More Dispatches from Trumpland

The longer President Donald Trump remains in the White House, the further he gets from reality unless it suits his own purposes.  And we're the ones suffering for it.  Some recent examples:

On the Russian election investigation, the President and his attorneys are doing all they can to avoid being questioned by special counsel Robert Mueller, who has been looking into the matter for over a year now.  Trump has mentioned ignoring subpoenas, shutting down the investigation and even pardoning himself to prove that this whole thing is nothing but a "witch hunt".  This is not a man who wants to be President of the United States.  He wants to be King of America.

Speaking of pardons, the President has so far given high-profile ones to early 20th century boxer Jack Johnson and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza.  Johnson was the first African-American man to win the heavyweight title.  D'Souza is one of those conservative firebrands who, like Trump, wants to see certain liberals eradicated from the face of the earth.  (We see this all the time on Facebook.)  Now the President wants to give "get out of jail free" passes to Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor (and former "Celebrity Apprentice" contestant) who has been in Federal prison for various acts of corruption, and to lifestyle media mogul Martha Stewart (who used to host her own version of "The Apprentice") for serving time for committing securities fraud.  Is this really a good thing?

The North Korea summit is back on, a week after Trump canceled because of some misgivings he had about whether leader Kim Jong-un was as serious about this as he was.  It's now scheduled for Singapore on June 12.

On trade, Trump thinks the rest of the world is disrespecting America's policies to their advantage.  So he raises tariffs on steel, aluminum and other products on Canada, Mexico and the European Union because of  'national security' concerns.  And he seems to want to take German-made cars off America's roads.  You don't really expect the other countries not to fight back with their own tariffs, do you?  One also wonders if the President is disrespecting his own people by cutting jobs and making things more expensive.  Isn't this what happens during trade wars?

Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Maria, but it turns out the initial death toll of 64 as reported by the government was overly optimistic.  A Harvard study found that at least 4600 people lost their lives in the storm and its aftermath, which is worse that what happened after Katrina.  Looks like Puerto Ricans are going to need a lot more than paper towels.

Samantha Bee, a comedian who hosts TBS' late night program "Full Frontal", has apologized for calling Ivanka Trump the C word during her monologue.  That's not enough for President Trump, who wants to see TBS fire Bee.  It's one thing for him to defend his daughter, but quite another for having yet to say one word about Roseanne Barr losing her ABC sitcom over a racist tweet other than demanding to know why the network has never apologized to him.  The C word is to women what the N word is to African-Americans--something so radioactive that it should be avoided in normal conversation.  But Trump's been known to use the C word in the past to help describe the women he's been with.  Can he pardon himself over that?

And so it goes in Trumpland.