This Trump tweet is 50 words long but says so much more.

I don't think it's wise to parse the words of someone as erratic and incompetent as Donald Trump, but this recent tweet is a real doozy and demands a little scrutiny. 

Take a look. 

Let's dig in.

First, we have the President claiming that the book is boring. But the only way to determine if a book is boring is to actually read the book, which we know Trump did not do because:

• Trump doesn't read.
• Trump tweeted this less than 24 hours after the book was published. Even if he did read books (and he doesn't), he didn't have time to read a book of this length over the course of a day, especially while serving as President.  

It's both strange and disconcerting that Trump would not see the transparency of this obvious lie.

Second, we have the President claiming that Wolff "made up stories" to sell this "untruthful" book. But Trump knows that Wolff, who reputation for the truth is admittedly not pristine, has recordings of many of the conversations used to write this book.

Is he hoping Wolff won't release these recordings or allow a third party to listen for verification?

Even worse, we know most of these stories to be true already. They are consistent with reporting emerging from the West Wing all year. Sources have been leaking this kind of information about Trump and his staff ever since Trump took office. While the book is a bombshell, it's not exactly entirely new information.   

Also, why doesn't Trump realize that every time he criticizes this book or attacks the author, Wolff sells more books? This should be exceptionally obvious, and yet Trump continues to attack. First, he ineffectually sued to prevent the book's publication (which only results in the publisher releasing the book four days earlier), and since then, he has criticized it verbally and on Twitter again and again.

It's going to be a New York Times #1 bestseller, thanks in large part to Trump. 

I can only pray that Trump would attack one of my books with equal ferocity. 

Now we get to the most interesting and incomprehensible aspect of this tweet. Trump says:

"He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job."

There is so much here. 

1. If Wolff "used Steve Bannon," who had unfettered access to the West Wing as Trump's chief strategist for most of 2017, then Wolff had at least one very significant source for this book, and Trump just acknowledged it.  
2. When Bannon left the White House in late August, Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that it was a "mutual decision." Trump had nothing but praise for Bannon at the time. So was Sanders lying about this mutual decision? Was Trump lying about his effusive praise? Does Trump not see that reversing a story four months later makes him and his spokesperson a liar back then or a liar now? 
3. How does telling the world that someone cried as you terminated their employment make you look like anything other than a despicable, reprehensible, untrustworthy human being? How does anyone ever work for a man who would do this kind of thing? When has any employer in the history of the world revealed that an employee cried in response to being fired? Does Trump not realize that revealing that Bannon cried only serves to make Bannon seem more human and Trump appear even more rotten than before?
4. Does anyone really believe that Bannon cried? Anyone? 

Then Trump says that Bannon has been "dumped like a dog" by almost everyone. 

Who dumps dogs? 

Dumped like a bag of steaming garbage? Sure. 
Dumped like a bad habit? Fine.
But who dumps man's best friend? Apparently Trump does. 

Then Trump closes with "Too bad!" 

What does this mean?

• Is Trump reflecting back upon his and Steve's previously joyous moments in the Oval Office?
• Is he expressing regret for the deterioration of their relationship?
• Is he worried about the future financial viability of his one time friend? 
• Or is it the "Too bad!" of a sarcastic, middle school bully who is purposefully deflecting emotional attachment and feelings while trying to hurt another?

According to the many accounts in Wolff's book, it's the latter. The one consistent theme running throughout the book is that Trump acts like a petulant child in need of immediate gratification. As a result, these final two words of this tweet only serve to further support the case for the book and its accuracy.  

This petulant, angry, insulting, defensive, untruthful tweet was written by the President of the United States. This is how he spends his time. This is how he serves the American people.

I'd tell Trump how I feel about his tweet directly, but he blocked me on Twitter earlier this year. 

Damn coward. 

Lest us not forget the real story of Christmas

It's a damn shame how racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and disregard for human life outside our borders keep getting in the way of the those God loving conservatives like Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions and what should be their desire to help those less fortunate. 

