The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the President-in-Exile has to turn over his tax returns, much to the howls of Donald out there in the wilderness of Mar-a-Lago.  So unfair!  What the returns will show, according to testimony by his accountant, are losses every year for a decade.  700 million in 2009, 200 million the following year.  Chump change for a highly successful businessman like His Highness, proof once again for his minions that the man knows how to navigate the system.

In other words, you paid more than Donald J Trump in taxes most of your life.

Digest that for a few minutes.  Or a day or two.  Even if you believe that the man who claims to be one of the richest men in America honestly made money by losing fortunes every year for a decade, an extraordinary feat even for the Trumpster, you might question if this is the right man to drain the swamp.  Or you might wonder if this is why Republicans fight tooth and nail to defund the IRS.  Donald claimed he couldn’t turn over his returns because of ongoing audits by the IRS.  Ya think?

And do ya think the corporations that manage to avoid paying federal taxes year after year thanks to loopholes, subsidies, deferments, offshore accounting and all the other sleight-of-hands by teams of tax accountants willing to fight for shady offsets and deductions, full knowing the audits aren’t coming so why not, do ya think this is smart business?

Most of you get your taxes taken out directly through your employer, not much wiggle room for sneaky deductions.  You pay more than one of the richest guys in the country.  Maybe you think this is fair.  He gets rich and you pay for the schools and fire fighters.  He lives like a pooh-bah while you fund the building of highways and bridges.  He rents hotels to government visitors at astronomical prices while you have the honor of hiring police and paying for the military.

Drain the swamp?  No, the alligators are doing fine just the way it is.  Vote for the guy again, why not?  But whatever you do, ask not what he can do for his country.  He expects you to ask that of yourself.  Thank you for your service, sucker!

So for some reason I’m riding down the road in my truck and decide to see what the conservative folks are talking about today, same as I used to before Trump got elected, test the roiling waters of the right wing, put a finger into the wind and see which way the tornado is blowing today.  My moderator begins by saying, “I heard this on some newsfeed this morning and I didn’t have time to fact check it.”

This is a familiar lead-in to any of us who listen to these talking heads on the far right.  Not enough time in the day to double check their sources, but hey, it sounds true to them and so my guy says, “well, let’s just go ahead and imagine it is true, go from there.”  This is like a scientist saying, okay, I haven’t got a clue if this hypothesis is accurate but why don’t we go ahead and build a theory around it, find out if we like the looks of it when we’re done.”

The story my agitator has supposedly, but I doubt, heard, revolves around the rumor which he declares is suspiciously plausible, that Joe Biden tried to cut a deal with the Saudis for a promise of drilling more oil.  He would, this rumor has it, offer amnesty to the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.  He refers to the prince as MsB or maybe it’s MbS, either case, he tells his audience, you know who I mean.  Oil for amnesty.

Quid pro quo, maybe you remember the Trump deal in Ukraine, not that this will come up in the next half hour’s grinding of innuendo and speculation until the sausage is ready for the bun.  Now, to be fair, I have more time on my hands than our national Limbaugh clone so I punch up MbS and first article out of the chute is the CNN post that the U.S. Dep’t. of Justice cannot bring a case filed by Khashoggi’s wife because the guy happens to be the head of state.  They can’t sue Putin, they can’t extradite Xi, and no, they can’t bring a case against Mohammed either.  Kind of a different story than the unchecked one our national radio star is offering to listeners hungry for dirt on Sleepy Joe.

Now he knows his take is bullshit and I know his slant is bullshit and you probably know better than to even tune into talking heads like this … but, half the damn country listens to this boy and his ilk, twisting and fabricating and stretching the truth til it’s red meat down to the gristle for an audience starved for scapegoats and craving revenge.  You bet I turned my radio to a music station to remove the taste.  The true believers, I’m guessing they’re listening to this all day long.

I got a theory.  Not really based on anything I want to fact-check.  Just something I want you to believe.  Stay tuned.  Send money.  I’ll be back tomorrow with the news.

The rapper now called Ye, formerly Kanye West, made the pilgrimage this week to Mar-a-Lago, formerly a swamp near the Atlantic Ocean.  The President-in-Exile had invited Ye to a meeting, two very big brained men dining together and possibly discussing Trump’s 3^rd run at the White House when Kan-Ye surprised Donald by asking if he, Donald, would consider running as Vice President when Kan-Ye announces his own run and was then met with angry screams from the candidate who had already declared himself a presidential candidate.  When big brains clash, you have to expect explosions, I guess.

