By Bob Gaydos

Kiss your VP hopes goodbye, governor.

    Poor Kristi Noem. All she wanted to do was please The Leader and spend four years by his side eagerly dismantling American democracy and maybe making a few bucks on the side. Not an unreasonable dream for a simple farm girl from South Dakota.

    Then she went and shot and killed a puppy. On purpose. For good measure, she also knocked off a goat, reloading her shotgun after initially wounding the animal, which apparently had the annoying habit of acting like, well, a goat.

      And of course, to make sure the world, and especially Donald Trump, knew that she was a no-nonsense woman and politician who could handle difficult situations, such as might be delegated to a vice president, she wrote about it in a memoir.

     When the manuscript of the not-yet published book was leaked, to Noem’s surprise, the world was pretty much shocked that someone would kill a puppy because she couldn’t train him and not simply give him to someone else who could.

      Worse for Noem, The Leader, learning of the shooting, book, etc., reportedly was disgusted and said, “Why would she do that?” Meaning, write all about it. In true Trump fashion, he observed that the South Dakota governor obviously has a poor sense of “public relations.”

       In her attempt to out-Trump Trump, she actually bragged about her evil side. Perhaps she hadn’t been paying attention to the trials, the lies, the stream of victimhood pouring from Trump’s mouth daily. Do it, yes. Then deny, deny, deny. It’s on tape? Deny. Fake news. There were witnesses? Deny. 

        Kill a puppy? It would have to have been viciously attacking, at your throat, no choice but to defend yourself. He killed a chicken? Umm … have Michael Cohen kill the story. Get a non-disclosure agreement from the farmer.

     Noem also admitted to one slight “error” in her memoir — she never actually met North Korea President Kim Jung Il in her wanderings. Somehow he wound up on a list of political figures with whom she had, um, some kind of personal connection. Vice presidential bona fides.

     Noem’s bloodthirsty naked ambition is yet another example of the depths of desperate ignorance and immorality to which much of today’s Republican Party has succumbed. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also ran afoul of the out-Trump Trump strategy in his brief, unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, especially by being tough on the issue of abortion. Can’t be done. Trump both criticized DeSantis’ strict policies and took credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

    If anything positive emerged from Noem’s dog story, it showed that there were actually still some in her party with a heart. No one, even Republicans, seemed to like the thought of shooting a perhaps difficult dog rather than re-homing him to someone who would train and love him.

      Now, immigrants seeking asylum by crossing the border with Mexico, or students demonstrating on college campuses are still different stories. We might need the Army or National Guard to, you know, protect us.

       Anyway, after the dog story went viral, Noem was disinvited from a big Republican Party event and removed from any Trump vice presidential running mate list, if one exists.

     Maybe she can chalk this political misstep up to being from South Dakota, which is in the middle of nowhere and has fewer than a million residents and only three votes in the outdated Electoral College.

      I’ve heard rumors that there are so few people in South Dakota who are politically inclined that the residents take turns at being governor and Noem got the job because the guy ahead of her moved to Florida to sell t-shirts with a “100 percent genuine” photo of Trump and Kim embracing in the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Now that sounds like a good political move for a Republican.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

My country ‘‘tis of thee,

Today, I fear for thee.

The Orange Pretender, having stolen the presidency, plans to heist the nation’s birthday party as his own. At the memorial for America’s greatest president, no less. It will be a celebration of ego and pomposity on a grand scale. (He wants tanks!)

Such is the shell-shocked state of the republic, many Americans will go about their lives as if this is normal. ‘Burgers, hot dogs and fireworks. Business as usual. It’s an effort to preserve sanity, which, I understand, is necessary when so many others who share the same situation seem to have no problem with the behavior of the dotard on the dais.

But it’s not normal, America, not by a long shot, and it pains me to have to reflect on what this pretend president did in the days preceding the 243rd birthday of the republic.

