December 29, 2020--These Boots Are Made For Flaunting

If anyone is wondering why Trump came up with $2,000 as the per capita figure that people would get as part of the Covid relief legislation, wonder no further.

Did you notice the thigh-high leather boots Melania wore on the flight last week to Palm Beach?

They were Christian Louboutins and they go for $2,195 a pair.

$2195, $2,000. Close enough. Especially with Melania's 10% discount.

A chicken in every pot; Louboutins in every closet.

January 5, 2018--Trump's End Game

One more prediction for 2018 (and it's a big one)--

For more than a year I've been claiming that much of Donald Trump's erratic behavior is the result of the anxiety and fear that derives from his intimate personal knowledge about the extent of his and his inner circle's colluding with the Russians to tip the election away from Hillary Clinton and, more than anything else, since he is motivated primarily by greed, how he was at the center of a major money laundering operation which also has Russian ties.

Then, of course, there is the cover-up, perhaps the most dangerous of their and his potential felonies.

But money is his pole star. Money laundering is his and his family's specialty. Especially the Kushners. Keep an eye on Trump and Kushner money that was borrowed from the Russians for bogus real estate deals and then subsequently was laundered by Deutsche Bank and the Bank of Cyprus.

Only he knows the full extent of this and, since it is vast scam, it is not surprising that under the emotional strain associated with the exposure of this Ponzi scheme he is unraveling.

Unravelling at a increasing rate as the Mueller investigation closes in on him and his family. 

Thus the panicky reaction to the new Michael Wolff book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Tomorrow, copies will be jumping off the shelves. I preordered one and can't wait to get my hands on it.

The book hit Trump broadside this past weekend as he was concluding his blissful vacation at his beloved Mar-a-Lago and on the golf courses in Palm Beach.

I suspect he felt, 'Who needs this?' I mean, the presidency. 

I have to believe that Melania and Ivanka took him aside while there for a heart-to-heart about all of this. I can hear them pleading--

"You're 71 years old, you eat crap from MacDonald's, you're 50 pounds overweight, you don't exercise, and you haven't had a real checkup in at least 10 years. You're a classic candidate for a stroke or heart attack. 

"Isn't it enough already? You never really wanted to be president, you didn't expect to get elected, you got into the race to boost your brand but here you are after surprising yourself by winning, having to live in that dump of a White House, rather than Trump Tower. You have to deal with the likes of Mitch McConnell when you could be hanging out with your pals in Palm Beach and playing golf every day of the year without getting grief about that from the snarky fake-news corps."

He would be nodding his head. They would continue--

"So here's what we recommend: declare 'Mission Accomplished' (or call it something else) and take a victory lap one last time by racing around the country on Air Force One. You love that plane. Pardon everyone from Flynn and his clueless son to Manafort to Don Junior to Eric to Jared and to me, Ivanka. So I won't be the first female president. I've seen enough about what that's like. You get called 'dumb as a brick.'

"Then, declare your work done and get the hell out of boring Washington. Turn it over to Pence who, if necessary, will pardon you."

I doubt that he said anything in response to Ivanka or Melania. But my prediction is that as he thinks it over he'll take what's behind door number one and pack it in.

March 29, 2017--"Fore!"

Talk about alternative facts.

This time we're talking about golf but not about a situation where someone cheats on the course or about his score. Like what Bill Clinton used to do while duffing--assuming that because he was Commander in Chief, the most powerful man in the world, he could give himself Mulligans. For the non- aficionados, a Mulligan is a no-penalty extra shot after hitting one into the rough or lake. Some thought this was a metaphor about Clinton's character.

No, we're talking now about whether or not Donald Trump played any golf at all while weekending recently at Mar-a-Lago.

White House records show he spent seven hours at his own course, the Trump International Golf Club, but his spokespeople claimed he wasn't there to play. On the way back to Washington on Sunday, on Air Force One, when asked about his golf game, Trump fibbed, claiming that he played "very little."

This golf business is a very delicate matter.

Trump on the stump during the campaign frequently mocked Barak Obama's golfing, claiming that he was always on the golf course and off the case while America was going down the drain. Thus the need to make America Great Again.

Two months into his own presidency, with America in reality going down the drain, one can only imagine how much effort is being expended to obscure the truth about Trump's recreating. Especially  his golfing.

Though Barack Obama may have been obsessed with golf and took every opportunity to get in a round, his people never hid the fact that he was on the course and not at meetings. Most times they even told reporters who he was playing with.

Not Trump. Not only don't we know who was in his foursome but we don't know for certain if he played even though he was spotted at his club dressed in golf attire and wearing a golf glove. When pressed about his golfing he points out that he is not just having fun on the links but working while hitting slices into the woods. Like when he played a round with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

But talking about golf makes him uneasy because of how he savaged Obama for his golfing.

"I'm going to be working for you," he said last year at a rally in Virginia, "I'm not going to have time to go play golf."

But he is clearly making time for golf. As of March 25th, according to Golf News Net, he has already played 12 rounds while during the first two months of his presidency Obama played exactly zero times.

The presidency is an extraordinarily stressful job even for someone like Donald Trump who doesn't appear to be fully engaged. Even he deserves and needs some down time. Fair enough.

But there are other issues regarding his frequent trips to Palm Beach--for example, how much his weekending in Florida costs taxpayers.

It is estimated that each visit to Mar-a-Lago costs us $3.0 million. For Air Force One; the lodging, care, and feeding of Secret Service agents; reimbursements for Palm Beach police and first responders; and all the incidentals associated with a president out of the pocket and on the move.

Having already made five trips to Mar-a-Lago, this means he has run up $15 million in costs. His burn rate is such that he recently requested an additional $60 million to cover expenses projected for the rest of the fiscal year. This would offset the cost of his wife and son remaining behind in New York City (who can blame them), security for his globetrotting sons, and frequent getaways to Florida.

The Office of Management and Budget turned him down since they are in the middle of gutting programs including Meals On Wheels and are concerned about the appearance of a double standard--one for billionaire Trump, another for the rest of us.

On the other hand, after the clamor about his opulent lifestyle abates, expect to see the double standard at work.

Trump In the Rough