Our sister paper, “The Amazon Washington Post,” has reported that our traitorous lump of a president has spun more than 12,000 lies or misleading claims during his time in the Oval Office. But one rare truth from the fetid lips of Donald Trump — as also reported by The Post — is just as troubling:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, right, pull the strings on their new Oval Office puppet, Donald Trump, on May 10, 2017. Trump, the beneficiary of Russian help to win the election, told his masters he thought it was great.
“President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries.”
While it’s not surprising to see Trump say he’s unconcerned that a traditional enemy of the United States would see it as beneficial to help him win an election, the part that really bothers me is Trump’s reported justification: “because the United States did the same in other countries.”
True?
Of course, it’s true, and I give Trump credit for saying it.
No American, liberal or conservative, is being honest with himself if he thinks such a thing had never occurred. The United States, probably more than any other nation on earth, influences policy in other countries, and often by means a lot more intrusive and deadly than was the salting of a few Russian lies all over your Facebook feed.
What gets me is the holier-than-thou outrage — especially from my fellow liberals — that a foreign adversary would ever do such a thing to the good old U.S. of A.
But don’t worry, I haven’t completely lost my mind by attacking liberals, I still have plenty of venom for conservatives who may accept that interference occurred, but don’t think it’s a problem that the Russians got exactly what they wanted in their boy Trump.
From a foreign policy perspective, perhaps one takeaway from all this should be that the United States, the world’s so-called “preeminent democracy,” should take more of a hands-off approach to how other sovereign countries conduct their business. At the same time, we must take steps to increase safeguards on our own election process.
Of course, that’s too simplistic and will never fly. But it’s something to think about while the impeachment train is rolling, hopefully toward a time when our Long National Nightmare is finally over and we can start to rebuild and learn from our mistakes.
So this morning, when Bonnie went into her barkathon, I knew one more night of no sleep was going to knock me off the ledge into a deep, pit. I would be in a coma from which I’d never wake up. Garry actually got up and went to sleep in the living room and I got to sleep.
I’m really grateful. I also feel guilty, but I don’t feel like I’m falling apart. It’s the first time in weeks I haven’t felt on the edge of collapse. Most of my parts don’t hurt (much) either. Golly whizzaker!
But I also don’t have anything to say. I’m all spoke out. I’ve been chatting it up for weeks and months and years and I don’t seem — at least for now — to have any chat left. I’m sure it will come back, but right now, I’m SO happy to be sitting here, coffee on the left, Garry on the right, dogs soundly asleep on the sofa.
Why can’t they do that in the morning when I’m trying to sleep? Is this one of those Murphy Laws?
Have a great day! I’ll be fully ready to chat tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Hard to tell.
I lived in New York City for the first 40 years of my life and since then I’ve lived in the woods in a small town in Connecticut. So I have a good perspective on life in the city versus life in the country.
To be honest, there’s very little about city life I miss, except for being able to go to the theater without spending hours sitting in a car, stuck in traffic. However the one major perk of city life that makes me wax nostalgic, is the pleasure of living in an apartment building with doormen. Now, most people would probably not think of doormen as a big selling point for living in New York City. That’s because doormen are the best-kept secret among us long-time New Yorkers.
There’s a special relationship that often develops between friendly residents and chatty doormen. You get to know each other well and become like a family. These men know a lot about your life from the comings and goings in and out of your apartment. And people tend to talk to doormen, almost like they do to hairdressers. Mine knew my kids, my mom and my friends in the building, which created a strangely intimate relationship. They knew when we were doing work in our apartment, like when our upstairs neighbor’s bathroom leaked and our bathroom ceiling fell in. They followed every skirmish in our battle with the insurance companies, which lasted two years.
Photo book of doormen in NYC
Memoir of a doorman
Novel about doorman in NYC
I’ve experienced this relationship as a child, as an adult and as a parent of young children. Each phase is unique and gratifying. As a child, every doorman knew my name and often the names of my friends who visited frequently. I had severe school anxiety so waiting for the school bus in the lobby every morning could have been a tense time for me if I hadn’t had a doorman to distract me and keep me talking. Jimmy was my favorite for many years, a tall thin man with a missing tooth who made me look forward to the morning wait for the bus. If I was running late, he would make the bus wait for me and would call up to our apartment to tell me to hurry up.
The doormen also helped the kids in the co-op bend the rules so we could play in the street. They let us skate and ride bikes in front of the building, which was strictly forbidden. They were our lookouts, warning us to stop if someone on the co-op board was entering or leaving the building and might ‘report’ us.
When my kids were young, we lived in a different building, all of two blocks away from the one I grew up in. But the next generation of doormen, they were as wonderful to my kids as mine had been to me, and they too developed a strong bond.
Their doormen let them skate, skateboard and practice gymnastics down the long, narrow hallway leading from our elevator to the lobby. I could send the kids downstairs to play on their own and know they were safe and supervised. I had built-in babysitters.
They often let my kids spy on people in the elevators on the security cameras they kept behind the lobby desk. For some reason, that was a huge treat!
The long hallway in my apartment building
Once our doormen went above and beyond for my ten-year-old son, David. David had a pet python and there was a large ficus tree in the lobby. David thought the snake would have fun climbing around in the tree so the doormen let David sneak the snake into the lobby and, when no one was looking, put it in the tree. David and the snake nonchalantly hung out in the lobby for several hours, with people coming and going, until someone finally noticed something moving in the tree. That ended the tree climbing experiment.
The lobby decor has changed but the ficus tree is still there!
As an adult, there are a myriad of other reasons for enjoying the luxury of having a doorman. They accept deliveries for you when you aren’t home and help you with your bags.
Another convenience, beyond mere safety, is they let workmen into your apartment when you aren’t home so you don’t have to wait for them to show up or give them your keys.
\You also feel safe knowing the doormen monitors everyone who comes into the building. They won’t let anyone up to your apartment without your approval. They are your first line of defense against predators and nuisances.
In the country, I’m friendly with the local post office workers, farmer’s market cashiers and with the people at the nearby coffee shop and market. It’s not the same thing. It’s not as personal. These people may like you, but they don’t know your life or have your back like doormen did.
Doormen are a special breed of extended family that I treasured as a New Yorker and I miss as a country dweller.
Making My Home A Haven is important to me. Sharing homemaking skills. Recipes and food. Bible Studies. This is a treasure chest of goodies. So take a seat. Have a glass of tea and enjoy. You will learn all about who I am.
