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 

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.

By Bob Gaydos

Deepak Chopra, friend of Jeffrey Epstein?

When the world starts to run away from me and there’s too much to comment on but I know more is coming fast, I turn to the late, great Jimmy Cannon’s approach. So,

• Maybe it’s just me, but: A president who has said, “We are not looking for regime change. We’ve learned that lesson a long time ago.“ And, “We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change.“ And, just in June of last year when asked about regime change said it “leads to chaos,” but has now said in a space of a few months, “We are in charge“ with regard to Venezuela and “regime change in Iran seems like the best possible outcome“ and, noting that he’s still a little busy with Iran, did say that the fall of the Cuban regime was just “a question of time,” is basically dangerous, power-hungry and not to be believed any time he opens his mouth.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I get a little worried when one mega corporation starts buying up all kinds of media outlets, threatening the diversity of opinion and trustworthy newsgathering. So, I’m not happy that Paramount, which is in the process of turning CBS into a clone of Fox News, is reportedly ready to do the same with CNN and also owns Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, HBO, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, HGTV, TLC, Discovery, Paramount+, Pluto TV, Oracle (which owns 15% of TikTok) CBS Sports and the Cartoon Network, outbid (with a big nudge from the White House) Netflix to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. This has monopoly written all over it and the FCC should carefully review this deal. But this is Trump’s FCC and it’s Trump’s buddy who owns Paramount, which means Congress should really look at this closely. Which is why it’s really nice to have a true two-party system. Remember?
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I’ve become somewhat numbed to the steady release of names of prominent, influential or just plain rich people in the Epstein files. I mean, the man formally known as Prince Andrew was not a surprise, nor was Woody Allen, Bill Clinton or even Bill Gates. Their names had been out there a while. But I have to admit Deepak Chopra stopped me in my tracks. Is this a construct? Or did the wellness guru have something else in mind when he e-mailed Jeffrey to “bring your girls” and commented on the sounds young girls make? Something to meditate on.
• Maybe it’s just me, but: I’m only mildly surprised that the inevitable Trump purge of disposable sycophants has begun with the kiss off of Kristi Noem from Homeland Security to some other phony organization with a fancy name Trump has cooked up. You can only embarrass the Donald … well, actually you cannot embarrass the Donald and run a scam funding operation that doesn’t include him and get caught doing it. Eventually, Noem needs to be held accountable for her criminal behavior running Homeland Security. And lose those hair extensions.

By Bob Gaydos

Marco Rubio, spilling the beans.

  So, it is Bibi’s war.

   Marco Rubio let the cat out of the bag. That’s the problem when you slip up and hire someone who hasn’t been a total putz his whole career — he sometimes slips up and tells the truth.

    Asked by reporters why the United States attacked Iran when negotiations were continuing about abandoning its nuclear weapons agenda and there was no apparent threat of an attack by Iran on the U.S., the secretary of state said in typical roundabout fashion that we had to attack first because soon after Iran was attacked by Israel, Iran would surely have attacked the U.S. as well as Israel.

   Well, of course.

   So, despite all the pretense of negotiations, Israel was going to attack Iran anyway. Netanyahu talked Trump, the peace president, into helping him in his battle for Israeli control of the region because …?

   Well that’s a good question.

   It’s clear the whole argument about nuclear weapons was a setup. Other negotiators from the region said a deal could have been made. So Trump quickly changed the stated goal to regime change. Kill the evil ayatollah and let long-suffering Iranians take back their country. Like this has ever worked anywhere. Trump himself has publicly said it doesn’t work and, by the way, the Iranian regime goes well beyond the will of an 86-year-old man, now deceased.

   Which brings it all back to Jeffrey Epstein.

  Of course.

   The reporting behind the reporting notes that Epstein worked for years as an asset of the Israeli Mossad, its intelligence agency. Part of his purpose was to get incriminating evidence of influential people in embarrassing, preferably illegal, situations. The object being blackmail.

   Like maybe a video of Donald Trump raping a 13-year-old girl.

