Goodbye Dolly

     Everyone had a reasonable expectation that she would live forever.

     But country music icon Dolly Parton passed away today at the age of 80. 

     Dolly was just about the perfect celebrity. With her effortless charm and wit, she'd captivated audiences for seven decades and never made an enemy. And she succeeded in everything she attempted. She sold countless tens of millions of records, was a movie star, a successful businesswoman, bestselling author (she wrote a thriller with James Patterson) and remained happily married to the same man for nearly six decades. She wrote hundreds of songs that resonated with millions. "Jolene". "Coat of Many Colors". The discography goes on and on.

     She once dashed off a song and sang it on the Tonight Show, giving Johnny Carson credit for launching her career into the stratosphere.

     She famously refused to get into politics or even to express her political opinions. But in a rare example of making her feelings known, when the Tennessee legislature was hashing out a bill that would've banned drag shows, she publicly supported drag performers and the LGBTQ community in general.

     Dolly never wore her political stripes on her sequined and rhinestoned sleeves. But when Donald Trump tried to give her the Presidential Medal of Freedom not once but twice, she refused both times. Still, even though he famously holds grudges and never forgets a slight, Trump had ordered that all flags be flown at half mast for a week in Dolly's honor.

     But out of all of Dolly's many accomplishments, including the 10 Grammies and the Dollywood theme park, the thing she did that I admire the most was her Imagination Library donating over 300,000,000 books to needy children. That alone makes Dolly Parton perhaps the one human being who'd done more for child literacy than anyone else.

     Dolly achieved the nearly impossible- she straddled the Great Ideological Divide and united people across the entire political spectrum. With a seemingly effortless grace and good cheer, she made fans of even people who didn't listen to country and western.

     For the next few hours, or maybe even a day, we will all be united in mourning Dolly Parton.

Yes, We're Harping on This Again

 

     Perhaps it's no coincidence that the closer we get to the midterms, which are about 80 days away, the more revelations we're hearing about "President" Trump. It makes perfect sense. Take down Trump, lower his approval ratings, you take down the GOP and ensure that they lose both chambers of Congress. It's tempting to speculate who in the government is talking and why but I'll leave such speculation to others.

     Natalie Harp, the "human printer" that follows Trump's shambling, bloated body like Pig Pen's dust cloud, is getting a lot of attention lately. Lately, she's been given a new nickname as Trump's "binkie", like a human security blanket. She has no analogue in presidential history. And her role as "special assistant to the president" will be renamed by less sympathetic future generations as "special cultist".

     Because that's truly the only honest way to describe Harp's slavish devotion to an infamous misogynist and narcissistic psychopath like Donald Trump. Even during the happiest time in their marriage, assuming happiness was ever actually a component of it, even Melania never showed more than a small fraction of the loyalty and devotion that Harp daily showers on Trump.

     We've heard the stories for months now. The love letters, the ceaseless glowing shit written about Trump from random right wing asshats that she prints up for Trump on a portable printer since he can't go for more than a couple of hours without someone complimenting him. We'd heard how she'd literally lived in the women's locker room at Bedminster years ago when she was denied a room so she could remain near Trump.

     Less than two weeks ago, we learned that when Trump slipped off Air Force One in Ankara on July 8, he'd left behind at least two Cabinet officials and Stephen Miller after receiving a so-called credible threat of an Iranian strike but took Natalie Harp with him.

     Is there some hanky-panky going on between them? Again, I'll leave that type of speculation to others, partly because the thought of Harp or any woman having sex with Trump revives images of Jabba the Hutt licking Princess Leia.

     The newest story that came out just this evening is guaranteed to exacerbate Trump's already toxic attitude toward CNN's Kristen Holmes. It's a revelation that makes Harp look even more comically pathetic than she already had. According to Holmes, When Trump was about to go to a courthouse in Manhattan, Harp was told there was no room for her in the SUV. A screaming match then ensued in the lobby of Trump Tower and eventually, she dove into the cargo hold of the SUV.

