The Carpentariat

As of Wednesday, it's "candidate" Biden

The waiting is over. Joe Biden will make his candidacy official this Wednesday.

That's the good news. The bad news is that "identity" squabbling among Democrats will commence with a ferocity heretofore somewhat tame. It's as though the identity-politics crowd has been vulturously though virtuously circling over the prospect of another white guy joining the race; they will now descend and proceed with pecking at the flesh of poor Joe, along with Bernie and Beto.

The opportunity for some Democrats to prove their progressive bona fides — rather than debate who can best eviscerate Trump — is upon us. Months will be squandered in a sophomoric kind of ontological transcendence. Should not the Democratic nominee be selected demographically — i.e., by race and gender — rather than his or her ability to win in the general?

In old-school politics that would be a rhetorically laughable question. But today, many Democrats prefer to participate in the primary process as part of a sentimental support-group, not as a trooper in trench-warfare politics, the way God meant it to be. If the ancient founders of democracy could do no better (for which Aristophanes was thankful), we sure as hell can't.

Joe Biden's contribution will be one of splendid simplicity: We are in a "battle for the soul of this nation." As the Atlantic puts it, "Biden’s campaign will, at its core, argue that the response to Donald Trump requires an experienced, calm hand to help America take a deep breath and figure out a way to get back on track." That's precisely what's needed in the Democrats' "messaging," while identity politics contributes nothing in the way forward.

In addition, Biden will bring to the race a compassionate, humane, pragmatic populism as a counterweight to the right's cryptofascist brand. Last Thursday, in Boston, he joined picketers with the United Food and Commercial Workers, bellowing that “Bankers, Wall Street, and CEOs didn’t build this country, You did!” Adds the Atlantic, "he spoke about the dignity of workers, health care, and good wages."

What better Democratic message? And what does identity politics bring to the left-right battle for the soul of this nation?

I concede that a woman nominee would also be a smart, pragmatic contribution, since wise, caring women of all colors (as opposed to the right's Neanderthal white males) constitute the largest base of the Democratic Party. But there is no female Joe Biden. If there were — all other things being equal — I would support her over him merely on the basis of who comprises the party these days.

I'll keep hope in the notion of a pragmatic choice, which comes down on the side of Joe Biden. The race should be about electability — not identity — and there, we have no better choice than the former vice president.

Trump is bungling his way to a united United States

I'll say one thing in praise of Trump the Uniter, as he preposterously promotes himself whenever he hits on the meth bong: Political absurdity has a way of not only bringing the left and right together, it renders them virtually indistinguishable — and this country has never seen such political absurdity as the botched rollout of the Mueller Report, thanks to the amateurishly Machiavellian Donald J. Trump.

He and his fellow connivers thought they could ingeniously exercise damage control via the informational drip, drip, drip method. But all thst has done is prolong Trump's headaches. And now both sides, left and right, are often interchangeable in their assessments of the agonizingly protracted rollout; either that, or you can't tell who was writing if you were provided a blind copy: an excitable progressive or a Trump-adoring right winger. Here, for instance, is what the editors of the conservative Washington Examiner had to say:

“The Mueller report exposes in Trump … a total aversion to transparency rooted in either actual guilt or serious paranoia. Trump was his own worst enemy. Had he let the investigation run its course, he would have looked less guilty…. [He has] repeatedly pushed others to lie or deflect in order to defend himself. This reflects his disregard for the federal law enforcement apparatus of which he is the constitutionally designated head. That is unbecoming and worrisome, and it is unethical to press others to lie, even when the lies are not under oath."

That reads like something you'd find in a hyperpartisan leftie blog, no? Well here's the assessment of one of those for-real zealous progressives, The Root's Stephen Crockett:

"The president, arguably the dumbest man in politics, has played us all and I can do nothing but applaud his efforts…. In hiring an attorney general who’s firmly holding on to the sweatpants leg that Trump wears as a tie, what was supposed to be a deep dive into the role Russia played in American politics has become the greatest political joke ever. On Thursday, the byproduct of consensual man-love between actor John Goodman and famous TV dad Frederick Flintstone, William Barr, decided he’d hold a press conference before releasing the redacted Mueller report so that he could tell the American public exactly how to not-read the Mueller report."

