About Worth


What fantasies are those of which you speak,
of all the ways you’ve made our country great;
how leaderships before yours were too weak
and how superior genes assure your fate.

Inheriting a fortune has its perks.
It let you hone your business expertise
and grow your fame by any means that works
to revel in each moment that you seize.

Your unrelenting braggadocio
of power fame and wealth your talents brought
are not enough and never will be so.
Your psyche will not find the worth it sought.

Your saddest bankruptcy is of your soul.
You’re squandering all hope to make it whole.


cc 2018 Susan Eckenrode

Marblehead



Donald Trump Looks And Acts Mentally Ill, Says CNBC Correspondent John Harwood
“He did not look well to me in that press conference. He was not speaking logically or rationally. There was something about his affect which was oddly kind of languid from him. I don’t know what it means, but he did not look well to me.”

Inquisitr reports:

Trump’s behavior at the G7 summit, during which he’s railed against “unfair” trade practices with America’s closest allies, suggested allowing Russia back into the fold, threatening retaliatory tariffs, and criticized presidents going back to the Eisenhower administration, has been described as “harsh” even by Fox News. But for Harwood and his CNBC colleagues, it’s more concerning than that.

 

This is not the first time Trump’s mental health has come up in conversation. Back in April, as Vanity Fair reported at the time, Trump advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that they were concerned with the president’s mental health. In particular, they were worried about what Trump might say or do during a five-day vacation at Mar-a-Lago with nothing on his schedule, in advance of a summit with Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

 

Similarly, as Fox News reports, Trump’s personal physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, endured a barrage of questions about the president’s mental health. Jackson tried to ease concerns by pointing out that the president had scored perfectly on a cognitive test that included being told to draw a clock.

 

Lost his mind long ago, no doubt, but is he also losing the support of his base?


Marblehead

He bragged about his expertise to lead
and many all too trustingly agreed,
unmindful that his feet are cast in lead
and leaden marbles roll inside his head.

Susan Eckenrode, 6/29/18

Dying in the Dark

Quoting Paul Krugman’s prophetic New York Times opinion piece from 2016, How Republics End:

I couldn’t help noticing the contemporary resonances of some Roman history — specifically, the tale of how the Roman Republic fell.

 

Here’s what I learned: Republican institutions don’t protect against tyranny when powerful people start defying political norms. And tyranny, when it comes, can flourish even while maintaining a republican facade.

 

[…]

 

One thing all of this makes clear is that the sickness of American politics didn’t begin with Donald Trump, any more than the sickness of the Roman Republic began with Caesar. The erosion of democratic foundations has been underway for decades, and there’s no guarantee that we will ever be able to recover.

 

But if there is any hope of redemption, it will have to begin with a clear recognition of how bad things are. American democracy is very much on the edge.

Read it all …

 

 

When a body has harbored disease
and its symptoms don’t trigger unease,
just before its demise,
a clue may arise
that reveals how it’s failed by degrees.

Now emitting the ultimate wheeze
as it’s drifting aloft on the breeze,
pray the hint of a spark
will arise from the dark
and offer a moment to seize.

Susan Eckenrode, 5/30/18

Mighty Cries

Politicus USA reports: Emma Gonzalez Survived The Parkland Shooting And Now She’s Calling BS On Republicans And Guns

Many at a rally in Fort Lauderdale that was organized to demand tougher gun laws rejected comments by U.S. President Donald Trump and others that mental illness was the main factor behind the slaughter at Margory Stoneman Douglas High School.

 

“We need to pay attention to the fact that this isn’t just a mental health issue,” Emma Gonzalez, an 18-year-old student at the school, told hundreds demonstrators gathered on the steps of a federal building. The shooter “wouldn’t have harmed that many students with a knife!” she yelled, shedding tears as the crowd cheered her on.

 

Gonzalez criticized Trump for overturning a measure implemented by former President Barack Obama that required extra scrutiny of some gun buyers with a history of mental illness. She also condemned the National Rifle Association, which opposes laws that it says violate gun owners’ rights.

 

“Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have ever been done to prevent this, we call B.S.” Gonzalez said.

… continue reading

 

 


To politicians still not heeding
mighty cries of children pleading
time is up. They’ll stop the bleeding
none of you had guts to do.
Come around the next elections
they will make their own selections,
calling out your misdirections,
voting out the worst of you.

Every time you try to sleep
may you hear the children weep;
may you see them crying, dying
in the pit of your denying
promises you vowed to keep.

