Today is Thursday, August 24, 2023, the day that former president Donald J. Trump was arraigned in Fulton County jail and had his mugshot taken in anticipation of his upcoming trial in the Peach State in which he’s accused of defrauding the American people. This is not a badge of honor, as this utterly disgraced former insurrectionist would stupidly claim on X, formerly known as Twitter, or on his absurdly named Truth Social platform. It is a photo for the ages and for the history books in order to instruct future generations of schoolchildren as to how not to steal an election or to take down a democracy when one wants to seize power for one’s own narcissistic and power-hungry self. This is certainly a monumental moment in the nation’s arc of history.

Yesterday I missed writing this blog because I found myself in a surrealistic world when I tuned into Fox “News'” first Republican presidential “debate” featuring the most unfit, crappy presidential candidates ever assembled on one stage. I would give a star, though, to the audacious former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who made his case against the elephant not in the room yesterday, the one who had his mugshot taken sometime tonight. I was so saddened by the 4,000 audience members, rabid Dumpf fans mostly, who booed him when he talked the truth about the one who has been indicted four times. An online analysis in The Washington Post details the name calling that ensued on that stage by Aaron Blake entitled “The winners and losers from the first Republican debate.”

During the two-hour debacle, in my opinion, one of those nominees, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, whom I despise anyway, did state one truth: that it was Republicans under Herr Dumpf who raised the debt ceiling under his administration, not under Joe Biden’s. She mentioned that “Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt, and our kids are are never going to forgive us for this.” This was very audacious for a Republican candidate to mention on that debate stage in Milwaukee.

When the Fox News moderators, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, teased an upcoming segment on the Donald’s indictments, the audience characteristically booed. I found that very scary.

Most of the candidates on stage avoided saying anything negative against the democracy buster, except for Christie, who called Dumpf’s conduct – regardless of his guilt – “beneath the office of the president of the United States.” Only he and Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said they wouldn’t support a convicted Dumpf in the general election, with Hutchinson floating the idea that Dumpf’s role in the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol might have disqualified him to serve as president under the 14th Amendment, which some conservative scholars have pointed out.

One upstart, the perennially smiling smug, Vivek Ramaswamy, was on the receiving end of several barbs from the other contenders. This is the nonpolitical, 38-year-old entrepreneur who just decided to join the race just for the hell of it. There were shouting matches between vanilla Mike Pence and Ramaswamy, where both Pence and Christie branded Ramaswamy as a political amateur. At one point, Christie called Ramaswamy “a guy who sounds like ChatGPT.” I despised this young Republican candidate for the highest office in the land just for his defense of the former president who was booked today in Georgia. He is unfit just for that position.

Ramaswamy got in the most profound defense of the twice-impeached, four-times indicted former president by accusing Christie of “blindly bashing Trump without an iota of vision for this country.”

Talk about that vision for this country, the eight candidates up on stage only dabbled in a dark vision of this country. The worst candidate, Ron DeSatan, actually began his worthless time on stage last night, saying, “This country is in decline.” There was one moment in the entire fetid debate when the camera focused on the visage of DeSatan who had this stupid look on his face when he didn’t know if he should be smiling or not as he was probably told his delivery stank and needed to be refurbished. He still came across as a dick! To me, that moment made the debate for me.

All of the performers on that stage ignored debate rules when the buzzer rang and all of them rambled on without remorse!

Thank God the writer of this piece declared DeSatan a loser from last night’s discussion. He said at one time he wanted to bring his supposedly successful antidemocratic policies enacted in Florida to the whole nation. Fuck that; Americans will soundly reject him if he ever makes it to the primaries.

The entire position of the repugnican party toward abortion was on display last night and it will torch them in the general 2024 election. They are still so clueless when it comes to how this one issue has galvanized the American public. The only candidate pushing back on trying to get a federal ban on abortion was Haley who said, “When you’re talking about a federal ban, be honest with the American people: We haven’t had 45 pro-life senators in over 100 years,” she said, adding that “you know we don’t have 60 Senate votes.” Here there was a dash of reality injected in the dismal proceedings from Milwaukee.

Tim Scott, the South Carolina Senator, also made enemies of the abortion bloc when he said he promotes a federal ban on the procedure while saying it was wrong to allow states like California and New York not to have any restrictions. Oh sure, Mr. Scott, we don’t think so!

The fact that only Christie and Hutchinson failed to raise their hand when asked if they would support Dumpf in the general election if he is convicted convinced me of all of these candidates’ unsuitability for the office of president.

Now I don’t have to watch any more fucking Republican debates. I wasted two hours of my life last night, and that’s enough for one lifetime.

Well, to change the topic altogether. I have to report happily that I finally got to play pickleball for the first time tonight. I had my first lesson of the entire summer at another pickleball center, this one in West Hempstead. I signed up for a beginner’s tutorial at 6 until 7 p.m. Elliot drove me to the center a little after 4 and we got to the facility a little after 5, so we had to wait about an hour before the trainer, “Jack,” came in with equipment and paddles. There were supposed to be seven people, but only four showed up.

The session whizzed by very quickly. I think I did rather well – serving and volleying. I didn’t fall or get hit by a ball, which was very auspicious. Elliot watched from upstairs through the glass window and he informed me that I looked rather good on the court. The trainer gave everyone a sheet describing the rules of the game and how it’s scored. I found scoring very confusing, but that’s understandable. The next step is up to me. I heard that the center has weekly sessions for beginners, so that would be the next thing for me to do if I want to continue playing the game. So let’s see.

Tomorrow Elliot and I are seeing a play, The Shark Is Broken, at the John Golden Theatre, and I might not be writing the blog again. The play is a behind-the-scenes look at the three actors who were in that iconic Steven Spielberg 1975 blockbuster summer film of Jaws. The three actors, Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, and Robert Shaw, form the principals of this play which was written by Shaw’s son, Ian, with Joseph Nixon. So I’ll see tomorrow if this fairly new play has any bite.

Enjoy the demagogue’s mugshot. I’ll probably buy up several print editions of the Daily News and The New York Times tomorrow to add to my collection of Dumpf headlines in the papers.

Have a good weekend – if I don’t see you tomorrow.

Stay safe and be well.

Here is the former president’s evil-looking mugshot on Elliot’s cell phone.