Apparently the tete-a-tete went downhill from there.  Mr. T purportedly made explicitly nasty comments about Kan-Ye’s ex-mizzus, the Queen Kardashian, mother of his children and so the chit chat rapidly slid downhill.  Nevertheless, the rapper turned politician released a two minute video of their encounter, Mar-a-Lago Debrief,  no doubt expecting potential voters might turn away from a man who loses his temper, calls Ye’s woman (bleep) and seems slightly if not totally unhinged.  Well, at least he gave Donald a chance to be his running mate which shows the incredible magnanimity of the rap star.  Despite his anti-Semitic remarks of late.  And the fact that he brought a couple of pals instrumental in white nationalist organizations.  The more the merrier in the clown car, looks like.

If you thought this would be a boring election cycle, you’ve been watching too much Tucker Carlson.  Hopefully you won’t be too troubled by the lack of policy statements, wonky analyses or cogent platforms.  The monkeys are out of their cages now and whoever was in charge has exited the premises.  Expect a barrel of laughs for the next few years.  My guess is Trump will make up and eventually ask Kan-Ye to run as his vice president.  Although … there are plenty of potential candidates to choose from.  Hopefully they won’t dial back on their meds.  We could use all the comedy we can get.

If you’re like me … and about 50 other Republican wannabees … no doubt you’re thinking about tossing your fedora in the ring and taking a shot at knocking Trump out of the primaries in 2024.  Why not?  The Loudmouth is gambling that his candidacy will subvert the lawsuits, indictments, criminal fines and penalties, possible jail time, all that pesky stuff that would give most people ulcers or visions of suicide but not him.  Money talks and he’s got plenty of talking to do.  Twitter just took a vote and the tweeting public, by a slim margin, said sure, let the man rant on their platform.  That, or they figured the way I do, Twitter is going down like the Titanic with Elon at the helm, kicking off half the sailors and the guys who run the engine room, shortly before the iceberg.

Sure, the other four dozen potential candidates are more qualified than me or you, but you think Trump was more qualified than his ten or twelve opponents when he won the primary back in 2016?  You just got to be more outrageous than the others.  The media loved that guy.  Who do you think they wanted to cover, Bernie Sanders or Marco Rubio?  It was Trump all the time, crazy talk, wild stuff, outrageous accusations, foul language, everything the press figured would sell papers and add to their audience shares.  Even when he turned on them, the networks and the reporters were drawn in like moths to a dumpfire.  And the MAGA minions loved it!!  Deplorables?  Naw, they just love a thug gangster, nothing more American than that.

Used to be candidates espoused unbridled optimism.  Our nation’s best times were just around the bend, a new morning in America, all that blithe jibber jabber.  Now they want to hear why their country is going down the tubes.  So give it to them!  Commies, Proud Boys, Putin, Xi, the big corporations, the immigrants, the gun laws, hell … all of those and more!  Guns kill but gun regulation is worse!  They’re both to blame.  Right wing nationalists and those leftist transgenders, they’re all the reason this once great nation is a shithole.  Blame the farmers, why not?  Toss the Tech Boyz and the potato growers into the same bushel basket of grievance and hate, there’s plenty of room.  Republicans and Democrats … all of them are toadies and inside traders!  The whole wretched bunch should be hauled out and stoned.  Don’t forget the churches, all just as culpable as Hollywood.  Foreigners and inner city criminals, what’s the difference?  Gotta do something about it, gotta get even, gotta get tough!!  And I mean Tough with a capital T.

Yeah, this might be the election to go for the prize.  Most Powerful Hombre in the World.  My hat’s ready.  And so am I.  You just have to know how to appeal to the people.  Trump certainly did, but hey, he’s a Loser now and nobody wants a Loser.

Imagine, if you can, living without power for a few days.  No phone.  No daytime TV.  No internet.  No refrigeration.  No connection to the modern world you once knew and took for granted.  Maybe you got some candles.  Maybe some kerosene lanterns.  Hopefully some matches.  All the stores nearby are shuttered.  No gas, no food, no ice, no beer and wine.

We just went five days without electricity.  Windstorm blew down trees, power lines, dreams and all hope.  What is a modern pioneer to do?  I’ll tell you what.  Crank up the generator!  That’s right, mister, keep the house powered up!  Reefer cooling, TV on, lights on too.  Just keep pouring gas into the thing, ignore the noise from yours and the neighbors too, return to your Facebook updates, your Instagram posts, your emails and your newsfeeds.  This past week we listened to the hive in full swarm across the road, generators all buzzing angrily.

Folks ask how we can manage without one.  Since they themselves can’t imagine life worth living beyond the reach of the grid.  Oh, sure, they remember their first power outage here, the one that convinced them to haul down to the hardware store once the roads were passable again and buy that portable 25 kilowatt big boy for the next emergency, at least keep the TV running and the computer, maybe some lights, probably not electric heat.  Some got serious and installed permanent whole house units, propane tanks, inverters, automatic kick-in so they needn’t worry about missing an Oprah interview or the ending to that Netlix movie.

