Who Wears These Shoes?

There is nothing necessarily wrong with Florsheim shoes.  True, they are known for being cheap, stiff, and plebian, but they can be a reasonable and affordable choice to wear once in awhile, which sort of makes them the working man's dress shoes. A typical blue-collar guy probably has a pair of Florsheim shoes in his closet to go with the suit he wears to weddings, funerals, and lodge banquets.

But when Donald Trump wears them in the Oval Office, it only shows how cheap and tawdry the executive branch of the U.S. government has become.  It is the footwear equivalent of the Chevrolet SUVs Trump has ridden in.

So why is every dude in Trump's Cabinet wearing them?

Just because Trump wears Florsheims. you might think, that doesn't mean that his Cabinet secretaries have to wear them.  But it does mean they have to wear them.  And they do.  Trump, dissatisfied with the high-class luxury shoes his Cabinet secretaries sported, decided that if Florsheim shoes were good enough for him, they were good enough for men who work with him.  So he doled a bunch of pairs out to his flunkies and more or less made it clear that if they knew what was good for them, they would wear their new shoes.

And so came the greatest footwear story in American politics since George Walker Bush was in Baghdad and had a pair of shoes thrown at them by an Iraqi national ticked off at Bush for starting the Iraq War.

Working for Trump is like taking a wedding vow.  You must promise to love, honor and obey.  That is, if you want to remain in Trump's good graces - or employment.  And if he gives you Florsheims to wear, you wear them, if only to express your gratitude to the Dear Leader.  Crockett & Jones? Bruno Magli? Paul Evans?  No go, Joe - when you work for The Donald, you do what he says.

Especially if you're Marco Rubio, and you want to be Trump's heir apparent in 2028, even if the Florsheims your boss got you are three sizes too big, because Trump guessed your shoe size and was off by a country mile.

If you ask me, Trump's minions (despicable them) are acting their shoe sizes - certainly not their ages.

And so we now raise a toast to America's new war with Iran, and or wartime leader, Donald J. Trump!

Euch! Blecch! Blecch? Yuck! AUGH!!!  AUGH!!!  AUGHHHH!!!!!!  GAGAGAGAAUGHHHH!!!!!!

Iran: Armageddon It

I just returned from the bizarro universe in which Kamala Harris was elected President of the United States. Having spent her first year checking off her to-do list by helping first-time homebuyers afford a house and expanding child care, President Harris faced a new crisis when, in her effort to negotiate a new agreement with Iran to prevent further enrichment of uranium, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started bombing Iran, causing the Iranians to suspend talks with the United States.

Secretary of State Susan Rice, addressing reporters at the White House after conferring with President Harris, explained to the press that the Harris administration knew that Israel had been planning this attack and that the President had been concerned how that might affect U.S.-Iranian talks.  Secretary Rice added that the real reason Vice President Walz was sent to Israel was not to go on a goodwill tour but because he was on a mission to go to Jerusalem and convince Netanyahu to back off.  Secretary Rice let the Iranians know what Walz was up to.  She conceded that Walz had been unsuccessful, but she added that she received a communique from the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament assuring her that Iran would not attack U.S. interests in the Middle East and concentrate strictly on defending itself from Israeli attacks.

So you can bet your sweet candy bar that I was dismayed when, back in the real world, I learned that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that, having been aware that Israel was going to attack Iran, he decided that, rather than try to convince Netanyahu not to go ahead with the attack, it was necessary that the United States attack Iran first before Iran attacked U.S. interests in the Middle East.

Marco Rubio is a diplomat like I'm a jet pilot.

Apparently that was the real reason - a reason that don't even make good nonsense - that Trump started bombing Iran, because I thought it was about causing the Islamic Republic to fall and for the Iranian people to gain their freedom.  But that couldn't have been it, seeing as Trump hates freedom.  More likely, some say, it's because Trump is paranoid about the Ayatollah Khamenei killing him in revenge for the 2020 American assassination of General Qasem Soleimani and so decided that he had to take Khamenei out first, so that's what he did.  But he and Netanyahu are still bombing Iran.

So what is the reason we're bombing Iran?  I think your answer is right here.

But this  war isn't going to stop Americans from demanding transparency on Jeffrey Epstein.

Incidentally, if you're wondering why top brass in the military have followed Trump's illegal orders, it's because in part that no fewer than sixty high-ranking military officers believe that Donald Trump was sent by God to become President of the United States and instigate Armageddon by attacking Iran and bringing about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, in which Christians will be venerated, Jews will be saved, and Muslims . . . well, I assume they'll get food packages for the journey to the fiery caverns below.

In America, anyone can become President.  It's one of the risks we take.  In America, anyone can become a military commander.  That's another one of the risks we take.  I'm only sorry we don't have an educated, highly trained Prussian-style officer class that reads of books of strategy instead of the Book of Revelations.

