Must a man walk down before you call him a racist…or a useful idiot…or a willing participant in the undermining of American democracy. How many.

I witnessed a casino dealer go from the rack to her back pocket without clearing her hands and somehow there is doubt she was stealing.

Believe your eyes and ears and trust your instincts. There is thievery afoot at the highest levels of our government and somehow there is doubt. Another mass shooting today and somehow there is doubt that the biggest mouthpiece in America is fomenting class and racial war.

How many roads.

How much hand wringing and Spanish speaking is enough to cure this sickness. It is sickening to see dear leader express sympathy to people he not only despises but wishes would just disappear. And the guy who shot up the Walmart today in El Paso both knows that and embraces the misogyny.

How many roads.

Moscow Mitch. Leningrad Lindsey. Teflon Don. A vile and hateful group bent on the destruction of our democracy for the sole purpose of enriching themselves. Sick and sad and terrifying.

How many roads?

Please tell me you do not really believe anything remotely revealing will be said early tomorrow morning. If the report was not sufficient to move you, it’s too late. It will be the audio book version and while I think Mueller will give a award winning rendition, it really is a waste of time. The democrats should move to impeach. They do not need this circus sideshow.

Pelosi is looking in the wrong place, respectfully. There can be no rational reckoning. We have gone way beyond rational. She should think of it more as a breathalyzer, a field sobriety test. Trump, not no one in the White House is going to pass the test. Of course they will say the test is rigged, fake news. But make no mistake, they are all driving impaired. Have some fun with it. Even though it is all deadly serious, the focus is constantly successfully shifted to bullshit.

If we were analyzing the acumen of poker players in the WSOP, we might legitimately say Trump has a tell. Simply put, when his lips are moving…he’s lying.

Any questions?

Vegas baby. 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the shade will melt your ass. But it’s nothing compared to the D.C. heat wave. A perfect storm of dust, tornado, swamp gas, and hot air. Trump has a Jewish problem. And it’s not Cohen.

Who the hell is Jeff Epstein. He looks like a true slime bag. He also looks like every pimp running his herd of hookers. But he seems to be a little too much into the product. Sell some, keep a lot. Or perhaps he is simply a humanitarian who selflessly shares a few hits with his pals. Trump is known to be or have been a pal. Awkward. And now Jeff will cool his heels in the slammer. Even though he clearly has sufficient liquid assets to buy his way out. Could be prosecutors have a much higher purpose in mind. And it may already be paying dividends. Jeff has hinted that his client list, um friends, will be made public. This of course to save himself. In the long list of cowards currently in power, he is the very small, rotting fish. After all, it’s easy to be a big tough brave macho guy when your target audience is 14 years and younger.

Trump fans take note…he’s coming for your daughters. And if you think that’s disgusting, he has probably had carnal knowledge in ways much easier to overlook than to admit or acknowledge. Because once you say, yeah maybe, willful blindness is no longer an option.

This shell game on steroids is designed to exhaust and befuddle the carnival goers. Even though we know the games are rigged, we keep handing over dollar bills. The biggest, bestest prizes are way up on the top shelf, but you know, if you’re going to play you want the best payout. Trump believers are clear about what they want. It’s the rest of us who are conflicted.

A round of Gatorade for my friends.

A cup of Joe. He is likable and seems to be a nice guy. Someone who you would like to down a beer with. But Joe Biden is not the great white hope to defeat Trump. We saw it in the first Democrat debate. No fire, no passion. He  is going through the motions like a guy who feels entitled to ascension. But remember, Hillary had the same thought and now look where we’re at.

To be fair, none of the candidates who would oppose Trump have a big enough presence. Bill Maher got it right when he proclaimed that the only person who can beat Donald Trump is Oprah. And she’s not running. So we are left to try and prop up a would be replacement. It is Trump’s game to lose and even though we know he is eminently capable of self implosion, we still need a viable candidate.

