By Bob Gaydos 

Don Sr., Don Jr. and Bettina, the new Mrs. Trump

RSVP: I regret that I will be unable to attend your wedding because the timing is bad and I have a lot of important stuff to do at home and people would be angry if I took the time away from that stuff.

Love, Dad

       No, he didn’t write that email to his first-born son, named after him. He just said it out loud for the world to hear. At least he didn’t say, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

        Donald Trump Jr., also known as “Dumb,” from the Dumb and Dumber duo, was married Friday on a small island in the Bahamas. His second marriage. A small, intimate affair. Just 50 family and close friends. Daddy, who once said, “The family is really the foundation of a prosperous and good society,” couldn’t make it. He was, he said, too busy. 

        Trying to wreck the New World Order. There was this annoying war thing in Iran. And, you know, that 30-year-old murder charge to file against Raoul Castro. Maybe even invade Cuba for some reason. And the Congress wasn’t buying his slush fund for the criminals who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020, trying to overthrow a newly elected government

        Stuff.

        It was simply too much to deal with just for a second marriage of your oldest son. Besides, there wouldn’t really be any voters there to try to impress. And the Bahamas have some kind of silly law about being able to deny entry to anyone convicted of a serious felony. And there was that speaking appearance in the Hudson Valley to support a loyal congressman who was elected by a small group of enthusiastic, well-organized supporters apparently pretending to be Democrats.

       Important stuff.

       Funny coincidence: Don Jr.’s new wife, Bettina Anderson, described as a “sociaIite,” is the daughter of the late Palm Beach banker, Harry Loy Anderson Jr., who had a mutual friend with Trump Senior — Jeffrey Epstein. The banker reportedly socialized with and helped Epstein get major tax breaks for his own special island.

       Talk about synchronicity. It’s too bad Trump had too much important stuff to deal with to attend his son’s wedding. Dad might have had some stories to share with his new daughter-in-law about her father and their fun days with Epstein. 

        Better luck next time.

President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand together as they tour the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, China,

By Bob Gaydos

   Donald Trump cut his trip to China short, returning to America with his planeload of billionaires, family and sycophants with no obvious “deals” on the war in Iran or commercial trade while also saying he had not made any commitments on Taiwan one way or the other in his private talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which surely worried residents of that independent island who have received guaranteed U.S. military support for more than seven decades, all of which made most Americans wonder what the heck was the purpose of the surprise trip in the first place other than for Trump to marvel at the number of Chinese restaurants in America and be impressed by China’s great hall (See?) which all took place while the Justice Department back home was talking about indicting Castro — Castro!? — no not that one, the brother, Raul, former Cuban leader who is 94 years old, for his supposed role as defense minister at the time in shooting down two civilian U.S. planes carrying a humanitarian group, over Cuba in 1996, the murder indictment to serve as a warning to the communist country (like China, by the way) that the U.S. might just have to take over control of the energy-starved Caribbean island, apparently because Greenland is too big and well-defended and China is really strong and still lusts for Taiwan and the U.S. might consider not stopping all the oil tankers from Venezuela from making deliveries to Cuba, which depends on those shipments to function, or just taking over the island, if Cuba would accept $100 million in humanitarian aid and allow U.S. economic and security investments in the island, a mixed message delivered to Cuban leaders personally by whomever is now head of the CIA, all of which happened as Rudy Giuliani, yes that Rudy Giuliani, was having “a very serious spiritual experience” while in a coma due to pneumonia, in which he said he was in a line leading to a “trial by St. Peter” but was saved when his friend and former deputy NYC mayor Peter Powers intervened, saying some “very significant words,” thereby apparently saving Rudy’s soul, allowing him to survive to talk about his ”miracle” on his broadcast show, which few people knew existed until now, and which apparently is not housed off the parking lot at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping business in Philadelphia, where Giuliani, now 81, previously was in a coma but didn’t know it … all of which happened in a couple of days and is proof positive that the world is totally out of sync.

   I needed the break.

Pope Francis … the smiling pope

By Bob Gaydos

Reflecting on the anger, bitterness and violence that punctuated much of the year just past, I resolved to start the new year with acknowledgment of some positive development. Some sign of hope, as it were. I found it in, of all places, the Catholic Church. Or rather, the Vatican. Actually, to be specific, in the Pope.

Pope Francis, the people’s pope, has been a revelation and a one-man revolution within an organization that has been entrenched in dogma and shielded by ceremony for centuries. Since his surprise election to the papacy nearly two years ago, the Argentinian prelate has seemed to revel in speaking and acting like a, well, like a man of God. A least what my definition of such a person would be: Humble, unassuming, honest, approachable, compassionate, non-judgmental, empathetic and realistic.

Francis, the 266th pope, brought a positive note to the end of a brutally negative 2014 by: (1) Convincing President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro to reestablish normal diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba, ending more than 50 years of pretending they weren’t neighbors; (2) announcing that the Catholic Church would be committed to fighting global warming. Diplomacy and science have not exactly been prominent issues for popes for some time.

These actions came at the end of a year in which Francis consistently and passionately criticized the culture of greed that has claimed much of the planet, resulting in the very rich getting even richer and much of the rest of the population struggling to simply exist. “The excluded are still waiting’” he has said of the false promise of “trickle-down” economics.

To top it off, in case no one was paying attention, Francis, who has shunned many of the papal trappings, used his Christmas address to the cardinals at the Vatican to scold them for their personal ambition, pettiness and attitude of superiority to the people they, in fact, are sworn to serve. In other words, time to change your focus, fellas.