   Bibi to Donald: “Look, big guy, I know you tore up the nuclear pact with Iran in your first term and I want to thank you for that for giving us an excuse to attack them again. And I know you got elected again by promising to be a peace president, not getting involved in protracted wars anywhere, not looking for regime change anywhere. But let’s be real here. I know you’d really like to set up a Trump resort on the Mediterranean in Gaza and I’m doing my best to make that happen, but we both know how difficult it is, especially with half the world digging around in them, to keep embarrassing information in the Epstein files secret. Heck, I wouldn’t put it past some intelligence agent somewhere from leaking stuff to the media. Some people would probably pay for it. I mean, videos of old men and young girls doing things they shouldn’t do together could really damage someone’s life, never mind reputation. I’d hate to see that happen to anyone.

  “By the way, we will be attacking Iran on the morning of February 28, if you care to join us. No holds barred. Let Hegseth rip his shirt off, drink beer and go crazy.

    “My people will be too busy fighting another war to throw me in jail. I’m sure you can identify with that. And you can get to say you killed the ayatollah. It’s a win-win.”

    That’s it, people. Maybe there’s another explanation for this insanity, but for now I’m going with the well-informed secretary of state’s explanation: It’s Bibi’s war. We’ve been kidnapped, in effect, and are paying the ransom with the blood of American soldiers.

By Bob Gaydos

The lucky Ladybug.

  Last Saturday turned out to be quite a day. I woke up to a much-needed warm, sunny day with snow melting everywhere, and wound up spending my afternoon writing about the dotard in the White House starting a war with Iran because people were talking about stuff in the Epstein files about him raping a 13-year-old girl.

   Bummer, right?

   But the universe has a way of trying to balance things out, I believe. You just have to pay attention.

    Later Saturday, I got together with a group of friends over coffee and good cheer to talk about anything other than war. In the midst of this fellowship, a ladybug suddenly appeared on the table right next to my arm. Out of nowhere. Inside, windows closed, no plants, ladybug.

     It stuck around. Pleasantly surprised, I said I was “pretty sure” it was a good omen. In my head, I was saying, “God, I sure hope it is“

     Well, hey, sometimes I get it right. Back home on the couch, I asked my assistant – Google AI – to check out the symbolism of the ladybug. It reported back, “Ladybugs are almost universally recognized as the symbols of good luck, protection and positive transformation. Their arrival is often seen as a sign that wishes are about to come true or that a period of prosperity is beginning.”

     Also, in some cultures they are seen as guardians that ward off negative energy, in others they represent personal growth and in many traditions, AI tells me, “the appearance of a ladybug suggests that true love is on its way or that current relationships will flourish.”

   Gotta love that last flourish. And I wouldn’t argue with that period of prosperity thing either. But I’d really like to cash in on that “wishes are about to come true” sign. For all of us.

   Realistically, I don’t think even a swarm of ladybugs could give the tin man in the White House a heart, but I gotta believe in enough of a swarm, perhaps accompanied by massive demonstrations and thousands of phone calls complaining about starting illegal wars and allegedly raping 13-year-old girls not being acceptable behavior by the titular head of this country, miraculously implanting a brain and some guts in cowardly Republican members of Congress to put a stop to the insanity. That’s my wish.

   They say you gotta believe. They also say you gotta grab a shovel or a hammer or a phone or a pen or whatever is necessary to kind of help out. C’mon, folks. I’d really hate to waste a good lady bug.

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.

Prologue

I wrote the column below on Oct. 20, 2016. It appeared on zestoforange. It’s still here. It was obviously written out of frustration and anger and I’m reposting it here out of frustration and anger that, nearly 10 years later, there are people in this country who still think the Republican Party has any moral standing as a legitimate political party. Even after that craven display of cowardly behavior at the State of the Union. Despite the continued Epstein coverup. Trump is Trump. He’s always been the same. Republicans picked him. He has been the death of them. Millions of Americans voted for him simply because he represented one of our two major political parties. Others believed his lies. Many, sorry to say, agreed with his brand of bigotry. Then they did it again. Even after four years of chaos. Yet people still give Republicans a pass for making this vile, now demented, man their leader. He in turn remade them in his image. Finally, one of those shouting TV commentators actually said the other day that Republicans are letting Trump destroy our country. It started 10 years ago, people, when Trump destroyed them.

