While addressing his plans to cut the defense budget to procure border wall funding, President Trump said he is inclined to do away with the tradition of honoring the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National Cemetery in Arlington Virginia.   “I mean who is this guy anyway?” the president queried.  “We guard that thing day and night.  Why?  It’s not like he’s going anywhere.  It’s just an unnecessary expense.  If you think about it the best soldiers are the alive ones.   I especially like to watch them parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.   Frankly I don’t have much use for dead soldiers or captured ones.   I like winners. If you get captured or killed you’re just a loser.  Not good.  Not good for America.  Great soldiers are trained to avoid capture and getting shot.”

The president suggested the remains of the enshrined soldier should be exhumed and have his DNA analyzed.  “We have all this great technology now,” the president stated.  ” At least find out who this guy is.   We need a name.  I mean how stupid is it to guard something 24 hours a day that’s unknown.  Unknown!  Get some testing done and then we’ll see what happens.  Maybe he was a real hero.  If we find out he never got captured, then maybe we put on a real show for him.  With fireworks.  And a parade- down Pennsylvania Avenue!”

The president is confident the Unknown Soldier would send a grateful note of appreciation to the White House should he one day qualify for a Trump celebratory parade.

I don’t know about you but the public Cohen hearings were pretty much what I expected. There didn’t seem to be too many things revealed that we didn’t already know, or at least didn’t suspect the leader of the free world capable of doing in his past, marginally legal, exercises of freedom.  There was one glaring WTF moment for me though.   Who in the hell normally goes about strong-arming the administrators of educational institutions to  conceal personal academic records?  Who does that?

I have always wondered about Trump’s educational background.  He has asserted that he was a brilliant student who was admitted to the most prestigious schools and claims to always “have the best words.” That all seems discordant with mere observation.   His political rallies are excruciatingly painful for me to watch, always overflowing with disjointed dialog and blatant fabrication.  I can not imagine how anyone would be able to sit through that 2 hour CPAC speech he gave the other day.  For me exposure to a Trump speech, particularly an unscripted one, inconveniently reminds me of my childhood trip with my family to the Minneapolis Zoo, where we had the awkward experience of witnessing a large Kodiak bear perform a rather astonishingly acrobatic but nonetheless disturbing act of auto fellatio.  Realizing that image might be difficult to explain to his children or possibly traumatize us, my father quickly whisked us away and created distraction with  the promise of something much more interesting in the next enclosure.   That next enclosure for me nowadays is the next channel I hit with my TV remote whenever I am exposed to  a Trump political rally speech.

But now  I can’t help but wonder what his past teachers are thinking (although admittedly most are probably contemplating from a world of an unfathomable distance).   Do they feel remorse, like they might have had something to do with this mess?  Have some felt threatened, now that we know about the extreme measures the president will take to insure his SAT scores and grades are never revealed?  How insecure is this guy anyway?  When something that small bothers a man with power and money, you have to wonder what he is capable of doing in a true crisis.

From the short news clips of his time-tortured CPAC speech that I saw, it is obvious Trump is anticipating the worst, and is already setting up the next catchword that he will be gas lighting his followers with during future rallies. It is  a word he inserted into that contorted speech-  “bullshit.”  When the unflattering revelations start peeling away from the monumental number of upcoming investigations concerning him, that is the word the president will be expecting his adoring crowd to chant.  No doubt his die hard supporters will be more than happy to oblige.  Uncannily, for them there is never anything perplexing or embarrassing about a Trump political rally.  It is entertainment, a virtual one-man extreme circus, where the trapeze artist deliberately miscalculates, the fire-breather self immolates,  a large, omnivorous creature  auto-eroticizes, and the ringmaster orchestrates with clownish gestures and fantastical exhibitions of slight of hand.

Trump is probably a little desperate for a catchword, but I am not so sure” bullshit” isn’t a sound bite that won’t come back to bite him.  After all, look at what has become of the great dealmaker.  Where there was once a 25 billion dollar offer from congress for his border wall, he bewilderingly managed to negotiate the figure downward to somewhere between zero and 5 billion. The U.S. trade gap jumped to a 10 year high and the gap with China just broke the all time record.   Kim Jong Un teed up the president’s overture of love and gave it a swift kick in the balls.   To the president’s dismay the pipe dream of a Nobel Prize has vaporized.  Knowing his SAT score must have been so bad his college admittance likely hinged  on a generous parental donation to the university building fund, and now that there is nothing utilitarian about a chant of NO-BEL, NO-BEL, NO-BEL, might I offer this as a suggestion for a Trump catchword:  BOO-BY, BOO-BY, BOO-BY.

