 jobs are still moving to Monterrey, Mexico. Oh, and all 700 workers at the Huntington plant are still gonna lose their jobs.” He holds up his smartphone. “Here. It’s all in a report on the local station, WTHR. Oh, and according to Business Insider, Carrier’s announced that it’s raising prices by 5 percent.”

“Half-Pence!” Trump-man snarls, “silence that man! Hit him with a million dollar tax break!”

The sidekick leans over and whispers in his ear. “Oh … he’s one of them, eh? Not eligible for tax breaks.”

Before the man in the hard hat can speak again, a group surges forward on the steps.

“Trump-Man!” one of them calls out. “The globalists are sending my job manufacturing wiper blades from Ohio to the Philippines!”

Another speaks up. “And my paper company in Scranton is outsourcing sales to call centers in Sri Lanka!”

The crowd begins calling out, “Hairbrushes from Michigan to Indonesia!”

“Back-scratchers from Nashville to Malaysia!”

“Help us, Trump-Man!”

“Only you can fix this!”

“Only you!”

“Half-Pence,” the crestfallen superhero says, “this may be more complicated than I thought.”

His sidekick looks at him sourly. “Ya think?”

What I'm Getting Mr. Trump For Christmas

thepilot.com:

OK, so I checked on Amazon and there is actually a book called “The U.S. Constitution for Dummies.” That settles the question of what I’m getting our president-elect for Christmas.

Because — I’ve got to tell you folks, some of Mr. Trump’s latest actions and public pronouncements make me wonder if he’s ever heard of the document, much less read it.

Take, for instance, this tweet he sent at 6 in the morning this past Tuesday: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag — if they do, there must be consequences — perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”

For those of you wondering “where did that come from?” there was apparently a Fox News story that ran about that time on that issue, and of course, if Fox News does a story on it, the soon-to-be-leader of the fee world has to weigh in immediately.

The only problem is, it’s well-settled law that burning the U.S. flag as a means of protest is protected speech under that pesky First Amendment.

No less a conservative lion than the late Antonin Scalia stated that “If I were king, I wouldn’t go about letting people burn the American flag,” but that “we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged.” Scalia, however he may have gritted his teeth at having to do so, signed on to a Supreme Court opinion striking down a Texas law that made flag-burning a criminal offense.

Note, however, that Trump, a man who’s said he wants justices “in the mold” of Justice Scalia, was suggesting that maybe he’d go further than imprisonment, to outright revocation of citizenship.

This raises the question of whether Mr. Trump is aware of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” There’s no provision for the president or anyone else revoking someone’s citizenship, especially for acts protected under the First Amendment.

I’m sure some Trumpkins will fall back to their default defense, namely “But Hillary!” and point out that in 2005, then-Sen. Clinton co-sponsored a bill that would have criminalized the burning of the U.S. flag for the “primary purpose of intimidation or inciting immediate violence or for the act of terrorism.”

Well, let me say this about that: (1) She was wrong, and engaging in the kind of pandering that led me to describe her as “Republican Lite” for years; (2) The bill failed, as it bloody well should have; and (3) enjoy “But Hillary!” in the last few weeks you’ll be able to use it. Pretty soon she’s going to be off the public stage, and bringing her up will just seem more and more sad and desperate.

There are those who have suggested that PEOTUS is merely pumping out outrageous tweets to draw public and press attention away from the more serious issues posed by the many conflicts of interest posed by his business interests, both in America and abroad.

Here again, we invite Mr. Trump to peruse the Constitution, in particular the often-overlooked “Emoluments Clause” of Article One, which forbids anyone “holding any Office of Profit or Trust … without the Consent of the Congress,” from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Now, considering the negotiations and entanglements Mr. Trump and his worldwide enterprises have in foreign states and the desire of kings and princes to curry favor with the most powerful man in the free world, one would think that Mr. Trump might want to steer clear of not only actual conflicts of interest, but also of what we in the law biz call “the appearance of impropriety” in business concessions or payments from foreign leaders.

