Trump Loses While On the Golf Course, Where He Spent His Term

As election officials sealed his re-election defeat and 230,000 Americans lay dead, Comander-in-Cheat Donald Trump was on his Viriginia golf course on Saturday morning, where he has spent 284 days of his presidency So far. With 73 days left in office, there’s plenty of time for this lame-duck sore loser to pardon his imprisoned co-conspirators (if not himself), poison the wells, burn the crops, and sow the fields with salt. All from the greens of Trump-branded golf properties, of course, where the caddies won’t call him out for kicking balls closer to the holes.

Watch out, though. President-Elect Biden also plays golf.

More:

“President Trump Releases Statement From The Golf Course On Projected Biden Win,” Dominique Mosbergen and Sara Boboltz, Huffington Post

“Trump’s motorcade greeted by jeering Biden supporters near White House as he returns from playing golf,” Tim O’Donnell, The Week

“Trump Was Golfing When He Lost The Election And He Saw People Celebrating On The Way Back To The White House,” Salvador Hernandez, BuzzFeed News

“Trump Slinks Home From Golf Course and Throws Twitter Tantrum,” Blake Montgomery, Daily Beast

“What Trump might do now he’s lost the election: From pardoning cronies to sabotaging the transition,” Alex Woodward, The Independent

“Trump’s 75-day finale, fully unrestrained,” Glen Johnson, Axios

“The destructive power of a lame duck president,” Oliver Staley, Quartz

Update:

“It was perhaps inevitable it would end when Trump was on the golf course,” Philip Bump, Washington Post

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Top image (“President Trump Addresses the Issues”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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2020 State of the Union: Re-Runs of 1950s TV Westerns

U.S. President and reality TV personality Donald J. Trump performed his State of the Union address on Tuesday. He called it “The Great American Comeback,” and it all seemed to come back to re-runs of 1950s television Westerns. Mr. Trump outlined midcentury America’s whitest historical myths, and his reference points were all TV shows he saw as a toddler, Wyatt Earp (ABC TV, 1955 to 1961), Davy Crockett (ABC TV, 1954 to1955), and, with a nod at inclusion, Annie Oakley (syndicated from 1954 to 1957). He glorified How the West Was Won (MGM 1962 and MGM Televison, 1976 to 1979), seemingly reducing the genocide of Native Americans to some kind of divinely-ordained case of eminent domain. A reference to the Alamo (Disney 1955) overlooked the fact that Crockett and his comrades were illegal aliens in 1836, and some of them enslaved other human beings.

When Americans say “God Save the Republic,” we’re not not talking about the Republic Pictures Western fantasy films of Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. So Happy Trails, pardner. Only 270 days left before the presidential election. Saddle up.

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Image (“Trump on TV, with apologies to piñatero Dalton Avalos Ramirez“) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Trump Family Foundation Fraudsters Fined, Get Schooled

Donald Trump will pay $2 million in fines for misusing Trump Foundation charity funds to futher his own political ends, pay business debts, and buy a 6-foot-tall portrait of himself for $10,000. New York County Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla ordered that the fine and the remaining assets of the defunct foundation, $1.7 million, will be disbursed to legitimate charities: the Army Emergency Relief, the Children’s Aid Society, Citymeals-on-Wheels, Give an Hour, Martha’s Table, United Negro College Fund, United Way of National Capital Area, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Foundation directors Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Ivanka Trump have been sentenced to re-education camp, and will take classes in how honest board members govern a legitimate nonprofit organization. Papa Trump is exempt from education, either because he’s president, too old to learn, or possibly due to bone spurs.

More:

“Trump Ordered to Pay $2 Million to Charities for Misuse of Foundation,” Alan Feuer, New York Times

“Trump learns that fake charities are tons of fun until you get caught,” Kathleen Parker, Washington Post

Update:

“Trump Pays $2 Million Fine for Abusing His Own Charity,” Adam K. Raymond, New York Magazine

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

President Trump May Govern From His Tower

President-elect Donald J. Trump wants to spend three-day work weeks in the White House and long weekends holed up in New York’s Trump Tower, according to the New York Times. Reporters can’t pursue this further because the President-elect is holed up in Trump Tower. President Trump may also take long weekends at his golf resorts in New Jersey and Florida.

3 days in DC and 4 days at home is the weekly schedule of the denizens of Congress. That pattern was established in 1994 so Republican congressmen could spend more time raising big-time campaign funds instead of just passing laws and stuff. Who made that happen? Ethically challenged House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich, now a key Trump advisor.

More:

“NYT: Trump May Split Time Between White House And Trump Tower,” Caitlin MacNeal, TPM Livewire

“Will Donald Trump even live in the White House?” Jeva Lange, The Week

“Trump Tower: The home of a reality show, a campaign and now a transition,” Jenna Johnson, Washington Post

Related:

“With Trump Using Tower as Base, Fifth Avenue Grinds to a Halt,”Sarah Maslin Nir,  New York Times

“Trump Tower, Fifth Avenue, and the Militarization of Urban Public Space,” Justin Davidson, New York Magazine

“New York mayor to ask feds to help pay for Trump security,” Harper Neidig, The Hill

“How Donald Trump will retrofit Midtown Manhattan as a presidential getaway,” Marc Ambinder, Washington Post

“Secret Service wants to shut down traffic on Fifth Ave. around Trump Tower when the President-elect is in town: sources,” Rocco Parascandola, Dale W. Eisenger, and Leonard Greene, NY Daily News
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Image (“The Trump Tower of Barad-Dur”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

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