The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Yesterday I got a call from a nice woman who wondered if, by chance, I would like to sell my place.  I said, yah sure, you betcha, how much you offering?  There was a small pause, no doubt surprised that she had a live one on the end of her line.  I assume 99 out of 100 hang up after a few choice obscenities, so it must be a relief to get a landowner hot to sell.  Finally she got her heart pumping again and said, ‘What price do you have in mind?’

Without hesitation I said 2 million dollars and it’s yours, lock stock and barrel.  Barrels plural, actually, but I didn’t want to screw the deal by mentioning the acres of assorted antiques, junk, used equipment, etc.  We could negotiate a price for those on the side.  Later, of course.  She paused once more, not quite as long as before, then said, ‘well, that would depend on the answers to a couple of questions.’  And then she started to ask if I owned the home outright and …

I stopped her mid-question.  ‘You already know the answers to those if you’ve done your homework so let’s just cut to the chase.  How long before we can close this deal?  Two million, it’s a steal the way the market is going.  Hang onto it a couple months, you’ll double your money.  Me, I’ll be in Rio de Janeiro with any luck, Carnival, cheap living.  Two million could probably buy a chunk of rainforest you and your consortium might be interested in logging.’

‘I think we could come to some agreement on price,’ she started over, ‘but first I need ….’  ‘Two million and a quarter, ma’am,’ I told her.  ‘Price is going up every time you ask more questions.’   Long pause…  Finally I said, ‘you really need to up your game, lady, set the hook, make the close, seal the deal.  Or were you hoping you’d get some old grandfather with dementia who’d sell the homestead for peanuts.  I just got a letter today from a gyppo logging outfit, nice stationary and everything, who would love to help me clearcut my property, get all the permits, drag in skidders and dozers, then clean up afterwards.  Nice sounding fella.  Like you.  I get a card from the local realtors showing me the house down the road that they just sold, big bucks, would I like to cash in too? ‘

The quiet sound of a dial tone greeted this last little rant.  The mizzus says just hang up on these people, but I think that’s rude.  Seems fair to poke the gator a bit.  After all, they’re going to get dinner on one of the next calls.  Not that I think I’m going to give them indigestion, but gee, I can hope, can’t I?

Give the man credit, the sheer creativity in his myriad excuses for why he stole or borrowed or kept or forgot about those classified documents  he had squirreled away in his Mar-a-Lago basement and in his closet is worthy of any late night comic.  He declassified them, he claims they belong to him, he needed them to write his memoirs, they were planted by the FBI, the raid was illegal, he ran out of toilet paper, the excuses are endlessly entertaining and best of all, they never seem to stop.  Today I read that he needed to keep them for his, get this, presidential library.  Give me a break, if I don’t stop laughing pretty soon I’m going to give myself an aneurysm I swear to god.

The Trump Library.  Pause a minute between guffaws and milk spewed out your nose.  The man watched TV.  That was his intellectual mode.  He didn’t read a book or daily briefing reports, he never wrote anything that didn’t need flushing shortly after, he deleted his phone calls and emails, he took a page from the mafia dons who understood these dropped crumbs quickly become incriminating evidence in future trials.  A library?  C’mon, the guy never set foot in a library in his life, I’d bet my banjo.  Sure, put a gold toilet in the center of the floor with a copy of that infamous photo where he flushed the latest memo.  Stick a plunger next to it for when the plumbing clogs with the lost history of the Donald J. Trump presidency.  Run a continuous loop of his rally speech, pretty much the same one every time and in another room play his Hannity interviews on a big screen TV.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Trump Library.  If you think it needs beefing up, well, add a room for the first lady’s modeling photos, billboard size nudes, got to be over 18 to go in there.

Okay, I’m being unfair.  The man had all those boxes of documents.  I know, they could fill a room or two.  The Love letter from Kim Jung Un could get its own room.  The note Obama left on the Oval Office desk could get another.  Maybe we need another wing, one exclusively for the Giuliani Proverbs.  But I’m kidding, the Library will be in the basement of Trump Tower.  Open sporadically, hours limited.  I wouldn’t plan a vacation around a trip there.  Take the kids to the Smithsonian instead.  Or just your local library.

What a difference a few months make in the minds of Republicans.  What a difference in a few days or even hours.  Was it my faulty memory or do I remember the grand old party screaming bloody murder about defunding cops?  The FBI conducts a legal search of Trump’s hacienda to retrieve what we are told are classified documents he refused to return, something akin to a felony if anyone but the Donald had ignored the Justice Department demands, and now the howls can be heard from sea to shining sea.  Defund the FBI!  Investigate the Department of Justice!!

What ever happened to the party of Law and Order, those proud defenders of the Constitution, those self-acclaimed patriots?  Gone, almost all gone.  Their Commander in Chief is above the law, they must feel, Untouchable.  He weathered two impeachments, he pardoned his favorite allies, he has yet to be indicted and if he is, well, time to defund the courts.  And best of all, when the party of Law and Order gets back in power, clear your calendar you G-men, you heads of the Justice Department, they’re coming for you.  How dare you investigate the Donald!  What were you thinking?  The man is above the law, get that through your partisan heads.

Donald J. Trump is going to learn the hard way that he is no longer President of the United States.  He is going to be subpoenaed, indicted, fined and probably convicted of voter fraud, conspiracy, tax fraud, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and who knows what else.  But … his day of reckoning is coming, you can take that to the bank.  And yes, 80% of the GOP will scream bloody murder, call it a witch hunt, threaten the judges and the courts and the FBI and their Democratic counterparts.  If he thinks he just brought Liz Cheney down in Wyoming, better think again, buddy.  The woman will have her revenge, you can be sure.

The FBI, those g-men from the Deep State, raided the home of the President-in-Exile awhile back.  Oh sure, they had search warrants, probably phony, no doubt printed on stationary stolen from some federal judge’s office, all to embarrass the man who might choose to run again for the office he claims repeatedly he never lost.  His followers, MAGA hats bent out of shape, and his political allies, egg slimed on their faces, screamed bloody murder, claimed the Justice Department was politicized and weaponized.  They protest too much, methinks.  DOJ asked nicely six months ago for the classified documents Trump squirreled from White House to Mar-a-Lago to be returned, something about felonious theft of public documents the National Archives were supposed to safeguard.

Maybe they knew the guy who notoriously destroyed memos, deleted emails and otherwise hid his activities from view might want to flush more classified documents down the toilet in his back bedroom.  Must have gone through their minds when nothing they said or did could convince Team Trump to turn over those boxes of missing documents, no doubt mistakenly moved, might have thought they were wedding pictures of the kids.  Probably nothing incriminating in there.

The resulting furor erupting from the Trump Universe varies from a call to Civil War to threats to investigate and ultimately hang the Attorney General and anyone else who authorized that search warrant once Republicans return to power, who cares that it is a High Bar to obtain a warrant for anyone, much less a former President of the United States.  Who cares that the Trumpster wanted to weaponize not only the Department of Justice but the military too?  Who cares that they subjected Hillary Clinton to an endless round of investigations over email servers and Benghazi?  This, though, this raid on poor innocent Donald, cannot be tolerated.

Politics, the art of the absurd.  Trump, in another legal setback, was ordered to show his tax returns.  He’ll be in New York federal court today, no doubt pleading the 5^th, but asking his followers for donations to help him fight against the endless Witch Hunt he’s being subjected to.  Write a check to the Save America Fund, he begs.  It gets increasingly harder to tell what America he and his minions are talking about.  Nothing I recognize anymore.