The Longest 100 days

"One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace, good people don't go into government."

- Donald Trump


Donald Trump, has been President for about 100 days. These days have been schizophrenic exercises of surrogates and sycophants walking back his tweets, and a series of lies, misinformation and Orwellian newspeak.


Trump has told so many lies, received so many Pinocchio awards his staff has constantly battled to shut down his Twitter feed, when he often wanders the residence of the White House in his bathrobe at 3am generating them. His television presidency starts off with Fox and Friends and ends with Sean Hannity.

But it seems, after a series of disasters, he has appointed some adults to supervise him and that is a good thing. At Defense, State and a new non-conspiracist National Security Adviser, replacing Michael Flynn, currently under congressional investigation for his Russian patrons and their alleged connection with his campaign.  All of that will drip out of the faucet little by little as soon as the congressional Republicans learn that their constituents want to know. But perhaps not.


Trump was going to repeal Obamacare the first day he was in office. He was going to build a big “beautiful wall” along the Mexican border and the Mexicans were going to cough up the money to pay for it “one way or another, believe me.” He was going to do a “massive tax cut” for the rich in order that jobs were going to be created. The newly introduced corporate tax reduction from 38% to 15% will swell the deficit if the projected growth of 2% in GDP remains as economists predict at perhaps .08%.. Trickledown economics never worked, despite the recent emergence of Arthur Laffer. Voodoo economics remains in play.


Trump's magical thinking was going to restore coal industry jobs, never mind that there are now more jobs in solar, wind and hydroelectric that there are in an industry that is now being displaced by new 21st century technologies. Coal miners oozing gratitude could descend into the bowels of the earth, get black lung disease and earn a living. In fact, coal companies were already replacing those jobs with digging, blasting and drilling robots Natural gas is cheaper, cleaner and more efficient. The wall costing billions, running along the Texas border is questioned by Texan Republicans who fear the loss of net income from trans-border trade. Much of the wall area is owned by Native Americans, who already robbed of their land by a murderous Andrew Jackson whose portrait adorns the oval office as a populist Trump hero (Jackson is soon to be replaced on the $20 bill by Harriet Tubman). Placing the wall on our side of the Rio Grande would cede the entire river to Mexico! Maybe the President did not think of that during the campaign. And his move to stick the wall on the budget bill has been rethought as a non-starter in congress since the chance that Mexico will pay for the wall is about the same as the sun being replaced by a coal fired plant.


Trump, in these first 100 days, was going to slap a 35% tariff on Chinese goods, having labeled the Chinese as currency manipulators. Now that has changed. “Why would I want to label them manipulators when they are going to help us with North Korea," now becoming an existential threat to cities like Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles? Tariffed goods might become doubly priced at Wal Mart, where most of his gullible base shop. By the way folks, I am not making this up. The Chinese have had to revalue their currency upward to stop its decline.  Trump originally asserted that they were keeping it artificially low so that they could sell their goods here more cheaply.


And what about the massive infrastructure spending Trump promised?  That has not happened. Instead, the administration spends its time and capital trying again to repeal Obamacare, cut Medicaid, Education, deny climate change as a Chinese hoax, abolish the EPA, repeal the clean power act, and defend itself from congressional and FBI investigations. Ah, for the days of going bankrupt and stiffing workers at his casino. 


He needs some wins, and another shot at repealing Obamacare will not pass the Freedom Caucus (formerly the tea party).  And if he puts items in the bill that will pass muster, it will not pass the Senate or keep faith with Republican moderates. The Republican Party is in unprecedented disarray. Trump faces more problems with them than the Democrats.  It will be interesting to watch over the coming months, unless Kim Jung Un snuffs us. A second Korean War would divert the public's attention for sure.


Trump, they say, is learning how to be President of the United States, and he has hired some adults around him to guide him in issues for which he essentially remains clueless. That is true. He has competent generals running the Defense department and gave the insane conspiracy theorist Michael Flynn the boot in favor of H.R. McMaster, a sophisticated West Pointer, a highly decorated and dedicated patriot and author of a prescient history of the US involvement in Vietnam.  Trump did very well in those choices, since he realized he knew less about international affairs than even George W. Bush. Eureka! NATO is no longer obsolete, said Trump recently. 