If only they knew the true meaning (and origins) of Christmas. 

Trump isn't fit to clean toilets

In response to Trump's tweet earlier this week about Senator Gillibrand:

USA Today's Editorial Board wrote:

“With his latest tweet, clearly implying that a United States senator would trade sexual favors for campaign cash, President Trump has shown he is not fit for office. Rock bottom is no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low.

A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush. ”

USA Today is generally considered to occupy the center in terms of its political leanings, and it does not formally endorse political candidates. 

But these are not normal times, and the editors of USA Today recognize this. 

I thank them for breaking from tradition, responding to this truth, and taking a stand. While I would not characterize my blog as political, I am writing more about politics now than ever before, simply because these are not normal times in America. 

This is not a normal President.

And yes, I would agree. Donald Trump is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.

All I want for Christmas is a machine gun

Not really, of course, but damn do I love this sweater.

For those of you who can't quite pick up on the reference, it's Die Hard, the greatest Christmas film of all time.

In the movie, our hero, John McClane, has just managed to kill his first terrorist and acquired a machine gun. He sends the lifeless corpse down to Hans Gruber, the terrorist boss man, in an elevator with this note written in red Sharpie on his sweatshirt.

There's nothing better than a barefoot underdog taunting his well armed enemy.

For the record, while I'm not interested in owning a machine gun, I'm not at all opposed to the second Amendment. I believe in the right of Americans to own firearms. I simply want every gun owner to undergo a thorough background check, restrictions placed on criminals, perpetrators of domestic abuse, individuals on the no-fly list, and the like, and a complete ban on assault weapons. 

You know... reasonable, rationale gun ownership. The kind of gun ownership our founding fathers envisioned with they wrote the Constitution. 

Except for John McClane, of course. He can have as many machine guns as he wants. 

Comeuppance!

Two years ago Kim Davis, the county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky, denied David Ermold a marriage license because he was gay, despite it being legalized.  

Last week she had to watch as he signed up to run against her in the next election.

Alabama did the right thing last night. Let's hope Rowan Country, Kentucky can do the same. 

If you enjoy a glass floor, don't forget to look down and thank your lucky stars

"But for a couple of bad breaks, especially visited upon vulnerable people, the outcome of life would be so different." 

This is a sentence that Slate's Mike Pesca spoke a couple months ago on his podcast The Gist in the midst of an interview.

I wrote the sentence down immediately, and I've been thinking about it ever since.

Mike is right. As a person who has suffered from a couple of bad breaks while in a vulnerable position, I can assure you that it doesn't take much to send a life reeling into desperate, uncharted, potentially life-changing waters. 

It's so easy to judge the circumstances of others if you enjoy a proverbial glass floor: a familial support system that will prevent you from ever falling too far.

I've seen it more times than a can count. 

• Legal troubles eliminated thanks to exceptionally skilled professionals paid for by parents
• College tuition, mortgage downpayment, automobiles, and infusions of cash offered by parents in desperate times
• Family owned businesses, legacy employment, nepotism, and second, third, and fourth chances given to someone thanks to the influence of a parent

If you're fortunate to be blessed with a glass floor, please don't forget how devastating a bad break can be for someone who isn't as blessed, and how incredibly stressful life can be for someone who is living without any safety net whatsoever.  

Think about this: According to a recent New York Fed study, one-third of Americans would not be unable to come up with $2,000 to deal with an emergency like an urgent home repair, medical crisis, or car accident.

This means that not only could they not raise $2,000 themselves, but they have no parent or family member capable of raising the money on their behalf, either. 

For many people, this situation would be unimaginable. But for almost a decade, I lived that reality, not because of bad decisions on my part or an unwillingness to work, but simply because of bad breaks. A cycle of poverty. A lack of support systems of any kind. The victim of a violent crime. An arrest for a crime I didn't commit. Homelessness. 

