Happy Ash Wednesday

Courtesy of T.S. Eliot.

Goodbye 2018. It's time to start seriously thinking about Donald Trump's replacement.

On this last day of Trump Year 2, Senator Elizabeth Warren is in the news for formally announcing the formation of her presidential exploratory committee. She won't be the last challenger throwing her (or his) hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination. Earlier this week, the Times ran an article focusing on four U.S. Senators who are likely early candidates: Massachusetts' Warren, New Jersey's Cory Booker, California's Kamala Harris, and New York's Kirsten Gillibrand.

That led me to post this early Twitter poll:

POLL: Which one of these probable presidential candidates mentioned in the @NYTimes do you prefer at this very early point in the 2020 campaign?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) December 29, 2018

With a new Democratic House of Representatives and the beginning of the 2020 presidential campaign, I hope 2019 gives all of us much more hopeful news about Democrats and much less news about you know who.

Little Known Fact: White Nationalists refer to themselves as "Whiners"

There are too many syllables and letters in "White Nationalism" for most white nationalists to keep track of, so within their pale brotherhood they are fond of calling themselves "Whiners" to identify themselves to fellow white nationalists.



When America's most famous and "Most Fabulous Whiner" was asked by PBS NewsHour White House reporter Yamiche Alcindor today about white nationalism, he interrupted her and "whined" about her "racist" question (even though he never let her complete it).



Attacking an esteemed African-American reporter as a racist was, of course, an open message to his fellow "Whiners" that he was still on their side and working in their interest.

This led me to post another True Blue Liberal Poll on Twitter earlier this afternoon. What percentage of Donald Trump's base is made up of "Whiners"?

If the White Nationalists were removed from @realDonaldTrump's base of supporters, what would his overall approval rate be?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) November 7, 2018

Joni Mitchell is 75 today.

Who is the greatest English-language songwriter of the 20th century?
Discuss among yourselves.



"Sitting in a park in Paris, France 
Reading the news and it sure looks bad 
They won't give peace a chance 
That was just a dream some of us had"


I can't express how much I love Joni's words and music and voice.
I hope she's having the happiest of birthdays today.

R.I.P. Marty Balin, January 30, 1942 – September 27, 2018

Paul Kantner and Marty Balin both gone now. I can't imagine how Grace Slick feels tonight.



I remember in Grace's autobiography that she wrote about sleeping with every member of the band except for Marty, but she made love to him every night on stage. That's so obvious in some of these duets. The Slick/Kantner mix has one kind of magic, but the Slick/Balin blend of voices was the early Airplane sound.

Our Empathetic POTUS: Who Says that Donald Trump Can't Feel the Pain of Others?

Many people say that Donald J. Trump is incapable of empathizing with anyone other than Donald J. Trump, but there is one exception, men who are accused of sexual assault or harassment. The case of Brett Kavanaugh is not the first case where he seems capable of truly feeling an accused man's pain.

The Finest White Whine: The Mission Statement of Donald J. Trump

"I am the most fabulous whiner. I do whine because I want to win, and I'm not happy about not winning, and I am a whiner, and I'm a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win." -- Donald J. Trump on CNN, August 11, 2015 

And just in case you think that this quote is just "Fake News" from CNN, there is video of this ultimate #FineWhiteWhine from the current resident of the White House:



This video also shows how the supremely-unqualified Trump was coddled and given free airtime by CNN and the rest of the news-hungry media in the summer of 2015.

A True Blue Liberal Poll Concerning Credibility

With Bob Woodward's upcoming book, Fear: Trump in the White House, getting the current president's knickers in a twist to the point where he's attacking Woodward's credibility on Twitter, it seemed like a good time for another poll.

POLL:
Which man has established more credibility over the course of his long career, renowned #TrumpUniversity founder and prolific Twitterer @realDonaldTrump or ex-@WashingtonPost reporter and presidential biographer @realBobWoodward?
(Consider retweeting for a larger sample.)

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) September 5, 2018

This time the results should be obvious and overwhelmingly lopsided (at least until the poll is discovered by Russian bots).

Is attacking Carl Bernstein last week and Bob Woodward this week really the best strategy you have?