     Holmes said she'd seen a picture that someone had taken of Harp in the wayback of the SUV (although she pointedly didn't share that with us nor provide any corroborating proof that this incident even occurred, thereby immediately dooming it to the level of mere speculation). Yet today's revelation is perfectly consistent with a young woman who plainly gargles Trump's Koolaid and is willing to debase herself, someone who has no pride or shame in her dubious service to Trump.

     Say what you want about Melania, say that she's every bit the elitist sociopath that her husband is (and you'd be right) but you have to admit that Melania at least has her pride and that she'd never hurtle herself into the trunk of an SUV so she could be near Trump. In fact, out of Trump's countless appearances in Manhattan courts, Melania never showed up for a single one of them.

     But at the very least these revelations show how willing and eager Trump is to surround himself with mentally and emotionally deranged individuals like Natalie Harp. It shows how desperately Harp needs to be near Trump and how desperately Trump needs to be near a constant source of adulation.

     It's well-known by now that Trump hates female journalists, even the right wing ones. He proved that just yesterday during an Oval Office meeting that should've been a feel-good ceremony for 16 year-old lifeguard hero Ryder Williams, who saved a 10 year-old boy's life in California last month (Tellingly, Trump told the child, “I don’t know if I’d do it. I wouldn’t, probably. You’re lucky I wasn’t on the service that day.”). Because we all know that Trump is a craven, self-interested sociopath who would've serenely watched that little boy drown rather than get his swollen feet wet.

      But he also, typically, ruined what should've been a positive once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a young hero by tearing into Kristen Holmes, calling her "loud and boisterous". The White House then piled on later that day online by dragging Holmes' children into the melee.

     Natalie Harp to Trump represents the exact opposite of a female journalist, someone who approaches Trump with nothing short of unquestioning subservience and reverence. This is the only woman that Trump finds useful. Plus, the fact that she's sort of young, blonde and attractive doesn't hurt, either.

     But as the revelations about Harp pile up and become a distraction from the midterms, don't be surprised if Trump jettisons his human printer and moves her laterally out of sight like he did to Kristi Noem.

Taco Truck Trump

     On October 14, 1912, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a tavern owner named John Schrank shot former President Teddy Roosevelt. The kinetic force of the bullet was greatly blunted by Roosevelt's steel eyeglass case and the copy of the 50 page speech he was about to deliver. Even after that, Roosevelt refused medical care and remained standing in the car he was in and delivered the entire speech, anyway.

     Roosevelt came from a completely different generation, one in which, as the saying goes, "men were men and the women were damned glad for it." So perhaps it's a little unfair to compare the 26th president to the wet-legged cowards we see in our government today. Still, the contrast between the generations is jarring.

      The NY Times recently reported that Trump and the Secret Service engaged in some subterfuge in Ankara, Turkey last July 8th. The government had received a "credible threat" that Iran was planning on firing a missile at the old Air Force One. Since none of us received that threat assessment, we have no choice but to take it at face value.

     As we all know, protecting the president is the Secret Service's top priority. Using decoys is not exactly uncommon in that agency. My Social Studies teacher, Mr. Lemkin, once informed us that Nixon was so hated that when he took off on Marine One, the Secret Service sent out several helicopters so that potential bad actors never knew which one Nixon was on.

     So, in that respect, the NY Times article was something like a nothing burger.

     What is notable, however was the manner in which the Ankara subterfuge took place. Here's how it went down:

     Trump actually boarded Air Force One in full view of the press as the presidential press corps was still standing on the tarmac. On the other side of Air Force One was a little-noticed catering truck in which the box containing food supplies was lifted. What no one knew at the times, including the occupants of Air Force One and even the press was that Trump was in that box as it was lowered to the ground.

     Trump was then ferried to another jet, a smaller C-32A, while he left his top officials on the plane that was allegedly targeted by the Iranians. That included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Stephen Miller and his Communications Director Steven Cheung. It also included the press corps that follow the president wherever he goes.

     Here's who he'd taken: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, body man Walt Nauta, his former caddy Dan Scavino and Natalie Harp, aka the human printer.