By Bob Gaydos

People walk past a mural on a restaurant wall depicting Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin greeting each other with a passionate kiss in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. PETRAS MALUKAS / AFP – Getty Images

That’s all. I’ve had it. I am through with writing about what a sick, repugnant human being Donald Trump is and then watching him reach a new low. Those who know about recovery from addiction, a subject on which I write regularly, say that every bottom has a trapdoor. Trump is living proof of that. Yet, with each new bottom, every poll seems to find 40 percent of those surveyed favoring him for president.

A few days ago, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to give people a reason to vote for Hillary Clinton, rather than against Trump. I stopped writing in mid-column because it seemed to be a waste of time. Who was I going to convince?

Here’s as far as I got …

There I was, having breakfast and rummaging around in my mind to find an angle for this presidential campaign other than don’t vote for Donald Trump because he’s an ignorant, racist, bigoted, misogynistic, cruel, vindictive, vile, narcissistic, xenophobic, quick-tempered, undisciplined, untrustworthy, uninformed, unspeakably crude sexual pervert and birther, who lies as naturally as he breathes.

Somehow, writing that message week after week (me and plenty of others) still hadn’t convinced a lot of people that the only vote that makes sense on Nov. 8 is one for Hillary Clinton. You don’t have to like her, folks, just know that that the future of this nation may well depend on voting for her.

Deaf ears. “Yeah, Trump may be all those things,” comes the unconvincing shrug, “but I can’t vote for her.” I have given up asking for reasons why. You know, reasons based on actual facts that would outweigh the choice at hand.

I set aside a newspaper article about how Trump had managed to actually make insulting comments about Clinton’s body as part of his defense against multiple charges that he is a sexual predator. Instead, I tried to focus on my egg white omelette (Swiss cheese and tomatoes). Then, as fate (or my excellent hearing) would have it, the angle was delivered to me from a nearby table. A reason to vote for Hillary … not that it was presented that way.

“DId you hear that Putin said if Clinton is elected, be prepared for war?”

The point the gentleman was making to his friend was that voting for Clinton would be dangerous because it could mean getting into a war with Russia. This was delivered in all seriousness because Vladimir Putin had said so and, as we know, he always speaks the truth and never has any nefarious plot in mind because that’s the way former heads of the KGB comport themselves when they get elected president of Russia.

The further point would be that voting for Trump would be smart because Putin says nice things about him. And Trump says he’d like to work with Putin.

So there you have it, America, the Republican candidate for president of the United States is now being touted as the better choice because the president of Russia doesn’t like the other candidate. Does this seem backwards to anyone else? When did being pals with Putin all of a sudden become more important than standing up to the Kremlin? When Trump launched his campaign based on lies and fear, that’s when.

Trump, of course, has said that he has met Putin. He has also said that he has not met Putin. You can be sure that Clinton and Putin know each other well. And he apparently does hate her guts. (I’m liking this reason for voting for her even more now.) That’s because, as secretary of state, she publicly called him out on stealing his election, something which Trump has accused Clinton of trying to do. She stood up to Putin. Meanwhile, Trump wants to do business with the man who grabbed Crimea from Ukraine and whose political opponents have a way of ending up dead.

It used to be that Republicans automatically voted for the candidate who was tough on Russia. They wanted someone the Kremlin would have to talk to and would do so with respect. Someone experienced in  diplomacy whose word could be counted on by friend and foe alike. That would be Hillary, not Donald. Donald, who doesn’t know Crimea from Korea, wants to sell out NATO and maybe get a hotel deal in the bargain. Putin has played him — and his followers — perfectly, from the hacked Clinton e-mails to the threat of war. Trump’s entire campaign is based on fear. That’s no way for America to negotiate with Putin, or any other world leader. …

***

I stopped there, wondering whether to go on. Then Trump said in the last debate that he wouldn’t necessarily accept the results of the election if he lost. That’s when I threw in the towel. For a man who has promoted violence at his rallies and some of whose supporters have openly espoused rebelling against any defeat, this is as unacceptable, unpatriotic, indefensible, possibly treasonous a statement as a candidate for president can make.