The pioneer days are over, friend.  Sitting by kerosene lantern, hauling in water, stoking the stove — maybe we think that sounds romantic, a break from the modern world — but not for most of us now.  Inconvenience isn’t in our vocabulary.  I can tell you that you will survive okay without the computer for a day or two.  You can discover what life used to be like before Instagram.  You might even remember what was important before the digital age.  Maybe why you came here in the first place….

Just got the news that the world population has passed 8 billion of us humans.  I remember fondly my sociology classes back in the 60’s where my professors absolutely forbid using The Population Bomb as a footnote or a reference.  Paul Ehrlich was no scientist, my educators said, he was a dopey doomsday prophet.  I think the world population at the time was maybe 4 billion.  A lot of us, seemed like to me.  8 billion, well, I have trouble enough getting to know the neighbors now, sure don’t want many more.

One thing I never hear in the debates concerning global warming and climate change is that maybe, just maybe, there are too many of us.  More mouths to feed, more houses to build, more cars to drive, more garbage in the landfills, more need for heating and air conditioning, small stuff like that.  Sure, turn the thermostat down, but hey, what if there were 4 billion less of us wanting to stay warm?   Oh, I know, we love our kids.  We love our dozen grandkids.  And we certainly love our 100 great grandkids.  Although, to be honest, judging from my old man’s memory at 99 years of age, he couldn’t tell you any of their names.  And he has a lot of trouble with his grandkids’s names.  Which are only three of them.  The fact that us 8 billion are living longer thanks to medical science and improved health care doesn’t really help either.

When I came to the South End, four cars drove off going north of our shack, four cars returned home at night.  Better believe we knew our neighbors back then and, unfortunately for them, they knew us.  Now it’s a constant parade of commuters and contractors and lawn service crews.  I don’t recognize most folks at the local grocery.  And with my memory, remembering their names wouldn’t be a likelihood.

So when we’re looking for solutions to overheating the planet, why not look at overpopulating it.  You won’t miss an extra grandkid or twenty, all I’m saying.

In the smoking debris of the Republican Red Wave the pundits are weighing in on what went wrong.  No doubt a few die hard MAGA’s will assume that the election was rigged, probably Venezuelan software in the Dominion voting machines, but most of the autopsies seem to be looking for a villain among their own.  Trump.  The candidates he backed, ranging from the football hero to the quack TV doctor, just weren’t of a high enough quality, they say.

Ya think?  C’mon, folks, take a stroll through the past few years and tell me the GOP candidates were top drawer.  Consider just the folks who won, mostly old white angry men, guys like McCarthy who on Jan. 6^th said his president was unfit for office — ya think, again?— but was on a plane to Mar-a-Lago 22 days later to kiss the ring.  How many of these quality Republicans holding office refused to confirm Biden as the legitimate winner of the 2020 race?

To quote the bard, referring as easily to Donald Trump as Julius Caesar:

‘Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.’

Let’s be honest here.  You proved you can fool some of the people all of the time.  The real truth is you fooled yourselves.  If you’re looking for a scapegoat, try a mirror.

If you were dreading another two years of the interminable election cycle, probably canceling your newspapers and substituting subscriptions to entertainment channels, plugging your ears and avoiding MSNBC and maybe waiting  til the dust clears in 2024 before pulling the quilts down from over your head and leaving your bed … well, you got some good news.  Trump plans to tip the checkerboard for the Republicans, the House is going to divide up sides for some serious tag team no-holds-barred smackdown wrestling, and you can expect some cliff hanger serials with plenty of violence and mayhem to get you through those lonely nights coming up.  Trump is running again and you best believe the Republicans are going to war with themselves.

I guess if you honestly believe Trump won the last election, well, hell, run him again.  Just make sure the voting machines aren’t cooked, the dead aren’t voting,  the ballots aren’t stuffed, the mail-ins are banned, the gerrymandering continues, the lines in the inner cities are long and the polling places few.  Just to get the ball rolling, the President-in-Exile announced from his palace in Mar-a-Lago that the new slogan for his campaign will be — cue the trumpets— Make America Great and Glorious Again.  I guess that first term of his didn’t really make the cut.  Maybe hold off on the Glorious and get the Great accomplished.  Or … I don’t know, triple down and Make America Great and Glorious and Glamorous Again.  Just need a bigger ballcap to read MAGAGAG.  Costs slightly more, all proceeds going to the Trump charity.

Down in Florida they must be drinking the swamp water, all I can figure.  DeSantis runs ads that on the 8^th Day the Lord made a warrior.  Him.  Not to be outdone, Trump wants a glorious second coming, another Rome with him as Caesar.  Must be some biblical prophecy needing fulfilled for these guys.  If the Lord is working overtime now, adding days to Her week to get the job done, maybe it’s time to take a rest.