Biden just seems tentative. He has to dive in without reservations and show the strength of his spine. Perhaps he is cautious hoping to shield his family from the tweet Trump. Can’t blame him for that. But Trump’s closet is so full of skeletal remains he should be a prime target for criticism and critique. And Biden should be able to deliver. If he really wants it and I remain skeptical.

It’s still early enough for Biden to decide what he really wants. And then, he has to do us all a favor: stay in and be strong…or get out.

We have lost our way. And it is not our fault. The government that is supposed to represent us has turned against us. And that is not democracy.

So tell me. Where do we go from here. The painful reality is that we as Americans do not like each other very much. You sense it when venturing out on our roadways. People are angry, confrontational, hostile. And that is a reflection of the mood of the country. Trump lovers like the way he tells it like it is. And he don’t take no shit.

But Trump is a problem, not a solution. When he says he loves America, I will translate… he loves what America has done for him and what he has done to America. He is a guy who made nothing on his own but rode the coattails of his rich, scheming father. Because if nothing else, the wealthy in this country have learned to work the system to perpetuate their legacies throughout generations. Money. All about money. All about how to get it. All about being left out of it. Let’s be clear. The attraction of Trump is his ability to navigate the fringes of legality. His apparent no bullshit taking, tell it like it is, pussy grabbing persona  has grabbed the attention and adulation of a disenfranchised segment of society which is large and growing more angry and disgruntled with each passing day of Trump turmoil.

Chock full o’ nuts used to be a coffee but now it’s how the White House is staffed. It’s a whirlwind caused by the constant fanning from the revolving door on the West Wing. With the departure of Sarah Sanders we are left to endure endless, mindless Tweets and the occasional helicopter press conference. And that’s better than what we got from Sarah.

What we have here is an inability to communicate. Lots of talking but no capice. And now the upstart freshman Democrat element is beating the drum for impeachment. I, and it pains me to say this, agree with Pelosi: impeachment like revenge is best served cold. Cold, hard, factual links showing a straight line from Trump to Putin. And Pelosi knows, it’s not there because it’s not there. Oh Trump colluded, conspired and slept with the Russians but the slippery flim flammer left no bread crumbs. There may be crumbs, but as of yet undiscovered. Maybe the crumbs are in his tax returns or maybe in Putin’s video library. A perfect storm in a perfect world.

Stay strong my friends. Vote early, vote often.

I first heard the term when Mary Schiavo, head of the FAA, used it. Nothing gets done until someone dies. Of course, she was talking about safety in the skies. But I think the term can be applied to events on the ground. There will be around the clock coverage of the latest mass shooting, this one in Virginia Beach, where the debate will rage about gun laws and how we need to do something about this type of violence endemic to America. We in Vegas have some experience with mass shooting: October 1, 2017. Here’s how we have changed. If you are a tourist to our city and are staying in one of our fine hotel casinos, and you keep the Do Not Disturb sign on your door, you can expect an unannounced visit from security to see if there’s anyone dead in the room. Not kidding.

The sad fact is that we are just not good at spotting crazy. Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbors viewed him as a quiet guy who kept to himself. Not the crazy guy who eats his house guests. Or Ted Bundy. He apparently seemed okay until he locked the doors on the Volkswagen. But these shooters…surely there must be some tell. And how might it manifest. We need a manual. Break it down to power points.

Remember, we are operating under tombstone technology. Nothing is done until someone dies. And once a person becomes a mass shooter, there is no learning curve, no chance for rehabilitation or redemption. Just a great deal of should have seen it coming. But we didn’t.

There is no avenue for dealing with crazy in the corporate environment. If you tell management you have concerns about the mental state of another employee, your concerns are either met with derision, apathy, or a sense that you are crazy. And it is a slippery dilemma, because it’s legally difficult to act until the individual actually commits a crime. Freedom. That same freedom that says anyone can own a gun. Realizing finally the folly, we have slowly begun to place restrictions on the right to bear arms. Is it everyone’s right, equally, to possess a gun. We have increasingly decided that gun ownership is not an equal right. So now we are back to that crazy diagnosis.

