I’m a comedian and television producer by trade — and a passionate history buff by avocation.
I don’t call myself a historian. I haven’t devoted enough years in research libraries or earned an advanced academic degree – but I’ve read enough history to know that we Americans are living in a perilous moment in time.
Right now – in the 2020 Presidential election — the future of our democracy is in the balance.
Check out historian Jill Lepore’s recent article in The New Yorker and Yale professor Timothy Snyder’s recent booklet, On Tyranny.
Lepore and Snyder teach lessons Americans must learn.
Putting these two distinguished historians work together with the everyday evidence available on objective newspaper front pages and TV news broadcasts, it’s clear that the election and maladministration of Donald Trump is as dangerous and pivotal a moment for American Democracy as we’ve experienced since 1776.
Let me count the ways…
Just like the Nazis rounded up “the other” in concentration camps, so has the Trump regime locked immigrant Central American families in makeshift camps – and put their children in cages.
The architect of Trump’s awful, inhuman border policy is his close aide Stephen Miller — an abominable, heartless white nationalist.
Think right wing autocracy can’t happen here?
Read Timothy Snyder’s short and powerful book – and you’ll be shaken to your democratic core.
It CAN happen here.
We can see the potential death of democracy in the feckless cowardice of the Republican Senate. By acquitting Trump of his obvious high crimes against the constitution, they bent their knees like the fearful, faithless German legislators who paved the way for Hitler’s rise to tyrannical authority.
And the world reaped the whirlwind.
Today – it’s not just American government in the balance.
It’s human survival.
Trump says climate change is a hoax.
Trump put a coal industry hack in charge of the EPA.
Trump has put a private industry fox in every public agency henhouse.
Trump is putting bootlicking lackeys in charge of the intelligence agencies.
Trump’s Justice Department under William Barr is enthusiastically investigating Trump’s perceived enemies.
And the spineless GOP legislators are letting Trump do it.
We can’t let them get away with it.
I’m a comedian — but I’m not joking. It’s not an exaggeration.
Our democracy is at stake.
This election year, our American democracy is at stake.
We’ve all got to Vote Blue – No Matter Who!
On Monday, February 11, 2019, FOX News online ran a piece with this headline:
Wait.
I thought that among the burning issues of the day was whether some actor from the cast of “Empire” staged a hate crime attack on himself. And that according to sources, Senator Amy Klobuchar might be too hard on her staff.
More than a third of the insects could be gone in the next few decades? Shouldn’t we be hearing a lot more about our vanishing insects? Then again, maybe there’s just no time to address this insect extinction story – and still have room on our news broadcasts for breathless punditry about whether or not “Pocahontas” Elizabeth Warren tried to get ahead by claiming Native American heritage?
Of course, with all the time spent on television and in the print and online media arguing about whether Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is a Socialist who’s moving the Democrats too far to the left, maybe there’s just not enough time to worry about losing all our insects?. While the pundits and politicos dither about whether AOC is too extreme — there’s scant time to explore the fact that “Due to the high level off species loss, Earth is considered to have entered into its sixth mass extinction event in half-a-billion years.” That problem sounds a lot more extreme than the political philosophy of a 29-year old freshman congresswoman. But what do I know?
As President Trump pumps out Tweet after shameless, petty Tweet and his TV lawyer Ruby Giuliani lies outrageously on any show that will give him a microphone – the American body politic is left to wonder, “What would Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller say?”
In recent weeks, Trump and his mob have launched a campaign to discredit Mueller and his investigation – but standing placidly amid the faux outrage and bombast, the man fixed in the dead center of Trump’s target has remained silent. Owing to his sense of duty, propriety and professionalism – the veteran U.S. Marine officer and former FBI Director Robert Mueller III has kept quiet.
I was stunned when my iPhone buzzed this morning at 7:00 AM ET. I was expecting a call from my pool maintenance guy to say what time he was coming over to fix the light bulb in my hot tub – so imagine my surprise when it was the Special Prosecutor himself!
Mueller didn’t have much time to chat. He, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray had to leave shortly for a breakfast meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Of course, Mueller told me, they can’t really talk about anything with Sessions because (A) he’s recused himself from the Trump investigation, (B) he’s likely to leak info to Trump and (C) they suspect he’s angry because he’s lost his magic powers and can’t remember where he buried his pot of gold. You can’t trust a bitter ex-leprechaun.
In the short time we talked, Mueller got a number of things off his chest.
ME: But it does seem to affect public opinion.
