Let’s see?  With Steve Bannon Donald Trump’s indicted, imprisoned or pardoned cohorts approach a dozen.  Toss in a pair of sketchy lawyers, a handful of minion co-conspirators and the corruption relating to Trump’s administration rivals, if not surpasses, Nixon’s and Harding’s.

On Aug. 20 Forbes’s Jemima McAvoy  summarizes:

1. Trump Campaign Manger Corey Lewandowski has a battery of charges dropped.
2. Paul Manafort is sentenced to more than seven years for “a slew of changes from Robert Mueller’s investigation including into Russian election interference, tax and bank fraud, and conspiracy against the United States.”  August 18 USA Today reported a Republican-led Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee panel found, “Paul Manafort’s role of Trump Campaign Chair, his longstanding ties to people affiliated with Russian intelligence services and his willingness to share information with them ‘represented a grave counterintelligence threat’ during the 2016 presidential race.”
3. On a plea bargain, Rick Gates spent 45 days in jail for conspiracy and making false statements.
4. Erstwhile national security advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.  The case is in limbo.
5. Former foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos got 14 days and a year of supervised release for lying to the FBI about Russian contacts.
6. For a half-dozen crimes, including, months before the 2016 election, buying prostitute Stormy Daniels’s silence about a Trump liaison,  former Trump attorney and intimidator Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison. 
7. Roger Stone was sentence on seven charges, including lying to Congress and witness tampering.  Long-time pal Trump pardoned him.
8. Manafort and Gates associates Alex van der Awaan and
9.  Sam Patten plead guilty to funneling foreign money to Trump’s inaugural committee.
10.   Rudy Giulanai and two associates charged with campaign finance violations.
11.  Now Bannon is charged with fraud.

Does Donald know? Was he involved? Is the Pope Catholic?

Donald Trump’s boilerplate responses to troublesome information or allegations are “Hoax,” “Witch Hunt,” “Fake News,” “kill the messenger,” plead ignorance or flee the scene.  When worldwide print and broadcast journalism concur, notions of some Grand Conspiracy, Hoax, Witch Hunt and Fake News—apart from Vladimir Putin’s—are absurd.   

Assuming his patented “kill the messenger” scenario, Donald reverts to a pre-teen bully, arguing, insulting, name-calling, verbally strong-arming questioners, rarely giving truly reasoned responses.

Given a Narcissistic Personality, with exclusive focus on himself Trump’s ignorance pleas might seem a plausible.  At the same time, his Narcissism demands being in command, constantly attending to what’s up. Laying any ignorance defense do rest.

Nov. 3 remember The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.  I’ve asked, if three dozen Master Mechanics told you a vehicle is defective and dangerous would you buy it?

“Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”  But, a candidate desperate to disenfranchise voters and rogue Postmaster General can try. 

Ignoring it for three-and-a-half years, three months before a mail-in election President Trump decided to fix the U. S. Postal Service.  Chronically “broke,” for two-and-half centuries America’s Postal system was never broken.  The double entendre here is “fix”.

Characteristically, Donald J. Trump’s attempt to kneecap the US Postal Service before a mail-in election was not subtle.  Naming a million-dollar contributor with neither need nor reason to know a mail-drop from the cuckoo’s nest Postmaster General formed the centerpiece of Donald’s scheme to rig the election.  Eliminating processing machine, confiscating curbside mail boxes and cutting employees’ overtime, effectively slowing delivery, Louis deJoy delivered a ham-fisted punch to the gut of mail-in voters.

Interviewed outside the White House, President Trump told reporters the Postal Service “hasn’t run properly for many years, maybe fifty years.”  Moments later, asked how his overhaul would affect folks receiving Medicare checks, Trump’s reported his Postal System “running very well.”  Which is it Don, “not run properly” or “running very well”?  Any notion the U.S. Postal Service turned a hundred-and-eighty degrees the day de Joy came onboard or over the two months since is absurd.

In this interview, President Trump referred to a mysterious “they” who divert Postal money to states with Democrat governors.  My understanding is, post offices on Long Island in North Dakota or San Diego operate under identical parameters and funding.

