By Bob Gaydos

Trump ( center) is led out of the hotel after the sounds of shooting.

It was fast.

Government officials were still semi-scrambling over their wives to get out of the room, hotshot White House correspondents were still on their knees under tables turning on their phones and the older gentleman with glasses seated up front was still munching on his salad when reports started popping up on social media that the latest assassination attempt on Donald Trump was, like the first one, a fake.

Just as quickly came the response from the MAGA crowd and the too-cool-to-take-sides crowd that people should stop spreading conspiracy theories about such a serious occurrence.

Fine.

I happened to be on my phone when the news was thrust upon me. I was not watching the White House Correspondents Dinner because I didn’t want to listen to a half hour or more of Trump rambling and berating the press while they sat there in their tuxedos and gowns pretending to laugh as he dumped all over them as he has for the last 10 years.

The group lost my respect when it agreed not to have a comedian roasting the president at the dinner, as was the custom, but rather let Trump be the only roaster. That’s the only grounds on which he would agree to be there. Capitulation for the sake of access. No guts, no glory, no sense that this man had indeed made them his enemy many years ago.

That’s fact one on my list of why conspiracy theories sprung up so quickly. It was so convenient.

Then there’s the fact that someone apparently managed to get into the Washington, D.C. Hilton, where the president, vice president and assorted top Cabinet officials were assembled in one room and get off a bunch of gunshots (reportedly ten) before being stopped by the Secret Service. How could this even happen if the first two reported attempts on Trump’s life were legitimate?

And then, back in the safety of the White House and looking none the worse for wear, Trump praises the security detail and then immediately invokes whatever happened as a reason for the construction of his gaudy ballroom where the East Wing of the White House used to stand because it will include a secure bunker.

Huh?

The Hilton ballroom holds about 3,000; Trump’s proposed ballroom would hold about 1,000. Also, is this to suggest that all future presidents would never venture out of the White House to events? That’s ridiculous. The fact is that a judge had recently ordered construction of the ballroom stopped because of a lawsuit claiming it was illegal and the only option the judge offered to let the construction continue was that it was deemed to be a necessary secure site. How convenient.

Trump did not talk about the need to tone down the political dialogue. No talk about there being no place for violence in politics. No talk about that because, well that’s the way Trump always talks. Anger, insult, retribution, accusation and blame. It’s his whole game.

And of course, referring back to that first “attempt” in Pennsylvania, in which an innocent bystander was killed, we have the miraculous healing of Trump’s right ear and the virtual disappearance of any mention of the shooter, motive, etc. Gone with the wind.

Pack all this up with Trump’s addiction to lying, his background in television and his love for theater and staged events, creation of conspiracy theories about what happened in Washington was, in my opinion, inevitable.

Now, as for the facts. The so-called “manifesto” of the shooter, which was reportedly released by two unidentified law-enforcement officials not authorized to do so, says he was surprised that no one bothered to check his baggage when he checked into the Hilton the day before the scheduled event with his guns and knives. Seems like a flaw in the security arrangement.

Also, he managed to get within one floor of the ballroom before being stopped by security, but not before firing about 10 shots. The manifesto suggests the accused shooter was aware security officers will be wearing bulletproof vests and hoped they worked. The one person who was shot was indeed wearing such a vest. It worked.

These could easily be interpreted as failures of security or part of a script to save a ballroom.

One part I’m sure was not in any script was Norah O’Donnell on “60 minutes” Sunday night reading from the so-called manifesto in which the alleged shooter, in explaining his actions, said he was no longer willing ”to let a pedophile, rapist and traitor coat my hands with his crimes.”

O’Donnell asked Trump what he thought about that. Predictably, he called her “horrible people” for reading it and said, “I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anyone. I’m not a pedophile.” To which she replied, “Oh, do you think he was referring to you?“

Since Trump’s buddy now owns CBS, Nora’s job may well be on the line for that little bit of legitimate journalism. But let the White House Correspondents Association take note.

By Bob Gaydos

Southern Poverty Law Center literature.
.

I wrote a check to renew my membership in the Southern Poverty Law Center this morning. Thanks, Trump.

