Random thoughts about Paul, Donald, Melania, George, (George? Yes, George!) lawyers, pardons, and raincoats — not necessarily in that order

Raincoat Exegesis may become a whole new a field 

for scholars of psychiatry, fashion arts history, and 

anthropological symbolism

But first, let’s talk about Paul. 

Paul Manafort, that is. This week he won the praises of Donald Trump for not ratting out — what a surprise! — Donald Trump.

“I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family,” the increasingly panicky president tweeted on August 22. “‘Justice” took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break’ - make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.’ Such respect for a brave man!”

If I were an Old Testament Daniel, I’d translate this tweet as handwriting on the wall, quite literally another “Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin.” If I read the Google and Quora explanations correctly, and I’m too lazy to check this out more deeply right now, this all has to do with “Aramaic names of measures of currency.”  The root “Mene” goes back to the verb meaning “to count.” “Tekel” pertains to shekels,  and somehow or other the last word seems to indicate “Thy kingdom is divided.”

In other words, this is a clear signal from Donald to Paul that if he keeps his mouth shut he will be richly rewarded. Theoretically this could be in currency. However, given how tight-fisted Donald appears to be with his own personal shekels, my guess is that at best he’d deposit twenty bucks in Manfort’s prison canteen account, and at that, twenty bucks illegally borrowed from his re-election campaign.

So instead I’ll interpret the reward as a full presidential pardon. “Keep it zipped and I’ll spring you,” seems to be the Trumpster’s coded promise. As for the divided kingdom, that one’s easy. In my opinion it almost certainly means, “And if pardoning you means ripping the United States apart, too damn bad.”

However,  if I were Paul Manafort, I would remember that The Trumpster doesn’t always pay his debts. Or keep his promises. Manafort may be weighing the rest of his life behind bars against Donald Trump’s word. I know which side of the scale I’d put my money on. Do I need to spell out the rest? Okay, I will. If I were Paul Manafort, I’d take a deep breath and then sing a lengthy aria. We’ll have to wait to see whether Paul comes to his senses. 

  *   *

Political raincoats?

Until very recently, a raincoat was pretty much a raincoat. It could be cheap. It could be expensive. It could be fancy. It could be plain. But the one thing it wasn’t likely ever to be was political.

No more, thanks to Melania Trump. Back in June, on her way to visit a Texas detention center for small children ripped from their parents arms and imprisoned in cages by her husband’s administration, she wore a $39 hooded rain jacket from the designer Zara, the modestly priced Spanish fashion designer.

“I DON’T CARE DO U” was written in what appears to be white paint on the back of the jacket. 

The chatterati of course went haywire, reading her rain coat like a sloppy mess of tea leaves in a fortune teller's parlor. Did it mean she didn’t care about the government-abused kids she was visiting? Did it mean she was doing this only because she was forced to by her husband? Was it an act of defiance equivalent to flipping Donald the bird? Was it simple mindlessness? Was it a well-thought-out distraction from the plight of the children? And where did she get the jacket?

Most of the papers I read failed to credit Zara. It took a reporter from NPR to follow up on that, which in and of itself is a reason to whip out your check book right now and send a little something, or maybe a big something, to that non-profit radio network. 

As for What She Meant By That, I’m going with the flipping-Donald-the-bird crowd. We know she already has her own bed. And her own bedroom. Where she gets her own sex is a question that I’d just as soon leave for another day. 

But then why does she stay married to the man? Can you spell p-r-e-n-u-p-t-i-a-l? My guess is she'd get zilch, or at least zilch in comparison to the Trumpster’s wealth, if she leaves him. On the other hand, he’s seventy-plus years old, overweight, and ingests enough cholesterol each day to gridlock in a horse’s aorta. 

I suspect, that she suspects (and I suspect it, too), that one morning, like Rumpstileskin, Trump will stamp his foot in a wild rage, blow a cardiovascular gasket, or maybe a dozen, and then disappear through the floor of the oval office.  In which case (assuming the law of their home state of New York rules) she is entitled to a third of however many, or few, millions he has. Plus the "marital abode." Or perhaps several of them.

