By Bob Gaydos

Photo published in The Guardian of an image taken from a Iranian state television showing what it says is the site of US and Israeli missile strikes that hit a girls’ elementary school in southern Iran. At least 80 children were reportedly killed.

    It’s 55° and sunny in my little corner of the world on the last day of February, the snow is melting, the guys on the other side of the creek have started their target practice, scaring the dogs and the SOB in the White House, along with his friend in Israel, has started a war with Iran because everybody in this country is talking about how the FBI is covering up stuff in the Epstein files about said SOB raping a 13-year-old girl on Epstein’s island. Ah, Saturday.

    Look, this is simple. The Constitution prohibits the president from unilaterally declaring war on any other country. Congress has actually passed a War Powers Act. Other presidents have ignored it. Doesn’t make it right. Picking on the baddest actor in the Middle East doesn’t make it right. Claiming it’s necessary because Iran is developing weapons is pure hypocrisy when the SOB in the White House, in his first term, withdrew from an agreement President Obama had made with Iran that forbade them from developing nuclear weapons. That meant inspections and verification. Trump dumped it. Then, back in the Oval Office last year, he bombed the crap out of Iran and said their ability to develop nuclear weapons was obliterated. And, not so by the way, he campaigned as the peace president who would not get involved in regime change in other countries and would not get the United States involved in protracted war anywhere, but especially the Middle East.

    So, maybe he got tired of killing unarmed Venezuelan fishermen or killing law-abiding American citizens in Minnesota or was really angry that the Supreme Court told him he couldn’t unilaterally impose tariffs on other countries. Or maybe he owed Bebe Netanyahu a favor.

   Or, maybe he noticed that everyone in this country was talking about the FBI covering up stuff from the Epstein files about him raping a 13-year-old girl on Epstein‘s island. That news wasn’t going to help with the midterm elections if all the cowardly Republicans in Congress got voted out of office. Only a couple of them seemed to notice that he didn’t get the OK from Congress to attack another country. Apparently constitutional law is only for Democrats to worry about now. 

    It’s Saturday in America and it’s 55° and sunny in my little corner of the world on the last day of February and maybe some of the mainstream media, as they are now referred to, will notice that the SOB in the White House can’t stay awake at meetings, can barely put two sentences together that make sense, lies with every breath, reportedly just bombed a girls elementary school in Iran and is an adjudicated sex offender whose name appears thousands of times in the Epstein files, including accusations of raping a 13-year-old girl, which the FBI, under his control, is trying to cover up.

    At least the guys on the other side of the creek stopped shooting and let the dogs get back to their nap. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday.

By Bob Gaydos

Democrats’ shopping list for coming elections. Unsolicited.

    Back two or three lifetimes ago, being between newspaper jobs and hobbling around downtown Annapolis on crutches as the result of a touch football accident, I spent some time answering phones and making phone calls for the Democratic Party. It was primary season and someone whose name I can’t recall thought it would be a good way to spend some time and use my journalist’s familiarity with politics. Drinking may have been involved.

     It was 1976. Joe Tydings, scion of a prominent Maryland family, was trying to get back to the Senate and Governor Moonbeam — Jerry Brown of California — was running for president. Or dating Linda Ronstadt. Or both.

   Tydings lost the primary to Rep. Paul Sarbanes, who went on to serve five terms. Brown carried Maryland, but lost nationally to a peanut farmer from Georgia. That farmer, Jimmy Carter, then beat the accidental president, Gerald Ford, in the general election, but later ran into Ronald Reagan and the Iran hostages crisis, serving only one term.

    I reminisce about this history and these less than happy days in reaction to a mailing from the Democratic National Committee (one of many I have received) asking me, as a Democrat, to fill out a survey to help them prepare an agenda to fight Donald Trump and the Republicans. 

   While it’s good to know that someone is thinking about these things, let me be clear: I am not now and have never been a member of the Democratic, or for that matter, Republican, Socialist, Liberal, Conservative, Libertarian or Communist Party. Being registered in a political party doesn’t mesh with writing about politics for newspapers. My time answering phones in Annapolis may have filled a void, but I never joined the party.