The renewal notice had gotten lost in a pile of bills to be paid. I would’ve eventually gotten to it, but the Justice Department’s surprise notice to go after the respected civil rights/human rights group reminded me that I had been remiss.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the Justice Department’s action either. Their job under Trump is to go after Trump’s perceived enemies and Pam Bondi got fired as attorney general for failing to do so. The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney, is apparently smart enough to try not to repeat this mistake.

And as far as Trump’s enemies go, the non-profit SPLC would be high on that list. Not only does it fight all his illegal actions in court, but it compiles an annual list of hate groups in the country, state by state, county by county. These are Trump’s people. His foot soldiers. His boots on the ground in your hometown.

The 11-count federal indictment returned by a grand jury in Alabama (surprise!) against the SPLC revolves around its now-disbanded program of using paid informants from 2014 to 2023 to provide what the group called “credible intelligence“ about such white supremacist groups as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations and the National Socialist Movement. The SPLC says it shared its information with law-enforcement agencies to contribute to the safety of law-abiding citizens.

But the Justice Department alleges that the SPLC committed fraud because it misled its donors by giving more than $3 million to the leadership of these violent groups and helping to manufacture the extremism it said it was dismantling. It said some of the money was used by members of the extremist groups to carry out other crimes, but no specific examples were listed in the court papers. That’s kind of par for the course with Trump, allegations but no specifics.

I don’t know, the SPLC seemed to do a pretty good job of dismantling the Ku Klux Klan. And the use of paid informants, of course, has been common practice for the FBI and CIA. It’s dangerous work. I think most people who contribute to the SPLC would not be surprised that it used paid informants. In fact, I would have been surprised otherwise. And it’s kind of counterproductive to announce publicly that you’re doing it.

Bryan Fair, interim CEO of the SPLC, said the allegations are “nakedly political“ and just part of Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department against his critics. I agree. I also find it deeply troubling that, instead of going after hate groups, the Justice Department is going after the very people who are fighting to get rid of them.

And just as an aside, I also noticed that Kash Patel, the out of his league FBI director who is facing public criticism for allegedly drinking on the job, not really knowing what he’s doing and flying around the country with his girlfriend on a government jet, stood quietly by Blanche’s side when he announced the indictment. No words. Maybe Kash doesn’t know about using paid informants. Or maybe he just had a hangover.

Anyway, I’m not buying the whole story and I’m still waiting for Blanche to release all the Epstein files.

By Bob Gaydos 

I got a letter from Chuck Schumer. Private no less.

  I got a letter from Chuck Schumer the other day. It was marked “Private” no less. “To Addressee Only.” And in bold red letters on the envelope, to make sure I knew it was important: “PLEASE sit down, OPEN this envelope, and READ IMMEDIATELY!

  Well, now, what a coincidence. I had been thinking of Chuck lately, not having heard from my longtime senator for quite a while.

   (Note: Schumer grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in a middle class family. Went to public school. I grew up in Bayonne, N.J. in a middle class family. Went to public school. Senator or not, with those backgrounds, he’ll always be Chuck.)

     So, as I was saying, I was glad to hear from Chuck because I had a couple of things I wanted to talk about. Like where the hell has he been lately while Trump has been starting a war and driving up the price on everything while his family and friends make a killing on the stock market?

     I was anxious to see what Chuck had to say in this important “private” letter he sent to me marked  “addressee only.”

      Well, for starters, I was a little hurt and kind of let down. “Dear fellow American,” is not my idea of introducing a private message of immediate importance. In fact, it kind of sounds like all those other letters of importance I receive asking for donations because, as this letter begins, “our country is at a critical crossroads.“

     And yes, Chuck was asking for money. Not specifically for himself, mind, but for the group that collects and spends money solely for the election of Democrats to the United States Senate — the Senate Majority Pac.

    Chuck isn’t running for reelection this year, but he has a profound interest in electing Democrats to the Senate so he can transition from being the minority leader to the  majority leader and run the show. 

   I get it. I’ve been praying for a Democratic super majority of 60 filibuster-proof votes in the Senate for 15 years, since the party managed to pass Obamacare. But apparently the message this group has been putting out hasn’t been enough to convince enough Americans to vote likewise. It’s kind of why I wanted to talk to Chuck or at least hear from him. 