One might think that. But, as one of my old law professors used to say, one would be wrong. Mr. Trump has indicated that he’ll leave his businesses to be run by his children, but would “presents, Emoluments, Offices, or Titles” given to a Trump scion insulate Trump himself from charges of corruption? Let’s just say I have my doubts.

The House and Senate are all lovey-dovey right now, but Mr. Trump has said some pretty harsh things about the party he leads, and in particular about the Speaker of the House. Once the celebrations are over and the hard give-and-take of governing begins, he may be on thinner ice than he realizes.

So enjoy my gift of “The U.S. Constitution For Dummies,” Mr. President-Elect, and I hope that you read with close attention, particularly Article 2, Section 4. That’s the one about impeachment for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors.”

You Just Keep Being You, Donald. Please.

Opinion | thepilot.com

Dear Mr. Trump:

I know there are people around who are telling you that you’re blowing this election, that the tactics you’re using are ill-conceived and self-defeating. I know they’re urging you to stay off Twitter and to let the political professionals handle your message.

I can tell you that I only have your best interests and, even more important, the best interests of America, in mind when I say this: Don’t you believe them, Mr. Trump. You keep right on doing what you’re doing. In fact, I think you need to ramp it up. A lot.

Take Paul Ryan, for example. How dare he withdraw his support and tell down-ballot candidates to do whatever it takes to save their own political careers? That was a betrayal of you personally. Worse than that, it was disrespectful, and we all know you’re a man who doesn’t tolerate or forgive disrespect. It’s why your base loves you.

So you should totally keep going after the Republican speaker of the House, calling him “very weak” and “ineffective” on Twitter. You’re not going to need him when you take power.

In fact, you know what? You should do the same to each and every one of the 33 House members and 17 senators from your party who have shown you that same appalling level of disrespect.

You should do a nasty Tweet about each and every one of them individually. Space the tweets out over days. Take your time. Tell them they’re losers. Keep telling them their “poll numbers — and elections — are going down” in November. After all, you tweeted it yourself: “Disloyal R’s are far more difficult than Crooked Hillary.” Show America you know who the real enemy is.

Hey, I’ve got an even better idea! Tell them that when you win, they’re going to jail! That’ll show them you’re not a candidate to be trifled with. It’ll purge the weaklings and cow the rest into silence. Let the Republicans hate, so long as they fear, right?

And how about those debate moderators? Boy, they sure rigged the thing for Hillary, didn’t they? You should spend lots and lots of time talking about them, and talking in general about how unfair the media is to you.

Tell them how you’re going to single-handedly “open up” the libel laws so you can sue and — dare we even hope? — put anyone in jail who criticizes you in a way you think is unfair. That’ll really show people what kind of leader you’ll be: a strong one. Like Vladimir Putin or Saddam Hussein.

Also, you should totally double down on bringing up the women who’ve accused Bill Clinton of sexually assaulting them. You should bring them to every campaign event, just to remind people that it’s not necessary for anyone to be charged, let alone found guilty, of sexual assault.

The accusation is enough for the guy to be branded a “rapist,” right? Unless of course the person making the accusation is someone like Jill Harth, who’s sued you for allegedly trying to rape her in your own daughter’s bedroom. Or that woman who’s suing you for allegedly tying her to a bed, beating her and raping her at your good buddy and convicted sex offender Jeffery Epstein’s house when she was only 13.

Or your ex-wife Ivana, who accused you of raping her while you were married but later, after being pressured by your lawyers, said she was only “violated.” Those gals have, in your words, “real problems,” am I right?

So you keep defending your bragging about sexually assaulting women as “locker room talk.” Keep bringing up Bill Clinton’s accusers and talk about how Hillary “attacked” them. I’m sure no other women from your past will come forward to accuse you of that same behavior.