    So DNC, I won’t be returning the survey or making any donation. I get it that it takes a lot of money to run political campaigns, but I will limit my contribution to giving (since you asked) my two cents on what Democrats should do to rid this country of Trump and the brain dead Republican Party.

    In essence, all of the above on your survey. That is, virtually everything suggested makes sense to some extent. Except for one.

    Under ranking of priorities, one item states: “Persuading voters who did not vote for Democrats in 2022 and 2024.”

     Save your breath, folks. These people knew Trump-the-terrible from the first time, enjoyed the rewards of Joe Biden’s economic agenda and still didn’t vote for Democrats. Ten years and counting of Trump Republicanism.

   If they were alive and breathing in 2022 and 2024 and voted for the party of anything Trump says is Ok, they are either too dumb to figure it out or they agree with the feed-the-rich, starve the non-white, non-Christian agenda of the Republican Party.

    Look, there are MAGA Trumpers who don’t even care that their leader raped young girls with Jeffrey Epstein, stole money from a phony kids cancer charity, sexually asssulted a woman in a clothing store dressing room on Fifth Avenue, promised a wall to stop the flow of immigrants from Mexico but delivered roaming bands of violent, masked kidnappers instead, and pardoned all those who followed his direction and laid waste to the U.S. Capitol when he told them the 2020 election was stolen from him.

    I could go on, but you get the idea. If they didn’t see or care about the difference between Democrats and Republicans two years ago, they likely still feel the same today or they are too embarrassed to admit they were wrong. Too iffy.

    Better to “engage,” as you say, those who didn’t bother to vote in 2022 and 2024. The ones who say all politicians are the same, so they don’t pay attention to politics. Or vote. They may be sorry they ignored their privilege and their duty.

    If the cost of groceries today, disappearance of jobs, violent ICE raids locally, illegal destruction of the East Wing of the White House and the total humiliation of the U.S. on the international stage with a president who “ends” dozens of wars except for the real one in Ukraine (“Day One”, remember?), rambles incoherently, insults longtime allies and falls asleep at meetings don’t persuade them that not all politicians are the same, nothing probably will. But it’s definitely worth a shot.

    So, yes, by all means work to win back the Congress this year and the presidency in 2028. Talk about the Epstein files every day. Go to court. And talk about Republicans’ shameful duplicity and cowardice with regard to Trump at every level of government. Every day.

    An unknown peanut farmer from Georgia beat the guy who inherited the Watergate mess from Richard Nixon in 1976. That mess pales by comparison with the grift Trump has been performing on Americans for a decade. Clean it up, please.

   As a lifetime independent voter, that’s what I think you Democrats should do.

By Bob Gaydos

Epstein survivors stand as Attorney General Pam Bondi refuses to acknowledge them.

  If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, then a recent photo taken of Pam Bondi is priceless. The photo, which accompanies this column, encapsulates in one moment the very essence of the woman. Pure evil.

  Bondi’s hysterical, theatrical performance before a committee of Congress seeking full release of the FBI’s files on Jeffrey Epstein has been thoroughly covered by all media sources and her refusal to answer questions in favor of insulting members of Congress well-documented. It was likely the worst appearance ever by any United States Attorney General before a congressional committee. It should have been an embarrassment for her and her boss, Donald Trump.

  But I doubt that it was. The photo sealed the deal. Near the end of the three-hour ordeal of Bondi defending the Justice Department handling of the files by scowling, smirking and shrieking at committee members — she called Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) a “washed-up loser lawyer” and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) a “failed politician” — Rep. Pramila Jayapal ( D-Wash.) asked Bondi to turn around and personally apologize to the survivors who attended the meeting for the manner in which her department has handled the files.

    Bondi refused. She turned her head away from the survivors and said, “I am not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.“

  When Jayapal asked the survivors to stand and raise their hands if they had not yet been granted a meeting with the Justice Department to share their stories, all nine survivors in the room stood and raised their hands, as did two family members of the late Virginia Giuffre, who committed suicide.