In the superb 1975 film Three Days of the Condor, an aged superxpook laments that he misses the "clarity" of the immediate postwar spats between the virtuous West and the wickedly Stalinist Soviet Union. As Trump's personal attorney general, Willam Barr is helping to erase the once-clear demarcation between America's left and right: Both sides are now seeing the sitting president as a clown, a hopelessly hapless bungler, a "political joke." Yes, Trump is, after all, bringing us together.

An EXPLOSIVE, little-noted section of the Mueller report

Amid all the analyses of the Mueller report by legal analysts I've heard on cable news today, there is one passage in the report that, inexplicably, has been missing from their analyses. You'll find it on pages 9-10 of the special counsel's report, and it is astounding in its potential.

In effect, while Mueller did not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice charges, neither did he exonerate the president on conspiracy to defraud the United States, loosely termed "collusion." I quote from Mueller's report:

"The investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and the Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. These lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference….

"[W]hile this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given ... identified gaps [imposed on (the Office) by legal regulations], the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report" [emphases mine].

With so much media attention and legal expertise devoted to Mueller's "does not exonerate-Trump-on-obstruction" conclusion, he essentially wrote the same about Trump and collusion. In brief, he was asking Congress to keep digging — not so much about Trump's conspicuous acts of obstruction, but about conspiracy to defraud. And yet, on this matter, I have heard nothing from the legal analysts. An I missing something — or are they?

The Barr Show

Well, it appears that Trump has been but a babe in arms, an innocent victim of a foul legal system that was out to get him.

Yet this wicked legal system — Mueller's "witch hunt" — came up with "no evidence" of any collusion, according to Attorney General Barr, who spent 90 percent of his time defending Trump on this particular charge.

On the multiple charges of obstruction, however, Barr had virtually nothing to say, except that Trump should be excused because he was "frustrated and angered" by the investigation. What a bizarre defense. It tells us, I should think, that there is a load of evidence against Trump on the obstruction charges.

And the White House knows it. Why else would Barr have shared information with the White House prior to release of Mueller's report — a sharing of information that has "aided the president’s legal team," reports the Times, "as it prepares a rebuttal to the report and strategizes for the coming public war over its findings."

In what world would a White House prepare a rebuttal to a report that "exonerates" the president?

***

Unless I'm misreading it, it seems that Mueller declined charging Trump with obstruction merely by virtue of Trump's office. A similar investigation of an average citizen would have resulted in "traditional" prosecutorial charges, according to Mueller's report.

Doesn't it seem the president of the United States — ultimately the highest law enforcement officer of the land — should be held to the highest, not the lowest, standard?

***

After listening for the last hour to MSNBC's legal and counterintelligence experts, who have digested Volume I of Mueller's report (the collusion section), my conclusion is that far from exonerating Trump on the collusion question, his guilt is substantially established. Mueller made clear in his report that lying by Trump's associates to the special counsel's office complicated and in fact obstructed any provable evidence of collusion by Team Trump.

One assumes the House Democratic intelligence and judiciary committees will utterly destroy Barr's twisted extraconstitutional defense of his client and properly reframe Mueller's actual findings. Hence an honest, authentic investigation of Trump-Russian collusion has yet to begin.

***

What still shocks me most about the "Barr Report" (versus reality) is the number of legal analysts I've heard on cable news say that they initially trusted William Barr to be an impartial "institutionalist" in his appointed role of attorney general of the United States, and not the president's personal attorney. As experienced lawyers, their trust was, at best, naive. Why would any political observer — lawyer or layman — have assumed Trump would appoint anyone but an underhanded loyalist who would corrupt the exercise of legal procedures just as Trump has corrupted virtually every aspect of executive authority? Barr's portrayal of the Mueller report was precisely what we should have expected. And this, it seems to me, projects a paradox: Barr's prominent loyalty has done Trump more harm than good; by making himself a target as well, the AG has merely highlighted, underscored and reopened the wounds of the president's crimes at the highest legal level.

If I can bear it, I'm going to watch A.G. Barr's extraconstitutional defense of Trump tomorrow morning. I hope to have some thoughts afterward. (I'm trying to get back in physical shape but it's taking longer than I expected.)

This is why we're concerned

The ways of the law — let's not call it justice — are a mystery. Politico:

"The attorney general has created an environment that has caused a significant part of the public … to be concerned about whether or not there is full transparency," U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton said during a hearing Tuesday afternoon on a Freedom of Information Act suit demanding access to a report detailing the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller.