Our President, adroitly tapping into the anger of his base, disaffected, unemployed and undereducated voters, never realized what he was getting into, but still has not been able to say he was wrong on anything, his narcissism overruling his sense of patriotism and concern for the American Public. He has still not released his tax returns and it is doubtful that he will, unless they are subpoenaed as part of a congressional investigation. But it is doubtful that the Republican congress will ask for them and so the Presidency has become a shamefully self-promoting business enterprise rife with conflicts of interest, and perhaps Russian monies. Vlady Putin thought he was getting a good deal by messing with Hillary’s election.  Maybe he is not so sure now, with a possibly demented President in the White House, who fires tomahawk cruise missiles, in this instance, impulsively, but correctly. One wonders if he really thought it out. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and again.


I have Republican friends who are still drinking the Kool Aid. One told me that I would be happy with the Trump Presidency, however, I have not yet found a pleasant sensation, a warm and fuzzy feeling that everything will be all right.  All I do feel is pain every time I turn on the news. Some argue, “you lost the election, get over it.” Trump now enjoys an over all approval rating of about 38%, the lowest of any President at this point in his term, in US history. Seems to me, that was what Scalia said in an interview after the Supreme Court stopped the recount in Florida, handing the election to George W. Bush. To Bush’s credit, when he left office, he returned to Crawford Texas to paint, perhaps fancying himself another Winston Churchill, who in his essay, “Painting as a Pastime, extolled the virtues of putting oil on canvass. At least W had an acceptable hero.  T


The Republicans voted 62 times to repeal Obamacare before the Donald was elected (or got more electoral votes) in a distorted system created in the 18th century to protect slave states from being placed in a majority as new states entered the Union. This ossified system has allowed a person with the minority of the votes to be elected president 5 times in our history.  We need direct popular election of the President.


In France, for example, a publicly financed election is over in 6 weeks. Spending is limited, and candidates do not have to raise billions to advertise in swing states until those of us who have the misfortune, or fortune to live in them want to stick pins in our eyeballs not to listen or watch the commercials.  The system has been distorted by Citizens United, allowing corporations and billionaires to form super PACs with no spending limits as long as they do not coordinate with the candidates and they are “transparent.”  This is almost like insider traders who illegally do not tell their friends to buy before companies beat earnings prognostications.


Trump’s new acolyte Supreme Court justice, only confirmed when the loathsome Mitch McConnell did away with the 60 vote majority needed to confirm him.  This insured that a political partisan could be seated, further eroding the independence of the court. Trump counts this as his major accomplishment for the first 100 days.  And it is true, he accomplished the goal of life tenure of a 49 year old that can make decisions for the next generation. His first vote was to put someone to death. Gorsuch refused to answer any questions before the senate committee on his positions, and defended his 10th circuit court of appeals decision to vote against a fired truck driver who almost froze to death and had to move his truck, resulting in his being fired. Gorsuch’s logic was that he applied the law. So did dictators, Nazis and other authoritarian leaders such as Erdogan who has now consolidated his power with new anti-democratic legislation. Gorsuch’s decision was reversed unanimously by the Supreme Court. Now he sits there himself, a young relic, threatening to civil liberties, the working class, and modern society, probably even to the right of the late Antonin Scalia and even Clarence Thomas. Trump lists this as his signal achievement of the first 100 days.


Cheer up folks, the horizon does have a bright sunrise. Bill O’Reilly, serial sexual harasser, has joined Roger Ailes in a richly deserved hinter world of opprobrium.  Not that Rupert Murdoch has had an epiphany. He just saw 50 of his largest sponsors jump ship. President Trump said O'Reilly was a "good person."