Little Marco

Quick, answer this trivia question:  Who was the U.S. Secretary of State on August 9, 1974, the day Gerald Ford became President of the United States upon the resignation of President Richard Nixon?

If you answered "Henry Kissinger," you're correct.

Now answer this trivia question: "Who did Richard Nixon appoint as Secretary of State when he became President in January 1969?"

If you answered "Henry Kissinger," nice try, but guess again.

President Nixon, upon taking office in 1969, named Henry Kissinger as his national security adviser but he named former Attorney General William P. Rogers as Secretary of State.  There was just one problem: Rogers had no foreign-policy experience.  He was well-liked in Washington, he was respected, and he was a loyal Republican insider - and, he looked the part.  But Rogers was no diplomat.  That was precisely why Nixon appointed him to head the State Department; Nixon and Kissinger pretty much put themselves in charge of American diplomacy, while Rogers did no more than administer to the State Department's mundane operations.  He was little more than a figurehead.  

Marco Rubio (above) is the William P. Rogers of our time.    

The former two-term-and-change U.S. Senator from Florida has the chops for the job, and after having called Donald Trump a con man in the 2016 Republican presidential primary campaign, he had to suck up to the Donald big time to become a serious presidential possibility or, maybe, Secretary of State.  When Rubio was named Antony Blinken's successor at the State Department, many in the diplomatic corps breathed a sigh of relief.  Rubio, a Cuban-American, was a staunch anti-Communist, he was skeptical of Vladimir Putin, and he believed in international alliances.  Certainly he would be a strong foil to Trump's worst impulses.

I used past tense to describe Rubio's qualities for a reason; that Marco Rubio is gone.  He demonstrated that in that awful meeting between Trump, James David Vance, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, being able to only watch as Trump and Vance berated Zelensky and scolded him for acting in bad faith while the United States was trying to get the war between Russia, the aggressor, and Ukraine, the victim, to end.  Oh, and slump in into his seat at the sight of such a spectacle.

Perhaps we expected too much from Rubio.  Bear in mind that Trump signed executive orders withdrawing the United States from international agreements and institutions as soon as he was back in office, before Rubio was even confirmed as Secretary of State.  And once so installed, Rubio was clearly made to understand in no uncertain terms that he was to be an errand boy for the real foreign-policy team in the White House - Trump and Elon Musk.  Small wonder that Rubio and Musk ended up having a shouting match with each other in the White House just recently. 

William Rogers was no more than a pencil pusher at State Department headquarters.  Rubio doesn't appear to be even that.  And unlike Rogers or the avuncular Rex Tillerson, Trump's first Secretary of State, Rubio doesn't even look the part.  He is indeed . . . Little Marco.  

When Marco Rubio sank into his seat in that fateful- Trump-Vance-Zelensky Oval Office meeting and watched his soul escape, he was no longer Secretary of State.  He was a diplomatic . . . corpse.   

Val's Swan Song?

Sure looks like it.

U.S. Representative Val Demings, once considered to be Joe Biden's vice presidential running mate, is accomplished, well-spoken, and, let me just come out and say it, physically attractive.  She's also right on all the issues - particularly on allowing Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices, which her opponent, incumbent Republican Senator Marco Rubio opposes.  And this is a state with a large senior population. 

So why is she losing the Florida U.S. Senate race to Rubio?

It wouldn't have anything to do with Rubio running ads depicting her as an "angry black woman" when it comes to supporting a progressive social agenda, would it?

Actually, no - it has to do with more than just that.  Florida is an increasingly Republican state, and it's dominated by Hispanic Americans of Cuban descent like Rubio and of Venezuelan descent who shrink at the sound of any idea that sounds remotely socialist or even progressive or contemporary.  Rubio has also been able to sidestep the abortion issue by touting the crime issue and making Demings, a former Orlando police chief,  defend the police against those who want to defund the police - something no former police chief should have to waste any breath doing. The candidate who sets the agenda for what gets talked about controls the campaign, and for the U.S. Senate campaign in Florida, that's Marco Rubio. 

Look, I'd vote for Val if I lived in Florida (thank God I don't!), but the sentiment against her is running strong.  Sure, she's stepped up to the plate in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian to get help for Orlando, her hometown, which flooded big time as a result of the storm, but what politician in Florida isn't taking action?   Add the fact the Biden is about is popular in Florida right now as a house without central air, and, well, you have yourself a problem.

So I'm going to come out and say it: I think Val Demings is going to lose this election.  And unless President Biden appoints her Secretary of Homeland Security once Alejandro Mayorkas is forced out of office (a likely scenario in 2023) and Demings is appointed to replace him, Demings' political career will be dead on the heap of all of the other once-promising political careers of up-and-coming Florida Democrats.