Parsing Donald’s word salad ranges from maddening to impossible.  It helps to bear in mind that whatever serves our President’s immediate purpose is his truth.  As the words leave his lips he believes them.  What comes next is a crap shoot.  Fixing a Postal System which has “not run properly” for decades makes Trump look good.  Assuaging voters worried about not receiving checks by mail, a Postal system “running very well” makes Trump look good.

I vow not to be snagged by Donald Trump’s nonsense.  Then he tosses out a new zinger, “Everyone knows mail-in-ballots are a disaster,” and I’m hooked.  The operative term is “everyone,” i.e. Donald J. Trump!  For a narcissist of President Trump’s caliber, he is everyone!

Human inventions, in-person and mail-in balloting have glitches.  Physical handicap, lack of transportation, old age and the leisure to stand in line, sometimes for hours, limit in-person voter turnout.  Beyond the Sun Belt, “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in  .  .  .  November(‘s)” weather can challenge voters’ stamina and commitment.  Curiously, while opposing mail-in voting today, by blaming his 2016 loss of the  popular vote on unqualified folks—i.e. undocumented, dark skinned and poor—visiting the poling place second and third times, Donald cast a ballot against in-person voting.

The democratic and Democratic ideal is having the maximum number of eligible citizens vote.  For decades three-quarters of Americans have enjoyed vote-by-mail options.  In eight states all ballots are mailed-in.  This experience proves that, far from Trump’s “disaster,” mail-in is secure, easy and assures robust participation.  Compounding Donald’s opposition is, mail-in voting might preclude Vladimir Putin’s ballot.

Chris Wallace asked what Trump would do if he lost the upcoming election.  “I’d have to wait and see,” suggests our President may have forgotten his third grade lessons on America’s electoral system.  It’s not your call Don.  The People decide!  Trump’s cryptic response raises the interesting and amusing notion he might show the electorate his middle finger and refused to vacate the White House.  Joe Biden points out our government has mechanisms for removing trespassers from federal property.

For America and our world what could be more of a “disaster” than crazy thinking in the Oval Office.

If you choose to examine The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints’s history and doctrine, Fawn M. Brodie’s No Man Knows My History, Grant H. Palmer’s An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, Jeremy T. Runnells’s CES Letter and my https://myex-mo.com (Latest, “A Weighty Tome Indeed”) include non-traditional information and perspective.

 

Thirty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists and individuals with first-hand experience agree Donald J. Trump  is a malignant narcissist and a Very Dangerous person!  The consequences of his paralysis facing COVID 19 makes this diagnosis indisputable.  I’ve said before, if three dozen certified mechanics told you a vehicle is not only a lemon but dangerous would you buy it?

After riding ol’ Spaceship Earth around the sun eighty-three times, from the end of WWII, Korea, the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy’s assassination, Nixon, Viet Nam, and the turmoil of the seventies to now, I never felt scared!  For the first time, under the Reign of Donald J. Trump I am scared!  Very scared!

 

 

At age 83 some might refer to me as “an older gentleman,” a generous euphemism for “an old man.”  The expression seems to convey respect.  As if by merely surviving seventy years plus I earned respect.  Growing old makes me no more a candidate for respect than being tall, short, female, male or myriad human appearances and circumstance.  Hanging on into your seventies is luck, making not too many dumb choices, and genes.

Scoundrels, tramps, thieves, crooks, liars, rapists and murderers are proportionally represented among octogenarians as the general population.  If a John Dillinger, Al Capone, the Zodiak Killer, Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway or Jefferey Dahmer survived past seventy would they have earned respect?  How about Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler?

For some, respect seems natural.  Not by dint of age or physical characteristic, but for helping to make this struggle, this human life, a little easier.  Peacemakers, Healers, Jesus Christ, The Buddha, great scientist and artists, Socrates, Aristotle, Mohandas Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. deserve respect.

But how about the rest of us?  How about a toddler in a swing, a teen hunkered over a laptop, a high school dropout, a high school graduate, a retiree making ends meet flipping burgers as Mickey D’s, twenty-somethings starting a family, working moms, working dads, sanitation truck drivers, eighteen-wheel drivers, farmers, migrant workers, the homeless and imprisoned?  Every human deserves no less respect than an older gentleman.