There remains to be a societal shift. Much the way we came to realize that drunk driving cannot be tolerated, we must decide to change our thinking regarding guns. That obsessive “collecting” of weapons may be a sign of a mental defect. May be in this case should be good enough to draw scrutiny. But how to do it. Many argue that it’s too late, that there are too many guns to successfully curtail the supply. But there must be a beginning. Registration and restrictions on who can sell is a start. And it cannot be tied to morality. Prohibition, war on drugs, war on poverty are all abject failures.

The NRA needs to be a willing participant rather than a constant opposing force. Convince their responsible gun owning members that legal registration is the only way to ensure a step toward curtailing mass shootings. The government cannot be the “bad guy with a gun.” We are the government and we can change the trajectory of our future selves. And the time is now.

A baseball movie. About a player dying and about how a team comes together when the players realize that one of their own is terminally ill.

Perhaps this is where we find ourselves as a country. A team of diverse individuals with a goal of coming together  to both support a dying friend and learning something about ourselves in the process. Of course, it’s just a movie…a sad one to be sure. The dying teammate is not intellectually gifted nor especially gifted as a player. Just a  human being who management decides is expendable and decides to trade him. A valuable team member decides to take up the dying man’s cause and declares, “if he goes, I go.”  That is loyalty. That is a higher purpose. That is what we are losing. It seems that we despise each other more than we care about the team. And that is a losing strategy no matter what game you play.

It seems that few things move us anymore. Game of Thrones ending got more of a gut reaction than any of the mass shootings have evoked across the population. If you prefer biblical reference, this could be Armageddon.

Around the globe, our adversaries believe we have it coming. They are tired of our smug bullshit democracy and what they view as our meddling. We do have a history of meddling to be sure, and more often than not it was in our self interest rather than for the good of another. We as a country felt no pain in removing Indians from their lands and effectively setting out upon genocide. We as a country felt no pain in enslaving dark skinned people. We as a country felt no pain at the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.  We increasingly are becoming numb to death and despair unless it directly affects our lives individually.

Even post 911, we are incapable of holding out a hand, of feeling compassion for people enslaved or hungry or homeless or sick. We are so consumed with the noise and vitriol we do not hear our own cries for help. And it seems that a certain wing nut element in our society thinks, “we have it coming”. Increasingly the wing nuts look incredibly normal. But looks as we know can be deceiving.

As the 12 steppers might say, we have yet to hit bottom. Sometimes, the bottom is six feet deep.

“It is common for the operator to take advantage of a lack of investor knowledge or competence, or sometimes claim to use a proprietary, secret investment strategy to avoid giving information about the scheme”…Wikipedia

So, this sounds familiar. Trump has variously claimed to have strategies for dealing with China, North Korea, Russia, but he can’t divulge the plans. Shhhh..this only works if you aren’t paying attention. But you will pay. Sounds like a perfect Vegas scam, but truth is, Vegas doesn’t play this game. Honor among thieves applies to the current administration. Remember, Trump bankrupted his casinos but somehow convinced investors he was worthy of their trust and dollars.

Vegas doesn’t cheat. The covenant here is the guarantee that you will get a fair chance while remembering the house will always have the statistical edge. Lives can be changed here whether for good or ill. We vigorously advertise the big wins in order to entice others to try their luck. It’s what we do. The rules are clear and constant. Not so with Trump’s schemes. Ponzi would be proud. The American people are invested in the scheme whether willing or not. The mechanisms are falling into place to keep us paying and playing while his supporters cheer and lap up the kool aid. The promise is that everyone will have a chance to win big…but the reality is the only winners are already ahead of the game. Advantage players. You have to be in on the scheme and that knowledge is by invitation only. Trump has sold to his minions that they’re in on the sting.  And that is the lure. It’s the implied promise of success if you just invest a little more and trust me.

Think on Trump’s push of tariffs on China. Remember how much pain this inflicts on America’s farmers. And now recall Trump’s response, “a little pain now, but a big payoff later.” Trust me.

Bernie Madoff? Light weight.