I’d suggest hanging in there, Melania. Wouldn’t U?

***

George and me and Donald and Equinunk.

Okay, a bit of history is in order here. Personal history.

Back when I was a ‘tween, my parents sent me to a boys summer camp called Camp Equinunk. I just checked, and to my amazement, it’s still in business. 

There were eight, or was it ten of us kids in each “bunk,” along with two counselors. There was an older, mature counsellor named “George” and a younger less mature one (name since forgotten) who was hardly older than we were.

George, the older more mature one, was 24 years old. He had just graduated from law school. He was casting about for a career. He was considering interviewing for the FBI, but not sure he wanted to join an organization where the induction rigamarole included carrying a pocket handkerchief so  that just before you entered the Director’s office to shake hands with J. Edgar Hoover, you could wipe your hand dry. (Hoover, like the Trumpster, had a horror of germs and of shaking clammy hands.)

George also had a new wife, a cute, petite woman named Billie, who worked across the lake at Equinunk’s sister camp, Camp Blue Ridge. The camp was even kind enough to provide a room where they could shack up on their days off, which left the junior counselor alone with us, free to tell us stories about his sexual exploits that would have horrified our parents (and today's feminists.) 

I lost track of George after that. And since I never really watched The Apprentice,  I wasn’t aware, until an idle evening of Internet surfing, that George's career led him not to the FBI, but to Donald Trump.

Two years ago, at the age of 88, George Ross was still a die-hard Trump loyalist.

All the same, I do wish somebody from Robert Mueller’s team  would invite George Ross in for a chat. I do suspect that this 90-year-old knows something useful. And, if he were to weigh loyalty to his former boss against loyalty to his nation, who knows what an honorable man like George Ross might say? Moreover, imagine a trial where some of the evidence is not gleaned from somebody found guilty of a felony. Go for it, Bob!

Donald, Melania, Jabba the Hutt, and the secret messages of body language

Uh oh! 

Am I the only one who noticed the body language when Donald and Melania danced to "I did it my way" at the inaugural ball?

By the time I thought to grab my iPhone and punch in my access code, I had missed some of the best shots, but the one above will do. Study it carefully.

Notice that Donald's long right arm is wrapped sinuously around Melania, and that he appears to be tugging her toward him. He also appears to be pressing his hips against hers.

She, on the other hand, is leaning away slightly, even as he tries to lean in. Her arms are not wrapped around his. She is merely touching his shoulder.

The expression on her face is difficult to read. But she hardly appears happy and bubbly in this shot. And although she did occasionally smile while they danced, she didn't smile often. If anything, as in this picture, she was a bit grim.

Now don't get me wrong. Melania is getting a lot from this marriage, including several places more spectacular to live in than the White House, where she can also live. Further, money and power are sexy, and now President Trump is endowed with formidable amounts of both.

*

On the other hand, I refer you to Jabba the Hutt,* another man with a not-skin-color complexion, Now there was a dude with money and power if there ever was one, but honestly, how many women would want to share a bed with him? Fortunately for American womanhood, Jabba was as fictional as half the stuff Donald Trump states as fact.

So I ask several questions: 

•While she claims to be staying in New York for the sake of her son who is attending private school here, how often will Melania visit Washington on weekends? 

•Will Melania and Barron move to the White House next year, when Barron can attend school in Washington, D.C. (Perhaps even one of Betsy DeVos' soon-to-be-funded-with-taxpayers'-money private schools?)

•Or will Melania find yet another reason to hang in New York?  

•And if Melania stays in New York, will the President find solace by wrapping his arms around some other age-inappropriate lovely?

•What's in the Trump prenup? If Melania ever chooses to fully escape the marriage, will it be financially worth her while? Or is she only a bird in a gilded cage? 

And will the marriage last forever, or just until Donald Trump's last day in office?