     The press was then ordered by the Secret Service to lower their window shades during the transfer. 

     Trump then flew to England on the C-32A then returned to Joint Base Andrews on the original Air Force One as if he'd been on it the whole time. It could have been choreographed by David Copperfield.

     The strange choice in flying companions notwithstanding, the first question that should enter our minds is why were the nation's two top nuclear policy-makers on the same plane not once but twice on the same day? A day, again, in which Air Force One had been credibly threatened?

     The optics are horrible, to say the least. Trump had abandoned two Cabinet Secretaries plus the traveling press pool knowing Air Force One was targeted by a nation with whom we're (needlessly) at war. Furthermore, he escaped on a catering truck as if he was an aluminum half pan. One can easily imagine Trump screaming, "Save me, you assholes, save me!" as his eyes wildly darted all over the food box.

     It brings to mind Trump seeking refuge in the White House bunker as peaceful George Floyd protesters gathered in Washington in the summer of 2020. But, while he saw to his own safety, Trump abandoned to the Iranians' mercies some of his most trusted officials and advisors. They were called "sacrificial lambs" by the Times, a not unfair assessment. 

    Compare that to Teddy Roosevelt calling for mercy for John Schrank, who otherwise almost surely would've been lynched (His predecessor, President William McKinley, also called for mercy for his assassin, saying, "Take it easy on him, boys."). Trump abandoned his top aides and the press pool, sneaking off Air Force One like a thief in the night.

     It's part and parcel to Trump's cowardice and lifelong sociopathy.

Watergate 2.0

 

     David Hearn is vindicated. Sort of.

     In the latest in an endless string of fuck ups and clusterfucks in DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's office, the neolithically incompetent Pirro was forced to enter a motion tho dismiss in the case of former Olympian, David Hearn. Hearn, you might remember, is the man who'd simply reached into the Reflecting Pool and pulled up a large chunk of the pool lining that had already become detached from the bottom. He'd even videotaped himself doing so. His hand reached only an inch or two into the water and his only crime was in exposing the Trump administration's incompetence.

     The government's response was an Orwellian nightmare. The elderly former Olympian was immediately placed in handcuffs and charged. And Hearn wasn't the only person arrested just for visiting a monument that, until Trump got his grubby paws on it, used to be publicly accessible.

     And Trump should've known better than to let Pirro take point. Since taking over the US Attorney's office in DC, Pirro has lost virtually every case that was handed to her (She literally couldn't indict a ham sandwich).

     Pirro's excuse for dropping the charges was based on a fallacy- She claimed the Interior Department fed her false information, which is true, but the Department of Justice still has a duty to do its due diligence and investigate a matter before deciding to go for an indictment and trial. As former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner pointed out in the video above, it's a classic case of "ready, fire, aim".

     Then, when news started filtering out that Trump was enraged over the DOJ dropping the charges against Hearn, Pirro then tried to shift the blame yet again and claim that she didn't drop the charges but was done by one of her underlings without her knowledge. As Kirschner also notes in his podcast, there was no way that Pirro couldn't have known about the charges being dropped and that she would've had to personally sign off on that.

     But, once again, as if Trump already hadn't, Pirro serves as an object lesson as to what inevitably happens when you put Fox talking heads and TV personalities into powerful government positions. Remember what the Turks once said about clowns and palaces.

     And it's obvious to anyone why the Lincoln Reflecting Pool got so fucked up. While they were still painting it, the infamously micromanaging Trump literally took his motorcade and drove over the lining while it was still setting, which alone could've caused the damage. Then, when algae bloom became obvious a few days later, the Interior Department, without consulting with experts, poured gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the water, which degrades exactly the type of sealant they'd used.

     Chemistry did what chemistry does and large chunks of sealant began floating to the surface like mob hits. Then the Trump junta restricted or prevented access and before anyone knew it, the Thought Police began rounding up people left and right because God forbid Dear Leader should be embarrassed and revealed as wearing no clothes.

      And all this dystopian douchebaggery is coming about because of one petulant asshole who can't stand the very idea of being proven wrong about anything.