But that’s Trump — a new bottom every day. His fans cheered. I do not blame him for being who he is; I simply detest him. In truth, I’m sick of him. I do, however, blame the Republican Party for infecting American society (not just politics) with this utterly degrading election campaign. I mean every elected Republican official, from Speaker Paul Ryan to every governor, senator, congressperson, state legislator, county executive, county legislator, mayor, supervisor, councilman who has stood silently by and let Trump make a mockery of our democratic system and lay waste to any sense of decency or decorum in selection of the most powerful political leader on the planet.

A lot of these people went to Cleveland to vote for Trump. Then they stayed mute for months as he … okay, I said I’m not doing that anymore. The world knows what he has done. If you know all that and can still support him, words actually fail me. The same goes for those who say Hillary is just as bad. Not even close. You people need to get serious.

Republicans, Trump is not one of you. He is Trump. Period. You created him. Your hypocrisy and cowardice have emboldened him and his ilk. He has sullied us all. And he has destroyed you.

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

Kaitlin Collins and Donald Trump

   There’s something that’s been baffling me for years and it was brought to my attention again this morning by two unrelated news stories: Donald Trump and the women who support him.

   I don’t get it. I admit it. And I would welcome any women readers’ attempts to explain it to me.

    One story, the one getting all the headlines, concerned an exchange between Trump and CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins at a press conference in the Oval Office. Collins was pressing Trump about what he might say to survivors of the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking operation who feel they have not received justice.

    Trump, whose name appears thousands of times in the recently released Epstein files, did what he typically does with a female reporter — he insulted her.

    He called her the “worst reporter” and then said, “l don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. You know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the truth.”

     Collins didn’t take the bait, but kept pressing for an answer that never came. Trump, of course, had previously called a female reporter “piggy“ for daring to bring up the same subject.

    The other story I just happened to come upon while glancing over old copies of the New York Times that I was preparing to toss in the recycling can. It was the typical overlong Times profile of a young woman, Andrea Lucas, whom Trump has made chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

   Her job, as with practically everyone else Trump named to head a government agency or department appears to be to make it unnecessary.

   In a nutshell, she says she wants to remake the image of the commission in Trump’s vision of workplace discrimination. No diversity, no equity, no inclusion for those discriminated against in the past, because young white males are having difficulty finding jobs and, if that’s the case, they should report it to her because they might be entitled to some compensation. (That might also explain the surge of interest for jobs in ICE.)

    How can she do this? I asked myself. How can she support this man? Is she not aware of the struggle women have fought for decades to gain respect in the business world? To even have the right to vote? To have the right to make decisions about their own bodies? Heck, for her to even hold the job she has.

    And even more to the point here, how can she do this when every sane person of reasonable intelligence in the entire world knows that Trump was fully immersed in the Epstein sex-trafficking of young teenage girls? Rape.

     How can she — and I look at the history here — fully support a man who cheated on his first wife with his second wife and cheated on his second wife with his third wife? Who cheated on his third wife while she was taking care of their newly born son? Who tried to cover up that cheating (with a porn star) and was subsequently convicted of four felony counts? Who, in a civil trial, was adjudicated liable and ordered to pay millions of dollars for sexual assault and defamation of character in what a judge called rape for his attack on a female journalist, yes, in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

   How? How do you look at a man like this, smile, nod and say, yes sir, never heard of Jeffrey Epstein, when you’re a woman?

    How does Pam Bondi do it? Kristi Noem? Karoline Leavitt? Tulsi Gabbard? Linda McMahon (Education), Brooke Rollins (Agriculture), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (Labor), and Susie Wiles, chief of staff?

      I’m stumped, angry and saddened by this allegiance to a man who the recently released trove of files show Epstein referring to him as “the worst person” he’s ever known.

       That’s it. That’s what I don’t get. Maybe it’s as simple as being a man and not a woman, but I’d really appreciate it if some women readers could share some thoughts with me on this.