    There’s your photo. The survivors standing and staring at Bondi as she sits, clutching her playbook, looking the other way with her best privileged school girl face. Mission accomplished. She was unable to display even the slightest modicum of compassion, to face them as a woman, if not the attorney general, and express sadness for the pain and suffering they have endured.

    Nothing.

    A portrait of evil. 

By Bob Gaydos

Marjorie Taylor Greene

I spent a surprisingly relaxing five minutes the other night listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene on YouTube. Yeah sure, I’ll repeat it. I spent a surprisingly relaxing five minutes the other night listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene on YouTube.

Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are. But it’s true.

The onetime MAGA maniac, who helped lead the Republican Party kicking and screaming (her, not the GOP regulars) into the cult of Trump, sat calmly and quietly, almost demurely, staring into the camera telling us about how she had been wrong to trust Trump and was disenchanted with politics because the people in it aren’t really there to serve the public. That is why she resigned from Congress, she said.

In and of itself, I wouldn’t buy that as her reason for quitting. She knew what the game was like and how to play as dirty as the next guy. But she was talking about the Epstein files and Trump and the victims whose stories of sexual assault she had heard in closed-door sessions and Trump’s reneging on his promise to release the files once elected and his continuing disregard of Congress’s official demand for release of the entire, unredacted files and about a phone call she said she got from Trump, because of her insistence on making the files public. She was talking about all that.

She said Trump called her office and said the files could not be released because people he knew would get hurt. Not that he would get hurt. People he knew. Read between the lines.

Greene said she put the call on speakerphone so her whole staff could hear it. She’s obviously serious about this and wants as many witnesses as possible.

I have no idea why, after all the Trump insanity, this is the issue that caused Greene to see the light, brought her a moment of clarity. I suspect, as with other Republican women in Congress who have pushed for release of the files, it’s highly personal.

Whatever the reason, and as delayed as this change of heart may be, I welcome it because she speaks to and for a lot of the MAGA crowd.

She may even have given some of her male colleagues in the Republican Party the courage to defy their leader on other issues. The House passed an extension to the Obamacare subsidies, despite Trump‘s opposition. The Senate finally declared Trump had no right to go to war against Venezuela or any other country without consulting Congress. Some Republicans called Trump‘s threats about taking Greenland reckless.

I don’t know if they’re all connected, but they are all deviations from the previous Republican norm regarding Trump — quiet obedience.

So I welcome Greene’s calm persistence in going after full release of the unredacted Epstein files as opposed to the Republican committee chair following Trump’s orders and focusing only on Democrats. And hey, if Bill Clinton’s in there, so be it.

I may be looking for something that’s not there. That’s the kind of world we live in today. But I had a surprisingly relaxing five minutes listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene the other night and I think that means something.

Stay tuned.

(This was written five years ago. The words still stand. A lesson sadly not yet learned.)

By Bob Gaydos   

The insurrection.

  I took a walk around the pond  Wednesday afternoon, January 6, a little before 4:30. It was cold, but still light out. The sun had just begun to set. As I walked I thought about how lucky — privileged — I was to be able to enjoy such a quiet moment in such a beautiful place in such a shithole country.

    No, friends and family, I haven’t moved. I still live in America, in a particularly scenic part of it, I think. For new readers, that place is upstate New York. It’s a place where a man can be alone to enjoy nature, if the man turns off his electronic devices.

     Two hours of watching live news reports out of Washington, D.C., had made me feel something I had never felt before — a combination of fear, anger, sadness, shame and profound outrage. The calming words and presence of President-elect Joe Biden had finally broken the spell the scenes of chaos had cast on me. It will end, I told myself. It will not succeed. There aren’t enough of them. They are all fury and delusion, taking selfies as they lay waste to the seat of government of the country they profess to love. Ignorance and arrogance, the Trump formula. In the end, it fails, but oh the harm it does. He doesn’t care. They, the rioters, are too dumb to know. That’s the nicest way I can put it. Or they are racists. Or both.