Drama queen. Here we thought Trump wants to be king. He just wants to be a star…maybe a porn star or reality star.  Oh yeah, done that.

So he pads around the big house with little Don in his hand while he strokes out his Twitter twitch. I mention this only in the interest of national security. Many a state secret has been exposed during the throes of passion. And for dear leader, it’s all about stoking passions. The reptilian brain is so in charge I swear the outer skin will slough off to reveal the scaly reality.

Trump does have a hard on for (insert your preferred minority here), but not content to harbor his own resentments he reels in his devoted audiences and enlists their emotional responses to his deviant purposes. Anger is an especially useful emotion. It is impossible to retain rational, critical thought when angry. And he keeps his minions pissed off. He by the way is not above all this. He is just as susceptible to ‘roid rage and he lets it spill out in what would normally be considered embarrassing fashion, but instead only serves to further inure him to his crowd.

He is the sexy man the way Ted Bundy was charismatic. Predatory, demanding, angry, domineering, with just a smidge of feminine self doubt. No wonder his admirers can’t resist him…all that macho bull shit. Those in possession of political power cleave to him not because they feel a kindred spirit, but because they realize they are of the same species. And rather than resist they rationalize and project their idealized selves onto him. It’s a field day for the weak.

Since we’re talking sexy, the move is on with renewed vigor to challenge Roe v. Wade. Impregnate: sure. Terminate: check with your lawyer. The man obsession with womb control is never ending. Barefoot and pregnant is the new old law of the land along with the idea that women are the property of their husbands and any woman raped had it coming.

If you like your autocrats fat and sassy,Trump is your guy. And if you like Trump and his minions up in your business, stock up on wire hangers. Because no woman has the right to presume she has moral superiority over another woman who has to make a decision about reproduction not in harmony with their views. And certainly no man has the right to dictate a woman’s right to choose. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Trump move from day one has been to appease the evangelical right by stacking the judicial deck with conservative judges. If you still have viable eggs, keep your legs crossed or your medicine cabinet stocked, because increasingly you will have no option to terminate legally. Talk to Gloria Steinem. Or any current or past leader of Planned Parenthood. Wake up.

Not only is democracy in decline, but tolerance and acceptance is in decline. And that is death to anyone who falls outside the rigid epistemology of the fringe right wing nuts.

Stay strong my friends.

Beautifully crafted this democratic grand experiment. It depends for legitimacy and efficacy on the populace exercising the right to vote. Like balance in the media, the theory goes that the fringe elements will be held in check by the majority in the middle. Not in terms of politics, but in terms of those who agree that what is good for the country is by extension good for its people.

The people must agree that what is important is our system of laws, our system of government, and our agreement that the constitution is the foundation. Over time politics and power corrupted has altered the landscape through gerrymandering. Stacking the deck is an old Vegas tradition now run wild. And both parties are guilty of this. It’s not illegal, but it’s dirty. Much the way Trump ran his campaign and now the country.

Based on the sentiments running through our political and cultural dialogue currently, it is clear that America and American democracy is in decline. It is not a byproduct of rampant and uncontrolled immigration as Trump claims. It is the triumph of the fringe. There has always been an element of those unhappy and disenfranchised, always searching for a cause celeb to rally around to both embolden them and strengthen their resolve.

With the help of Trump, they have gained a platform and a legitimacy never before afforded them. More than white supremacy, more than evangelical intractability, it’s a coalescence of wing nuttery. The bogeyman has taken many forms: illegal, rampant, uncontrolled immigration; socialist Democrats; trade inequities, Obamacare, guns. But more than anything, they are convinced that nothing short of anarchy and a complete overthrow of government is not only justified, but a moral imperative. This from the fringe, spurned by conventional wisdom and prevailing mores and norms, bolstered by a maverick in the White House, by evangelicals with a different but no less destructive agenda, this fringe that has taken hold and will not relinquish this newfound power without vile and apocalyptic consequences.

Unless…we intervene. We rise up. We vote. And we never give up. And beware the steaming divots.