    I think times have changed and it’s time for a change in what he’s saying and how he’s saying it. Nobody’s listening. Forget trying to work with a couple of Republicans here and there to stymie Trump or win a small political victory here and there. It’s time for something that I’m sure Schumer grew up experiencing in Brooklyn: some moxie.

  What’s moxie? For non-New Yorkers or non-Jerseyites, AI says: “Moxie is an American slang noun referring to a person’s courageous spirit, determination, nerve, and skill. It describes someone with guts, spunk, and the ability to face challenges with energy and pep. It implies a combination of boldness and know-how.”

   Absolutely. In other words, the time for playing nice with Republicans has long passed. They don’t do it. They don’t care. A fellow Brooklynite, also in the Senate, gets it. Bernie Sanders has been telling it like it is as long as he’s been in the Senate. Unfortunately, he’s not a member of the Democratic Party, but rather, is a Democratic Socialist. That means he can’t get any money from SMP. Actually, he’s a Democrat by any other name these days because he can’t possibly coexist with the Republicans in the Senate.

   But Bernie, who grew up in a lower middle class family in Flatbush, has moxie. He doesn’t hesitate to lay the blame for Trump‘s ongoing disaster of a presidency on Senate Republicans who have had the power to stop him at any point and indeed to reject every one of this trash heap of nominees that make up the cabinet.

    Heck, even Hakeem Jeffries, who grew up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in a working class family, apparently now gets it. The House Minority Leader recently lit into Republicans in the Senate, calling them “spineless enablers” and “helpless sheep” for confirming Trump’s cabinet nominees, from Hegseth to Noem to Kennedy to Bondi to the labor secretary, whatever her name, who just resigned after her staff complained she drank on the job, had no idea what she was doing and had an affair with her assistant. Jeffries specifically targeted the confirmation of the latest uncovered drunk, Kash Patel, as FBI director, calling him “deeply unqualified, deeply unserious, and deeply un-American.”

      Deeply appreciated, Mr. Jeffries.

      Anyway, Chuck, thanks for writing, but I won’t be sending money to the SMP. However, I will continue to support groups like the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law Center to handle all the legal niceties of dealing with the Trump regime. And I will continue to write in support of Democratic candidates for the Senate. But I think it’s time for you boys from Brooklyn to get together, roll up your sleeves and run those Republican phoneys and their demented leader out of the schoolyard. Show a little Brooklyn moxie.

      Nice talking to you again.

J.D. Vance

By Bob Gaydos

J.D. Vance never had a chance.

From Budapest to Islamabad,

the cards were stacked

in advance.

He campaigned for Viktor Orban,

a fool’s errand to be sure.

Bringing Trump’s blessing to a similar man

whose people had had more than enough.

“It takes one to know one!” cried the Hungarians.

Their anger was pure, their answer tough.

“Be gone, oh messenger of gloom.

And Orban, go to your room.”

Onward pressed Vance,

with a war to be won or at least settled or ended … or somethinged.

Off to Pakistan to meet

with some men from Iran.

As a writer of fiction parading as truth,

he seemed the perfect man.

Forsooth!

But the men from Iran refused to surrender.

This meeting would be no war ender.

They stuck to their guns, their missiles, their drones

and their Strait of Hormuz.

They were winning a war

Vance said they were s’posed to lose.

What to do? What to do?

Jared, what say you?

Your father-in-law won’t be pleased

if the fire hasn’t been ceased.

Nothing. … Nothing?

After a long day of talking,

the negotiations

officially ceased.

Daunted but unbowed by his lack

of good news,

J.D. returned home …

to a chorus of boos.

From, of all people, the Catholics, his adopted faith brethren.

They were saying he should go to a place

that wasn’t called Heaven.

It seems they were angry

that this eyelinered mope

had rubber-stamped Trump in threatening …

The Pope!

Ex-communicate this sinner! The social media sites clamored!

A hillbilly phony pretending again!

They were not enamored.

And so it went for J.D.,

a lost weekend

with no sleep.

For the Bible says,

and as he should know:

Whatever the dateline,

You shall reap as you sow.

Melania Trump

By Bob Gaydos

Melania figured she had nothing to lose

Since Donny was stuck

in the Straight of Hormuz.