So what did Judge Walton do?

He denied a request from BuzzFeed to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the Justice Department to release Mueller’s report by Thursday.

"Not a ton" indeed

Among the more interesting findings of declared Democratic presidential candidates' charitable giving:

Former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) released 10 years of tax returns last night. He and his wife reported $1,166 of charitable giving from a total income of $370,412 in 2017, the most recent year for which they released a return. That’s one-third of 1 percent.

en. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) released 15 years of tax returns on Sunday, showing that she and her husband earned $1.9 million last year and gave $27,000 to charity — or 1.4 percent. Harris reported no charitable giving at all during her first three years as California’s attorney general.

The most generous of the top-tier presidential candidates appears to be Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). She and her husband donated $50,000 last year of their $906,000 income. That’s 5.5 percent.

As for Trump? The Post reports that he "donates his government salary as president…. It’s impossible to know how much Trump has given to charity without seeing his tax returns." In fact, would it not be impossible to know if he even donates his salary? After all, what hasn't he lied about?

…- - -...

The first 35 seconds, especially, are worth watching. (What France doesn't understand is that Trump would know better than its professional firefighters, since he had an uncle at MIT.)    

And a hearty congratulations to the first reader who translates this post's title.

Notre Damn!

I know some of you possess deep engineering or archeological knowledge, so perhaps one of you can answer my question.

Given the tragic incident taking place at Notre Dame — the news coverage on which I am transfixed — my question is this: How is it that stone structures, such as European castles and Gothic cathedrals, can burn down? Ancient and Middle Ages histories are littered with these incidents, but I have never read how this was materially possible.

My question probably seems rather stupid to those of you who understand the subject, but my question is genuine. 

How can Trumpeteers live with themselves?

Underlying E.J. Dionne's broad survey of the differences between our two major political parties is "the question raised again and again about Republican politicians…. Why, oh why, don’t they have the courage to speak up against a president who, many times a day, violates the most basic norms of decency?"

Dionne's somewhat reductionist answer is that Republicans "are overwhelmingly a party of whites and Christians," as well as "the party of older people," that "has been working hard for half a century to become monocultural and mono-ideological."

True enough, although other definitions just as properly reductionist abound, such as that of Jon Chait's: The modern GOP is “the transformation of a party into a cult of personality dedicated to the most unfit personality ever to occupy the Oval Office."

Speaking with the Times' Michelle Goldberg, House Democrat Jamie Raskin described the opposition in this manner: "The Trump phenomenon" — which is to say, the modern GOP — is "a religious cult surrounding an organized crime family."

Even the 18th century's François-Marie Arouet, otherwise known as Voltaire, had an eerily accurate premonition of today's Republican Party: "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."

Three centuries later, the Washington Post's insightful Anne Applebaum defined the GOP in terms of what it is not: thoughtful. "Moderates often achieve less than they could," she wrote in 2010. "But extremists achieve nothing at all" (except, of course, imbecilic tax cuts and unprovoked wars).

My answer is even more reductionist. Simply put, today's GOP is soulless. It is a squalid caboodle of lemmings mindlessly shuffling toward a sea of non-ideological nihilism, led by the most demon-possessed, duck-billed platypus of all times; it's a pathetic collection of authoritarian personalities; it's the greatest embarrassment of American political history — a sorryass assemblage of self-inflicted ignorance.

Hence there, Mr. Dionne, are some other answers — in addition to your own — to "the question raised again and again about Republican politicians" and their millions of like-minded disciples: "Why, oh why, don’t they have the courage to speak up against a president who, many times a day, violates the most basic norms of decency." The absolute shortest answer? They don't, because they themselves are egregiously indecent.

The historical misreading of virtue is a vice

I shall give Bret Stephens the opening shot:

"It was once the useful role of conservatives to [minimize shame] — to stand athwart declining moral standards, yelling Stop. They lost whatever right they had to play that role when they got behind Trump, not only acquiescing in the culture of shamelessness but also savoring its fruits. Among them: Never being beholden to what they said or wrote yesterday. Never holding themselves to the standards they demand of others. Never having to say they are sorry.

