Who will follow Donald Trump? JD or Marco?
Forget straw polls of the Trumpian horde. The party populace will not choose the next Trumpian presidential candidate. That task will be reserved for his lordship, (assuming, of course, the artificially-bronzed golden man-child doesn’t declare a national emergency to dissolve the 2028 election so he can stay in office).
Polls like the one recently released by AtlasIntel are meaningless. The nomination will go to whomever Trump prefers. That is, whomever promises to exalt him more (https://dailyvoice.com/md/bethesda/rubio-or-vance-new-poll-reveals-early-gop-preferences-for-possible-2028-presidential-race/).
Who Shot the Sheriff? I suspect skepticism about assassinations—actual and attempted—began after questions arose as to how Lee Harvey Oswald was able to shoot President John F. Kennedy all by himself. And how it was so easy for Jack Ruby to gun down Oswald in the Dallas police department parking garage. And how James Earl Ray was able to escape to England after shooting Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis.
So, it’s not surprising that lots of people have to swallow hard to believe repeated assassinations attempts of Donald Trump were real and not staged
The Washington Post put it thusly: “About 1 in 4 say the correspondents’ dinner shooting was staged, the poll found, including roughly a third of Democrats, as conspiracy theories spread widely online.”
Sadly, we live in an age not of reason but of skepticism, fueled by the power of the Internet to shape public opinion. Even before all facts are known, rumor-mongers bombard our senses. This credibility crisis was aided and abetted by Trump’s first term mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway who coined the phrase “alternative facts” to explain away Trump’s frequent misrepresentations, lies, untruths and fabrications.
Here’s a current example of his just plain dumbness that relies for support on an uninformed and misinformed MAGA nation: Commenting on the economic fallout from Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said because the U.S. doesn’t need oil imported through the Strait, America would not be harmed. Apparently he doesn’t understand that U.S. gasoline prices are based on international Brent Crude oil prices which is affected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. And, as we are learning every day, oil and its byproducts are the foundation of many industries. Thus, an oil shortage affects prices in all sectors of the economy at home and abroad.
Future Shock: I want to be and stay informed. I really do. But the more I read about what the future has in store for humanity, the more depressed I become, not necessarily for my 77-year-old self but for the futures of my children and grandchildren.
Every day, it seems, technologies heretofore depicted in Terminator-type movies of the future are closer to reality even before the first third of the 21st century has elapsed. Case in point: Read Thomas Friedman’s article (but only if you don’t mind becoming depressed)—https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/opinion/trump-iran-artificial-intelligence-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share.
I don’t mean to depress you, or have you worry about my depression. I share this anxiety with you to assure you that if you are feeling similar emotions you are not alone.
It doesn’t help relieve my depression that my foot injury will keep me from playing pickleball for another several weeks (at least).
Independence Day Glories: When did MMA (Mixed Martial Arts, for those wondering) become our national past-time?
With the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country coming up, thoughts naturally arise to how we will celebrate national achievements that have benefitted mankind.
Successes like development of the polio vaccine, the discovery of penicillin, creation of Covid vaccines. Invention of the cotton gin, the sewing machine, the telephone, television, the Internet, the personal computer.
Americans invented baseball. Football (American style). Basketball.
With a heritage like that, why would any well-grounded person choose to feature an MMA competition June 14 on the South Lawn of the White House? It’s as if Trump fashions himself as a latter day Roman Caesar arranging circus games to pacify the masses to make them forget that bread costs more every day since he started his war with Iran.
He is not tethered to reality. When you are untethered, when you truly believe you do no wrong, when you do not believe any negative reports, when you are convinced God has installed you as his emissary …
Yet your belief in yourself is so fragile that you cannot let a disparaging comment go unanswered …
You tilt at windmills. Literally and figuratively.
Trump acts as if he believes the U.S. is impervious to penetration by the physical and metaphysical. Yes, he could bar legal, and illegal, entry of humans to American soil, but his ability to keep global warming and pollutants from our atmosphere is illusory. Instead of being a world leader in saving the environment, he is a world leader in abetting its destruction.
He repeatedly has tried to shut down wind and solar energy projects plus electric car production in favor of more coal plants and gas-guzzling trucks and automobiles. He threatens mass transit projects. While the rest of the world, especially China, embraces a cleaner future, Trump cozies up to polluters and frees up restraints on their environmentally dangerous actions.
More than ever I am trying to limit my driving to less than 40 miles a day, the battery-powered range of my plug-in hybrid Ford Escape. It’s an admittedly small contribution to saving the planet. Now, it’s your turn—what can you specifically cite as your contribution?