MUELLER: You mean what do I say to my fellow Republicans who say that?
Secondly, let’s dispense with this bullshit about how long my investigation is taking. Does anyone remember Whitewater? That took more than 5 years. Never heard any GOP flacks complain about that. Benghazi? Please. That shit show ran longer than the Watergate probe. And those idiots in the House Freedom Caucus still want to investigate Benghazi some more! And how about “Uranium One?” It’s madness! Those ginned-up, penny-ante cases are nothing compared to my investigation. We’re trying to get to the bottom of how a hostile foreign power managed to meddle in an American Presidential election.
MUELLER: I mean, Putin and agents of the Russian government fucked with our most scared democratic process! They even tried to hack into our voting systems. That should set my fellow Republicans’ hair on fire. And when I get done, they’ll want to set Trump’s hair on fire, too. What a blaze that’ll be! Not since I saw napalm in Vietnam…
MUELLER: I could care less. This probe started long before I took charge of it. It began because our brilliant and patriotic intelligence community learned that folks working on the Trump campaign had all sorts of sordid contacts with Russian oligarchs, the Russian government, Wikileaks and, possibly, Putin himself.
MUELLER: Certainly. Eventually. And a whole lot of other things, including that crazy sale of his Florida mansion to some Russian for a half-million more than it was worth.
MUELLER: That’s not my call. I’m not about politics. I’m not about public opinion. I’m all about the law.
Scenes from the March For Our Lives in Los Angeles, to the tune of Bob Dylan’s classic protest song: as relevant today as it was when it was released on January 13, 1964.
And accept it that soon
Come writers and critics
Come senators, congressmen
Come mothers and fathers
The line it is drawn
As of today, March 22, 2018, Donald Trump has jumped the shark.
Ever since Fonzie took to water skis and 
Today we learned that…
On this same day we learn that Trump’s National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMaster is out – and right wing, war hawk, bull-goose-loony John Bolton is taking his place.
So, how does Trump – who ran on his blistering critique of the war in Iraq as a huge mistake, now embrace one of the primary advocates of that mistaken war? Who knows? Chaos reigns.
Playboy centerfold Karen MacDougal appeared on CNN today.
Those who know me know that I like meat. I’m an unrepentant carnivore.
So, naturally, I have spent much of the scant recreational time I have during the Olympic Games in search of the best Korean barbeque available in the PyeongChang area.
And then, last night, I found — and enjoyed — Korean BBQ heaven.
This night was Korean
With cameraman Corey in the lead, we hauled out cuts of beef to the upstairs dining room after a 20-minute wait. We were famished — but we anticipated beefy, tasty, spicy joy in our near future.
So now, just hours after Donald Trump couldn’t bring himself to admit to The Washington Post that President Barack Obama was born in the U.S.A. — some campaign flunky puts out a statement saying that Herr Trump actually believes that Obama is, in fact, born in America.
Well, let’s hear that from Donald J. Trump himself.
“We’re looking into it very, very strongly. At a certain point in time I’ll be revealing some interesting things,” Trump said on CNN’s American Morning.Trump first claimed earlier this month he had sent investigators to Obama’s home state in an effort to find out if the president was indeed born there, as he says he was and several media organization’s independent investigations have confirmed.
“I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” Trump told NBC then.
What did his “people that have been studying it” really find? And why could they not “believe what they’re finding.”
The Presidency of the United States is at stake.
Emilia drew three wonderful, receptive houses that weekend, July 8-10 — but for those who didn’t get a chance to see the show (and for those who’d like to re-live it) – this video captures all the fun.
So, if you’ve got a little less than 45 minutes of free time on your hands – and you could some laughs focused refreshingly above the waist – check out “Emilia Barrosse: Headlong Into The Apocalypse.”
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 
The Bottom Line: What All Patriotic Americans Must Agree Upon.
Progressives.
Liberals.
Sane Republicans.
Patriotic Americans.
However we define ourselves on the political spectrum — or whatever easy political label we’re comfortable with – can we all agree on the following statements?
Do you agree with these statements?
Every Democrat (except, perhaps, Oligarch Bloomberg) would agree on these things.
So, vote what you know in your bones to be right.
Donald Trump, the horrible GOP Mango Mussolini, doesn’t give one tiny shit about any of the things listed above.
But every Democrat agrees with nearly everything on the list.
So…
VOTE BLUE – NO MATTER WHO!
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Filed under History, Politics, Random Commentary, Uncategorized
Tagged as 2020, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Mayor Pete, Trump