Attention White House Staff: There’s a Grownup in Charge Now

Image stolen from cnn article linked below.

The Mooch made history by lasting just over a week in the White House. There are people who theorize that he was hired just to get Reince Priebus to resign, much the way a baseball manager will bring in a relief pitcher to face only one batter. Honestly, I don’t think Trump is engaged enough to come up with anything that clever.

Trump broke his own record this month for playing golf. For Trump, the best outcome for his presidency is impeachment; he has no interest in governing and now his Russia boondoggles are starting to surface. Being president, he has already admitted, is way harder than he thought it would be. As the castle crumbles, he’s working on his putts.

If he’s impeached, he can blame Washington insiders for his failure. He can go home early and rant and rave about how the system was rigged against him. If instead the electorate votes overwhelmingly for “not Trump”, it’s a tougher lie to tell.

But here comes John Kelly. Kelly had hardly finished accepting the job when he burned rubber to Anthony Scaramucci’s office to give him the heave-ho. That was a message to the rest of the staff, and it was a message to you and me. Guys with so little self-control that they make insane, profanity-laced rants about their co-workers (the word “cocaine” whispers across my mind once again) will not be tolerated. Well, one of them will, but no others.

Kelly comes from Homeland Security, which means he hates freedom. Your freedom, my freedom. Homeland Security is designed to curtail freedom. But you know what? He’s better than Trump. He’s a grown-up. (He probably also isn’t pals with one of the greatest enemies of our state.) Also, he’s better than Pence — as far as I know so far. So if Trump hits the links and leaves Kelly in charge, that might actually be a good thing in the short term.

In the long term, the harder Trump falls the longer it will take for the WWE Party to recover. It’s enticing, but this is my country we’re talking about. It would be nice if someone rational were in charge.

1

Funkin Serial Fiction

So it comes down to this: out in chapter thirty-something things really fall into place if chapter one included one extra act of violence.

My advice to serial writers: When blood spills, go ahead an kill an extra person when you can. That corpse might come in handy later.

Funny How that Timing Worked

So if I have my facts straight, on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week The New York Times talked to our President-like Product* and asked him if, hypothetically, Mueller’s investigation of the Republican collusion with Russia were to be expanded to include Trump’s finances, would that be crossing a line?

Trump responded, with his usual thoughtless bravado, that such an expansion would indeed be crossing a line. Totally unacceptable.

Then on Thursday, it became known that Mueller has in fact extended his inquiry to include Trump’s finances. Whups!

There are a a handful of important takeaways here:

1) The NYT almost certainly already knew the investigation was expanding.
2) Trump did not know.
3) NYT was not above baiting Trump to say something he would regret later.
4) Trump is easily manipulated.
5) Trump can’t spot a trap question to save his life.
6) That same guy talks to Putin, who is no slouch at interrogation.

Number four above is the one that scares me most.

But let’s not lose perspective on the actual news. People with the power to arrest criminals are looking at Trump’s tax returns. No matter which side of the aisle you sit on, that has to be a good thing. If you believe he has nothing to hide, you will naturally embrace this chance to see him exonerated while keeping his finances private. If you think he’s up to his eyeballs in foreign entanglements, well, now’s the time to find out.

This is a good thing, as long as you believe in truth.
____

* I promised, after the election, to suck it up and no longer use disparaging names for our then-president-elect. Today I was unable to live up to my own standard, so I’m calling myself out to save you the trouble.

1

Kids These Days Don’t Know How Good they Have It

It occurred to me today, as I spent less than sixty seconds ordering a pizza, paying for it, and arranging to have it delivered to my home, that kids these days will never appreciate how rough it was back in the day. They’ll never know the difficulty of calling for pizza on the telephone, talking to someone who is in a loud environment and just wants to get the transaction done quickly, who may or may not get your order written down correctly.

THEN you have to give your address (even if you’ve ordered from them before), and all your payment information (even if it’s the same as last time). THEN you had to pay for the pie and tip the driver when it arrives at your door.

Man, what a hassle.

Knives Episode 36 Published!

A quiet place, relatively safe. Physical wounds can be tended to, but perhaps those are not the only injuries our little band of heroes has suffered. It is, at last, a moment to pause, and to decide how to act rather than merely react. Which begs the question “Just what is it we want to accomplish?”

I like this episode for a few reasons. The last sentence is the biggest of those. A big moment for Katherine.

Anyway, enjoy Episode 36: People Like Us.

Behind the scenes, I didn’t get as many actual words written as I had hoped to while in Kansas. The reasons for that are complex, but with the help of the Repeat Offenders I came to a couple of significant decisions, story-wise. One of those changes is particularly scary (for me), and will be challenging to get right. To be honest, it paralyzed me for a bit. I have taken on a new tactic as I make my way to the big change: Try not to think about it too much.

2

Happy Net Neutrality Day

We say “happy” before the oddest of holidays. “Happy Memorial Day?” I’m supposed to be happy thinking of the deaths of literally millions of heroes. So yeah, “happy” here is ironic.

Before I go any farther, let me just say “Comcast sucks.”

If you’re a Comcast customer, it’s entirely possible that at this time next year, you won’t be able to read my blog. Their robots will have trawled across this post and decided that, based on the phrase in the previous paragraph, that they would prefer not to deliver the words I write to you.

And if the current administration gets its way, that will be perfectly legal.

Let’s say your Internet provider is a staunch supporter of whoever the current dipshit is living in the White House. They could block dissenting views about that dipshit from ever reaching you. They could stop you from expressing your views about the dipshit.

That’s… a problem. Your best friend in the fight for freedom is The Electronic Frontier Foundation. If they haven’t been blocked by your Internet provider, go visit and learn what you, a simple Internet user can do… and what you have to lose.

1