Attacking these serious journalists didn't work for Richard Nixon during the first #Watergate scandal; it probably won't be a successful #StupidWatergate defense strategy either,

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) September 4, 2018

How to keep your Trump Anxiety Disorder from becoming Trump Derangement Syndrome

Not only is Trump Anxiety Disorder (TAD) an actual diagnosis from actual therapists, but it's hard to trust anyone who isn't suffering from it; if you don't have at least a touch of TAD, you're not paying attention. Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) may be more of a pejorative diagnosis from Donald Trump's supporters at Fox News and Donald Trump himself, but it's also a real danger. While recognizing the real danger of Trump and Trumpism to the nation and the world, we shouldn't let it dominate our lives. A serious case of TDS would make it hard to appreciate all the non-Trump areas of our world; I can imagine a TDS sufferer getting so bad that doctors would prescribe a radical treatment of pulling all the electronic links and asking him or her to take a retreat to a world of nature hikes and vinyl records and books that were printed before 2016. During Vietnam and Watergate, I was very politically active, going to marches and writing letters to the editor -- maybe a little obsessed at times -- but there was no 24-hour news on television (there was no 24-hour television, period), so I got a natural break from Nixon to read books or listen to records or play guitar. There was literally no news available between the time the TV networks played the national anthem and signed off at midnight until the local newspaper arrived on your doorstep the next morning.

I was recently laid off. For the first time in forty years, I don't have a workplace to go to every day. I was worried about the temptation of daytime cable news and its ability to turn my TAD into a case of incurable TDS (I've seen those people on Twitter who tweet fanatically about every "Morning Joe" guest), so I've taken a few steps. I've lived completely without television for years before, but I didn't take that drastic step this time. I was able (after too much time on the phone with Time Warner Spectrum) to reduce the number of available channels to the lowest number, basically the New York over-the-air channels (if I lived in a place where I could get TV over the air) and C-Span and some shopping channels. No Netflix. No Amazon. No Hulu. No HBO. No ESPN(s). No Fox News (not that I watched anyway). No MSNBC (sorry, Rachel). No CNN. No panels of  "experts" trying to attract eyeballs 24/7/365 with manufactured political conflict. No Corey Lewandowski or Alan Dershowitz or Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway popping up unexpectedly on my television to cause an outbreak of TDS inflammation. It's not as good as the days when there were only three stations, but I have it close to the point where there's never anything on worth watching. Like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I want to get to the point where I'm only tempted to watch PBS NewsHour and nothing else.

In addition to the steps I've taken with my TV, I'm also trying to cut down my time on Twitter, where  reactions to insane @realDonaldTrump tweets seem to hijack all conversations. I don't follow his account, but somehow I never miss a tweet of his as everyone on the left spreads his words. If you are following him on any social media platform, please stop; he assumes all followers (even the obviously fake accounts from Saint Petersburg troll farms) are supporters. You'll hear what he has to say anyway; you can't avoid it.

All that being said about steps to avoid TDS, let's not forget who made up the term. In an article in Salon by Chauncey DeVega two weeks before the inauguration, "You have been warned: 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' will be a cudgel used to silence his critics," the danger was explained succinctly:

The right-wing propagandists who will deploy "Trump Derangement Syndrome" against their enemies have one ultimate goal: to normalize the danger to American democracy represented by Trump and his supporters.

But still, I worry:

Is it an early warning sign of Trump Derangement Syndrome if you see the hashtag "#PumpkinSpice" trending and immediately get an image of the pumpkin-headed @realDonaldTrump as the sixth Spice Girl?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) August 28, 2018

POLL: Which "Witch Hunt" Will Ultimately Nab the Witch?

While Robert Mueller continues to compile Trump-Russia evidence in secret, there were public advances this week in both the Trump sex-scandal coverup and emoluments cases. In addition to proving that Donald Trump was lying (which is never news), the Michael Cohen tape aired on CNN on Tuesday night could be important evidence in proving campaign finance violations in the Playboy Model / National Enquirer case (and today we find out the feds have more than a hundred other tapes related to Trump and Cohen). In emoluments and corruption news, there was an important advance yesterday when a federal judge interpreted the anticorruption clauses of the Constitution in a way that will allow the case against Trump's conflicts of interest to proceed.

Which leads to the True Blue Liberal Poll of the Week asking the infallible collective intelligence of Twitter which "Witch Hunt" will be the one most likely to snare the leader of the coven?

POLL:
Which "Witch Hunt" is most likely to catch the lead witch @realDonaldTrump? The #TrumpRussia witch hunt, the sex scandal witch hunt(s), the #Emoluments witch hunt, or some other #WitchHunt?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) July 26, 2018