And I was lucky. I was physically and mentally healthy. Fairly intelligent. Capable of working 80 hours a week when necessary. I lived in a state with a strong social safety net. I had friends who put a roof over my head in a time of need. I wasn't the victim of racial discrimination.   

Still, I almost didn't make it.

Imagine what life could have been had my bad breaks had been coupled by mental illness. A physical disability. Addiction. Imagine if I had been unjustly convicted of that crime. Imagine how my life might be different had I been African American or female or any other marginalized member of society.  

It's so easy to see someone down on their luck, spiraling, and assume that they are to blame, when so many of us suffer similar breaks but are saved by the support systems that many don't enjoy.   

"But for a couple of bad breaks, especially visited upon vulnerable people, the outcome of life would be so different." 

It's so true. 

Americans would never allow someone like Roy Moore to work alongside them. Except for Republican Senators, of course.

Politics is the only arena where a gutless coward like Mitch McConnell can say, "I'm going to let the people of Alabama decide” about whether he should work alongside a pedophile like Roy Moore.

IN EVERY OTHER ARENA, PUBLIC OR PRIVATE, Americans would take a stand.

Can you imagine a dental hygienist or a machinist or a nurse saying: 

"Yes, this man has multiple female accusers claiming that he sexually harassed and/or assaulted them when they were underage, and yes, these women possess an enormous amount of circumstantial evidence supporting their claims, and yes, he was banned from a damn mall for harassing young women, and yes, he once called a girl out of high school math class to ask her on a date when he was a 28 year-old assistant district attorney, but if the boss thinks it's okay for him to work alongside me, I'm fine with that, too."

No, Mitch McConnell. You can have an opinion on Roy Moore regardless of what the voters of Alabama decide. That's called leadership, dumbass. It's called "having a spine." It's what good, decent people do everyday. We make moral choices instead of transactional choices. 

Yesterday Donald Trump offered his full support to Roy Moore for the first time. 

Last night the Republican Party followed suit, restoring their support for Moore after withdrawing it two weeks earlier.   

The party of the religious right has abandoned every shred of decency and goodness in order to guarantee that their massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest Americans can proceed as planned.   

This is a party whose leader has been accused of sexual assault by more than 20 women and who has admitted to sexual assault on tape. He is a man who bragged about going backstage during his beauty pageants in order to see women naked in their dressing rooms. 

Now they are also the party that supports pedophiles for the United States Senate.

They are a party of transactional, gutless, immoral politicians who choose to sit on the sidelines and allow evil men to rise to power when it's convenient for their agenda. 

Things I do #11: I get angry at the other versions of me.

Assuming that the theory of the multiverse is correct, I often find myself angry at the other versions of me that live in alternate timelines where Trump is not President and the world still makes sense.

Not "Ha! Ha!" angry.

Seriously angry. Legitimately angry. 

The wealthy are often playing an entirely different game than the rest of us.

I like this explanation of the difference between the wealthy, the middle class, and the poor a lot: 

"Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something.

Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on.

Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work.

Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it."

I'd add to this metaphor the following:

Rich kids also have the additional advantage of enormous safety nets to protect them before and after they play the game. Private schools and tutors to insulate against failure before ever throwing a dart and family businesses and inherited wealth to fall back on if they decide to stop playing the game altogether.   

The Trump family is a perfect example of this.

Donald Trump is not a self-made man but the beneficiary of his father's immense real estate fortune. Incidentally, Fred Trump's real estate career was marked by investigations by the U.S. Senate for wartime profiteering and the Department of Justice for violating the Fair Housing Act for refusing to rent to African American tenants.  

Not exactly a fortune earned through hard work alone. 

The Trump children are all third generation beneficiaries of that fortune as well. They all work in the family business and have benefited from the free capital of the Trump fortune when launching businesses of their own.

No matter how many entrepreneurial darts Trump and his children threw, they would never be without wealth. Their family business served as an enormous safety net to failure, misfortune, or incompetence.  