Perhaps a Prize Like This Might  Bolster the President’s Spirits

I can not deny I have become numb to the endless stream of grifting and corruption that  flows through the administration of our sitting president.  The blatant unscrupulousness of many of Trump’s cabinet members would have crushed the reputation of any previous president.  But Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta surrounds Trump with a particular odorous stench.  Once again here we go with the obvious questions of how long will Acosta hang on to his job and of course how does the man who says he only hires the best defend the appointment of someone who is guilty of unprofessional conduct in defending a pedophile?

I won’t waste time with sordid details.  Just google Jeffrey Epstein.  You’ll be exposed to articles like this.  Jeffery Epstein Explained 

Here’s a Trump quote from a 2002 article in New York Magazine:

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine for a 2002 profile of Epstein. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Trump, as well as Bill Clinton, associated with this creep.   The overriding question for me, once again,  is with all the baggage this president has why would he want to subject himself to the personal scrutiny that was bound to develop by running for president of the United States in the first place?  Here we are again with another head scratching example of that very history.  Is this another attempt to somehow cover up yet another scandal?   A normal president would have some explaining to do here.  But as we have seen, the Trump presidency is anything but normal.  What we can expect is more of the same- just another day at the Trump office.

In response to several media inquiries about the assessment and policy conflicts  he has had with various members of his intelligence community, President Trump stated emphatically that there was no place for intelligence in his administration.  “I have a huge, magnificent brain that knows lots of stuff.  My brain knows more about everything than anybody else’s brain.  I don’t want any kind of intelligence cluttering things up in there,” the president asserted.

During his address to the Evangelical Leaders Conference yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence reminded the attendees that it was St. Thomas Aquinas Day, and revealed that President Trump very much admires the saint. The vice president went on to say that it was obvious to him that    President Trump shares many of the holy man’s attributes.  “St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the most influential scholars of his time,” the vice president remarked.  “He spent most of his life  in constant reflection of prevailing thought and available documents to formulate his religious philosophy, much like the president does to fine tune his ideology.  I know for a fact President Trump spends hours studying his reflected image in any available flat object that is capable of reflection, and I have seen him drop everything so he can devote his full attention to any magazine cover that has his picture on it.”

Recalling the recent ingratiating comparison Vice President Pence made  on the eve of Martin Luther King Day between President Trump and the renowned civil rights leader, vice presidential aide Malcom Melvish suggested the nation might be in store for even more spectacular groveling and mystifying  puzzlement from the VP this upcoming President’s Day . VP Pence Compares Trump to MLK

During an interview yesterday Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said he did not understand why so many unpaid federal employees were failing to take advantage of their drained bank accounts.  “These people don’t seem to understand that just because they are not getting their checks in the mail doesn’t mean they don’t have any money,” Mr. Ross pointed out. “They should use their heads and confuse their mortgage holders and utility providers and so forth by telling them they have nothing to worry about because there are way better days ahead.  Why there was a  time or two when my own bank account dwindled to the seven figure mark  and I really had to apply myself and construct some complicated paperwork so I could get into someone else’s bank account.” The Unbridled Grifting of Wilbur Ross

  Secretary Ross – Could possibly help you make a little extra cash if you don’t mind skirting SEC regulations 

Also willing to pitch in with encouragement for the furloughed employees was Eric Trump’s wife Lara, who is the president’s campaign advisor. Commenting on Bold TV,  Mrs. Trump expressed  heartfelt detachment for those just scraping by, telling the viewing audience that the little bit of pain they were experiencing would be well worth it in the long run.  “Your small sacrifices are just what this country needs right now.  For the security and good of the nation it is your patriotic duty to see that our great president’s  campaign promise is fulfilled, no matter how dubiously useful or ill conceived.”  Mrs. Trump obligingly shook hands with the television crew and then quickly exited so she could meet Eric for lunch at Le Bernardin.

  Lara and Eric Trump- pictured here trying to decide which route offers the fastest ascent to the third floor of their humble home