Share This Post

Recent Post

Why the West is allowing Ukrainians to Bleed and Die

November 21, 2025
During his “wilderness years,” Churchill understood Adolf Hitler’s ambitions, presciently shouting to a deaf world the dangers ahead. The Rhineland. Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia gobbled up while appeasers twiddled. England and France could have sent Hitler packing. Instead, they gave him three more years to arm. It was too late. Fifty million died. Stalin, double-crossed by his former Poland-dividing German friend, decided too late that he had to fight. Millions of Soviets soldiers and civilians died because of his dithering. FDR had to contend with America Firsters and could have entered the war sooner; he had third term political considerations in in 1940; but he knew he had to fight, too. Eventually. WE RELIVE THE MISTAKES OF HISTORY AT OUR OWN PERIL, LIKE WILEY CAYOTE CHASING THE ROAD RUNNER. PUTIN INVADED A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY. STOP HIM, GERMANS. STOP HIM, FRENCHMEN. STOP HIM, NATO. STOP HIM, AMERICA. UKRAINIAN CHILDREN ARE FREEZING AND STARVING. PEOPLE ARE LOSING THEIR LIVES TO A RUSSIAN BLOODTHIRSTY PYROMANIAC, A HANNIBAL LECTER. Here’s the rub: using time as his weapon, like Hitler, Putin is conscripting, propagandizing, and gradually conscripting massive manpower—constructing his war machine, gaslighting his people, building support, slowly, craftily, cunningly, odiously. Russians believe his lies about Ukraine as a Nazi haven, a virtual pizza parlor filled with basement dwelling pedophiles, or in this case, jackbooted storm troopers. Despite President Zelensky’s Churchillian appearance before congress, we must move swiftly, because time is on Putin’s side. A war of attrition is not on Ukraine’s side. Even with US Ordinance, rockets, drones, artillery. Western fear is Putin’s ally. Time is Putin’s ally. Wars start slowly but inevitably spiral out of control; aid the west provides the Ukrainians resembles aid the US gave to England in 1940, followed by exponential materiel increase from the great American “arsenal of democracy.” It was not enough. Not in 1940 and not enough in 2022; it will not be enough in 2023, 2024, 2025 as this war drags on. Too many Russians, too much manpower. Too much time. Victory requires a credible threat of NATO mobilization—an army ready to do battle. And an ultimatum. But that will not happen, I fear. Billions of dollars for weapons in a proxy war with Ukrainians fighting Russians has been impactful. Americans can watch Netflix war movies while Ukrainians bleed. They can watch Tom Hanks storm the beach at Normandy. Much less dangerous. Let’s just ship some more rockets to Ukraine instead. Yellowstone is on. Even so, it was heartening to see the bipartisan support for Ukraine in the Congress. Military planners in the Pentagon and in Western European capitals should be preparing for a wider war. It would be malfeasant for them not to do. We just don’t realize it yet. NATO is obliged to tell Putin to get out of Ukraine or face an allied army to evict him. Putin must be given an ultimatum to get out or face military force. Germans and French, British and American, Canadian and Australian. Putin understands naked power. The west must mobilize. He does not understand anything else. Lenin said, “push forward the bayonet. If you find soft flesh, push. If you find steel, retreat.” Putin learned Lenin in school; Lenin is in his DNA. He learned it in the KGB. He learned it in Mother Russia. He wants it all. He is Czar Nicholas, Comrade Stalin, Comrade Lenin all rolled into a painting in the Hermitage, his hometown museum, where he went as a schoolboy, where his parents took him, where he learned of the greatness of Russia. Where the Czar had palaces. Russians never had democratic traditions. Ask Nicholas II and his family, brutally executed by Bolsheviks. Ask the millions starved by Stalin in the Ukraine during his communized agriculture plan. Ask the people sent to the Gulag, or the Hungarians who dared to revolt against the Soviet hammer and sickle. Ask the subjugated Poles carved up by Stalin and Hitler. Ask all of the subjugated and terrorized people who suffered behind the iron curtain. Ask Alexi Navalny, a political prisoner, poisoned once, and now jailed in a Russian gulag. A delusional revanchist KGB agent in the Kremlin tries to raise the Soviet corpse by terrorizing a sovereign nation. A nation which had its own history before Lenin and his desciples created a dark Bolshevik empire. NATO, led by Germany and France and then the United States, face the eventual inevitability of mobilizing an army to kick Putin out of Ukraine and Crimea. The alternative is too grim to contemplate. Trench warfare. Stalemate. Ukrainians under siege. Massive Russian armies. Possibly being defeated. World economic disruption. Continued war crimes. A war of attrition, cold and misery. I hope I am wrong about this.  Western ambitions about this outrageous war ending through negotiation are delusional. If Putin sees that we are serious about the sovereignty of nations, he must face a serious military threat-- mobilization of NATO forces. Only then he will likely back down. Until then brave Ukrainians will bleed, freeze and die bearing the brunt of our fear.