Even Ivanka Trump's wealthy husband, Jared Kushner, is the product of an enormous family fortune. He, too, works for the family business. 

None of these people are self-made, boot-strapping, rags-to-riches people. They take credit for their wealth at every turn but are merely the stewards of a fortune that was amassed a long time ago. 

In fact, economists have demonstrated that had Donald Trump merely placed his father's fortune in an index fund and done nothing, he'd be more wealthy than he is today.  

Fred Trump went to the carnival in the second half of the twentieth century to try his hand at throwing darts. He probably cheated while playing the game and scored big, and the Trump family has been the beneficiaries ever since.

Are we surprised that the tax cuts currently proposed by Republicans vastly favor the wealthy while increasing middle class taxes?

Are we surprised that Trump and his wealthy supporters are hell bent on eliminating the inheritance tax?

Trump doesn't want to throw darts. He doesn't want to take any entrepreneurial risk. He and his wealthy supporters don't want to go anywhere near the carnival. Those darts were thrown long ago. They simply want to benefit from the risk taking and fortune building of their predecessors.  

Crazy just got crazier (if that was possible)

Trump is always making disturbing, undignified, self-serving statements, but this weekend, he took a decidedly crazy turn (even for him) when he launched a barrage of attacks at the UCLA basketball players who he helped to secure their release, the father of one of these players, and Republican Senator Jeff Flake. 

Included in these tweets were the following:

• A bizarre reference to himself in the third person
• A even more bizarre reference to himself as "your favorite President" despite his historically low approval ratings, his loss of the popular vote by more than 3 million votes, and the commonly held understanding that normal human beings should never to refer to themselves as anyone's favorite anything. 
• A middle school-like reference to Republican Senator Jeff Flake as "Jeff Flake(y)"
• The implication that China's shoplifting penalty of 5-10 years in prison is perfectly appropriate
• An expression of regret for helping to secure these American's release from Chinese custody because one of their fathers failed to acknowledge Trump's role in the process

California Congressman Ted Lieu responded to this last week well:

"As public servants, we help people because it is the right thing to do, not because we want to be praised for it. Also, the US President should never wish for Americans to be locked up in a foreign jail."

Apparently Bob Mueller's team directed the Justice Department to turn over a broad array of documents this weekend related to Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey and Jeff Sessions decision to recuse himself from the inquiry. So perhaps this bizarre tweet storm was the result of the intense pressure being applied on Trump and his White House in relation to the investigation into the Trump campaign's collusion with Russian operatives.

Or perhaps he's even crazier than we thought. 

The Republican tax bill is legitimately but expectedly evil. These two tidbits are surprisingly evil.

Two things happened yesterday that make it seem as if the Trump administration is trying hard to appear as evil as possible.

Almost as if they are auditioning for the role of the next Bond villain. 

And no, it's not the Republican's deeply unpopular tax bill that will cut taxes on the ultra wealthy, raise taxes on millions of middle class Americans, and increase the deficit by enormous amounts. That's admittedly evil but almost any standard, including and especially by the standards of Jesus Christ, who the Republicans constantly profess to love.

But we knew this was coming. It's straight out of the Republican playbook. 

And no, it's not the additional tax cuts that Republicans have added to the bill for (no joke) golf course and private jet owners. These cuts are also unbelievably evil, especially when you consider that more than one-quarter of all American children are food insecure on a daily basis.

But Republicans have been doing this kind of thing forever. 

No, yesterday the Trump administration decided to allow hunters to bring trophies of elephants they killed in Zimbabwe and Zambia back to the United States, reversing a ban put in place by the Obama administration in 2014. 

Trump has gone out of his way to take the side of elephant killers.

Can't imagine why they might decide to further threaten this already endangered species...