Commandeer his podium.

Summon the press.

Make sure her maid finds just the right, modest dress.

***

“Good afternoon, media people,

I have something to say.

Something vich troubles me every day.

“I vill talk about Epstein, who I never knew.

Never slept with him either. Who vould? Vould you?

Those pictures you see are phony.

The stories, too.

The old ones, the new ones.

The ones in the files, too.

“I met Donald purely by chance,

at a New York singles mixer.

No one named Jeffrey or Ghislaine

was the fixer.

“So don’t bother, Congress,

to call me to testify.

I know nothing. Never saw any island.

That, too, is a lie.

Better you should call all those girls,

the victims, to speak.

Let them tell their awvful stories.

Make those powerful men shudder.

Make them look veak.

“Thank you for listening.

And now I must go.”

                      ***

No questions. No answers.

Just good bye and hello.

                       ***

Much later that night and weary from war,

a president spoke to his country.

‘Twas raw.

Forgoing news media, as is his wont,

He chose to be social. The better to taunt.

But there was naught

 ‘bout his wife’s earlier talk

about Epstein and victims

and that chance meet in New York.

Nor words of anger or frustration.

No unnecessary drama.

Merely a seemingly random video

of a man

beating a woman

to death

with a hammer.

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

Artemis II heads to the moon.

   It’s fascinating how quickly things that once seemed so remarkable become commonplace, occurring virtually unnoticed in our daily lives. Part of the furniture. Like the fact that I’m writing this on my phone, which I also use to tell time, take photos, buy shoes and watch movies. Just part of the daily routine.

    Or like waking up to an Easter morning profanity-laden diatribe by the American president, probably sent on his phone, threatening the annihilation of a foreign nation because he doesn’t want people to see the proof that he raped young girls. Routine. Headline-grabbing. Yes, insane, but remarkably commonplace.

     Yet while that president was threatening war crimes, four astronauts (three Americans, one Canadian) were doing something that hasn’t been done in 58 years — flying around the moon. Remarkable. Still. But not quite headline-grabbing today.

     It’s that way with a lot of inspirational or heart-warming events these days. Sometimes it’s hard to find the good news buried under all the depressingly bad news emanating daily from the White House, shouting to be heard and too often dutifully reported without question by a news media co-opted by owners more interested in wealth than the First Amendment.

     I started to write a column a few weeks ago about what I considered to be two uplifting, yes, heartwarming events that made life just a little softer, more livable for a while.

    I wrote: “Thank God for Queer Eye and the Buddhists.

    “No, that’s not a new spinoff show on Netflix, although the thought is intriguing. What it is is a huge thank you to two recent events that reminded me, in the midst of the daily dose of anger, lies and cruelty emanating from the White House, that there is still love, caring and humanity in the world. That decency still exists. That people can also shed tears of joy.    

    “Remember?”

     That’s as far as I got before the Trumpian insanity overwhelmed the news again. I’ll finish it now.

    Queer Eye, which began on TV as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, morphed into straight Queer Eye on Netflix, where its tenth and too-short final season dropped recently. Sad to see it go.

    It’s hard to find shows on TV these days which offer real people expressing genuine feelings of gratitude and love and hope and shedding real tears of joy. Queer Eye does all that unfailingly, whether the recipient of the Fab Five’s attention is queer, straight or Jonathan. And it’s often funny in the process.

    At about the same time, 25 Buddhist monks were on their 109-day, 2,300 mile walk from Fort Worth, Texas to the Peace Monument and then the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.. A spiritual walk for peace that gained momentum and support and, eventually, even media attention, as it was followed by more than 5 million people on social media. Heart-warming, encouraging, connecting and simply amazing all at once.

     Which brings me back to the moon. As I write this, the four astronauts are preparing to swing around to the dark side of the moon where they will see and record previously unseen features, with a solar eclipse thrown in as a bonus.

    I witnessed the moon landing – Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.“ – with a large crowd on a TV at the Little Venice Restaurant in Binghamton, N.Y. 600 million watched worldwide. It was July 20, 1969. I was city editor of The Sun-Bulletin at the time, a daily paper whose offices were conveniently located just down the block from  the restaurant. Yes, the moon landing was the front page story the following morning. And yes, everyone seemed to be happy that President Kennedy‘s goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade was realized.