Thank Goodness the Election is Over

November 21, 2025
This is my first blog entry, and a fine time it is for it, if I must say so myself. Florida has now elected an ethically challenged Republican governor, who essentially flooded the airwaves with negative ads about Alex Sink, the democratic candidate. People who have voted for him will not be surprised if he disappoints by trying to shut the door to the courthouse to "protect" businesses which despoil the environment, drill for oil in pristine seas off the coast, or manufacture harmful products. On the national scene, people are amazed that tea partiers have gained so many seats in the House of Representatives, by mouthing standard platitudes of how they are going to slash spending. But where? They do not say. Elected to the United States Senate is Marco Rubio, a 39 year old tea party conservative, who has railed against a woman's right to choose, waffled on global warming, and thinks that America is moving in the wrong direction. He expects to cure this problem by slashing the budget and making "hard choices," but has failed to specify which choices. Not social security because his 80 something mother is a beneficiary, but more likely because he fears the wrath of Florida's seniors. He is supposedly a rising star in the Republican party and since the other tea partiers are pretty crazy, he probably won't be around for his full term, unless he keeps his seat while running for higher office a la Joe Lieberman. The selling of candidates like bars of soap continues, and the insulting, demeaning ads are over, but the consequences of the electorate not having to think too much about the candidates or listen seriously to debates about complex issues should be troublesome to any thoughtful person. People in Florida should not be discouraged, however. Now that the GOP has some power, they will be held responsible by the punditry, including yours truly in the next election.

George Bush has His New Book Out.....

November 21, 2025
George Bush has his new book out. I have not yet read it, but I have heard him interviewed on TV and have read reviews of the book. This frat boy, this pious peddler of religious virtue, this hypocrite now wants to sell his writing (if he wrote it at all) as though he would be regarded kindly by history. He will not. He lacks no chutzpah. Ignorance surely is bliss. His absence of remorse for sending our young service men and women to fight and die or have a leg or an arm blown off, is an exemplar of hubris and rationalization with which history will be able to evaluate his Presidency for its true worthlessness. Claiming to "protect Americans," he invaded a country that did not present an existential threat to our national security, violating his oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the constitution. Arguably he is a war criminal, having authorized torture and assuming responsibility for the unnecessary deaths of thousands of American youths, as well as around 100,000 innocent civilian Iraqis. Speaking of audacity, the current occupant of the White House could use some. His potential compromise of the Bush tax cuts, favoring the richest of Americans threatens to perpetuate a growing disparity between the super rich and the rest of us. Imposing taxes to implement social policy, despite Republican protestations, is not a new phenomenon. Seems that the American people have been fed and are voraciously consuming the malarkey of the conservatives who, despite evidence to the contrary, still believe that these rich folk are benefactors who create more jobs when they fail to pay their fair share of taxes. These are the same people who spent two trillion dollars on two wars and insist that we need a fleet of warplanes and billion dollar aircraft carriers to fight an amorphous band of illiterate religious fundamentalist terrorist thugs who have to smuggle explosive-laden printer cartridges onto airplanes or fill a truck with explosives to attack us. Now we need to get spending under control, they say. No present day politician, Republican, Democrat or Tea Partier seems to have the courage to tell us exactly what they will cut. Social Security? The defense budget? Veterans Benefits? Medicare? The truth be told, no one dares. It must be the fault of the lawyers