On the anniversary of the killing of five journalists in the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., Donald Trump met with Vladimir Putin, the man who helped install him as president. Putin is a president who routinely locks up Russian reporters or, if they are really troublesome, has them poisoned or thrown out hotel room windows. Trump and Putin joked about how it would be nice to be “rid” of such annoyances. Trump also jokingly asked Putin not to interfere in the next U.S. election. Ha ha.

Trump subsequently professed his close friendship with the Saudi crown prince who had done exactly what Trump joked about — he ordered the torture and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi writer who was living in America and working for The Washington Post. Trump thinks this is no big deal because Saudi Arabia will be spending a lot of money on “a lot of things” in America. And staying at Trump hotels.

And, in a great meeting of the minds, Trump met Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, on his turf, to create the photo op both yearned for — thereby giving instant credibility to a murderous, nuclear-weapon-armed tyrant who is much less circumspect than Putin or the Saudi prince in terminally eliminating impediments to his dictates. (Of  course, Trump also lied that Barack Obama had yearned for and been denied a similar meeting with Kim in North Korea when Obama was president. But that was just typical Trump B.S.)

You can throw in Trump insulting our ally and his G20 summit host, Japan, backing down on his China tariff threat in the one area it made sense, exhibiting a profound ignorance of what the word “busing”” refers to when discussing schools, and denying yet another allegation of sexual assault by saying, “She’s not my type.“ A class act this Trump.

Even for Trump, the week was quite a display of ego, ignorance and insensitivity. And now we get Trump at the Lincoln Memorial telling us his version of what America is all about. There will apparently be lots of tanks and troops and planes. Someone will probably slip the words freedom and liberty into his speech. He will mouth them uncomprehendingly. Look at the great party I threw for America!

I’ve said it before. I take it personally when the president calls me “the enemy of the people.“ I take it personally when journalists are murdered for doing their jobs. I take it personally when not enough people seem to get the connection between the president’s words and the dead journalists. Like it’s OK for a president to say such things.

I know there are plenty of people who share my views and are as appalled as I am with Trump and many have voiced their opinions. But I’m still waiting for the Republicans among them to state so publicly. He has branded their party as surely as he has branded every one of his failed business ventures.

So have your burgers and fireworks. Take a dip in the pool. If you have time, maybe stop and think about what this holiday signifies. Liberty, opportunity, and, as Lincoln, a president who could actually craft coherent, profound messages, noted, “the proposition that all men are created equal.” Were he writing today, Lincoln would have said “men and women,” so that his message was clear.

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” The words of another eloquent statesman, Edmund Burke, Ireland, in the 18th century.

What Trump is doing is not normal, America, and it’s important to say so. In fact, I’m proud and grateful that I live in a country that still grants me that freedom.

So, happy birthday, to us.

Bob Gaydos is a freelance writer. He was news editor and executive editor of the Evening Capital in Annapolis in the early 1970s. rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

There I was, minding my own business (sort of), scrolling through my Facebook news feed trying to find a video on the Yankees game sandwiched in among all the posts about ICE agents snatching kids away from their parents at the border, Scott Pruitt using his security detail to fetch him lotion and the trending, new puzzle — “Where’s Melania?” — when the ad grabbed my attention.

Did I want to take the “Mainstream Media Accountability Survey’’?

Huh? The what?

Who the heck is conducting this survey? I blurted to no one in particular.

It didn’t take long to find out. The ad, I was informed by Facebook’s new, better-late-than-never policy of full disclosure, was “Paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee authorized by and composed of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. and the Republican National Committee.”

Swell.

In the process of telling Facebook to never send me another post from the Trump MAGA Committee, I asked Facebook (as it now also allows me to do) how I even got this targeted ad — I’m familiar with targeting Facebook ads — in the first place.

