artfulnotes
Portrait of a Cranky Old Man
Thursday, May 28, 2026
Life
This message note is to acknowledge that I have now lost the most important piece of my life and my heart. My wife of nearly 71 years (7/2/1955) has now passed on from LIFE. She died peacefully, but she carried away with heart my love. She has been a truly amazing woman -- smart, energetic, fully loving, caring for others and for our world. She has been my love and my heart is broken.
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Failing in America
With all the talk about assassination attempts, I remain drawn to a different reality—Trump’s seeming passion for failure. I am thinking of his six bankruptcies. And how, as I watch him and, more importantly, watch his supporters spewing Hate at all things Democratic, I now find myself imagining Trump actually killing America. How could he do that? Well, my memory goes back to those days of FDR, and WW II, when Americans were drawn together in the battles against Germany and Japan. Then the picture shifts as those wars end and we move into our standoff with Russia. Yes, we had other wars, Korea, Vietnam, Middle East, and yes there were conflicting views among Americans about all those conflicts. But, in the final analysis, we just disagreed. We did not HATE one another or wish to kill one another.
Enter Donald Trump. Perhaps his main thought train is HATE
towards anyone who disagrees with him. And as those disagreements grow in
number and ferocity, his hatred grows, and that hatred spreads to his supporters.
MAGA is not merely a political movement. It is the beginning of an army of
hate-filled, heavily armed supporters. The folks who voted for him and now
support him seem oblivious to his faults, many though they are. The fact of an
illegal WAR, Iran, and even Venezuela, seems not to matter. It seems no longer
possible to hold civil conversations with MAGA.
Having lived through many presidents and even working for
two – Carter and Reagan—Trump seems anomalous.
I now would place him at the very bottom of our list of Presidents, with
no one else even being close. He would even, in my opinion, be near the
bottom of any list of foreign leaders. Now does he equate with Hitler? Well,
no, not yet. He has a ways to go on that killing of Americans thing. But he seems moving in that direction.
AND, one of the forces pushing him in that direction is his
MAGA supporters. They seem to be growing more hate-filled by the day. AND, they
now seem to hate other Americans –Democrats, and really anyone not supporting
Trump.
Now, are we headed to a new Civil War? Maybe, although I am
not sure what that would look like. There are MAGA strongholds, to be sure, but
there do not seem clean lines of division. A war of MAGA-Hatred would be a
messy war indeed. And its resolution
seems uncertain, although, to be fair, I see our Military largely on the side
of reason, not supporting Trump. Still, great risks remain with Trump in
charge, and MAGA running free. I find myself hoping for some medical miracle—a fatal
heart attack maybe. See, Trump has moved
my head into uncharted waters. Never before, even under some of our less
wonderful presidents, has my brain gone to such a spot.
But it is important to note that I am now profoundly depressed
about my/our America, and I have lived through presidents from FDR on. As I
approach my own ending – I am, after all, 91 and counting—I am daily saddened
by how Americans seem to grow in their hatred to one another. That truly is sad. Remember folks, there likely is NO HEAVEN and
NO HELL. This is it. When you die, you simply cease to exist. Now think on
that, hard. Whatever happens here is all there is. So, try to make what happens
here as pleasant as possible, not merely for you, but for everyone. It’s all
there is, folks.
Wednesday, April 8, 2026
Trump Ends
We keep half joking About how Trump has embarked on a campaign that will lead eventually to the total destruction of America. And then I keep reading FB postings about how one or another of our Congresspeople think maybe we should invoke that 25th Amendment thingie so we can transfer Trump to some deserted island with his family and his cabinet. And they can then rule over a handful of birds or fishies.
I have yet to read about we are going to try, convict and
then punish Trump and his gang for war crimes—the kind of thing we accused the
Nazi’s of in past decades. To be fair,
Trump has not yet killed millions, but he keeps trying.
It isn’t that Trump’s war crimes have gone unnoticed.
Everyone paying even remote attention knows that is what he is doing, and knows
equally that he needs to be in prison at least. And yet we do nothing. By now,
all of our NATO allies have been completely disconnected as friends and allies. Think of
that. All of our NATO allies now are no longer friends. Now they are not yet at
the “enemy” stage, but Trump keeps moving us in that direction.