(Oh, by the way, if you’re tempted to grab a strange woman by her private parts while you’re campaigning in North Carolina, don’t. It’s called “sexual battery” here, and being convicted of it would require you to register as a sex offender.)

In summation, Mr. Trump, I’m glad that, as you recently tweeted, “the shackles are finally off.” Let Trump be Trump. Lead the Republican party to its inevitable, God-ordained destruction — I mean its destiny. Please your base, and everyone else can go pound sand. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Stay the course, Mr. Trump. America depends on it.

There Can Be Only One

Opinion | thepilot.com

It seems like only yesterday that one of the favorite right-wing talking points was “only one candidate is under FBI investigation.” Well, that investigation has come and gone, with no criminal charges recommended or brought. But there’s still one candidate who’s unique in so many ways:

Only one candidate’s skin is so thin that he gets up at 3 in the morning to engage in a Twitter feud with a former Miss Universe and to insist that he was completely justified in cruelly humiliating her in public 20 years ago because she was really, really getting fat.

Only one candidate completely loses his mind, his temper, and all sense of decorum and proportion every time you mention Rosie O’Donnell.

Only one candidate thinks it’s a legitimate campaign tactic to attack his opponents’ spouse, both in the primary and the general elections.

Only one candidate has mocked a disabled person on camera.

Only one candidate’s foundation has received a “cease and desist” letter from the New York attorney general because of raising funds without being legally certified as eligible to do so.

Only one candidate’s foundation has used $258,000 donated allegedly for charitable purposes to settle the candidate’s legal problems and over $30,000 to pay for huge portraits of the candidate.

Only one candidate used money from his charitable foundation to pay big contributions to two attorneys general to get them to lay off a fraud investigation, while bragging that when he gives money to politicians, they do what he wants.

Only one candidate has repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Only one candidate says he wants to “run the government like a business” after losing nearly a billion dollars in his own companies and putting them through multiple bankruptcies.

Only one candidate says that people who don’t pay taxes are “a problem” in society but then says that not paying taxes because he lost all that money just shows how “smart” he is. Guess that makes those of us who do pay taxes and don’t lose hundreds of millions “dumb” in his eyes.

Only one candidate says he wants to “run government like a business” after stiffing multiple small business people, daring them to sue, and fighting them tooth and nail in court to avoid paying the money he owed.

Only one candidate has longstanding and well-documented ties to the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia mobs, including paying double market value to Philly mobster Salvatore Testa for land upon which to build a casino.

Only one candidate paid far over market value for ready-mix concrete to New York Mafiosi Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family. Only one candidate has been proven to have used illegal immigrant Polish workers in a demolition project on one of his New York building projects, mysteriously without any backlash from the unions.

Only one candidate has an upcoming court date in a civil fraud and racketeering case.

On the other hand, only one candidate was secretary of state when four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were murdered by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. And that candidate is the only one who’s undergone scrutiny by a total of 10 government committees, including highly partisan House and Senate select committees, in regard to the tragedy.

Those committees have generated thousands of pages of reports at a cost of millions of dollars, in order to find absolutely no evidence of personal wrongdoing by that candidate.

Only one candidate has been the focus of more prolonged, highly partisan investigations than any other in U.S. history, investigations which have turned up exactly zero criminal activity.

And yet only one candidate gets the benefit of “innocent until proven guilty” in the court of media and public opinion. After all, where there’s that much smoke, there must be some fire somewhere, right? But only for one candidate.

Both candidates supported the Iraq War. And only one voted for it, because only one was in a position at the time to do that. The other one was apparently busy losing millions of dollars in his businesses. But only one candidate is honest enough to admit that support and only one now says it was a mistake.

To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes from the late Hunter S. Thompson: Hillary Clinton may have made some stupid mistakes, but they pale in comparison to what Donald J. Trump does every day, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for.

I started this year as a Bernie Sanders supporter, and I’m still not totally thrilled about Hillary Clinton. But when you weigh the pros and cons — the longtime political pro versus the shameless con artist — the choice is clear. There can be only one.