Stay tuned.

But wait before you go. Because I've also just discovered this priceless performance. (I'm definitely not talking about a TV spot that you may have to sit through before the performance begins):

          

Republicans demonstrate that their party is nothing more than a comic book, while Melania Trump all but lip synchs Michelle Obama

I  must say, watching the first night of the Republican convention last night was almost as entertaining as my first exposure to comic books.

I tuned in too late for the floor fight to boot Trump off the ticket. News reports have the Republican-Trump Complex squashing their opponents like a bug, thwarting what could have been a grave embarrassment to the party and The Donald.

But I tuned in just as the comic book characters that represent the Republican Party came onscreen.

Among them  were Mr. Flag Wrapper — Willie Robertson, the

Duck Killer Willie disses the American 

flag by using it as a sweat rag

long-bearded, hillbilly-ish, Duck Dynasty dude, who took an American flag and used it as a sweat rag to wrap around his head. Had a Democrat done this on TV, no doubt the Republican outrage machine would have been belching steam and giant clouds of volcanic ash. "How dare some lib-tard desecrate the flag?!?!?!"

But should a Republican even use the flag for toilet paper? Well heck, that’s showing he has a patriotic ass.

Is he Rick or is he Clark?

Then former Governor Oops of Texas, perfectly disguised as Clark Kent, got up and said something so forgettable that I can’t remember what it was. Sort of the way he forgot the three departments he'd eliminate if he remembered to become president.

Another huge highlight for me was Rudy The Air Chopper Giuliani, the so called “security expert.” Rudy's “accomplishments” included establishing a super-double-secret emergency command center for grave emergencies in the World Trade Center, shortly before 9-11 (but after terrorists had already tried to bomb the World Trade Center with a truck bomb in the garage of one of the towers.) 

Shucks, what made Rudy think that just because they failed once to blow the place up, and because it was a symbol of what the terrorists decided they hated about America, that they would never back and try again? 

Crazy Rudy. His gestures are in-sane!

Rudy last night looked as if he had lost whatever common sense and sanity he ever had. He turned into a cross between a super villain out of Batman, and a former New York TV appliance salesman named Crazy Eddie, ("His prices are in-sane" said Crazy Eddie's slogan.) 

It was like a nuthouse ballet to watch Rudy wildly gesticulating, chopping at the air, with his hands, looking like somebody the cops would blow to smithereens if only he were black and someone whispered, “He probably has a gun, and as you can see, he’s a whack job.”

And finally there was Melania Trump, all but lip synching the wife of the man Donald Trump says we should hate. There were some interesting demonstrations on TV this morning: Michelle Obama says it, then Melania Trump says the identical thing. Then Michelle says something. Then Melania Trump copycats again.

"I'm not really bad. I'm just ghost-
written that way."

But I don’t believe Melania plagiarized Michelle. I believe it’s the fault of plagiarizing speechwriters, who put Michelle’s worlds in Melania’s mouth. I feel just a bit sorry for Melania. 

I suspect that after his first very costly divorce from Ivanna, and a later divorce from Marla Maples, The Donald’s lawyers have engineered prenups so harsh that Melania would be all but living on the street if she ever divorced The Donald. So she's trapped, forced to forever mouth plagiarized words and defend a loose cannon of a husband.

She’s like that beautiful but not in control character in the movie, “Who Killed Ronald Rabbit?” I’m talking about the cartoon character Jessica Rabbit who spoke the immortal line, “I’m not really bad. I'm just drawn that way.”

And these are the people that roughly half the voters want to put in charge of America’s future?

God help us! 

Tighten your wing nuts, folks! Here come five mega-Tuesday nightmares, pipe dreams, and paranoid fantasies for the nation’s wing-iest Americans.

Have you notice the resemblance

between wing nuts and Mickey

Mouse hats? Only asking.

Tonight, the Ides of March, could turn out to be the best night of Donald Trump’s life, if he wins the big primaries in Florida, Illinois and Ohio. 

