On Wednesday, Donald Trump broke a record by becoming the only elected POTUS to be impeached in his first term. On the 2016 campaign trail Trump, boasted, “I alone can fix things.” He alone certainly fixed his way to impeachment. (With help from Rudy Giuliani.)
An argument could be made for the House not sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, but instead, continue investigations with the Articles being a Sword of Damocles over Trump. After all, Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell and his GOP caucus have already made up their minds before seeing the evidence. Hell, at this Senate's trial there might not be any evidence.
In fact, “Moscow Mitch” shamelessly says he's in lock step with the president's lawyers. He boasts he won't be impartial, despite the oath to do just that all senators take before the trial begins. Frankly, the GOP Senate should either convict Trump or coronate him.
As for the title of this week's column, given I'm Jewish, I could have gone with, “All I want for Hanukkah,” but admittedly it doesn't have the same ring. From a PR standpoint, Hanukkah has never been able to compete with Christmas.
Christmas has the tree, Santa and Mrs. Claus, the elves, the reindeer, Santa coming down the chimney and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Hanukkah has spinning a Dreidel. (The excitement of which isn't good for my blood pressure.) After my offending my fellow Jews, my friend, Ron, theorized “Hanukkah isn't pagan enough.” (So now I've offended Christians.)
But back to what do I want for Christmas? After three years of agony caused by the newly impeached POTUS, I'd settle for truth and empathy. (Given Trump's personality, I might as well go spin a Dreidel.)
St. Augustine once postulated, “A lie disturbs the universe.” So it's no wonder what 15,000 lies have done to our psyches. During Trump's racist birther campaign he said, “Obama might pull off the greatest con in the history of the country.” Trump actually sounded jealous. Just recently he complained about foreign governments taking advantage of our corporations, “If anyone's going to do that, it should be us.”
Another Trump birther whopper was, “I sent private detectives to Hawaii and what they've found is amazing!” Why didn't he share any of that? Or proof he was being audited by the IRS? Obviously, because both were flat out lies.
Frankly, Trump's so cheap he's not going to pay for detectives, unless, of course, he steals it from a charity. Speaking of which, he was fined $2 million and had his Trump Charitable Foundation dissolved, plus his adult children were ordered into mandatory training. So, instead of going to jail, they have to go to class?
Trump's prevalent prevarication (say that fast three times) is reminiscent of the Big Lie Theory, made infamous by Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. He theorized if a lie is repeated over and over, people will eventually accept it as truth. Hitler had Goebbels, Trump has Giuliani.
That brings me to empathy. Recently teenage Swedish climate crisis activist, Greta Thunberg, who has Asperger's Syndrome, was featured as Time Magazine's “Person of the Year.” Clearly jealous, 73-year-old Trump viciously attacked 16-year-old Greta on Twitter, telling her to “Work on your anger management.”
Trump, with the worst temper in modern POTUS history, and who has Twitter tantrums daily, telling anyone else to work on their anger management is laughable. (Can you say “projection?”)
Ironically, Melania's “Be Best” campaign to stop cyber bullying is also laughable given she's married to the biggest cyber bully on the planet. And yet, Melania's spokesperson says, because she's an activist, Greta “is fair game.” (That's just grotesque.)
As they say in infomercials, “But wait, there's more.” The evening of Trump's House impeachment he had a campaign rally in Michigan. During his 2-hour rambling “hate-fest” he mocked Congresswoman Debbie Dingle who had voted for his impeachment.
Compared to Corporal Bone Spurts, Dingle's beloved late husband, John, was a WWII vet, the longest serving Congressman in history and widely respected by both sides of the aisle. Trump said he gave Dingle “the A+ treatment,” referring to lowering the flags and Dingle's coffin being viewed in the Capitol Rotunda. (Another lie because it's the Speaker of the House who make the Rotunda decision.)
And then, appalling even for Trump, he joked cruelly that, instead of Dingle looking down, “Maybe he's looking up at us,” suggesting that he's in Hell. Thankfully, some in the MAGA crowd groaned but others cheered and laughed.
As Christmas approaches in this holy season, consider that Trump, a man of little character, trolled a 16-year-old girl with Asperberg's and a widow grieving the loss of her husband of 38 years. Given that, to find out what I now want for Christmas, feel free to email me.
Please Google: “Trump implies dead Congressman is in hell, upsetting widow.” Jack is at jackdailypress@aol.com.