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton, who is famous for being born into enormous wealth, marrying into enormous wealth, and insulting Americans for not being rich enough, visited the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in order to take one of the most tone deaf photos of all time:

It's takes a special breed of narcissism and/or stupidity to look at this photo (and the photo of Donald Trump Jr.) and think, "Yes. Perfect. That's the one we want America to see."

Stupid, evil narcissists running the country and not even trying to hide it anymore. 

Just last week, ALL THIS happened...

Donald Trump tweeted that Kim Jong Un is short and fat in response Jong Un's claim that Trump was old and crazy. 

Trump also argued that at age 71, he is not old. He did not, however,  defend himself against Jung Un's insanity claim.   

In response to questions from reporters about Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin's brief meeting during the Asian summit, Trump said that he believed Putin's claims that Russia did not interfere with the election, despite the fact that all 17 United States intelligence agencies agree that Russia interfered with out election and attacked our democracy. Putin then denied that Trump even asked him about election interference during their brief meeting. In response, Trump then lashed out at former US intelligence leaders as "political hacks" and did not refute Putin's assertion. 

According to the latest poll, evangelicals in Alabama are now more likely to vote for Roy Moore after the disclosures that Moore had sexual relationships with several teenage girls when he was 32 years old and older, including a 14 year old girl.

One Alabama lawmaker defended Moore by arguing that Mary and Joseph of The Bible had a similar age disparity in their relationship, failing to recall that Mary and Joseph were, at least according to The Bible, were not having sex. Mary was a virgin, at least according to the text. 

A 36-year-old attorney and Trump nominee who has never tried a case and who was unanimously deemed “not qualified” by the American Bar Association was approved for a lifetime federal district judgeship by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Details from the Republican tax bill emerged last week, including the surprise that 47 million middle class households - especially those with children - will get a tax hike while corporations and millionaires will be guaranteed the vast majority of the proposed tax breaks.

Other details from the tax plan include:

Students lose help paying off their loans. Teachers can no longer deduct the cost of buying classroom supplies. Grad students get taxed on their scholarships. Deductions on large out-of-pocket medical expenses will be eliminated. Massive cuts to Medicaid & Medicare. Massive cuts to the funding for Head Start and Pell Grants, while at the same time private school tuition will become fully deductible. Brand new tax breaks to the owners of (if you can believe it) golf courses.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who didn't know the Department of Energy regulated and protected nuclear power plants until he was given the job and actually campaigned on a platform to eliminate the Department of Energy, said that sexual assault could be prevented if we simply use more fossil fuels to keep the lights on.

Trump appointed a man to the Department of Agriculture whose previous job was cabana attendant at Westchester Country Club.

Trump appointed a man to the Energy Department whose previous job was manager at Meineke Auto Repair in New Hampshire.

A new appointee to the EPA Scientific Advisory Board stated that the air in the United States is "too clean for optimum health."

Trump's pick to lead a State Department office of female empowerment strongly criticized the movie "Frozen" for not having enough men in it.

All of this is not to make you despondent  or disillusioned. It is simply to remind you that if you oppose Donald Trump and his leadership, you cannot become complacent. You must act and continue to act until honest, ethical, capable leadership is restored for our country. 

Write to or call your Senator or Congressperson regularly. Download the 5 Calls app, which will make the five most strategic phone calls for you every day and tell you exactly what to say to be most effective. I don't use it every day, but I use it three or four times a week and vow here to do better. 

Volunteer for a campaign or cause. Make a monetary donation. Run for office. Ensure that your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers are registered to vote. 

Stay informed.  

Every week Trump and his supporters in Congress are attacking the very institutions that make our nation great. They are doing so quietly, strategically, and ruthlessly. We must stand as a bulwark to their efforts. We must resist at every turn. We must make it as difficult as possible for them to erode our democracy and damage our foundations until the 2018 and 2020 elections. 

Download that app. Do it right now. 

The 14 women who have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault

Donald Trump and his Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, claim that all 14 of the women who have accused Trump of sexual harassment and/or assault are lying.