    This morning, as the astronauts aboard Artemis II traveled farther from Earth than any other humans ever have, the American president was threatening to bomb another country back to the Stone Age. And no one was surprised.

    Might be time to watch reruns of “Queer Eye.”

By Bob Gaydos

   I took a few mental health days to escape from, you know, the world. Re-emerged in time to see that the No Kings Day was a huge success across the nation, with more than 8 million Americans reportedly taking to the streets to demonstrate their a) anger b) disappointment c) revulsion d) all of the above concerning Donald Trump.

    Which helped.

     But then I saw a couple of posts on Facebook that helped me figure out what was really bothering me. Not Trump. Well, yes, Trump, but that’s old news. Trump is Trump. He’s just as he’s always been, just older, dumber and nastier than when he invaded our national consciousness in 2015.

     One of the Facebook posts noted that the thousands of No Kings demonstrations all had the same theme: Trump is stupid, evil and destroying our country. A bad wannabe king and we don’t want him. Which is all true.

    But missing from the messages, as the post noted, was any blame for the Republican Party, which to be fair, since it controls Congress, could stop the insanity in a heartbeat, if it had the courage to do so.

    Or perhaps even more to the point for many Republicans in Congress, if they really wanted to. That is, if they actually disagreed with much of what Trump has done. I get the feeling that a lot of congressional Republicans are willing to overlook Trump’s flouting of the Constitution, shredding diplomatic relationships and monetizing the presidency because they are as racist, bigoted, misogynistic and greedy as he is. They’re happy to have him take the point and the heat, even if they think he’s a moron and danger to the country.

      That doesn’t sound like what they swore an oath to and it certainly calls for more public blame for the current chaos the Trump presidency has created. This wannabe king has a lot of Republican foot soldiers and they need to be called out for being willing (House Speaker Mike Johnson) or weak (Sen. Lindsay Graham) enablers. Without them, he’s gone in a heartbeat or however long it takes to read him the 25th Amendment and escort him to the door of the White House he’s in the process of trashing.

     Which goes to the message of the other Facebook post. It was a 2025 comment by former late night TV host David Letterman. He touched on another pet peeve of mine — the echo chamber of cable and YouTube “news” outlets issuing a steady, daily stream of whatever what’s his name did and why it is so wrong, stupid, bad, illegal, etc.

    Letterman: “We know there’s something wrong, but what I’m tired of is people, daily, nightly, on all the cable news shows telling us there’s something wrong. I just think we ought to direct our resources and our energies to doing something about it. … let’s just stop whining about what a goon he is and figure out a way to take him aside and put him in a home.”

    Yes, David, I agree. But I’d make it a federal correctional facility at this point. And this goes back to my original point that, while many Americans were perhaps duped or delusional in voting for Trump in the first place, Republicans are ultimately responsible for allowing this stain on America’s legacy to continue. They need to bear the blame and shame on a daily basis for as long as it continues.

    Suggestion: This coming July 4, the 250th anniversary of America’s birth, would be a perfect time to demonstrate the true meaning of “All men are created equal” by escorting Donald Trump out of the White House permanently. That would be something to celebrate. Tell the Republicans.

By Bob Gaydos 

Is reality really virtual? What if none of it mattered?

  What if killing 168 schoolgirls in the process of killing much of the leadership of a sovereign nation that hadn’t attacked or even threatened us didn’t matter?

  What if killing innocent fishermen earning a living in the sea off Venezuela didn’t matter?

  What if cutting off the oil supply to Cuba, effectively starving the island nation that also posed no threat, didn’t matter?

    What if eliminating funds for food and HIV treatment for African nations, effectively killing thousands, didn’t matter?

    What if government agents randomly kidnapping people off the streets of American cities didn’t matter? What if those same agents killing innocent American citizens in the same streets didn’t matter?

   What if powerful, influential men participating in a worldwide sex trafficking ring with young girls didn’t matter?

    What if caring about such things was all just something we made up in our minds? A “construct,” to borrow a concept from Deepak Chopra. Constructs, according to the meditation guru who shared intimate emails about a taste for young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, are mental creations (beliefs, roles, ideas) that help us get through life, but keep us from recognizing our true nature – pure awareness, as he says. Chopra promotes meditation to get past the fear and ego which he says bind us to these constructs so that we can find the “real” reality within ourselves as part of a massive field of consciousness. 