       Those are the facts. And for several hours on a Wednesday afternoon, as our Congress was attempting to perform its constitutional duty of confirming a new president,  these “Make America Great Again” terrorists made it look like one of those “shithole countries“ their leader once referred to with intent to insult. Yep, that’s what it looked like to me. …

                                                              ***.                                     

        … As I resume writing, it is now a week later. Trump has been impeached, again. Incitement to insurrection. Five people died in the attempted coup on The Capitol, including a police officer who was beaten to death by the rioters. White rterrorists carrying a Blue Lives Matter flag killed a Capitol police officer. They spread feces and urine throughout the building. They ransacked offices and went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence. The whole time, the rioters took selfies of themselves. Eventually, they went home or some D.C. bar, apparently thinking that would be the end of it. Just a friendly little failed insurrection in the nation’s capital, broadcast live around the world.

           If you stop to think about it – and apparently the rioters did not — the ignorance is astounding. It is surpassed only by the hypocrisy of the Republican members of Congress who encouraged and invited the assault and who voted against seating Biden as the duly elected president, even after the insurrection had been quelled. They stuck to the lies of the election being stolen from Trump, even though every one of them – except for perhaps a couple of conspiracy lunatics — knows that that is a lie. It was Trump’s biggest and most dangerous lie. In truth, a treasonous lie.

         Since that now infamous Wednesday, much more has been revealed about the attack on the Capitol. It wasn’t as innocent as it first appeared. There was a plan. There may have been inside help from some Republican members of Congress. Maybe even from the Capitol police, who were woefully unprepared for a massive event that was announced well in advance. There was a delay in getting National Guard troops to the scene, perhaps caused by someone in the Defense Department.

          There will be investigations. May they go on for as long as necessary and bring to justice all those who we’re involved in this assault on America. Every last one of them. Homegrown terrorists. White supremacists. Members of Congress. Conspiracy nuts. Nazis. Klansmen. Racists. Pick a name. The list includes police and ex-military members as well. The attackers were virtually all white, which is why they are still alive. Lock them all up. People who bring swastikas and Confederate flags to attack the seat of the government of the United States of America deserve no mercy.

           Trump now stands accused by Congress and convicted by the majority of the American people and the rest of the world of inciting an attempted overthrow of a duly elected government. But his accomplices in the Republican Party are also guilty. They have ignored his assault on democratic principles for four years, out of fear or for their own gain or because they agreed with him. They deserve what they’re reaping. The party deserves to die. May it be reborn in some semblance of a responsible political party, perhaps including those Republicans who had the courage to speak out publicly and fight against Trumpism.

            America has been put on notice. There are those among us, appearing publicly as patriotic citizens, but operating out of hate and fear that their dream of a white, Christian nation with everyone else second-class citizens, is about to die. And in their foolhardy effort to avoid that fate, they may have actually hastened it. Republicans who remained silent, evangelicals who remained silent as Trump ravaged democracy, all stand indicted. Those who supported him financially along the way and now seek to distance themselves, all stand indicted. Rupert Murdoch and Fox News stand indicted. 

            In a country Trump would call a “shithole,” those seeking to overthrow the government usually try to get the military on their side if they hope to succeed. When they don’t, they don’t. As I watched with Lester Holt on NBC News as the idiots stormed the Capitol, I kept thinking, well, sooner or later troops with weapons and bullets will arrive. Hopefully, with orders to shoot. I also was dumbfounded that people were posting images of themselves on the Internet as they perpetrated this terrorist attack against this nation and gave no thought to the fact that this would make it easy to track them down and arrest them. Ignorance and arrogance.

              Yes, we have a lot of work to do, but the first thing is not to give into Republican pleas of coming together for the good of the country. They spent four years quietly watching Trump tearing the country apart. They must pay the price. I repeat, there are many more of us than them and what is necessary now is for all who know and love and respect what this nation is about to speak out forcefully in defense of it. Bring to justice those responsible. Convict Trump. Convict him again and again on whatever charges may be filed when he leaves office. Teach young people that actions have accountability. When we get around to it, teach young people about civics and government and history in school again. Clearly a lot of Americans slept through those classes. Evangelical Christians are on their own in this one.

           Joe Biden faces a monumental task when he becomes president on January 20, but he will have full control of the Congress to back him up and, I believe, fervent support of a vast majority of Americans as well. That white mob that assaulted the Capitol was an embarrassment to this nation, but maybe a lesson as well. American exceptionalism was put to the lie.

