On the north side, President Trump's local world-class golf course abuts the county jail. On the south side, it is across the street from the school bus motor pool. The street on the east side runs past bail bondsmen, fast food joints and a gentleman's club that was called T's Lounge long before the Trump Organization extorted the golf course land from the county. Donald T. did not like T, but after some of his lawyers looked into it, he decided not to fight. T of the lounge got there first.
So when Rudy Giuliani or Tom Brady or whoever, rode by en route from the tax dodge at Mar-a-Lago to the gold-plated gates of the golf course, he couldn't miss the unrelated T's Lounge with the Trumpian T on it.
T eventually cashed out, and the lounge has a new, more acceptable (to Donald T) name, although it still is a strip club across the street from the world-class golf course.
Starring in the strip club over last weekend was Stormy Daniels herself.
This called for all-hands news coverage, and I learned that nearly as many women as men went to see Stormy. The usual crowd apparently skews toward Trump voters, even though some of his fan club was outside protesting Stormy. Clinton voters reportedly stood around looking awkward. One Trump fan, calling the night historic, looked forward cheerfully to a three-hour drive back to her home in central Florida.
Anyway, Stormy did her act a few times and left town on Sunday.
The next day local culture fell from the high standards she had set. His Unfitness flew into town on Air Force One. Wife Melania previously flew into town on Air Force number something else almost as big, and she doesn't travel with an entourage. Of course the Air Force's biggest cargo plane was here to disgorge the presidential motorcade. And the non-presidential decoy motorcade. Lots of black, bulletproof SUVs to get one large body four miles from the airport to the tax dodge.
The arrivals cost you a few million dollars, and me a few dollars more because brigades of cops and state troopers have to be brought in to get the large body over those four miles. This was visit # 17 since the World's Biggest Inauguration.
The excuse this time was that the Japanese Prime Minister wants to play golf. And, oh yeah, talk trade. No information available on whether Trump has his Cole Haan iron.
I know none of you cares as much about this as I do. And I concede that the treatment upon which he insists -- I mean, the Kennedys and Bushes didn't sell memberships to their family compounds -- can't possibly add anything to his world-class delusions of grandeur. But I have friends who know I live here. And, frankly, it's embarrassing.
You're doing a great reporting job.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Do you think T put off the trip south because of the local entertainment? I was wondering why he left DC on Sunday (?) instead of Thursday.
I see from your careful reporting that he left DC on Monday.
DeleteThe story, which makes sense, is that he was in Washington to direct his shock and awe overkill against three buildings in Syria. And kvell in the aftermath. I can accept that.
DeleteThe billboard situation should, however, not go without notice. For a month or so, a billboard clearly visible along the airport-to-Mar-a-Lago route said "Impeach Trump Now." It was up for him to see all the time he was here to prayerfully observe Easter on the golf course. His friends put up a sign on the other side saying, "Thank You, President Trump." The contract for the Impeach billboard ran out Sunday, and by the time he got here Monday it was replaced by an ad for Panera's.
Dueling billboards. Our version of haute cultcher.
Sounds like that golf resort really drove a lot of economic development in that area. Not. What a fine use of a tax break to grow the local economy.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the strip club did get sold, so somebody either made some money, or didn't.
I wonder what Stormy does in her routine. I like to think a creative pole dancer, like any other artist, might be able to convey subtle political nuances in her performance.
ReplyDeleteI admire her chutzpah. Boinking Trump and then suing for the right to kiss and tell has boxed him into a corner: He can't shut her up without admitting he had sex with her outright. And now she has that police sketch floating around of her alleged threatener (who looks like Willem DaFoe only good-looking), so he can't bump her off without seeming guilty.
As shameless self-promoters go, she is a cut above merely cagey. And I hope she makes a lot of money and maybe goes into business running an equestrian program for disabled kids with it.
I am told (I can't testify to it personally) that Stormy appeared in a Little Red Riding Hood outfit, took it and everything else off and them sashayed and boogalooed around the floor talking to (and taking money from_ the closest patrons, male and female.
DeleteShe did not hang the U.N. representative out to dry or pardon Scooter Libby.
She would no doubt make a better president. Not saying much but its true. And if she did a pole dance at a summit with Putin, might throw him off his game. They could both appear topless at the joint press conference afterwards.
DeleteHmm, Little Red Riding Hood prevailed against the predatory wolf in end.
DeleteA meditation: What if it's Stormy Daniels and not James Comey that brings down T?