At the same time, Trump admitted to sexual assault while aboard an Access Hollywood bus back in September of 2005, and his description of this assault is strikingly similar to some of these women's accusations.

Trump also famously tweeted this:

In summary:

• According to Donald Trump, 14 women are liars, but he is not, even though both he and the women are speaking  about the same same thing in the same terms. 
• Trump seems to believe that women and men cannot work together without sexual assault taking place.

I have worked almost exclusively in the company of women for 20 years. It is not uncommon for me to be the only man in the room at any number of meetings or professional development. Prior to that, I attended an all women's college and was always the only man in class. 

Despite my proximity to women for almost a quarter century, I am quite confident that no woman would claim that I sexually harassed or assaulted her.

Trump is no different than Harvey Weinstein except that he has a Republican Congress and a Press Secretary standing behind him. History will judge these people poorly. 

The women who have come forward so far include:

Ninni Laaksonen, former Miss Finland.
 “Trump stood right next to me and suddenly he squeezed my butt” in July 2006.

Jessica Drake.
Said Trump grabbed and kissed her without consent, then offered her $10,000 for sex in 2006.

Karena Virginia.
Says she was groped by Trump at the U.S. Open in 1998.

Cathy Heller.
Says Trump grabbed her and attempted to kiss her at Mar-a-lago in 1997.

Summer Zervos.
Apprentice contestant says Trump started kissing her and grabbing her breasts, began "thrusting his genitals" in 2007.

Kristin Anderson.
Said Trump reached under her skirt and grabbed her vagina through her underwear in the early 1990s.

Jessica Leeds.
Said Trump lifted up the armrest, grabbed her breasts and reached his hand up her skirt in the early 1980s.

Rachel Crooks.
Says she was assaulted by Trump in an elevator in Trump Tower in 2005.

Mindy McGillivray.
Says Trump groped her while she was attending a concert at Mar-a-lago in 2003.

Natasha Stoynoff.
Says Trump pushed her against a wall and jammed his tongue down her throat at Mar-a-lago in 2005.

Jennifer Murphy.
Apprentice contestant says Trump kissed her on the lips after a job interview in 2005.

Cassandra Searles.
Says Trump grabbed her ass and invited her to his hotel room in 2013.

Temple Taggart McDowell.
Former Miss Utah says Trump kissed her directly on the lips the first time she met him in 1997.

Jill Harth.
Says Trump repeatedly sexually harassed her and groped her underneath a table in 1993.

As long as you're not as sexually repressed as the Vice President, the gender-neutral restroom is working just fine

During intermission at last night's Moth StorySLAM at The Oberon in Cambridge, I went to the restroom.

The Oberon has converted its formerly gender-specific restrooms to gender-neutral restrooms. When I entered what was once a men's room, I was greeted with the typical line that can be found during intermission, except that this line contained both women and men. 

Nine people in all. Five women and four men were queued up in front of the four urinals and three stalls. Some were chatting while waiting. Others scrolled through their phones. As far as I could tell, no one thought this odd or inappropriate.

And why would they?

Women used the stalls. Men used the urinals or the stalls.  

One of the women in line actually knew me from previous performances and asked me for some storytelling advice while we waited to pee. 

For someone like the Vice President, who can't have dinner alone with a woman who isn't his wife or drink a beer when his wife is not present, I would imagine that this scenario might cause him to blow a gasket. His seemingly admitted inability to control his lustful desires might erupt into an uncontrollable fervor at the mere thought of a semi-naked woman behind a thin restroom partition.   

But for the majority of Americans who operate as normal human beings and who aren't so fearful of temptation that they must quarantine themselves from the opposite sex without a marital chaperone, this gender-neutral reconfiguration is working out just fine.      

Perhaps in the future the restroom design could be differentiated this way:

Gender-neutral restrooms

Single use restroom for the perverse who can't control themselves when genitals are exposed privately but in the vicinity of their own genitals

Guest post: Daniel Dale's Twitter feed

Daniel Dale, Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, tweeted the following thread that I have cut and pasted here in the event you don't use Twitter or didn't see it on Twitter.