The state's Democratic Party itself may not be far behind.

A Clockwork Purple

You know an idea in Congress is a bad one if everyone on both sides of the aisle supports it.  Such is the case with making Daylight Savings Time permanent.

Actually, most senators voted for this rule change because U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sponsored it in a routine series of procedural votes and the Senate was eager to get them over with.  Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) wanted to object to it, but he thought it was more important to get it out of the way to spend more time on addressing the Ukraine crisis. 

The Senate is actually celebrating this vote as a major accomplishment, but it's a major accomplishment in the sense that airline deregulation was a major accomplishment - another bad bipartisan idea, which, in that case, led to cramped coach seating and general passenger discomfort.   Permanent Daylight Savings Time would make sunrise occur much later in the morning during winter - in late December and early January, the sun wouldn't come up in the New York City area until after eight o'clock - and it would affect our bodies' natural physical an mental rhythms which correspond to the sun.  We can tell ourselves that it's one hour later than it actually is all year round, but our bodies would know better and act accordingly.  We'd feel more tired and more depressed as a result.  And teenagers - who get the least sleep and are in a developmental state, would be the most affected, having to adjust their body cycles - called "circadian rhythms" - to an official time one hour off.  

Is that all worth it to have the sun set at 5:30 on Christmas Eve?

The reason Rubio supports it is because Florida is the southernmost state in the continental U.S. and already has more daylight hours than New York, New Jersey or Connecticut even in standard time.  This law would apparently be uniform nationwide, because noted turncoat Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who was ecstatic about the bill's passage, represents Arizona, a state that doesn't even observe Daylight Savings Time presently.  But its geographic location is similar to Florida's, which means it would certainly benefit from this bill.  (Those of us who have laptops with antiquated systems that wouldn't automatically adapt to permanent Daylight Savings Time? Not so much!)

Look, I had no problem with the start of Daylight Savings Time moved to the first weekend in April back in 1986, because it was reasonable to start it a few weeks earlier to reduce traffic accidents, but when Daylight Savings Time was expanded to between the second weekend of March and the first weekend of November, I found that to be a complete act of stupidity, because it put the start of Daylight Savings Time in astronomical winter, and snowstorms can happen between the second weekend of March and March 31.  And they have - one hitting New Jersey less than a week after the first time Daylight Savings Time started in March, in 2007.  "Wow," I thought, "an extra hour of daylight to shovel snow!"

Oh yeah, this bill is called the "Sunshine Protection Act."  Maybe Congress should consider protecting children, who would have to walk to school in the dark in wintertime if this "Sunshine Protection Act" passed and possibly get hit by cars.  Not to mention crossing guards having to begin their morning shifts in total darkness.

My area had strong to severe thunderstorms blow through yesterday, something that isn't supposed to happen in mid-to-late March. If Congress tried to stop messing with our clocks and focused more attention on climate change, or even funding to fight COVID, we'd all be better off.

Happy spring.

DACA Caca

Trump got his henchman Jeff Sessions to announce that former President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for children brought into this country illegally by their parents was being wound down and terminated by March 2018.  Such individuals - called the Dreamers because they would benefit from passage of the as-yet unpassed immigration-reform Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act - are now in jeopardy of being tossed out of the country despite having been brought here as kids, despite the fact that they are now in college or in the workforce and are contributing to society, and despite the fact that they know no country other than this one.

Everyone, including I myself, agrees that Trump shouldn't have done this.  Now even Trump agrees that Trump shouldn't have done this.  Because although some liberal commentators have accused Trump of playing to his base of white men who want to make America more purely Caucasian than Sweden, he wants to try to find some way to get Dreamers to stay, because they themselves have done nothing wrong.  However, he believes - and to be fair, he has a case - that it is the legislative and not the executive responsibility to fix what passes for our immigration system. That's why he moved to let Dreamers know that he hopes to ensure that they'll be able to stay in the United States through congressional action.

Marco Rubio, Florida's Republican U.S. Senator and the son of Cuban immigrants, can relate.  "I know how difficult it is,"  He recently said, "I know how highly charged immigration can be as an issue. I know how difficult it can be to narrowly address one piece of the puzzle. So I’m concerned about those things."

So now it's crunch time.  Washington has to get this sucker fixed.  But don't expect Steve Bannon to give Trump a pep talk to get it done.  He's been insisting that the Catholic Church in America wants illegal aliens to swell their ranks.

Where's Martin O'Malley when you need him?

And by the way . . . we should stop calling Obama's program by its acronym.  No one knows  what it means, and DACA sounds like the capital of Bangladesh.  Also . . . the Dreamers?  They're immigrants, not Freddie Garrity's backing band. 

I'm telling you now . . ..