DeleteOf course, they could, perhaps in some unseen way, work together.
Other than that she's a stripper, with photogenic assets, and that the president of the United States at some point had a fling with her, and that he exchanged money in return for her silence, all of which do a fine job of filling the front page and apparently turning his beautiful wife into the Ice Queen - all of that is mildly interesting, but I confess that I don't see the jeopardy to Trump. What precisely is the sequence of coming events that is supposed to topple the presidency?
DeleteCampaign fund violation. Cohen's payment to Daniels right before the 2016 election to keep her quiet could be ruled an illegal campaign contribution. That doesn't seem a probable impeachable offense, but who knows.
DeleteI like Comey's plea to forego the impeachment route and make Americans vote against or for T. Of course, he would first have to go through another Republican primary in 2019-2020. Would stalwart Republicans come forth and contest his nomination? That looks to me like the force that the Comey-Daniels coalition might get working. Of course, there is the Koch-Adelson money front that could forestall any serious opposition to Trump.
But Jim...you may be the only stalwart-like Republican on this blog. What would you do?
DeleteJim, Since you don't have to live with Stormy systems followed by Trump descents with choirs of out-of-work fans shouting praise as he rides merrily along, you have the luxury of wondering what it all means. I have to endure it.
DeleteBut between endurances, I would suggest this: Stormy's lawyer may be every bit as persistently obnoxious as Trump's Mr. Cohen, lawyer and fixer (as they say). So far, Trump's menagerie has been setting the national standard for how low we can go. It is just possible that we can go lower. We shall find out if there are more depths to be plumbed. And if there are, be assured that we shall plumb them.
Peggy, I would have nominated Marco Rubio. Just goes to show how out-of-step I was: supporting an optimistic, pro-immigration version of conservatism. I forgot to be angry and love deficits. I think I have to go somewhere to hand in my stalwart badge, and probably my party membership card.
DeleteDid y'all happen to see Ross Douthat's take on Paul Ryan: instead of the principled visionary, his legacy (according to Douthat) is that of party apparatchik. Regardless of which way the wind blew, Ryan could bend in that direction.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/opinion/sunday/paul-ryan-republican-party.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fross-douthat&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
I'm getting older, not as nimble as I once was. My flexibility has its limits.
Jim, thanks for the link to Douthat's article. I think he gets it right on Ryan for the most part. I think a lot of the same things apply to Rubio, immigration and a more winsome demeanor notwithstanding. And the same thing can be said of many mainstream Republicans who are throwing in the towel.
DeleteTrump has weakened mainstream Republicanism. As a Democrat, that doesn't make me real happy because Trump is also weakening the country at home and destabilizing our position as a world leader.
Possibly only Italians who managed to live through Berlusconi can truly empathize with us.
Jean, I think of the Trump phenomenon as the bad acid trip version of "What's The Matter With Kansas?" I should hasten to note that I haven't read the book, but I see it cited so often, I think I understand the book's thesis, which is that, ever since Reagan, the GOP has induced working-class white people to vote against their self-interest.
DeleteI assume the corollary was that, if the poor mopes ever woke up or set aside the bottle or needle and figured out what *was* in their best interests, they'd naturally vote for Democrats. (Fwiw, conservatives have thought roughly the same thing about African Americans for years.)
So what Trump did was come along and tell that huge bloc of working class white people what *was* in their self-interest: banning immigration, getting us out of all foreign entanglements and responsibilities, and preserving government entitlements.
And the result is sort of Fun House Mirror Franks: rather than kicking the rubes out of the manor house, he marched the silver-spoon brigade out and left the ugly Americans in charge. Guys like Paul Ryan (and, to be fair, me) are doing the political equivalent of homelessness these days, wandering from the library to McDonalds to the shelter every day and wondering how to move back home again.
I had a get-together with some conservative friends last week, a day or two after Ryan announced his retirement. One of them offered a toast to Ryan, whom he memorialized as "the very last Republican Speaker of the House, ever." Seems likely enough.
Jim, as a democratic socialist or New Deal Democrat, I don't see voting for the Democratic Party in its present form as a solution. At best, it's like getting rid of the pilot who wants to fly the plane straight into the ground and replacing him with a pilot who wants to fly into the ground at a 70 degree angle of incidence. At most, it buys you time to get a real solution. But yes, even conservative republicans with their heads screwed on must feel lost at this time.
ReplyDelete