Along the way, indicating that the Catholic Church is not, as some have suggested, totally anti-science, he has declared that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are, indeed, real, and can co-exist with the Church’s teaching of Creation. “God is not a magician with a magic wand,” he has said.

He has also encouraged cardinals to be less-obsessed with birth control and homosexuality (“Who am I to judge?”) and more committed to helping the world’s poor. And he has moved decisively to remove more of the stain of sexual abuse by priests that has been the most dominant issue associated with the Church for several decades.

All of this has angered conservative Catholics and especially conservative politicians who have counted on implicit papal endorsement for their views (especially on social issues) for many years. Suddenly, the pope’s infallibility on how we should treat each other and the planet we share is open to, not just question, but outright challenge. Fox News is apoplectic.

So be it. As a leader with no armies, the Roman Catholic pope can sway millions simply with his words and actions. Yes, the church is wealthy. Yes, it has political influence. Yes, it has an investment in repairing its soiled image and attracting new followers to replace those who left it because of the sexual abuse scandals.

Still, whatever one’s religious views, I believe that sometimes a person comes along and takes everyone by surprise by doing the unexpected. In Francis’ case, by acting like a humble servant of his God, rather than like the exalted ruler of some chosen group of people. Given the symbolic power of the position, this is huge.

I am sure the former cardinal from Argentina — a supposedly safe,compromise choice — has many cardinals shaking their heads today and wondering, “Tell me again; why did we vote for him?”

And that may be the most positive thing of all about Pope Francis. He has begun a discussion within the Vatican, within the Catholic Church and, by his involvement in global issues, throughout the world, on what our role is in relation to each other. It may be a discussion that will reveal the hypocrisy and greed that permeate today’s society. Perhaps it will even answer the question of what it means to be thy brother’s keeper.

That’s pretty hopeful stuff to me.

Fidel Castro ... no fan of GOP field

By Bob Gaydos
Do you get the feeling that a lot of Republicans just don’t like Mitt Romney? Or Rick Santorum? That they can’t make up their minds which one is less objectionable to the rest of the country? And does it seem like Republicans have finally got the true measure of Newt Gingrich and see that he really is the opportunistic, self-seeking, mean-spirited, vindictive blowhard that he sounds like every time he has an opportunity? And that, while they can abide Ron Paul, it’s only on days with an “R” in them?

It has been pleasantly quiet lately without a Republican presidential
“debate” every other day. No one shouting, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” or “Hypocrite!” or, “Immigrant-lover!” or, worst of all, “Moderate!”

Yet the primary campaign drones on. Interestingly, the most apt description of this field of screams that I’ve seen comes from out of left field, literally: “The greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been” is the way Fidel Castro put it when asked about the GOP primary campaign.

Yeah, I know all those dyed-in-the-wool, red-white-and-blue, flag-waving, commie-hating, God-fearing, apple-pie-eating, Chevy-driving, heterosexual, over-taxed Republicans who hate the government of the country they love probably don’t give a fig about what the former Cuban dictator thinks about their party. But it doesn’t mean he isn’t right.

That’s a bit of subtlety that seems to be lost on a lot of Republicans these days. When you live in a multi-cultural society, people will have differences of opinion. They need not be based in hate or expressed in hateful language. And people who are different from you may have different opinions on how to go about things. And they may sometimes be right. It makes it really important to learn how to work things out rather than shout ideas down. Too many Republicans don’t seem to get this.

Truth of the matter and Castro aside, a lot of Americans think the candidates the Republicans have put forth to run for president are an insult to the nation and an embarrassment for the party. And Sarah Palin isn’t even part of the conversation. However, her unsuccessful campaign for the vice presidency in 2008 may well have been the catalyst for what has transpired within the GOP: The Coup.

The party of Lincoln is clearly no longer the party of the likes of Rockefeller or Eisenhower or Bush I or Ford or Dole or, for that matter, Reagan. In fact, you hear almost as little about Double R as you do about Bush II from Republicans these days. Last week, the Conservative Political Action Committee held its convention to hear from the GOP candidates to decide where to put its money, which, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, is the same as its mouth.

Santorum, fresh off victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, where a handful of ultra-conservative Republicans bothered to show up and cast votes that don’t really count, confidently told the CPAC gathering, “Conservatives and Tea Party folk — we are not just wings of the Republican Party, we are the Republican Party.” Huzzah! Huzzah!

Then they voted to support Romney.

* * *

Another bit of news that cannot go unnoticed: With the GOP candidates mostly silent, the biggest noise of the week came from another group of conservative men — the United States’ Catholic bishops. They felt obliged to give the rest of the country a lecture on sex and conscience. The bishops objected to an Obama administration plan that would require church-related institutions such as hospitals and schools to provide women employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives, free of charge. Churches themselves were exempt. More than 25 states already have such a law in place, guaranteeing that all women, regardless of religion or where they work, have access to free birth control, if they choose to use it.

The bishops, who have been looking for any issue on which to claim the high moral ground ever since paying off hundreds of millions of dollars in claims when priests around the world were discovered to be sexually abusing young boys, seized on objecting to probably the most effective method known to reduce the number of abortions — free birth control. They weren’t even happy when Obama switched the cost to the insurance companies. Everyone was too polite to mention that the bishops didn’t consult any women in voicing their objection or that, according to a Guttmacher poll, 98 percent of Catholic women say they use some form of contraception to practice birth control or for other health reasons.

One assumes, they do so in what they obviously regard as good conscience, never mind common sense.

bob@zestoforange.com