Facebook offered two possibilities:

1. I shared the views of Trump MAGA. Uh, you could probably know that wasn’t true within 10 seconds of scrolling my wall.
2. The committee was targeting individuals between the ages of 18 and 65 living in the United States of America. That would be known as a pretty loose target audience, geography wise, but I fit. However, I have aged out of the age parameters, so Facebook messed up anyway. Your algorithms still need work, folks.

At any rate, being a longtime member of said “mainstream media,” I was hooked. I had to check out the “survey.”

George Orwell would have been proud; George Gallup not so much.

Here’s the first question: “Do you trust the mainstream media to put the interests of Americans first?

• Yes
• No
• No opinion
• Other, please specify:”

Loaded much? Remember, it’s supposedly targeted to like-minded individuals. As surveys go, this one evidenced the Trump team’s view of the scientific method: Ignore it.

Question number two: “Do you trust the mainstream media to report fairly on our presidency?” Same choices.

Then, in order: “Do you trust (NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News) to report fairly on our presidency?” Same options.

If you’re sensing a pattern, you are correct. It’s all in the same vein as Der Leader’s message: These people are really untrustworthy enemies of the people, aren’t they?

Here’s just one more question, to demonstrate what passes for policy in the Trump GOP: “On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing President Trump? (Select as many that apply.)”

• Immigration
• Economics
• Radical Islamic Terrorism
• Pro-life values/social issues
• Religion
• Health care
• Second Amendment rights”

Note — “the worst job” as the operative choice and “as many as apply.” Nothing like piling on, folks.

The questions get more ridiculously slanted as the 25-question “survey” goes on. I fully expect the results to be proudly posted on Facebook and bantered around Fox News, With any luck and if Facebook follows my instructions, I won’t see them. But millions will and, again, those people who buy anything Trump sells will believe it and I’m pretty sure the Mainstream Media isn’t going to come out too well.

In the same week this ad appeared, Trump came late and left early at the G7 meeting of top world economies in Canada, but not before wrongly accusing Canada of burning down the White House in 1812 and threatening to cut off trade with our staunchest ally and largest trading partner while insisting Russia, which was booted out of the group after “annexing” Crimea, should be allowed back in.

Then Drumpf headed to Singapore where he intended to conduct negotiations on nuclear weapons with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un by sizing up his opposite number in the first minute or so via “feel.” It was also reported that Dennis Rodman, the former NBA star and reputed friend of Kim, was heading to Singapore, perhaps to play second fiddle to Kim as he once did for Michael Jordan. Trump had John Bolton as his sidekick. Rodman has the size, but I’d bet anything Bolton uses his elbows under the boards.

What’s the point of all this? Well, maybe that, under Trump, the real, the true, the factual, the serious business of life has become demonized and trivialized to the point that everything is treated as a reality TV show and millions of Americans are — for reasons no one has yet explained to my satisfaction beyond sheer ignorance and bigotry — hooked. Those videos of children being snatched from parents and locked up by ICE? Not true, say Trumpsters. Media lies. Or, if true, then necessary, the attorney general says, because … as if there could be any legitimate “because.”

The Republican Party as a functioning political organization has ceased to exist. Trump makes it up as he goes along and scapegoats anyone who points out his lies, ignorance, pettiness, greed and other overwhelming deficiencies. But the “survey” will come out and it will confirm his claims of bias by the mainstream media and it will be posted on social media and mailed to all white people in America likely to vote for Trump because that country with the strongest economy ever, that country that promises freedom and opportunity to all, that country so many “other” people are willing to risk losing their lives — or their children — in order to live in, needs to be made great again.

Survey says Betsy DeVos can relax. The dumbing-down of America is well under way.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

“I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier.”

— Donald J. Trump, in an interview with Reuters

Who knew?

Wow, has it really been only 100 days since America started to be great again? Seems like … a heck of a lot more. In fact, it seems like ages since the same Mr. Trump said, “We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. We have the best military people on Earth. And I will say this: [North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un] is doing the wrong thing.”

