By Bob Gaydos

    It was about 3 in the afternoon Tuesday when I saw the New York Times update on the looming deadline Trump had set for the annihilation of Iran. Pakistan (Pakistan?) was acting as a mediator in peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.

   Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said meaningful progress had been made in negotiations between the two parties and had asked Trump to extend his deadline for the annihilation of Iran by two weeks. In that time, Iran would also agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

    I actually felt my body relax. After 10 years of living with and writing about Trumpian insanity, I knew Trump finally had his offramp. All he had to do was ignore the bloodthirsty Pete Hegseth and accept it. Which, of course, he did.

    Like much of the rest of the world, I have grown accustomed to Trump plunging the country headlong into one crisis or another through pride, arrogance or sheer stupidity, or usually all three, but this one worried me a bit more than the rest. Thinking about a world war starting in the Middle East with nuclear weapons possibly involved can do that.

    With the relief, almost immediately came the question, “Why Pakistan?” How did they get involved? OK, neutral party with no dog in the fight. Still …?

    Then I remembered who we were dealing with. Trump. What’s the deal here? What does Pakistan get out of doing something all of Europe and, indeed, the rest of the world refused to do – try to save Trump from starting a world war?

     I did a quick Google check on Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. I learned “Islamabad is a planned city built in the 1960s to replace Karachi. It officially became the capital on August 14, 1967. It is known as a green, modern city nestled in the foothills of the Margalla Hills.”

    Sounds lovely and probably an ideal location for a Mar a Lago East or some other variation on a Trump golf course. Maybe with a hotel attached. Maybe Pakistan agrees to rename them the Mara a Lago Hills. Certainly a golf course somewhere in Pakistan, but not close to the border with India because, you know, border wars.

      I haven’t seen anything on who was negotiating peace terms for the U.S., but if Jarod or the Trump boys were involved, history says you can bet on it. In fact, as I recently wrote, you literally can, on the Prediction markets. Some people probably did.

     Meanwhile, back in reality, I have yet to see any evidence that a single Republican member of Congress urged Trump to call off his threat or questioned his mental stability. Quiet, meek and out of town. Considering all the generals Hegseth recently fired, I have to think there was some resistance to Trump’s plans for Iran.

      And for now, or theoretically two weeks, in which U.S. troops don’t have to worry about orders from the commander-in-chief to blow up power supplies, bridges and anything else that allows the ordinary citizens of Iran to go about their daily life. To commit war crimes, in other words.

    Instead, according to what I read in the papers, there’s a proposed plan in place for Iran to have all sanctions on it lifted, reparations paid for the damage done to it by American missiles, and the Strait of Hormuz reopened for oil traffic for those willing and able to pay a fee to Iran. It’s also supposed to not develop nuclear weapons, which it already had agreed to not do when Barack Obama was president.

  The U.S. apparently gets to not send young Americans to die in a trumped up war because the president wants people to stop talking about him raping young girls. The art of the deal.

    And yes, let us never forget, the Republican Party owns this entire mess lock, stock and barrel for continuing to allow Trump to take an ax to everything America once proudly stood for.

     If they can somehow find the guts, they can rescue the country from this insanity by invoking the 25th amendment and removing him from office. No deals. It’s their only offramp now.

By Bob Gaydos

Crowds did not flock to Donald Trump’s birthday parade in Washington DC on June 14.

  When the “leader“ of the free world is a racist buffoon and you’ve been pretty much calling him that for about 10 years, it can sometimes be challenging to know where to go for the daily report. Same old, same old, you know? Anyway, for me, when in doubt, go to Jimmy Cannon.

