Crisis actors

 Friede durch Kraft.  That's Trump's promise, translated from the original German.  "I make you this promise as your president and nobody else can say it:  I will restore peace through strength.  And yes, I am the only one that will prevent World War III -- because we are very close to World War III."  

A lot of responsibility for a 77-year-old whose solution to everything is to build a wall.  Who can't tell Sioux Falls from Sioux City.  Who thinks he has the support of Hannibal Lecter.  Who may not even be on the ballot in states that have the courage to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment.  Who -- but why go on?  He will "restore peace" by pressuring Ukraine to give Putin everything he wants and more, by abandoning Taiwan, by wrecking NATO and deporting Palestinians to probable death in Gaza.  And for domestic tranquility, he has plans to use the Insurrection Act against everyone who's annoying him now.  The only question is whether he'll invent a new name for the new, unrecognizable country, or stick with United States.  As he recently learned with unconcealed delight, US means us.  Nobody ever saw that before.

But Joe Biden is so old!  If he were on trial for over-valuing and de-valuing his properties to alternately borrow money and screw the tax man, he wouldn't even wander off topic to denounce the judge and complain of his persecution.  The closest he has come to praising a dictator was to give a state dinner to Narendra Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India.  If Trump knew who Modi is, he'd be thrilled with his treatment of the country's Muslim minority and asking for pointers.  (Don't tell the Speaker in Tongues but "Hindustan's" small Christian community isn't doing much better.)  But India is a huge market for American exports, military and otherwise, so let's focus our anger on China instead.

Trump's not about finding ways to relieve Americans of their burden of student loan debt.  In fact, he's going back into the fake university business with a free online "American Academy," to be financed by seizing the assets of real colleges like Harvard where ideas he doesn't like run rampant.  This one will be pure up-America fascism.  "Strictly non-political," he promises the next generation of marks, the children of Trump University graduates.  "No wokeness or jihadism allowed."  And no campus, so no campus protests.  (Hey, Governissimo DeSantis, wokeness is now jihadism!  Work that in before your campaign sputters and dies.)  Is there a Biden College?  No.  He's too old for dynamic thinking like this.

Speaking of dementia, I remember reading that after Alzheimer's set in, Fred Trump would often come to breakfast wearing three neckties and no pants.  I don't know what made me think of that.

It was a matter of time but I was surprised that Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) was the first to notice that all those dead and injured Palestinians lying around on stretchers are crisis actors, just like the kids blown to pieces at Sandy Hook and many other places.  It's so obvious if you know the looking-glass world of the Trump cult.  Antony Blinken had no success in persuading Netanyahu to call a time-out in the slaughter, so I assume they'll be hiring more actors.  Maybe not -- all Arabs look alike.  

They're very fit for people supposedly lacking water and food.  Could your kids run like that?

When Hitler was bothered by the right wing of his party, he ordered what history calls the Night of the Long Knives, killing Ernst Rohm and other leaders of the Storm Troopers.  Look here!  Vladimir Putin is having trouble with his right wing.  We don't know how many have been defenestrated, but former FSB agent Igor Girkin a/k/a Strelkov has been arrested for "inciting extremism."  He and other patriots think Putin isn't hitting Ukraine hard enough.  Girkin was in charge of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and probably the shoot-down of Malaysian Air Flight 17, so he should have known better than to call the boss a "cowardly mediocrity."  Jeez, everybody thinks they can genocide better. 

Marianne Williamson is still running for president, if you wondered.  She'd better watch her back because here comes Paperboy Love Prince, who has filed for the New Hampshire primary.  The self-described rapper, artist and non-binary activist says, "I'm fighting for centering this country around love, putting it first, being anti-war and pro-love, and creating love centers around the country."  They say they hail from "the African side of the moon."  (We have to use "they" for the non-binary, and the latent English teacher inside me just shuddered.)  We can always use more love.

This is their chief rival, Vermin Supreme, who promises every American a pony.  He's not everything I'd want in a president but he's the closest we have to Screaming Lord Sutch.  And all these people make more sense than obsessing over polls a year out.  Everybody calm down.