And now he has decided on some sort of peace deal with Iran.
What/how is currently unknown, but it is a good thing. We did not need this
war. It was completely unnecessary, and illegal. Maybe if the dumbass/evil
Arabs would stop killing Israeli Jews, Bibi would not have emerged as a Nazi
over there, and we might have avoided this illegal war. But they do seem to love killing Jews, and,
as long as they continue, Bibi will continue in his Nazi way to retaliate.
And I keep wondering about what if anything Congress is
going to do, to pull Trump out of power. There really seems no power grid
active to accomplish that. And until
that happens, Trump will remain an eminent threat to America and the world.
Now, maybe he will continue his descent into the Netherland of Dementia. Maybe if he awakens some morning and really
does not know who he is, someone will get the message – Hey Gang, maybe it’s
time we moved on without him. Of course, then we get Vance and the gang of
idiot-malenfants he appointed. Not sure
if that solves the problem.
Ah well America, you lived a good long life. Maybe it’s time
Canada annexed us.
Thursday, March 19, 2026
Dump Trump
TRUMP AND AMERICA
Saturday, March 7, 2026
The Ending of America
Well, I think he may have done it. Done what you ask? Well, destroy America. America, as we used to know it, was a country governed by three separate branches -- the Presidency, Congress, with its two branches, and a Supreme court overseeing the other two. Now apparently, we are down to that Presidency thing. It is apparently the sole functional branch of our government. And it is being run by an international War Criminal. We apparently no longer have any allies worthy of the name--let's see, does Putin count as an ally? Maybe, and then maybe Bibi, and that seems to be it.
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Understand America
I am having trouble understanding Official America – our Government—at this moment. Trump seems to be threatening Iran with War, yet to my knowledge, he has not even consulted, no less asked permission from Congress. He seems to say or do whatever he pleases, without ever consulting with anyone. And it makes me wonder, what kind of country do we now inhabit? Is this Iran . . . Russia . . . 1936 Germany??
Trump seems never to seek or pay any attention to guidance.
And no one ever says anything. Trump lies . . . all the time . . . about almost
everything, and nobody ever holds him to account. Dems say, “Oh he’s lying”, but Repubs dismiss
that as opposition BS. There seems no
longer any actual conversation between the two parties, and now the SCOTUS
seems to have given up and lets him do anything he wants.
So, what have we become? Surely we are no longer a constitutional
republic. We seem now to be a nation of a dictatorship. I see routinely, signs
about impeaching Trump, but then nobody ever does anything or takes even the
first step in that direction. And he is only in his second year. Suppose he invades
or attacks Iran, maybe like Venezuela. And then suppose Iran says BS and attacks us
back. And then we are at war with Iran, but Trump has never even consulted the
Congress. So, is that OK? So doesn’t
that signal that we are no longer a constitutional democracy, but instead a
Dictatorship? And nobody would object?
I cannot even imagine Harry Truman, or even Ronald Reagan,
getting away with such shit. And we seem
to have slipped down into this hole without even any discussion. So, Republicans are ok with all his shit? I
have lived through Eisenhower, Reagan, two Bushes, not to mention FDR, Clinton,
Johnson et al. None of them even came
close to this Dude. As arrogant as that
crowd was, they never crapped on the American people, and pissed all over
Congress-(both sides) the way this Dude is doing. It’s like he recognizes no
rules. He is stupid, we know. So maybe he is not even aware of how utterly
destructive he has been and promises to be in the future.
And that is a serious problem. He may actually be so stupid
that he does not understand how awful he is.
Most of the time, I think the Putin’s and Hitler’s of the world
understand they are evil, but they act that way anyway, because they are so
selfish that they care not about their effects on other folks. I think Trump may be even more stupid, so stupid
in fact, that he is actually unaware of how evil he is. And that could make him
worse than Hitler or Putin. He is destructive but doesn’t even realize it.
And that could make him even more dangerous than either of
the former twosome.
So, America, maybe you need to pay waaaaay more attention to
our leader. Maybe you need to think waaaay more seriously about removing him
from office (and ALL of his idiot-malenfant followers) before he actually destroys
America altogether. Pay attention America. You are running out of time!