   So …

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I don’t want to go to war with Iran because BiBi Netanyahu wants to outdo Trump in the strongman competition. Especially since Trump voided the deal with Iran that prohibited it from developing weapons grade uranium for nuclear weapons. Also, Trump needs to be reminded that only Congress can declare war so he needs to calm down about evacuating Tehran and dreaming of bunker-busting bombs.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: How do they let him out in public without a leash? In Canada for the G7 Meeting, Trump said they should never have kicked Russia out, that it was all Trudeau’s fault. Russia was kicked out in 2014 for seizing Crimea from Ukraine. Trudeau became Canadian prime minister in 2015, but why bother with details? Also, Trump got his alphabet all mixed up, thinking that the UK was part of the EU. Then he gave a speech that rambled on into immigration and other topics not on the G7 agenda until cut off by the host and, having a short attention span, left the conference after one day, saying he was looking for some kind of surrender from Iran or a peace agreement or a cease-fire or something. Plus Zelensky was showing up the next day. Embarrassing.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: when an elected state official and her husband are shot and killed in their home and another elected official and his wife, in the same state and of the same political party, are shot and seriously wounded and the gunman has a hit list of political targets, all of the same political party (Democrats), when the president, a member of the other political party, is asked whether he plans to call the governor of that state (Minnesota), you know, to maybe express sympathy, promise aggressive legal action and decry politically motivated violence of any kind against any party, even though the governor actually ran as the vice presidential candidate on the ticket opposing said president, I do not expect the president to say he “may” call the governor (Tim Walz), then add, “but he’s a terrible governor.” I really do not expect that, but then, see “racist buffoon” reference above.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m old school enough to think that when a United States senator (Alex Padilla) is roughed up by federal agents, thrown to the ground and handcuffed just because he tried to ask a question of a cabinet official at a public meeting, the president, when asked about it, expresses concern and maybe even dismay and promises to look into the incident immediately. I don’t expect said president to say, “He’s new. He looks illegal.”

— Maybe it’s just me, but: How about that parade, huh? Creaky old tanks, no dress uniforms, antiwar protest songs, commercial sponsors, nobody watching except for a few people paid to be there and soldiers marching clearly out of step. Do you know how hard it is, when you are drilled from day one in the army to march uniformly in step (Hut, two, three, four! Your left, boom, your left, boom.) to purposely “march” out of step? Yet the troops chosen for the Trump birthday parade on Flag Day managed to do just that. They should get a medal. If he hadn’t nodded off he might’ve noticed. Of course he did find time to sign some souvenir flags, breaking protocol and the law in the process because he has to put his brand on everything. Pete Hegseth looked like he was dying for a drink. Marco Rubio just looked like he was dying. Ivanka didn’t bother to show up for daddy‘s birthday. The rest of America, millions of people, held their own parties in towns, villages and cities to let him know what they thought of him and his crew. Not much.

— Maybe it’s just me, but: When the news is all-Trump all the time, there’s a real temptation to ignore professional training and just go ahead and bury the lead. 

By Bob Gaydos

I have been in a funk since Nov. 9. That’s the day I woke up with the realization that millions of Americans had lost their minds, if not their souls, and elected a man who is morally, psychologically, intellectually and spiritually unfit to be their president. The dumbest thing that has happened in my lifetime.

I stopped writing.

Finally, in desperation for inspiration, I turned to sports and that great philosopher, Reggie Miller (older Knicks fans can boo now.) For younger fans of the National Basketball Association, think Steph Curry. Shooters. Scorers. What do great shooters do when they are in a shooting funk, when everything seems to clang off the back rim or fall inches short of the basket? They keep shooting. They don’t pass the ball to someone else. They shoot themselves out of the funk.

Swish!

Now, I am not saying I am in the same class as a writer as Reggie and Steph are as shooters, but I have been writing for a long time and I think I have some skills so I figured the instincts would kick in once I started.

So instead of writing, I started reading. Tom Wolfe. Purely happenstance. I picked up some used books at the library because my son, Max, was looking for reading material. Short stories. He wasn’t interested in Wolfe’s “Hooking Up” and I had never read it, but had really enjoyed his “Bonfire of the Vanities.” So I ventured in. I quickly remembered why I liked him.