Susan Eckenrode 2/22/18

 

The State of the Un-Union Address

Success is touted sweetest
By he who walks a line
Between the poor and needy
With one thing on his mind

Do unto others, while in charge,
Remove their rights to stay
And while your mumbling ‘kiss my ass’
Just tweet what’s rude to say

Success is hate and mass control
And all the things you think
While you walk proudly with that grin
And leave behind your stink

America how can we watch
Our world in disarray
While future death walks on our heels
And buries us that way

Success is lying from the swamp
Where fellow gators growl
There’ll be no life if they are left
To watch him as he prowls

The elderly now feel the crunch
Where tax cuts – cut them most
Security comes when you die
With health the lethal dose

Success is his to huff and puff
‘bout all he now un-did
And bully those who’ve had enough
While dignity stays hid

Dream on dreamers for your fate
Is balancing his acts
Here today then on your way
Unregarding all your facts.

Yes! Success is touted sweetest
By the sourball to all
To comprehend just what we had
We had to take that fall!

Un-love is that un-liberty
We live in freedom’s grip
Un-healthy and un-forgiven now
We’re living his own trip!

 

© 2018 Joy A. Burki-Watson

Image by Donkey Hotey

 

What fantasy was that of which he spoke?

Esquire reports: President* Trump’s first State of the Union laid bare a government in delusion.

It was the most elaborate of charades, the most sophisticated of masquerades, that played itself out in the chamber of the House of Representatives on Tuesday night. The amount of pretense required to keep all sensible people—which is to say, any person who was not a Republican—in their chairs must have been heroic.

 

All involved had to pretend that Donald Trump makes sense as a president, that his administration makes sense as a government, and that his first State of the Union address made sense as either a description of national policy, or as a rhetorical summons to national unity. All involved had to pretend that his thoughts were coherent, that his words made sense, and that the complete and universal collapse of civic responsibility that propelled him onto the podium was not the most singularly destructive event in the history of American democracy since the Civil War. Everyone had to pretend that a freak show was Shakespeare, and that a rumbling, stumbling geek was Lincoln, and that the whole tableau unfolding before the Congress was somehow made noble despite the obvious fact that the whole event was an endless procession of lies and half-truths, and that the only truly remarkable thing about the speech was that it was such a perfectly round and complete crock of shit.

 

Continue reading …
I Watched a Ghoulish Masquerade in Washington

 


 

What fantasy was that of which he spoke
concerning all the greatness he has wrought
in only one short year…a cruel joke
or machinations Machiavelli taught?
Because he read the teleprompter well
and mostly stuck to script his lackey writ,
that means he’s acting presidential? Hell
will freeze to solid ice before he’s fit
to lead a nation born of great ideals.
Someday let’s hope he knows how losing feels.

Susan Eckenrode, 1/31/18

 

Stable Genius President (Singalong Parody)

(with apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan)

BABY DONALD
I am the very model of a stable genius president,
the oldest living toddler in America’s chief residence.
My finger’s on the button of the Arsenal of Nuclear
diverting your attention to that other guy who’s spookier.

Because I see the writing on the wall and need a shock immense
enough to hide behind when Mueller comes with legal documents,
I’ll stamp my foot and contradict the evidence connecting me
to Putin while the GOP goes bigly down protecting me.

The party bought a ticket to the taming of democracy.
I’ll hold it down, they’ll kick it to the radical theocracy
who loves to hear me reading from the book of Two Corinthian.
They’ll revolutionize the world in matters labyrinthian.

GOP CHORUS
With many cheerful lies about our pretty kakistocracy!
With many cheerful lies about our pretty kakistocracy!
With many cheerful lies about our pretty kakistocra-stocracy!

BABY DONALD
I’m very good at coloring with crayons on the diagram
provided by my generals who think they’re smarter than I am.
In short, my hands are big and my intelligence is evident
I am the very model of a stable genius president.

TRUMPISTA CHORUS
In short, his hands are big and his intelligence is evident,
He is the very model of a stable genius president!

BABY DONALD
I have the words my alter egos, Tweetledum and Tweetledee,
can fling in haste when anyone is trying to outwheedle me.
I proudly shout down idiots who still consider hate a sin.
Nobody else is qualified to make the country great again.

A prickle in the side of Nanny Mitch and Speaker Ryan,
anytime my mouth is open it’s a sign my lips are lyin’
as I reignite the culture wars and cultivate acedia*
by stifling all reports from that infernal nosy media.

GOP CHORUS
We’ll stifle all reports from that infernal nosy media!
We’ll stifle all reports from that infernal nosy media!
We’ll stifle all reports from that infernal nosy medi-media!