            No, this is not a “shithole” country, yet. I can still take a quiet walk around the pond every day. But those who would take the right to feel that safe and at home in this country away from anyone whose skin color or nationality or religion or politics they find fault with must know there can be no healing until the wounds are closed, Not until the guilty are prosecuted and those who aided and abetted admit their guilt. Not until journalists are not casually referred to as “enemies of the people.” Not until children are not put in cages. Not until all lives truly matter.                      

            Enough.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro (kidnapped)

   Be careful what you wish for.

   After a few days of reminiscing about Christmases past and pondering the year to come, of musing about the choices and chances of survival of once seemingly stalwart Trumpers Elise Stefanik and Susie Wiles, I woke up on your regular Saturday, January 3, 2026, wondering what the man himself, the beneficiary of the first ever FIFA Peace Prize, would give me to write about.

     War.

      I should have known.

      This won’t take long. What you’re going to read here is likely to be pretty much what you read elsewhere because there’s only one way for rational, law-abiding citizens of our system of government with its separation of powers spelled out in a Constitution to look at it: Invading Venezuela and kidnapping its president and his wife/adviser with no legitimate provocation and without consulting Congress is an illegitimate act of war.

     The nonsense about Venezuela being a primary source of Fentanyl coming into this country is just that, nonsense. This is all about oil. Always has been. Gaining control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Wait to see which of Trump’s wealthy backers benefit.

      That Nicolas Maduro was a much-hated dictator does not justify attacking Venezuela and looking to change the government with no request for intervention and the claim that he was in fact a major drug dealer himself for allowing the drug trade to continue is sheer nonsense when one considers the actual major drug dealers Trump has pardoned.

     Trump says we’re going to “run” Venezuela for a while. Why? They have a new president — the former Vice President. Trump says Maduro is going to be charged with drug charges in New York. There are international courts.

      Then there’s the fact that China and Russia both get a lot of oil from Venezuela and our seizing the country to make up for losing control of its oil fields when they were nationalized seems to give China an argument for taking back Taiwan and its wealth and Russia invading Ukraine for its. Same authoritarian playbook.

    Illegal. Dangerous. Foolhardy. Unwanted and unwarranted. If you believe what we tell the world, unAmerican.

   Americans don’t want this. Congress must step in. Republicans must finally find the courage to do their job. He is out of control.

    The Epstein files are still out there. Trump’s name is all over them. War is a powerful distraction. Frightened and unchecked, he will only get worse. It’s only January 3rd.

Footnote: The plane carrying Maduro and his wife apparently landed at Stewart Airport in Orange County, my neighborhood and a short ride to New York City. When the hostages from Iran landed there, it was a much more joyous event,

By Bob Gaydos

     This is traditionally the time for resolutions, predictions or wishes for the new year. In the interest of time and uncluttering my mind, I’m going to attempt to do all three in one sitting.

      Number one resolution for me: Take care of myself. Do better at taking my vitamin supplements. Walk more regularly. Stay in touch with friends. Read more. Try not to sweat the small stuff.

      I wish and hope I can manage to do that basic minimum of self care because I know it will make life easier for me and those around me and — big and — it will make it much easier for me to enjoy it when my number one wish comes true.

      Namely, goodbye Trump. No, not a surprise. I’m not even going to express a preference for how the Donald exits the scene, whether because of failing health or constitutional disqualification. The sooner the better is the only qualifier. The nation, heck, the world needs a mental health break from the anger, deceit, bitterness and cruelty the man has left at every turn.

      I wish the millions of Americans who voted for him and still support him have their individual moments of clarity and surrender to the fact they have been duped. Admitting it is the first step to recovery.

     I wish the Republican Party would just go away. Disappear. Cowards all. At least those in Congress. Be done with disgracing the legacy of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower. Heck, I’ll even give them Reagan.

    I wish only the worst for the handpicked team of sycophants and worse who have done Trump’s bidding — Bondi, Hegseth, Kennedy, Patel, Rubio, Noem, et al. They deserve to pay the price for the pain they have aggressively inflicted.