On the other hand, maybe not. He could lose some or all of this day’s big three. Or any of the following five nightmare could happen:

1. Melania Trump turns out to be a Russian spy. Please understand, I’m not saying it’s so. I’m not even saying I think it might perhaps be ever-so-slightly possibly so. I’m just saying that given America’s paranoid style of thinking recently, any nutball could make an accusation like this:

Zealous investigators (perhaps newly-enlightened Breitbart reporters?) discover that Melania Trump, born in a formerly communist country, is actually a concoction of Russian intelligence. They set out looking for beautiful women in communist and former communist lands to comes to America and undermine American democracy. 

The mission of these women will be to marry American men, encourage their husbands to run for the presidency, and thus infiltrate the White House. Why do you think there are so many websites where you can meet and maybe marry Russian women, for example? (And look, I know that Slovenia, where Melania comes from, isn't Russia, sort of. But it's geographically close. Besides, any place with a name like Slovenia...well, you know.)

Using psychographic projections based on a careful study of The Trumpster’s behavior, the Russkies, or at least the commies, figured out exactly which feminine traits are likely to appeal to The Donald. There was the slight inconvenience of Marla Marples, but maybe the Russkies paid her off to walk out on Trump. The rest is history. The plot is working in more ways than one. I mean, why do you think so many people are saying that Trump and Putin love each other? 

2. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are actually Cuban espionage agents. I mean, I’m not even trying to suggest that they really are, but consider. They both come from Cuban  immigrant parents, right? And by some strange coincidence, both Cuban-Americans are running for President. Coincidence? Do you think so? 

Obviously, the only reason there could be two of them is so that if one gets knocked out of the race, the other can jump in. Which is exactly what may happen if Marco doesn’t get enough votes in Florida by tonight. 

But why would Cuba do this to us? Obviously, Castro has been really teed off, ever since Russia stopped supporting the Cuban economy. That’s probably why he’s ailing. So now, with a Russian agent dangerously close to putting her head inches from the President’s pillow, the Cubans feel that this Russian plot must be stopped, since their relations with the United States are warming up and they don’t want to see any Russian agent messing up the flow of money to Cuba. 

I know that all sounds complicated. But if you twist the wings on your wing nut two turns to the right, it all makes perfect sense.

3. Those people getting punched in the nose by Trump fans? They’re actually part of a plot to murder Trump voters. See, they’ve got really, really dangerous blood-borne diseases. They’ve been planted deliberately in Trump audiences for the sole purpose of getting punched.  When you punch them in the nose, they bleed on you and a few weeks later, you die mysteriously of something like AIDS or Zika. 

How do you think AIDS and Zika even got to our shores in the first place? We didn’t have those problems 50 years ago. If we had a wall, we could keep them out. By the way, have you heard a rumor that Donald Trump wants to put a mosquito net on top of the wall? That should do the trick, at least when it comes to Zika. And we can make the flying insects pay for it.

4. John Kasich is actually a secret agent for the Democrats. Think about it. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t curse. He doesn’t sneer. He doesn’t make remarks about women, or ugly people, or the length of various appendages on Donald Trump. Just like the Democrats. This can't be a mere accident. 

So obviously, he’s there to take the election away from True Conservatives and turn the Presidency into a Hillary agenda. Or maybe even a Bernie agenda.Or maybe it’s not an “agenda.” Maybe it’s “a gender." Only thinking aloud here.

5. If Bernie Sanders becomes President, he’ll force sick people to get well, against their will. That’s what his whole so-called “Medicare for All” program is all about. People will be cured against their will. Poor people will get hip transplants and liver transplants and dental implants and eyeglasses, just like the one percent. After that comes vaccinations. And there goes freedom! What’s more, all those people living longer will bankrupt the Social Security system and you and I won’t get a nickel when we retire, which is what that crazy socialist is really up to.

Phew! Glad I got all that stuff off my chest.