Today is Sunday, August 21, 2022. I hope you missed me yesterday. Anyway, I took a little breather since Elliot and I were hosting my longterm friend’s son and his wife from Jersey City yesterday. They arrived about 45 minutes late (they were due at 4), which is fine, since we were ready by midafternoon anyway. Forty-five minutes or an hour later would have made no difference in our schedule, actually. Our newly married guests left around 7:45 p.m. and then I spent awhile gathering the dirty dishes and placing them into our fairly new Bosch dishwasher. I then decided to watch Episode 9 of Stranger Things, the last episode in the series. The final episode ran for more than two hours, so it managed to be standard film length. I mistakenly thought that this was the series finale, but I was wrong, because the final scene certainly set up expectations for a fifth season. Oh well, I and many, many others will have to wait for this well-liked series to return probably sometime next year.

In a disturbing prediction concerning the treasure trove of top-secret documents that were stashed in the ex-president’s Florida manse, former personal lawyer to the Orange Blob, Michael Cohen, who paid the price for his loyalty with an extensive prison sentence, told host Michael Steele on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” his view as to why they were taken from the White House. In an online article for The Wrap, writer Loree Seitz explores Cohen’s observations in her piece entitled “Michael Cohen Says Trump Will Use Top Secret Documents as ‘Get Out of Jail Free Card’ to ‘Extort America.'” Thus in his appearance on the MSNBC show today, Cohen believes that his one-time client kept the top-secret government documents at Mar-a-Lago to later use as a “get out of jail free card” “to extort America.”

Here Cohen paints a scenario whereby the former president tells law enforcement authorities that he will release top-secret information to Iran, China, North Korea, or Russia, perhaps, if he is threatened with jail time. Dumpf will unleash his many loyal supporters who have copies of the information contained in those documents on the law enforcement agencies like the FBI to threaten the agencies with extortion. Cohen now believes Dumpf would threaten to reveal secrets to foreign powers because he “doesn’t care about this country.” Ain’t that the truth!

Mocking his onetime client, Cohen intones, “You want to take me down, I’ll take the whole country down.” Cohen then repeated his belief that his Teflon Don boss doesn’t care about this country. How many of us sane Americans actually contend that this truly characterizes the painful truth about the 45th president. I know that many of us would definitely agree with Cohen’s assessment of his moblike boss.

The topic then pivoted to the potential flipping of Dumpf allies that might occur as the Department of Justice (DOJ) probe continues to investigate Little Donnie. At this point, Cohen humorously observed, “There’s gonna be so much flipping it’s gonna be like watching a gymnastics event.” Cohen acutely observed that none of Dumpf’s cronies would want to go to prison, so as a result, many of them will turn in their former Golden Idol if given the opportunity.

Cohen then ends the interview with endorsing a tack that would surely be endorsed by a wide swath of Americans who demand this evil man to be taken to task for his innumerable misdeeds, and that is, “Let’s get him on the simple stuff, the stuff we already know, which is tax evasion, misrepresentation to banks, you know, lying on personal financial statements. Like what they did to Al Capone! You don’t have to get him for X, Y, and Z. Let’s just get him on that, simply, to put him where he belongs.” (A small jail cell, of course.) His suggestions here certainly make a lot of sense. Let’s hope those in law enforcement are listening to Cohen here.

A more promising article on the prospects of Democrats coming into the midterms is offered by Glenn C. Altschuler writing for The Hill in his analysis entitled “Why Democrats are regaining momentum.”

In his piece, Altschuler reviews the weather events over this summer that led Democrats to pass “a boatload of bills,” including “the most sweeping climate change legislation in American history.” Such climate events included the shattering of high temperature records across the country; the burning of millions of acres from Oklahoma to Alaska; the ravaging of Western states by drought; and the devastation of Appalachia by floods. Because of the passage of certain new legislation, Democrats have regained some momentum, according to Altschuler.

The contrast with Congressional repugnicans on politics and priorities couldn’t be starker, according to the writer. Here is where no one has any reason to vote for any repugnican candidate during this election cycle: “Republicans have blocked consideration of voting rights, childcare tex credits, and restrictions on purchases of assault weapons.” They have offered no proposals to spur economic growth or reduce inflation. “Republicans have made irresponsible and inflammatory claims that the legally authorized search for top secret and classified documents at Mar-a-Lago was a ‘military occupation,’ conducted by ‘rogue’ FBI agents, who ‘planted’ evidence.” These same so-called supporters of law and order have advocated for the impeachment of Attorney General Merrick Garland and defunding the FBI. They continue to undermine our democracy by spreading Dumpf’s lie of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. I would add that these culture war demons are responsible for the wholesale defection of educators in dozens of school districts in the country. I’m just hearing this on MSNBC tonight. How dare assholes like Ron “DeSant-ASS” and others like him think they can tell what teachers should teach children. No wonder so many teachers in Florida are vacating the profession. It’s stressful enough; no one needs a state governor adding to the stress in dictating what should be taught in the classroom.

The recent legislation passed only by Democrats and with no repugnican votes – how shameful! – include the Chips and Science Act that allocates more than $50 billion for research and production of semiconductors, reducing America’s dependence on China and increases the U.S. share of the world market from 2 to 10 percent. The Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act is the largest expansion of health care and disability benefits for veterans of the armed services in more than 50 years. The legislation was held up by repugnicans, as you recall, recently. The Inflation Reduction Act is a massive climate, health, and tax bill. This passed without a single repugnican vote in the Senate or the House. More shame on this party!

Over the summer, democrats also discovered the political potency of support for reproductive rights when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Republican leaders have shown their ugly support for the removal of reproductive rights for half of the country’s population and they need to be punished by a wide swath of angry women voters this November.

In concluding his analysis, Altschuler provides one caveat for the midterms: “As long as a large percentage of Americans do not approve of the president’s performance in office, remain deeply concerned about inflation, and give credence to culture war canards about immigration, race, and sexual identity, retaining control of the House and Senate is unlikely.” Despite this reservation, there are signs that gas prices are falling and that Biden’s approval ratings are slowly rising with his successful legislative program. Let’s pray this trend continues into November.

However, Altschuler offers this rosier picture of Democrats’ chances in the fall: “But the odds are better, maybe even a lot better, than they were a few months ago.”

It’s time to wish everyone a good week. Sheesh, isn’t summer melting away as fast as chocolate ice cream in a cone on a hot, summer day? In two weeks or so, it will be the Labor Day weekend. This was the time I would indubitably dread, as it signified the de facto end of summer vacation and the start of the school year right after. But not anymore! My birthday will mark my fifth year of retirement. That flashed by so quickly, I can hardly absorb the reality of it.

So stay safe and be well.

This is a painting from that exhibit I attended at the Jewish Museum. It’s a painting by Larry Rivers called “The Last Civil War Veteran.”