    I wish, I wish, I wish. I wish that leaders of all religions in this country could join together in a moment of healing, that gambling can be removed from sports at the professional and college levels, that owners of newspapers and electronic media honor their First Amendment privilege and duty to report the news honestly and courageously, regardless of their bottom lines and that Americans insist on it, that Elon Musk be deported, that Democrats sweep the midterm elections, that younger Americans save themselves and the rest of us from the greedy insanity of MAGA. That last I wish most all.

   I predict … gingerly, that Trump will be removed from office, not just because of his obviously failing health and deteriorating mental condition, but because the people behind him, J.D. Vance et al, want it. Republicans see the failing poll numbers and the anger in the streets. They think they can save their Project 25 with a new face. But Vance is not the right face. The cult has one leader. The underlings are there to do his bidding. Also, they don’t have the protection Trump has to keep on riding roughshod over anyone and anything in his way — he doesn’t care about anyone else and he doesn’t care, much less know, how stupid he can sound.

    So, I predict the Democrats will indeed sweep the midterms and, with the help of disaffected Republicans (especially women), begin moving America back to being the land of the free. Make America sane again. I predict this will be very good for my well-being and allow me to go back to sweating (and writing about) the small stuff.

     I wish the same for you. Thanks for sticking with me. Happy New Year. 

By Bob Gaydos

Elise Stefanik … leaving politics

(more…)

By Bob Gaydos

The Rapture

    The note on my phone consisted of just three words: “A reasonable Rapture.”

     They were the result of venturing out of the house and out of my own mind to have coffee with a friend. I think they call it a conversation.

      I’m often amazed at what comes out of my mouth when I leave my mind behind. But this, the more I looked at it, it started to make sense.

       What is a reasonable Rapture? I asked myself. Or, more accurately, what would a reasonable Rapture look like if there was ever to be one? Well, that certainly stirs the creative juices.

        The traditional view of the Rapture among some evangelical Christians is that Jesus will return to “catch up” living believers to meet him in the air, while dead believers will be resurrected to join him. The rest of us non-believers will be left behind to deal with the Tribulations.

        Most Christian denominations do not ascribe to this view and the term “Rapture” is not specifically mentioned in the Bible. However, many American evangelicals do believe in it and the concept has been the subject of several books and movies.

        So what would a reasonable Rapture be for me? Being a non-believer in this particular case, I start by assuming I’m part of the left behind crowd. The ones who discover empty clothes lying on the ground where their loved ones or nosy neighbors used to be. It could be a little freaky. No goodbye note, no text, just a pile of laundry.

        In my case, it would be reasonable to believe that my loved ones and a fair amount of my friends would also still be here, scratching their heads, wondering where all the other people went.

        Then, one of the more informed would remember seeing a social media post about some evangelicals who believed in something called the Rapture. Up in the sky. Goodbye. Someone else would remember reading the book or seeing the movie “Left Behind.”

        Well, OK then. Let’s see who’s still here. Seeing as the evangelicals who were believers were also big Trump fans, we could assume that a lot of the MAGA crowd were, uh, gone.

         That’s good. Stress level on the planet should fall by about 50%. That’s reasonable. But what about the Tribulations? Trump would still be around because, for all his kissing up to the evangelicals, everything about him is a big lie. No Rapture for him.

       But wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that, with all his followers up in the sky flying to their just reward, he would be a cult leader without a cult? That should clear the way for impeachment proceedings in Congress, conviction, arrests on various felony charges, including those connected with the Epstein files, and humiliation on the world stage. Other than Stephen Miller, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth, who would care? 

    That would leave us with JD Vance as president, which is no prize, but still better than Trump. Vance has zero personality and, with most of MAGA gone, no real following. As someone who has shown he is more than willing to change his opinion and politics and résumé to save his career, he might be more than willing to do so to save his soul. Sounds reasonable and it would give him a great story for his second novel.

     Whatever, he would just be a short term fill-in while political leaders of both parties (but especially Republicans) in this country. start thinking about ways to work together again. I mean, wouldn’t that be a reasonable message from a Rapture?