"Trump-supporting conservatives — the self-aware ones, at least — justify this bargain as a price worth paying in order to wage ideological combat against the hypostatized evil left. In fact it only makes them enablers in the degraded culture they once deplored."

Stephens' thematic essence is correct, although his timeline is a bit off — i.e., by about half a century.

Trump's precursor of shamelessness, "movement conservatism," was launched by its unlikeliest of founding fathers: Republicans' 1964 presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater. Throughout his libertarian career, the Arizona senator had always honorably resisted — on ideological grounds — the public admixture of "social morality" and national politics. The cultural upheavals of the 1960s, however, allowed his advisers to persuade him that his only hope of winning the presidential contest was to go native with the fundamentalist crowd: the hustlers of right-wing Christianity, the Phyllis Schlafly types. Only in tub-thumping desperation did Goldwater agree — hence the true orange of today's movement conservatism.

He never forgave himself for having inaugurated his successor: the shameless, morally pompous New Right of the 1970s, which further led to Reaganism, Gingrichism and the like. To quote Goldwater from memory, "Perhaps I'm one of the reasons this place [Washington] is so redneck." This he conceded in his later senatorial career. What we call political religion is, by definition, uncompromising, which of course renders pluralism impossible. And Goldwater knew it.

Thus, historically, one cannot lay the "annihilation of shame" on only Trump and his supporters' shoulders. Its misguided genealogy of exclusively appropriating family, flag and God extends decades.

Until NeverTrumpers — such as Bret Stephens — comprehend and accept their collectively shameful past, conservatism will remain destructive — both to itself and the nation.

***

Personal note: I again apologize for my absences of late. My physical difficulties, compounded by a case of rather sinister clinical depression, seem to be waning, however. I'm not yet 100 percent, but I'm getting there. So I intend to resume my customary writing schedule. I thank you for your patience and understanding, and extend a special thanks to all who have written such kind words of support and encouragement via private correspondence and in the comment section.

Watch this. And that's an order.

Please excuse the Biden overdose of late, but a friend and reader sent this 19-minute video of one of his 2012 speeches — watch it, and I promise you'll never forget it. The speech is gut-wrenching, uplifting, and as genuinely human as a man can be. I have been there, where Joe once was, with the loss of a loved one far too soon, just as many of you have been there. How he kept a dry eye through the speech, I don't know. I didn't.

My apologies for the scanty offerings. The gastro issues have returned — namely, chronic diarrhea, which leads to extreme fatigue. In short, I can't seem to wake up, and then stay awake. I'll be seeing yet another GI soon. Perhaps he will have some answers. In the meantime, I'll try to take advantage of passing consciousness,  and post some thoughts. Thank you, and take care.

(To those of you on a monthly donation program, I'd advise cancelling it. Because I'm not living up to my end of the bargain.)

What next?

For a president who once hired only the best people, it seems he actually prefers the pedestrian sorts:

"Trump moved to sweep out the top ranks of the Department of Homeland Security on Monday, a day after pushing out its secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, accelerating a purge of the nation’s immigration and security leadership.

"Government officials said three more top department leaders were expected to leave soon: L. Francis Cissna, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Randolph D. Alles, the Secret Service director; and John Mitnik, the agency’s general counsel."

I am reminded of the 1934 Night of the Long Knives — another little tyrant's purge, this one of the SA (the Sturmabteilung), led by Ernst Röhm. After the latter's arrest, his persecutors left him, in his prison cell, a Browning pistol with one bullet — and 10 minutes to use it. (He demurred, so his captors obliged him.)

What next for Trump's internal enemies? A single-shot Smith & Weston left in their Hotel Hilton room?

Biden's challenge

I encourage you to read Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns' superbly balanced analysis, "Biden Didn’t Rush Into 2020. The Race Came to Him Anyway." (One complaint: I do wish the Times would see fit to cease all this "Mr." and "Ms." and "Mrs." business peppered throughout every article. Are we really going to confuse Mr. Biden with Mrs. Biden?) A few excerpts:

[Former Obama strategist David Plouffe] cautioned that Mr. Biden’s initial difficulties could all mean very little should the former vice president enjoy a successful start when he formally enters the race.

