Anchor Struck

Yesterday POTUS 45 saw his zombie health care bill die yet again, watched the candidate he backed in a special election lose, and faced mounting criticism for the slow response to Puerto Rico’s deadly predicament.  Given his worries over uppity athletes, he may not have noticed.

In my last post, I foolishly noted that the odds a hurricane would again eat a major U.S. city a month later were astronomical.  Then Irma ate a state and Maria ate a nation.  That’s why I don’t bet.

I was trying to prepare for a tumultuous September.  But Trump is exceeding my fears yet again.  Why should he tweet about vital national issues when he can create a non-issue designed merely to beef up his base’s hunger for . . . well, beef.  The recklessness he showed in conflating a genuine concern — police violence against black men — with something as vague as patriotism confirms that his connection with reality is non-consensual.

Trump can hold a grudge indefinitely.  His current dust-up with the NFL is another chapter in a story that started in 1986.  He owned a team, the New Jersey Generals, which was part of the fledgling U.S. Football League.  He and the other owners filed a $1.7 billion anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL to force a merger.

Trump and company won on the merits of the case, but was awarded only $1.  Four years later, SCOTUS upheld the decision.  With the added interest, the new league ended up with a whopping $3.76.  But the nearly quadruple payout didn’t matter.  The cost and embarrassment of the lawsuit had already caused the USFL to fold.  So now the Don can only continue to abuse executive privilege by trying to micro-manage the NFL.

I kneel with the athletes.  As a veteran, I refuse to be lectured by a coward who got a draft deferment for short-lived heel spurs.  How can a brief peaceful protest possibly intimidate the (regrettably) most powerful man in the world?  Trump would like to give the flag the sanctity of the Shroud of Turin.  But if it truly does represent all the good the U.S. has done, doesn’t it also have to cop to all the shit it’s pulled?

Let me ask you this, Mister President: if Ivanka were drowning and the only way you could save her was to reach her with the flag, would you?  Would you for Eric?  For Mike Pence?  Mitch McConnell?  Colin Kaepernick?

And, by the way, POTUS: Kaepernick got the idea to kneel from a former Green Beret.