No, no, don’t click off. President Donald Trump is good for one thing. He is challenging me to expand my vocabulary. How many new ways can I find each day to say ignorant, childish, incurious, narcissistic, malignant, erratic, dangerous, insensitive, capricious, backward?

Take this morning, for example.  Two of the more outrageous and aggravating stories of the day. President Trump is teasing that he is about to pull out of the Paris accords, which joined 200 nations in commitment to reduce global carbon emissions, and some of his advisors claim he will make good on the threat. Even if he stays, he should not have engaged in this flirtation.  Guess who else stands outside that pact to address climate change?   Only Syria and Nicaragua.  Even North Korea has signed on.  Apparently the only green Trump respects is the color of money and of his putting greens (though he famously has sought government- subsidized protection  where his golf course properties may be affected by rising seas).

The other story that really got to me is that the Republican Party is asking the Federal Communications Commission to approve ring-less voicemail messages.  This would mean that political robocalls and other telemarketers could leave phone messages for you without having to alert you with a ring.  If your phone plan doesn’t permit you to interrupt a message to delete it, you might end up spending half your life waiting to eliminate the trash. Along with the GOP’s proposed end to net neutrality, this makes me wonder what ever happened to the conservative opposition to privacy invasion and stout-hearted protection of individual rights.

Add all this to the cruelty of the Trump budget, his lack of concern for the least among us, his willingness to stand outside the community of nations to protect the future of mankind, what words have I not tapped to express the observer’s frustration and anger? These stories are sufficiently disturbing that I’m forced to shrug off the news that hedge funds are seeing a rise in cocoa futures due to an impending end to the world surplus that has provided me the one narcotic that treats my despair over Donald Trump.

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