Mr. Biden’s uncertainty over how to address his past positions and conduct, and how contrite he ought to be, captures the tension at the heart of his emerging candidacy: Can he retain the unvarnished, tell-it-like-it-is political brand that appeals to so many voters, especially older ones, while also inspiring a Democratic Party that has grown more progressive and is increasingly defined by its youthful, diverse constituencies?

Quieting aides who sought to cut short his session with reporters, he argued that the "party has not moved" and said that "the vast majority of the members of the Democratic Party are still basically liberal to moderate Democrats in the traditional sense."

John Morgan, a prominent Florida trial lawyer who raises money for Democrats, said he believed Mr. Biden’s authenticity would still connect powerfully with voters. Mr. Biden’s “only sin," he said, "is he loved people."

The 2018 elections confirmed Biden's opinion that the party has not moved — progressive candidates took a beating, on the whole, while moderates conquered. Biden would be a fool to mimic the many progressive candidates now in the hunt. And Biden is no fool. His problem, however, is that progressive activists — who know not a fucking thing about politics or winning elections — tend to vote in primaries, while moderates stay home.

Biden's answer - it was good and strong

After a morning speech to a gathering of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Washington, Joe Biden, speaking with reporters, was unapologetic about, you know … it. (In fact, before meeting with reporters he was sarcastically lighthearted about it: "[Biden] referenced the controversy with a pair of jokes during his speech, telling attendees that he had received permission to touch the union leader and a child he invited up on stage." Such humor was a nice touch in deflating the pretensions of the morally superior.)

"The fact of the matter is I made it clear that if I made anyone feel [uncomfortable], I feel badly about that," said Biden. "It was never my intention. Ever. I’m sorry I didn’t understand more, I’m not sorry for any of my intentions. I’m not sorry for anything that I have ever done. I have never been disrespectful intentionally to a man or a woman. So that’s not the reputation I’ve had since I was in high school, for God’s sakes."

That took guts. It perhaps would have been easier — in terms of social convention — for Biden to slobber all over himself by apologizing immensely to anyone, everyone, he had — what, harmed?

Excluding Trump, gaudy, insincere apologies are the currency of contemporary politics — especially identity politics, in which "feelings" are forever injured, the guilty are omnipresent, and self-shaming is a badge worn with some sick sort of ostentatious pride.

Biden's approach, though risky, also took some smarts. He decided to forego all the theatrics — in part, pragmatically; now he won't have to self-flagellate again and again so that the virtuous can wallow in his sorrow.

I deemed it smart, anyway. We'll soon know if Democratic voters agree.

O'Rourke unleashed

During his 2018 Senate contest with Ted Cruz, Beto O'Rourke was often criticized for failing to take on his opponent directly, personally, fiercely. Now that he's running against Trump, it looks as though that accusation is obsolete. From Bloomberg Politics:

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke told a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa, that some of President Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks echo the rhetoric of Nazi Germany’s "Third Reich."

He said the administration’s policy of separating families who cross the Mexican border unlawfully "follows the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation.

"Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect it in the United States of America," O’Rourke said.

Asked by a reporter after the event about his "charged" remarks, O'Rourke was unwavering:

"Calling human beings an infestation is something that we might’ve expected to hear in Nazi Germany," the former Texas congressman said. "Describing immigrants ... as rapists and criminals. Seeking to ban all Muslims — all people of one religion…. Putting kids in cages. Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are very fine people," he added….

"What other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?"

Good for you, Beto.

The naiveté is what's shocking

Mimi Rocah is a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York (serving under Preet Bharara), a distinguished professor of criminal law at Pace University, a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, and just one of the many erudite dupes who, in her words, "was inclined to give [William] Barr the benefit of the doubt" as he testified, in a return performance, before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the position of United States attorney general.

Turns out that Ms. Rocah's faith in a Trump nominee was misplaced. Turns out that Barr didn't really "understand the unique importance of [the Department of Justice's'] independence and integrity." Turns out that the public's need to have confidence "that decisions made at DOJ are based on facts, evidence, and law and not political considerations" was not, after all, at the top of William Barr's priorities.

Shocking. Yes, shocking it is that a Trump appointee would possess anything but the very highest ethics. Continues Rocah:

"In 48 hours, in just a few short paragraphs, Barr essentially threw out the window the facts, findings, nuances, and 'difficult questions of law and fact' of Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation which, to any rational observer, was thorough and conducted with integrity….