Donald Trumps Himself

Opinion | thepilot.com

So the first presidential debate has come and gone, and pretty much everyone who’s not actually on Donald Trump’s payroll agrees, however grudgingly, that Hillary Clinton won the evening.

Trump’s been doing better lately in the polls, I suspect largely because campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has, against all odds, managed to keep him from doing things like attacking the families of dead war heroes and mocking the disabled.

We did get a taste of the Trump we all know and loathe when he responded to reports that Clinton was inviting fellow billionaire and frequent Trump critic Mark Cuban to the debate by tweeting that he might invite Bill Clinton’s former mistress, Gennifer Flowers, to sit in the front row as well.

Because attempting to humiliate a woman by rubbing her nose in an affair her husband had 25 years ago is completely justified by having someone who’s criticized your business acumen sit in at your debate. They’re exactly the same thing, can’t you see?

Fortunately, cooler heads in the campaign seem to have prevailed, and soon they were frantically denying that the candidate had said what he’d said, despite the evidence to the contrary in black and white. As we shall see, this has become a pattern for the Trump folks.

But there was no way to keep the real Trump under wraps for a full 90 minutes, especially since Hillary Clinton appears to have been devoting a good part of her debate prep into figuring ways to push The Donald’s buttons.

And push them she did. For a good chunk of the debate, Hillary Clinton played Donald Trump like a cheap banjo.

As the whole Mark Cuban thing revealed, the quickest way to make Donald Trump overreact is to question his business practices. So Clinton brought up the number of contractors that Trump has stiffed, including one in the audience, to which Trump, the candidate who claims to be on the side of working Americans, snarled “maybe he didn’t do a good job.”

She suggested that the reason Trump didn’t want to release his tax returns is because they showed that, unlike most Americans, he didn’t pay any taxes. “That makes me smart,” Trump shot back.

Here’s a tip: Suggesting that “smart people don’t pay taxes” is an opinion you should probably keep to yourself if you want the votes of those who do.

Then he responded to Clinton’s claim that Trump had publicly rooted for the housing crisis because he’d said that Americans losing their homes would be a great way for him to pick up cheap property. He didn’t try to deny it, but instead snapped “that’s called business.” I seem to remember the phrase “it’s just business” coming from the mouth of another character. It was Michael Corleone in “The Godfather.”

Clinton really managed to lead Trump down the garden path and into a flowerbed full of bear traps by forcing him to deny saying things that, as we previously noted, have been well-documented, such as the canard that he was against the Iraq War.

(“The record says otherwise,” observed moderator Lester Holt, thus enraging the Trumpkins as only someone telling the provable truth can do.)

He also denied saying that he thought climate change was a hoax perpetrated by China, at which point, copies of his tweet saying exactly that spread across the Internet faster than an Instagram of a naked Kardashian.

Finally, Clinton nailed Trump on his sexism and misogyny by bringing up the case of Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe who the then-50-year-old Trump publicly shamed by trotting the then-19-year-old to the gym to work out in front of reporters, telling them “she loves to eat” and calling her “Miss Piggy.”

Confronted with the story of his cruelty to a teenage girl, Trump was reduced to sputtering “where did you find this?” over and over like a husband in a divorce case being presented with his credit card receipts from the Midnight Bunny Ranch.

And since Donald Trump can never, ever, let anything go, he took to the airwaves the next day to insist that he was completely justified in humiliating a young woman less than half his age because she was, you know, really getting fat.

With the first debate behind him, Donald Trump has vowed to “hit harder” in his next meeting with Secretary Clinton. The man who’s been married three times, each time to the mistress he’d been carrying on an affair with while married to the previous spouse, the man who’s bragged in print about his dalliances with married women, is thinking maybe it’s time to bring up “Bill’s women.”

Yes, I’m sure being an even bigger creep, liar and hypocrite will win American hearts and minds. To quote another debate (and election) winning Democrat: Please proceed, Mr. Trump.