Remember that? He was talking to Fox News. That was way back when he tried to fake out Kim by warning him that an aircraft carrier group was steaming towards North Korea when it was really heading in the opposite direction to the Indian Ocean? Kind of like hiring someone to do a job and then not paying them, you know? It always worked in business, so I guess he figured it was worth a try on an unpredictable dictator with a million-man army and a hankering for nuclear missiles.

Although, I’d imagine Mr. Trump must have been somewhat embarrassed when his admirals said they didn’t know anything about any ships steaming to Korea. But heck, they finally worked it out and they’re there now, so good for them, right? And Mr. Trump said not to worry, war-lovers, a “major” conflict with North Korea was still not out of the range of possibility if Kim continued to engage in provocative behavior. Except Mr. Trump doesn’t like to use big words, so he said something like, “If Kim (which one, guys?) keeps doing bad things we might have to attack him.”

The narcissist-in-chief (NIC) likes simple declarative sentences. Nothing complex. Direct communication. Look at his tax plan. One page, 200 words. No messing around with details like revenues and deficits. Huge tax cuts for very rich people. I promised it, now do it, staff. That’s a leader. This is what those voters wanted to see and hear.

Not that he’s a dictator, though. He showed how flexible he can be on his campaign promises by not insisting that a budget bill to keep the government operating for another week include $3 billion to start that wall the Mexicans keep refusing to pay for. Well, he did insist at first, but when Congress said no, he showed he could be flexible. He put off the wall for a few months.

He did the same thing with his threat to cut off funds that allow poor people to get health insurance through Obamacare if Congress didn’t get rid of his predecessor’s legacy achievement. Yessir, the NIC said in clear, concise terms that he’d hold up any budget deal and cut off Obamacare Medicaid funds unless Congress made good on his promise of a new health care plan right now. But again, he showed how flexible he could be by saying OK when Congress said “no way” to his threat. Now that’s a good leader, right?

… This is not normal, people.

The only honest thing the NIC has said since being elected is that he thought the job would be easier. He couldn’t bring himself to say it’s way too hard for him, that he’s woefully ill-prepared intellectually, emotionally and spiritually for the most important job on the planet. He did manage to say that measuring a president by his first 100 days in office — a traditional benchmark he promoted strongly while running for the office — was actually an artificial (he probably said “fake”) measure of a president’s accomplishments … although he also said his first 100 days were clearly the best ever.

Well, they did result in the lowest approval rating at that juncture of any president — 41 percent. In fact, according to the YouGOV/Economist poll, “What Americans saw in President Trump as he was inaugurated nearly 100 days ago is more or less the same things they see today: Opinions of his qualities and his presidency have changed little. The public is more negative than positive about his performance, and most continue to find weaknesses in his honesty, empathy and temperament.”

Let that last, subtle sentence sink in.

And yet, 31 percent of the public (mostly Republicans) say he has performed better than they expected, according to the poll. This may suggest that a lot of people had really low expectations of Trump going in, or that they are just as delusional as he is. I offer no Option C.

That poll also reported that, in general, Americans like Barack Obama a lot more than they do Donald Trump. Shocker. To the question, “Regardless of whether you agree with him, do you like Donald Trump as a person?” people responded: Like a lot, 23 percent; like somewhat, 20 percent; dislike 45 percent.

On Obama: Like a lot, 44 percent; like somewhat, 27 percent; dislike, 18 percent.

So most Americans would probably rather play golf with Obama than Trump.

Still, a bit more than 10 percent of the people polled apparently couldn’t decide if they liked or disliked either man, which to me is mind-boggling and also a contributing factor as to how we wound up with a phony, misogynistic, narcissistic, lying, ignorant, immature, rude, bullying, lazy, ill-informed, bigoted con man in the Oval Office.

It’s 100 days. Let’s not beat around the bush anymore folks.

rjgaydos@gmail.com