"[T]his looked pre-determined and political — like a lawyer trying to protect his client, not a public servant trying to get the truth and facts where they belong."

What's authentically shocking is the number of scholars, analysts, and politicos who still persist in sliding into the delusion that Donald Trump would appoint anyone but, let's call it, the ethically pliable. Those in the administration who indeed maintained some sense of dignity, honor, and self-respect — H.R. McMaster, James Mattis, even Gary Cohn — are of course long gone, replaced by the likes of a John Bolton or Larry Kudlow.

How a brilliant attorney and legal analyst such as Mimi Rocah could have fallen into the hallucinatory belief that Trump would or, by now, even could nominate anyone of unshakable ethics, I'll just never understand.

Of windmills, bald eagles, and Kim Jong Un

A reader just forwarded this HuffPost piece on Trump's, shall we say, questionable mental status, which, noted a Yale psychiatrist, should worry the bejesus out of us all, given his recent remarks about "Tim Apple," "his calling Venezuela a company,… confusing his grandfather’s birthplace with his father’s, mispronouncing 'oranges' for 'origins' [actually, he pronounced 'oranges' quite well; it's just that he meant 'origins'], and stating out of the blue, 'I’m very normal.'"

I cite the HuffPost article because it includes a transcript of the president's rather disturbing "two-minute, 22-second detour" during a speech Tuesday night to the National Republican Congressional Committee. I quote:

***

Hillary wanted to put up wind. Wind. If you ― if you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations: Your house just went down 75 percent in value. And they say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one, OK? "Rrrrr, rrrrr" ― you know the thing that makes the ― it’s so noisy. And of course it’s like a graveyard for birds. If you love birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill because it’s a very sad, sad sight. It’s like a cemetery. We put a little, we put a little statute for the poor birds. It’s true. You know in California, if you shoot a bald eagle, they put you in jail for five years. And yet the windmills wipe ’em all out. It’s true. They wipe ’em out. It’s terrible. And I told the other day at CPAC. Great people at CPAC. We had an incredible thing. I had nothing to do. It was early on a Saturday morning. I had just gotten back from dealing with Kim Jong Un. We had a walk. He wasn’t ready for a deal but that’s OK because we get along great. He wasn’t ready. I told him, you’re not ready for a deal. That’s the first time anybody has ever told him that and left. It never happened to him before. Nobody’s ever left. But I said you’re not ready for a deal, but we’ll make a deal. We have a good relationship. We have a good relationship. But I told a story about, at CPAC. The woman, she wants to watch television. And she says to her husband, “Is the wind blowing? I’d love to watch a show tonight, darling. The wind hasn’t blown for three days. I can’t watch television, darling. Darling, please tell the wind to blow.” No, wind’s not so good. And you know, you have no idea how expensive it is to make those things. They’re all made in China and Germany, but the way, just in case you’re ― we don’t make ’em here, essentially. We don’t make ’em here. And by the way, the carbon, and all those things flying up in the air, you know the carbon footprint? President Obama used to talk about the carbon footprint, and then he’d hop on Air Force One, a big 747 with very old engines, and he’d fly to Hawaii to play a round of golf. You tell me, the carbon footprint.

***

If Obama had broken out in similar, loony-bird song, his staff, fearing a stroke, would have instantly called 9-1-1. But with Trump? Just another day, another oratorical "detour," another unmistakable sign of — as a NYC clinical psychologist said — "pre-dementia," which is "only getting worse."

He's naming who for what?

When I saw the headline, I swear I thought it was an Onion story: "Scoop: Trump expected to name Herman Cain to the Fed."

That, from Axios, not the Onion (where it belongs). It's not really a "scoop." Somehow I missed it, but in late January Bloomberg reported essentially the same — that Cain "is being considered by President Donald Trump for a seat on the Federal Reserve Board" (emphasis mine).

And so we move from banana republic to utterly insane banana republic. At the Fed, alongside trickle-down crackpot Stephen Moore, will sit Herman "9-9-9" Cain, who, during his 2012 presidential bid, also "advocated for the U.S. to return to the gold standard."

Bloomberg added that Cain is "familiar with the Federal Reserve system. From 1992 to 1996, he served as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, as well as deputy chairman and then chairman."

Yes, but that was before Herman became as unhinged as the current president and roughly 40 percent of the American electorate.

The madness marches on.