You were probably thinking you deserve a rest.  Sorry, looks like a long slog from here to election day 2024.  Like they say, it ain’t over til the Fatboy squeals.  Or something like that.  Might be a fine time to read some good books.

Now the mizzus was a sort of mail order bride.  I came out to the rainforests here in the 70’s, bought my 7 acres and my mule just before the interest rates went wild and discovered how few single ladies there were in the woods of the South End.

So I resorted to what our pioneer ancestors turned to … no,  not THAT … I wrote back to the Midwest for a wife.  I had a lady friend in Minnysota who was just fixing to graduate with her masters degree in librarying.  Librarying, I thought to myself, is even better’n school ma’arm.  She could teach some of the artists on the South End here how to read and write and then we could sit around the porch and discuss Nietzsche and Tolstoy, the events of the day.

Late spring of l981 I commenced to writing heart wrenching, bodice ripping, pulse pounding love letters.  I told my darling all about our little island, how it was a tropical paradise where our beautiful cottage nestled in the arms of million year old cedar trees and coconut palms and you could see the Olympic Mountains every night at sunset glowing like a fireplace and that old sun had nothing on the lovelight in my heart for her …

Course she didn’t have a chance….  Who could resist my literary charms?  And I’m sure she carried a picture of my irresistible self in a locket in her bosom, pining – PINING, ladies and gentlemen – for that day a letter would arrive from her Prince Charming, old lumber Jack himself, king of Camano, practically Paul Bunyan with a book of poems under his ax arm.

Well, I was surprised TOO she didn’t rush out to my waiting muscle bound arms.  So I wrote some more.  I wrote a dictionary worth.  Then I wrote an encyclopedia Britannica.  Spring turned to summer, summer turned to fall, fall became winter, my dreams turned to mush.  I run outa words.  ME!  With nothing left to say.  I was about to give up and become a Zen hermit priest.

But one day I got a letter saying she was coming OUT.   …  For a day or two, then going to Alaska to see her cousin.  Alaska?  Why on god’s green earth would she go to a godforsaken hellhole like that when she could have the whole South End paradise?

Course she was gonna see the cottage wasn’t a cottage – it was a shack.  Leaky roof, crooked floors, a ladder to the upstairs.  Alaska was gonna look REAL good.  And Prince Charming?  I was in serious trouble now.

But luck was on my side.  The day she flew in a storm took out a dozen trees to the South End and power was out when we pulled in the drive.  So I lit up the oil lamps and popped the champagne and boiled the crabs on the woodstove and I won’t tell you the details but let your romantic imagination run wild and you might have some small notion of why the mizzus is still the mizzus and why we both still celebrate the day she came out here and not our wedding anniversary and why the South End will always be a tropical paradise to at least a couple of us old lovebirds.

Well okay, that Big Red Wave for the Republicans came in with a little less than what they’d hoped for, no doubt figuring Sleepy Joe’s age and world inflation would be all they’d need for a wipeout victory.  Maybe total negativity isn’t the best message for the voters.  But what are ya gonna do?  After all, tax cuts for the rich probably aren’t going to slow down inflation.  When bread prices go through the roof, telling em to eat cake won’t fly either.

Where we sit right now, the Senate is a toss-up.  If Nevada drops in the Dem category, game over.  If it flips red, we got ourselves another Georgia finish.  A reverend vs. a football hero.  Tough choice down there in the Peach State.  Herschel is carrying a lot of baggage, even for a big running back.  Doesn’t like abortions but paid for two of his out-of-wedlock sweethearts to have one.  Then lied about it.  Claims we can push that bad Chinese air back where it came from and solve pollution woes.  Asks why we want any more trees.

You probably don’t expect football stars to be Rhodes scholars too, but maybe they should be smarter than this guy.  And maybe morality should count too.  Especially if you’re the party of family values.  The hair on fire boyz are rallying like dumpy old cheerleaders for Walker, exhorting the crackers to get their redneck asses out to vote, the fate of America is on the scrimmage line.  Me, I think this is the ultimate irony for the GOP.  A candidate with no solutions, no real ideas, no telling how he got to be the spotlight for the entire country to parse and analyze.  I wouldn’t want to be Herschel right now, no way.

And if I thought bozos like Lindsay Graham or Newt Gingrich were going to save the day, maybe block those 300 pound gorillas on the front line, holy pigskin, Fatman, I’d be wishing I was back with a couple of my sweethearts, promising to use protection this time.  But you never know in the Yew Ess Aye these happy days what the ending to this election might be.  Walker is Trump’s pick and so I expect he’ll have to go up to Georgia, give his usual stump pitch whether the Republicans like it or not.  Poor Herschel, damned if Trump does, damned if he doesn’t.  Why can’t life be as simple as football?