BABY DONALD
Then I can sign all legislative bills without congressional
approval. On the Mar-a-Lago greens, I’m inaccessible.
In short, it matters not, for my authority is evident,
I am the very model of a stable genius president.

TRUMPISTA CHORUS
In short, it matters not, for his authority is evident,
He is the very model of a stable genius president!

BABY DONALD
I needn’t know the meaning of the words with many syllables
when I know more of bluster than a crooked lawyer’s billables.
In short, when you’re the target of the purest spittle ever spat,
you’ll say a better stable genius president has never sat!

GOP CHORUS
You’ll say a better stable genius president has never sat!
You’ll say a better stable genius president has never sat!

 


*acedia – Baby Donald heard this word on CNN and thought it meant hero worship.

 

Mary Boren, 1/13/18

Recklessly Juvenile Quips


Esquire reports: Trump’s Locker Room Talk and Nuclear War Talk Finally Converged

It’s almost a courtesy from President Trump: rather than get our hopes up with calm, careful, magnanimous tweets to kick off the new year, we’re back into freezing cold reality. None of the president’s nine tweets Tuesday morning were particularly reassuring to those of us concerned about the future of our country or planet. That particularly goes for those of us who think thermonuclear war sounds like kind of a drag.

 

[…]

 

My big, powerful button. There’s a real macabre fascination to our current national experiment, wherein we’ve given unprecedented powers of destruction to an obviously stunted man whose mind is stuck in a high-school locker room. In case you were wondering, there is not actually a button on the president’s desk—besides the one with which he summons a butler to bring him Diet Cokes, which he apparently presses 12 times a day. However, it is within this individual’s power to unilaterally launch a nuclear weapon at any time. Once again, Happy Freakin’ New Year.

 

Read the article

 

 


“My nuclear button’s much bigger than his,
and my button works!” It’s a Trumpian tiz.
Our president’s recklessly juvenile quips
could tick off a tyrant with missiles on ships
Our generals caution that war is no game
but Trump doesn’t care if it furthers his fame.

Susan Eckenrode, 1/3/18

 

Bills

bills he has signed
Newsweek reports: Trump Has Signed Fewest Bills Into Law of Any Modern President, Research Shows

President Donald Trump often brags of his “record setting” term, but the 45th president has signed the fewest bills so far compared to all administrations dating back to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

 

[…]

 

The GovTrack review follows Trump’s enthusiastic celebration of the new tax bill that passed on Wednesday, when Trump gloated his administration had “records all over the place.” The president is expected to sign the 185-page bill in January.

 

President Trump will also have to put his John Hancock on a Congressional bill that will avert a government shutdown, which is expected to be passed by Friday’s deadline. And, obviously, other bills will be passed by the Republican-controlled Congress that Trump will chose to sign rather than veto.

 

But numbers aren’t everything, the website points out. Presidents can sign a high number of bills into law, but that doesn’t mean each bill is important. Trump has signed 10 bills this year naming post offices, crating memorials, and naming citizens to boards, GovTrack reports.

Read the article

 

 


 

So the BLOTUS brags bills he has signed
in a year leave all others behind.
It’s a ludicrous boast
but he can claim the most
maliciously mendacious mind.

Susan Eckenrode, 12/30/17

Gaudy and Crass

gaudy and crass
The Washington Post reports: It’s ‘very gold’: The presidential coin undergoes a Trumpian makeover

The presidential seal has been replaced by an eagle bearing President Trump’s signature. The eagle’s head faces right, not left, as on the seal. The 13 arrows representing the original states have disappeared. And the national motto, “E pluribus unum” — a Latin phrase that means “Out of many, one” — is gone.

 

Instead, both sides of the coin feature Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

 

The changes don’t stop there. In addition to his signature, Trump’s name appears three times on the coin, which is thicker than those made for past presidents. And forget the traditional subdued silver and copper: Trump’s coin, a White House aide marveled, is “very gold.”

[…]

Some ethics experts questioned the unprecedented decision to include a campaign slogan on the coins, which are often distributed to members of the military.

 

“For the commander in chief to give a political token with a campaign slogan on it to military officers would violate the important principle of separating the military from politics, as well as diminishing the tradition of the coin,” said Trevor Potter, a Republican former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

 

Continue reading

 

 


 

The elegant mark of the past
in honoring soldiers with class
is wrecked in the clutches
of trump — all he touches
turns instantly gaudy and crass.

Mary Boren, 12/27/17