Respect aside, youngsters seeing “an older gentleman” or matron may feel a not-exactly-conscious curiosity.  “What’s it like?  How does it feel?  You look old.  Do I want to go there?”  As memory serves, Dr. Murray Banks answers, “You may say, ‘I don’t want to live past ninety.’  You’ll say it ‘til you’re eighty-nine.”

Teaching respect has evolved.  Until five or so decades back, kids were explicitly taught respect.  “Do as you’re told.” “Don’t talk back.”  “Don’t sass.”  Curious words “sass,” never hear it today.  Cloaked under contemporary culture and adolescence independence, most of today’s kids pick up respect.  It has to be adult modeling.  We’re doing something right.  Only a small subset of today’s youngsters are blatantly disrespectful; they were there all along.

In my view, as respect’s spotlight dimed, for some dis-respect “diss”ing lit up.  Curiously, gangs and individuals with little are no respect for others take affront at being “dissed.”  It goes much further.  Nations dissing others is war.  If nations learned respect, if they stopped dissing, we would have a far more happy, peaceful world.

Like many words I toss out without knowing what I’m talking about, “respect” comes down to definition, to etymology: “re-back” plus “specere–to look at,” to look back, to see again!  To re-spect people, I must see them again!   Amid the incomprehensible complex mix of genes and environment, amid the physical and emotional suffering, I must continually remind myself, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Despite mindboggling complexity, the human equation has common denominators.  In secret, we all know them.  If I see through the straw person I crate to the wounded child inside, if I’m not fooled by your charades, your defenses, if I see that we are all wounded, yearning for kindness, for love, not to be hurt, this human existence, this life, would be better indeed.

Older gentlemen deserve respect.  So do you.  So do we all.

Apparently, American law enforcement needs dramatic, fundamental overhaul.  I keep wanting to back out of this squabble, but I feel someone should say a word for the cops.

Facing an active shooter, how must it be knowing the folks you’re there to rescue may hate and want to be rid if you?

A fearful old man, when I need a cop I hope one’s there.

Please don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

I tried out for the girl’s high school swim team.  Almost made it.  They didn’t like my breast stroke.

Before cars had air conditioning I drove from Reno to Las Vegas.  The sign said, “Don’t drink and drive.”  It was 100°.  I got really thirsty.

Do you have trouble adjusting the temperature of sink and shower faucets.  Turn a handle or knob the circumference of a human hair and instant, slush to live steam!

As I grew older my mind and body became conflicted.  Mind thinks it’s still twenty, thirty or forty, body knows better.  I wake up.  Mind says, “Okay Buddy, time to rise!”  Body says, “You go ahead.  I’ll wait here.”

Some suggested that police funding be shifted in whole or part to mental health and mental illness programs.  This reflects a curious logic: Lack of mental health resources and police are the problems.

Policing makes civil society possible.  If you want to undermine and highjack a government, how better than to undermine and abolish its police.  Seeing all officers tarred with the same brush breaks my heart.  The vast majority are good citizens taking a bad rap.

Ronald Reagan knocked Federal funding for mental health research and treatment in the head.  As cash-strapped state programs failed, a large portion of managing our mentally ill fell to police and jailers, folks never meant, trained or equipped for the job.

You would be hard pressed to find a more fevered advocate for mental health research and treatment than me.  After an embarrassing number of hours on the couch, psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Chernel saved my life and launched me on a theretofore unimagined course.  Not that it matters, but in my early forties I picked up an M.S. in Psychology.  Over thirty years I have facilitated peer support groups at The Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families.  While the Center does not provide “counseling,” our commitment has assisted thousands through some of life’s most excruciating  times.

We need robust mental health programs; we need robust policing.  Of course, mental health desperately needs more money.  Getting it by reducing or eliminating police is foolhardy.

Admit it or not, we all wrestle with mental issues.  When life’s challenges begins to feel overwhelming, I may again run to a shrink.  When I witness a head-on collision, some jerk is kicking in my neighbor’s door, or my seven-year-old does not get off the school bus who do I call, my shrink or a cop?  For me it’s a no-brainer.