Then happenstance melded into serendipity. My partner and I watched “The Right Stuff,” the movie based on Wolfe’s book. Enjoyed it. There’s more. The last essay in “Hooking Up” detailed Wolfe’s assignment, with Jimmy Breslin, as the first writers/reporters for the Herald Tribune’s Sunday magazine, New York.

My favorite newspaper as a teenager and my favorite magazine. I grew up reading Breslin and, as it turns out, Wolfe. After a brief, there’s-no-way-in-the-world-I-want-to-do-this-the-rest-of-my-life flirtation with engineering, I started writing. In more than 50 years, I have only stopped for brief intervals. Going with the universal flow, I went back to the library and picked up a couple more used Wolfe books, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and “A Man in Full.”

By the way, this is by way of answering those sympathetic friends who have asked me what I’ve been doing since The Dumb Event. For one thing, I’m trying to do things that make me feel better, things I can control.

… But let me digress.

To all those who pooh-pooh the Russian election connection, who doubt the Kremlin hacked into Democrats’ e-mails and released them in an organized effort to elect You Know Who and who further doubt that Vladimir Putin had anything to do with it, I turn again to sports and the biggest story that got lost in the election — Russia’s decades-long government-sponsored program to cover up the use of performance-enhancing drugs by virtually all its Olympic athletes.

A report recently released by a Canadian lawyer, Richard H. McClaren, who works for the World Anti-Doping Agency, confirmed it all. McClaren and his team made short shrift of Russian denials. Medals were repossessed. Athletes were banned. A Russian official involved in the program said the direction came from the top. In Russia, there is only one top. This is the Russian way, or at least the Putin way. Of course he knew about the steroids. Of course he knew about the hacking. No Russian would dare do either without his approval. Not if he didn’t want to wind up with poison in his vodka.

… So where was I? Right, reading.

I’m learning much more about Ken Kesey and the acid/pot/speed hippie freaks of the ‘60s than I ever intended to. The meaning of life on LSD.  It’s a good read. I found it especially interesting how Kesey came to write “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Nothing like first-hand experience. I just started the book, so there will likely be more on this later.

What else? I started looking for local issues I might be able to help out with since I believe change starts close to home. I’ve also recommitted to my off-and-on interest in photography. Living in an especially scenic area of the Hudson Valley, it works well with my inclination to report on what’s going on around me. On my travels the other day, a farmer walked his cow across the road right in front of me, casual as could be. Nonchalantly, I missed the shot. But I know where he lives. Gotta keep shooting.

… Speaking of nukes, Putin recently said he wanted to beef up Russia’s nuclear weapons capability. Our soon-to-be Twitter-in-chief knee-jerkedly responded that he planned to do the same with the United States’ nuclear armaments and that no one would be able to keep up with the U.S. in a nuclear arms race. Be still my patriotic, tax-paying heart. Robert Reich, a voice of sanity on social media, reported the above and asked, “What do you think?”

Robert, I think Putin is playing his puppet for the fool he knows him to be. I think all the Republican officials who applaud every time their “king” says something insane are shameless toadies. I think Putin is setting Orange Hair up to act like a big hero at a summit conference in which Russia and the U.S. decide to stop the war of nuclear words and de-escalate, rather than escalate, the nuclear arms race. In exchange, of course, for U.S. concessions. Drop those sanctions for grabbing Crimea. Hold back support for NATO countries that don’t pull their own weight. Let Russia handle things in Syria. Buy some Russian goods (whatever that might be). Don’t retaliate for Russia’s hacking. Stop criticizing Putin’s treatment of dissidents. Give him the respect, he deserves. “Da da, you understand that, my presidential friend, I’m sure.”

I think Putin wants to increase Russian influence over the world, not destroy it. He knows he can do that by pushing buttons and pulling strings.

I also think it would be beneficial to Americans if Ivanka revoked Daddy’s Twitter privileges and read some history to him every day and tested him on it the next day.

And finally, I think maybe I’m feeling a tad better, but the funk is not defunct. Sorry, Reggie, I may have scored a couple of points, but I think I have to keep on shooting.

rjgaydos@gmail.com