    What if, as part of this vast consciousness, age, sexual behavior, honesty, respect, compassion, decency and other “constructs” that guide us through life don’t matter? What if grown men meditating regularly and engaging in sexual activity with young girls (a construct defined by most as rape) is a construct one can live with? And, of course, lying about it. One’s own convenient “real” reality? Pure awareness.

   Meditate on that.

   And while you’re in a meditative state, consider the proposition put forth by another proponent of the “all is not what it seems to be” fraternity — Tom Campbell. The physicist/philosopher posits that we are all simply characters in a digital virtual reality. Campbell’s “larger consciousness system“ is the computer that produces our reality.

   Campbell’s three-book series under the umbrella title of “My Big Toe” (“My Big Theory of Everything“), posits that your true self — the Player — is a non-physical unit of consciousness, which exists outside of a physical simulation, your avatar, which is your body and brain. The “player” (not your brain) makes all the choices for your avatar within the virtual reality. And, it has a purpose — to lower the entropy (the disorder in our lives such as war, killing, kidnaping, rape, lying) by choosing love and cooperation over fear and ego.

   Well, in that case, all of it would seem to matter.

   Hmm. Conundrum.

   “Real” reality or virtual reality?

   Upon reflection of about 30 seconds I’ve decided my Player is telling me that Deepak is full of crap. Pure evil. The Player has apparently also instructed me to keep writing that all the others who were part of the Epstein sex-trafficking and whatever else was going on construct deserve to be severely punished for their behaviors. And that the most efficient way to quickly reduce the entropy in all our shared reality, virtual or otherwise, is to haul Donald Trump’s diapered butt out of our White House and into a prison cell as soon as possible.

    For what it’s worth, that’s my construct of a big theory of everything and my very real reality.

  For the longest time now, actually about 10 years, I’ve been waking up in the morning with an intense case of déjà vu, sensing that, once I check the news, I’m going to have to write some version of the same story all over again.  This morning, to test my mental faculties, I decided to go back 10 years to see what I was writing. Turns out I’m not imagining things.  The column reposted below was written on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, 2016. I unapologetically repost it here as proof that my memory is not failing, at least in this regard, and that we knew in 2016 what we were getting with Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And what the options were. This is why I’m always astounded when I hear people, mostly MAGAs, saying, “I didn’t know,” “I feel betrayed.” Or others saying, “What’s the use in voting, they’re all the same?” No, we knew. We knew in 2016 what Donald Trump was. And every year and election since then.  

 Most of the people in the column below are still around and many of them are still in politics. We still have choices. Complain about the war, tariffs, inflation, detention camps, if you want, even protest. Please protest. But please, spare me your surprise.  And please read the column below to see if you remember it the way I do. 

Bob

By Bob Gaydos

Bernie Sanders

Thank god for Bernie Sanders.

You can make that an uppercase God if you prefer. Or keep it lowercase. You can take that sentiment ecumenically, evangelically, spiritually, atheistically, or any manner of religiously. But know this, wherever you place your faith, you must take that sentiment seriously.

Bernie Sanders is the saving grace in what has to be the most embarrassing, humiliating, disheartening and frightening presidential campaign, possibly in our nation’s history.

Quite simply, Sanders is the only candidate in either party who is genuine. When he speaks, I believe him. Millions believe him, because he has no hidden agenda, he is beholden to no one, he has a long history of caring and working for people to whom life has not been kind and for challenging those who have always wanted more than their fair share. A mensch.

In comparison, the Republican campaign has featured a collection of liars, misfits, religious zealots, bigots, charlatans, incompetents and people who cannot spell, much less demonstrate, compassion. It has culminated in Donald Trump, one of the most dangerous, embarrassing figures to emerge in American politics. He is a fascist, racist, misogynist, bully, liar, buffoon, and con man. A reality TV show star with no idea how government works, but plenty of experience in driving businesses into bankruptcy. He is probably a certifiable narcissist. And apparently, there is no one in his life who has the guts to say any of this to his face.

