'Franklin's Tower'

It’s easy for me to formulate words of outrage. I can string together sentences illuminating the grifters and charlatans that dominate our discourse and in doing so, I am mostly playing right into Trump’s tiny hands.

We all are.

‘The Rosie O’Donnell’ post is meant to distract from the piss poor job a bunch of cosplay cowboys did in protecting children and then collecting their bodies in the aftermath of a global warming-caused catastrophe that is heartbreakingly tragic.

The GOP leadership assembled at Friday’s presser are useless clowns genuflecting to an illiterate idiot from Queens who could care less about the lives of a bunch of folks from Texas. Trump was golfing when they were dragging their feet and passing the buck, while the folks who suffered were more or less left to fend for themselves by the federal government.

Kristi Noem was having her hair blown out while thousands of calls to FEMA went unanswered because of DOGE cuts. Ted Cruz was visiting the Parthenon. The execrable Governor Greg Abbott was calling anyone questioning the lack of a warning system to protect children sleeping next to a river that has been claiming lives for decades in ‘Flash-Flood Alley’ a loser.

Claiming that looking for someone to blame was outside of the ‘Lone Star’ ethos, a lesson Abbott himself forgot when he went jogging in a thunderstorm in River Oaks - and subsequently sued the homeowner and their tree service for the paralyzing injury he suffered due to his own lack of precaution and common sense. When he personally paid a price, it was someone else’s fault.

The Governor of Texas has been paid over $500,000 a year for more than three decades as a result of that lawsuit but when he served a stint as Texas A.G. he enacted tort reform so other folks wouldn’t be so fortunate in the future. He sided with the insurance companies that made him a wealthy man, pulling up the ladder behind yourself is apparently another Texas tenet for men like him.

Don’t get me started on the cowardice on display after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Anyone familiar with the rage-inducing actions of law enforcement and the subsequent cover-up saw shades of that awful episode in this week’s performative press conferences.

Trump will gladly accept the giant checks from the oil and gas industry and propagate Texan’s tough guy image with pithy slogans like ‘Drill, Baby Drill’ and ‘Texas Strong’ but he will do NOTHING to make their lives better.

He will exploit ignorance and racism at every turn - and then fly back to one of his private golf courses and laugh at the folks he considers rubes, that he finds so easy to con. I know this because I know him - the contempt he has for the very people who continue to support him is palpable. If only they themselves could see it, but I fear they never will - and soon the empty rhetoric and toxic iconography will be all they have left.

These storms are not going away but our government’s ability to respond to them will. If you don’t believe me, just wait until this hurricane season sets its sights once again on the Southeast.

We will have a bumper crop of empty prayers and performative press conferences, while the Trump administration gets out of the emergency response business in favor of ICE raids and detention camps.

They know that is where the real money is to be made in this burgeoning age of authoritarianism and self-dealing. This shift is reflected in Trump’s recent policy bill which gives ICE a budget the size of most militaries. You can bet our ‘Dear Leader’ will be getting a substantial cut because the infrastructure already doesn’t add up to the costs.

It’s all part of the grift, like everything else in his universe, but this time it affords him an anonymous, masked army - ready to mete out punishment on anyone he deems an enemy.

Today it’s migrants - and tomorrow it’s you or me, or Rosie O’ Donnell. The federal government of the U.S.A. is essentially being stripped for parts by a gang of hooligans and miscreants pretending to be the good guys.

I first met Rosie around the same time I met Donald Trump. In the mid-90s in New York City, where I worked in live TV. Rosie remains an inspiration, a true artist - and as authentic and good-hearted as Donald is duplicitous, demented and a total fraud. Both as a human being and a so-called businessman.

Rosie saw through his bullshit early on and he has always despised her for it. Nobody holds onto a resentment like Trump - his obstinance has been buttressed by decades of active addiction.

While Rosie was blazing trails and opening doors, Donald was preying upon teenage beauty pageant contestants and exploiting his own daughter. It’s hard to believe they even belong to the same species - enough said.

The question before us now is how many of our fellow citizens will be targeted by a madman with a burgeoning empire of fascism and an ever-increasing number of essentially soldiers willing to carry out his deranged wishes.

How many lives lost and thrown into chaos are we willing to accept before we decide to really do something about it?