     The ICE workers, most of whom would likely still be here, could be reassigned to going around the country and picking up all the laundry lying in the streets as part of their prison work release program.

     While we’re at it, those of us left behind might be shook up enough by the Rapture to look around and see other things that needed changing. Like maybe getting rid of the whole health insurance industry and creating Medicare for all in America. Caring more for each other. That seems like a reasonable reaction to a Rapture to me. Maybe a woman president, too.

     I don’t know; I’m still working on this. Have to make another date for coffee. It’s interesting what you can come up with when you apply reason to religion.

By Bob Gaydos

 It’s all about connecting the dots. That’s what I eventually figured out early in my 23 years of writing daily editorials for The Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y. Six times a week with a break on Saturday. What’s the issue, who’s involved, how does it affect readers and what, if anything, can they do about it. After a while, it became second nature.

     Long retired and, unfortunately, writing about two Trump administrations on my own deadlines, connecting the dots has been challenging. It’s more like following the ball in a pinball machine. Haphazard, slambang, unpredictable, without the fun. All followed by more of the same.

     But I think I’m starting to see some dots.

     Let’s start with Laura Loomer, Trump’s favorite and most avid crackpot fan. Responding to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement that Qatar will be allowed to operate an Air Force Base in Idaho, Loomer said, “There isn’t a single Trump supporter who supports allowing Qatar to have a military base on U.S. soil. I don’t know who told President Trump this was a good idea, but it has made people not want to vote. … No foreign country should have a military base on US soil. Especially Islamic countries. … I don’t think I’ll be voting in 2026.” Loomer had previously disagreed with Trump’s accepting a $400 million airplane from Qatar as a gift.

       Next dot, Tucker Carlson. Trump’s favorite Fox News host, now an independent podcaster, took issue with comments made by Attorney General Pam Bondi following the killing of Charlie Kirk, a MAGA hero. In the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, there was a flurry of commentary about him, much favorable (from MAGAs), but also a considerable amount that was critical of him. Bondi threatened that the Justice Department would “target” the critical ones, describing it as “hate speech.”

     Carlson, probably recognizing that his entire career depends on freedom of speech, said, “You hope that a year from now, the turmoil we’re seeing in the aftermath of [Kirk’s] murder won’t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country. And trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever. Because if they can tell you what to say, they’re telling you what to think … There is nothing they can’t do to you because they don’t consider you human.”

        Dot number three (and probably the most unexpected), Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Republican congresswoman, part of an outspoken group that has driven a couple of speakers out of their jobs in the House of Representatives for not being loyal enough to Trump, has taken sharp issue with Trump, Bondi and House Speaker Mike Johnson over their refusal to release the Jeffrey Epstein files to Congress. Greene has gone so far as to volunteer to read any list of perpetrators’ names provided by Epstein victims on the floor of the House, since the law protects members of Congress from legal action for any comments made on the floor of Congress during debate.

       Greene also has criticized Johnson for keeping the House in recess while the government is shut down and refusing to swear in a newly elected congresswoman from Arizona, who would be the deciding vote requiring release of the Epstein files to Congress. Discarding the Republican talking points that the shutdown is the fault of Democrats, Greene also points to the fact that the budget presented by Republicans will cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance and sharply raise the insurance rates for millions of others, including, as she points out, her own children.

      More dots: Trump mysteriously went to the Walter Reed Medical Center for his “annual“ check up, even though he had one In April, but no detailed report on his health was released. Just the usual, he’s OK, while rumors persist that he’s not and his daily public utterances are a word salad of self-praise and misinformation and obvious declining mental acuity. Other Republicans in the House, hearing complaints from their districts about losing health insurance, are privately grumbling over Johnson’s refusal to negotiate with Democrats on a budget. And Johnson, going straight from the Republican playbook, has taken to describing the coming No Kings protest as a “hate America rally.”

    Fear, panic, over-reaching and ignoring your supporters just to feather your nest and protect your own hide. The Trump playbook, but very poorly done. It was not a good week for Trump or MAGA. What would make it even worse, dear readers, would be for the No Kings protest to be the biggest pro-America rally ever.

    Dots all for now.