It's fantastic.
________________________________

Here is a thread about Donald Trump getting hilariously lost in his own lying. 

This is what Trump told radio host Mike Gallagher last week:

So Trump starts with a lie: that Rasmussen had his approval rating at 46% or 47% that day. He was actually at 41% that day.

Then Trump adds a second lie: that 47%, an approval rating he does not have, is an approval rating that makes re-election guaranteed.

He is not content with that. He must boast about his superiority to Obama. And this is where he loses control of his own nonsense.

He says...Obama left office with an approval rating lower than his own. "46%." This is a third lie.

In fact, Obama left with a much higher approval rating than Trump's imaginary 47%: Obama had 62% final approval in Rasmussen.

But anyway, Trump is stuck - he said Obama's approval was almost identical to his own! And he adds, scrambling, "So he was very popular."

But oh no. Trump has gone wrong. He has now called Barack Obama "very popular." He must correct this.

So he adds, in the mocking tone of a middle schooler: "If you call that popular."

OK wait: he had just said 46% or 47% is his own awesome rating. Now he is mocking the idea that that is a good rating. Because Obama.

In sum: Trump went from bragging about his fake 47% to mocking a fake Obama 46% that is 5 points higher than his own actual rating, 41%.

This concludes today's episode of One Paragraph Of Donald Trump Talking.

Just the kind of conversation I want before sunrise

Nothing to see here.

Just a pre-sunrise conversation with my eight-year old daughter, Clara, about what the word "stillborn" means, followed by a flood of tears over the fate of Elizabeth Adams, the stillborn daughter of Abigail Adams.

I love parenting.

"Don't you dare..." are words most frequently uttered by morons

This is a tweet from Pastor Greg Locke, an outspoken, mouth-breathing conservative who opposes the rights of gay, transexual, and transgender Americans and has gone so far as to call them mentally ill and criminal. He's also a supporter of Donald Trump and many of his policies. 

Yesterday Locke tweeted this:

If you haven't heard, Eminem produced a freestyle rap about Trump that has gone viral. It's angry, clever, pointed attack on the President and (more surprising) his fans who support Trump.

I have two comments on Locke's tweet:

1. His description of Eminem is ironically a near-perfect description of Donald Trump.  

2. More important, Locke did that stupid thing that people do.

He writes, "Don't you dare lecture us..." 

Don't you dare? He already dared. He produced a four minute freestyle rap video that clearly lectures about politics and that you clearly watched. How can Eminem not dare to do something that he's already done and you know he's already done?

Do you think he has a time machine? 

It's sad and stupid when someone uses this meaningless, overly dramatic rhetoric to try to make a point. Proper retorts to the "Don't you dare..." nonsense include:

1. Too late, wing nut. I dared. And you know I did. That's why you're talking about it. What is wrong with you?

2. Hey dumbass, this isn't a reality television show. The "don't you dare..." middle school melodrama doesn't play well in the real world where cameras aren't running and the words are meaningless. Give it a rest. 

3. Look at the angry little man, everyone! He's trying to tell someone who's already done something to not do that something. How transparently powerless and pathetically ineffective of him. What a train wreck of a human being. Kind of makes him look like a President who promised that Mexico would pay for a wall, Americans would have beautiful, inexpensive healthcare, the Dreamers immigration status would remain unchanged, the LGBTQ community would be supported at every turn, and that he would release his tax returns. All talk and no action.

Trump's boycott list does not make America great at all

Over the course of his Presidency, Donald Trump has asked the American people to boycott the following corporations and entities:

The Hamilton musical
Oreos
Apple
Netflix
Amazon
The entire state of Hawaii
Nordstrom
Budweiser
Starbucks
The National Football League

For the minority of Americans who support Donald Trump, America is becoming a far less entertaining and amusing place. 