I am not speaking of violence of course, but of civil disobedience, strikes, boycotts, marches and a radical change in every aspect of our civic life - to awaken others as to how much peril we are truly in as a nation. Our planet and our republic are being consumed by men and women with the worst intentions and no real moral compass; they hide behind false piety and whatever you would call the sort of Christianity practiced by MAGA, where violence is sacrosanct and empathy is seen as weakness.

Nobody could lean farther away from the teachings of Jesus Christ than the fools and charlatans that are being elected in much of the United States by bigoted idiots who are raising their children to do the same. Their misguided actions will afflict this republic for generations.

You cannot teach children to hate and expect flowers to grow in gardens of broken glass and neglect. As one of my poet heroes, Robert Hunter once said, ‘If you plant ice, you’re gonna harvest wind’. (I’ll share the story of the time I met Hunter when he was being inducted into Songwriters Hall of Fame on my podcast).

We are NOT powerless - every moment we are gifted is an opportunity to transcend the evil and avarice all around us. I feel the frustrations of many - and the notion that any one individual cannot effect change given the enormity of the constitutional crisis we face - but that is simply not true.

We can and MUST do everything on our power to triage the calamity of this moment. Stop buying plastic junk on Amazon, turn off the news that chooses to sensationalize and titillate, while normalizing the suffering of millions rather than informing and educating.

Buy local and organic, turn off the AC when possible and consume less energy. Stop burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow because there may not be one if we fail to act. There is power in numbers and our collective spirit - facts and the truth are what these folks fear the most.

That is why they are going after those who seek to organize and inform. There has never been more economic inequality in our world; the billionaires have amassed so much wealth in such a short period of time (Elon Musk was worth around 10 billion less than a decade ago, now he is worth 400 billion) that the balances of power will be forever shifted if we do not find a way to counter their obscene greed.

We must act with alacrity and effort - it is, in fact, our world and our future as well.

Nobody needs to go to Mars when children go to bed hungry and human beings go unhoused. We live in a paradise that is being plundered so middle-aged men can chase puffy-lipped women around Palm Beach and rent entire cities for their obnoxious weddings.

Don’t mince words but choose them wisely; don’t contribute to the dynamic of rage-farming but rise above it. We are in an economy of outrage - we need to recognize it and be extremely strategic in what we consume.

Seek out the helpers and avoid the hucksters.

A nation that once prided itself on rugged individualism is fast becoming a land of followers. If you want peace you must nurture it and cultivate it. We have to work towards it, mightily - and that effort begins at home and in our own backyards.

In our everyday lives we face choices that affect the planet as a whole: we must align every aspect of our home economics and day-to-day decisions with the world we want to manifest.

We helped create many of the tyrants we now face but the good news is we still have the power to deflate at least a fraction of their wealth going forward. At the very least we should not add to it as consumers. We can call out the hypocrisy and educate our neighbors, in essence, we should all lead by example.

We must bring consciousness into ALL of our actions and choose wisely. It is indeed a daunting task and I don’t pretend any of this is easy, but I also do not see any alternative if we hope to staunch the bleeding of our republic and the world beyond.

It is easy to feel as if an individual’s actions are not significant but the reality is quite the opposite. It ALL matters, every moment, as does every life under the sun. Even those we despise. The transformation our planet seeks begins with you and me.

Let us come together in righteous action and press the weight of our collective consciousness against the walls of tyranny and titans of avarice and authoritarian isolationism.

‘America First’ has always been a fool’s game designed to appeal to the least enlightened among us. It festers in the darkness and the digital glow of algorithmically-enhanced apparatchiks. Do not make their task easier by giving them your attention or sharing their content. Counter their monetized mendacity with righteous action and steadfast courage.

Do it with an open heart and a focused mind and take comfort in the fact that you are not alone but aligned with millions of others willing to come together in common cause.

The future belongs to US, not them, but we need to shape it in the here and now. Outrage and alarm is a normal reflexive action but were must temper it with hope and promise. Joy is our birthright even when the game is rigged and the goal posts have been moved by forces beyond our control.

Talent and spirit and mindfulness, even humor, cannot be shackled or defeated when we come together in creativity and consciousness.

What this ultimately looks like or what shape it takes will be answered in the days ahead - I firmly believe if we work together, we will find our way back home.

And work we must, in spite of it all.

I wish you peace and serenity.