His candidacy has allowed all the ugly elements in American society, many of whom reside in the Republican Party, to feel free to voice their hate publicly, to assault and threaten those they fear or those who disagree with them, and, incredibly, to believe that their candidate has any respect for them and their needs. Trump, who makes it up as he goes along, has admitted his supporters come from the least-informed element of society. His campaign, in fact, represents the culmination of decades of cynical posturing by and catering to this element, and now appears to be the demise of, the Republican Party as a responsible political party. It is long overdue.

Not one of the Republican candidates — still standing or fallen by the wayside — can hold a candle to Sanders and not one of them deserves a vote to be president of the United States of America. They are, in toto, a disgrace.

However, the real challenge to Sanders comes not from the Republicans, but from within his own party. The Democratic establishment long ago decided that Hillary Clinton should be its candidate for president this time and has done everything within its power to try to make that happen. This includes setting up a ridiculously limited and unattainable schedule of debates and lining up hundreds of superdelegates to announce their support for her even before a primary was held. This was undoubtedly done to try to overcome Clinton’s well-known handicaps: 1) The fact that she is a lousy campaigner; 2) The reality that a lot of people don’t trust her; and 3) The Clinton history of being very cozy with the people responsible for nearly ruining the nation’s economy.

Forget that, her supporters say. She gets things done. What it is she’s gotten done is never mentioned.

Still, the fact is she leads Sanders in delegates won in the primaries so far and, even with her faults, she is still head and shoulders above any of the Republicans in the race.  This means, however much I respect and prefer Sanders as a presidential candidate, if Clinton is the Democratic Party nominee, I personally have to vote for her against any Republican. It also means I cannot write in a vote for Sanders or anyone else as a protest, because I honestly fear that taking votes away from a Democratic candidate could lead to something as disastrous as a Trump presidency or a Ted Cruz presidency or anyone-else-the-Republican-Party-settles-on presidency. I fear what will happen to this country if a Republican wins the presidency this year and I think the only way to get that message across to a party that has been in denial for decades is to thoroughly defeat it in November. Then let it figure out where to go from there.

It’s not a total sellout. Mitigating my vote for Clinton would be the fact that she actually knows how government works and, as president, she would have a working, viable, responsible political party behind her, a party still on working terms with compassion and science and equality and still dedicated to governing, not merely winning. And that party would have a Bernie Sanders and an Elizabeth Warren and plenty of others in Congress reminding a President Clinton of the promises she made during her campaign to convince all those young, disaffected voters that she could deliver what Bernie Sanders was promising.

Thankfully, though, this campaign is far from over. There are many primaries in northern and western and big states where Sanders has considerable support and could easily win enough delegates to capture the nomination. Bill Clinton did it. Barack Obama did it. Bernie Sanders can do it.

But he’s got another major challenge to overcome in addition to that from within his own party. That is the disrespect shown him by much of the major news media. Despite the tens of thousands who have attended his rallies and donated to his no-Pacs campaign, many news organizations have treated him as an afterthought and a Clinton campaign for president as a foregone conclusion.

That same media also gave Trump free rein to spew his vile hatred and nonsense for months before finally wising up to him. (And it’s not just Fox News that was guilty of this.) The media will have some soul-searching to do after this campaign as well.

So, I look forward to Sanders winning some big states (Hello, California!). And I expect Trump to continue to behave as Frank Bruni put it in the New York Times recently — like an addict who only wants more and more and more attention and will do or say anything to get it. That was my impression of Trump a while back, but Bruni beat me to it in putting it in writing. I agree wholeheartedly with him.

Indeed, I think of Trump as the guy sitting next to you in a bar who turns to you and says, “Hold my beer. Watch this.” He then proceeds to wreck the joint and bloody every person in the place. He exits with a triumphant grin, claiming it was the other guy’s fault.

Clinton, of course, wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar, much less drinking beer. She would be found sipping wine or martinis in an Upper East Side penthouse with some Wall Street types who are funding her campaign. They’re talking about how to get the vote of the common folk.

Sanders? He walks into a bar and says, “Hey, let me buy you a beer. Let’s sit down. What can I do for you?”

If I were a drinking man, that’s the guy I would want in the White House.

rjgaydos@gmail.com