Honestly, it must suck. 

For the rest of us, America has been a far less entertaining and amusing place since election day. Thankfully, we still have the warm embrace of our Oreos, our Netflix, and Amazon Prime to comfort us.  

On a day of tragedy, a little hope.

Yesterday was a tough day. I awoke to the tragic news from Las Vegas and wondered when this violence is ever going to end. 

Of course, America averages more than one mass shooting every single day. Las Vegas was especially horrific in terms of its body count, but by definition (a shooting in which four or more people are injured or killed), mass shootings are commonplace in our country. 

Daily occurrences. 

With that in mind, it's hard to be hopeful.

Thankfully, I found a great deal of hope yesterday in the company of young people. 

I started my morning with my two favorite people in the world. They crept down the stairs in the early morning light and sat beside me for breakfast. They colored pictures of rainbows and pink flowers, read books about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, played with the cats, and watched videos about how rubber is made.

Mostly, they talked endlessly and giggled incessantly.

Then I headed to school, where my 21 other favorite people awaited. We read books, solved math problems, told stories, and wrote about the truth behind Old McDonald's farm.

But even within the walls of our school, violence does not always escape us. Yesterday my students loaned $25 through our class's micro-loan account to a farmer in El Salvador after they learned that El Salvador is the murder capital of the world. Feeling empathy for someone living in such dire circumstances, their decision over which entrepreneur to lend to became an simple one.

It's easy to find hope in the optimism, passion, joy, and energy of young people.

Then I headed north, to The Berkshire School, where I spent the evening with high school students. I told them stories. I taught them how to tell their own stories and the importance of doing so. We laughed and even cried a little. We talked about authenticity, vulnerability, and connection. 

One young lady shared stories of the way her brother has come to her defense time and time again. A young man thanked me for making him feel a little less alone in this world. Another student asked me how she might find the courage to share a story of her bisexuality with her peers.  

These were engaged, intellectually curious, excited kids who wanted to learn something new and make the world a better place. 

I drove away filled with hope. 

On those especially hard days in America, when sadness fills our hearts and hope is hard to find, I recommend that you try to spend your day in the company of young people.

Spend time with your children or grandchildren.
Volunteer in a classroom.
Give a parent or parents a night out by offering to babysit their children.

Find a way to spend time in the presence of children or young adults. In no way will the tragedy of the day be mitigated by these young people, but your heart will feel better and the future will seem a little brighter.

On a day like yesterday, that is a great thing. Perhaps even a miracle.   

A Trump supporter has found his bridge-too-far, and it's pathetic

Former NFL head coach turned television analyst Rex Ryan was on ESPN's pregame show on Sunday. Ryan was a vocal Trump supporter during the election, going so far as to introduce him at a rally in Buffalo, NY.

On Sunday, in a conversation about Donald Trump's comments about football players kneeling for the anthem, Ryan said:

"I supported Donald Trump. But I'm reading these comments, and it's appalling to me, and I'm sure it's appalling to almost any citizen in our country. it should be. Calling our players SOB's and all that kind of stuff... "

Sure, Rex, because during the election, this wasn't quite enough to turn you off to Trump:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

It's good to see that someone like Rex Ryan has finally come to realize that maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump is not a decent, reasonable, honorable defender of the Constitution.   

It's just a shame that he was able to look past the bragging about sexual assault, the denigrating of Mexican immigrants, an attack on a United States war hero, and his blatant bigotry.

Not to mention Trump's attack on Gold Star families, his lies about Muslims celebrating on rooftops on 9/11, his broken promise to release his tax returns, his failure to understand concepts as critical as the nuclear triad, and the way he stole money from hard working Americans via Trump University.    

All that was fine. No big deal.

But call a football player a son-of-a-bitch?

In the words of Rex Ryan, "appalling."

No, Rex. The most appalling part of his whole disaster was your willingness to look past all of these atrocities and support a candidate who was morally and ethically unfit for office.