New Year’s Eve always seems like an appropriate time for both looking back at all that has gone before during the past year, and looking forward to all that we hope to experience in the new year, both in our personal lives and also in the larger world.
 
For me, 2018 was a year of accomplishment. It was the year when I completed writing my memoir—a work that I had spent years working on. And it was the year when I made the huge decision to tell all about my personal life, and let the chips fall where they may. It was the year when I found a path to publishing my book, and made a total commitment to see my book reach the public at large.
 
Now, as I stand on the precipice of 2019, I can see all of the work that I need to do in the year ahead to promote my book. Though my memoir, SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON’S LIFE—Healing From the Shame of Religion, Rape, Conversion Therapy & Cancer To Find My True Self, does not go officially on sale to the general public in its Hardcover and E-Book formats until March 27, 2019—when it will appear on bookshelves in bookstores throughout America—advance copies can be purchased now at my author’s website at www.KerryAshton.com or can be pre-ordered at both Amazon and Barnes and Noble online. Advance sales, along with the rave book reviews that have thus far come out, indicate that I have much to look forward to in 2019 as an author.
 
As to the larger picture of what our society has to look forward to in the New Year, I think that most of us can predict that the Mueller investigation will come to an end sometime in 2019. Along with all that the Special Counsel will reveal about our current President in the coming year, we can also look forward to hearing much more from the Southern District of New York along with other investigative bodies, particularly those in the new Democratically-controlled House of Representatives, about our President Grump and all of his myriad scandals and secret dealings. 
 
My New Year’s prediction is that the Grump will be leaving the White House in disgrace before the start of 2020. I also believe that our Vice President will be revealed to have been part of the conspiracy to corrupt our 2016 presidential election, so he will be leaving government as well. And there will be many, many indictments of felonies and other crimes, including conspiracy, which will rain down upon the Grump Administration and the Republicans who supported their illegality. My prediction, in fact, is that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as next in line, will take over in the White House as acting President until we elect a new leader in 2020. 
 
Whether or not all of my personal predictions for our society come true in 2019, if any of them come true in the coming year, our government will be upended. Regardless, I believe that 2019 will be a year of big endings and auspicious new beginnings. It may even open the doors to our first appointed female president, and perhaps to our first elected one as well.
​
At any rate, whatever comes in 2019, I can only wish all of you and yours a Happy New Year!

First, I want to wish everyone Happy Holidays and Warmest Wishes for a Happy New Year!
 
When our 45th president tweeted at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, “I am all alone (poor me) in the White House,” while urging Democrats to leave their families on Christmas and return to Washington to negotiate with him over his utterly stupid and unnecessary wall that he promised repeatedly that Mexico would pay for, I thought of the Charles Dickens classic, A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 
 
Indeed, comparing Ebenezer Scrooge, all alone in his mansion on Christmas Eve, bereft of any true friends, to our current president stalking the empty halls of the White House, utterly isolated and alone, is more than apt.
 
Thus far in this blog I have referred to our current president as “the Orange Monster” (or “the OM”), as “He Who Must Not Be Named,” (or “HWMNBN”), or most appropriately as “Individual-1” as recent court filings refer to him while implicating him in the commission of two felonies. But given his recent impulsive decision to put 800,000 federal employees out of work as a special gift at Christmas, when families are most in need of funds, simply for his own narcissistic desire to please Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, and other extremists of the far-right, and to appease his ever-shrinking base—I now realize that he deserves a nickname references a Scrooge at his worst. The best I could come up with is President Grump. And what a fitting a name it is, too! 
 
No one has ever been given more blessings and abundance than our President Grump. Recently it was reported that our "self-made" president inherited more than $450,000,000 from his father Fred. The Grump also received over two billion dollars of free publicity from the American media during the disastrous 2016 election. And just today we learn that the Grump was gifted with a bogus bone spurs diagnosis by a doctor who did it as a favor for father Fred, to keep DJT out of military service in Vietnam. No doubt, the Grump was also given millions if not billions of rubles in laundered money over the course of the last 30 years by the Russian government and its oligarchs to keep the Grump’s corrupt family business afloat. Yet, despite being given all of this and much, much more, Grump sees himself as the biggest victim in the entire world. No one complains more about being mistreated than the Grump.
 
To hear the Grump talk, he suffers daily from unprecedented and brutal unfairness, even as he sits upon his gilded throne surrounded by his ill-gotten gains. Indeed, he possesses all of the qualities of a spoiled brat who has been coddled every day of his overly privileged existence, and perpetually given his way on everything, large and small. And the more power and privilege he has come to possess, the more the Grump has played the victim. My God! How our President Grump suffers and he never does so in silence. Instead, he proclaims his victimization to the world by tweet on a daily, if not hourly, basis. Never was a Grump so mistreated. “NO COLLUSION!” he tweets. “WITCH HUNT!” he tweets again and again. Indeed, President Grump’s holiday message to the country this year was something akin to, “What’s happening in our country is a disgrace, but have yourself a Merry Christmas anyway!” Before his reformation, Ebenezer Scrooge could not have said it better.
 
Like Scrooge on Christmas Eve, Grump sat in his mansion, very much alone, blaming the entire world for his troubles and misery—all troubles that he created for himself and all by himself alone. While the most powerful man in the entire world, President Grump sat in the White House on Christmas Eve and complained about being alone, actually saying “poor me,” while feeling not the slightest gratitude for all that the universe has seen fit to afford him with—perhaps because the presidency, like most of the other things he’s been given throughout his life, was not earned legitimately. 
 
In truth, the presidency was handed to our Grump on a golden platter, first by the Kremlin, then by James Comey’s unfortunate announcement about an unnecessary reopening the investigation into Hillary’s emails only a few days before the election, and finally by the Electoral College. He didn’t win the popular vote. Nor did he win the presidency fairly; he had the help of a foreign adversary. He has always had help, first from his wealthy father, who bailed him out after failure after failure, and then from the Russian government, propping his failed business up with injection and injection of dirty money. It’s only a matter of time before the true scope and magnitude of the criminal enterprise of President Grump’s so-called business acumen will be fully exposed to the world by Mueller’s investigation.
 
Yes, President Grump—our modern day Scrooge—sat in his mansion on Christmas Eve, alone, complaining “poor me,” even as hundreds of thousands of federal workers were put out of a job and a paycheck for the holiday at his doing. Like Ebenezer, President Grump never thinks of anyone but himself. He could have given a toss about those he had just put out of work, any more than he cared about the refugee children who died at our southern border because of his cruel policies. And why would we expect him to? He has already proven to be far more cruel and vindictive and merciless than Ebenezer Scrooge ever was. Remember, it was our President Grump who tore children from their parents, and put children in cages while celebrating the separation of families seeking legal asylum, and ordering their incarceration. It was Grump who went to Pittsburgh after the slaughter of innocents in a synagogue, brought about because of his intolerant and racist views on immigration, and his support of white supremacists in America, and could talk only about how he was being mistreated by the press. 
 
To paraphrase the song about the Grinch, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grump! You really are a heel!” But this is where all comparisons between our President Grump and Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch, must end.

​Unlike the Grinch or Scrooge, the Grump isn’t and will never be capable of redemption as they were. The Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge found a way back from their terrible mistakes by first being able to acknowledge their wrongheadedness. To make amends, they first had to be capable of accepting responsibility and learning from their past misdeeds. But the Grump has proven during his first two years in office that he is utterly incapable of such things. The Grump never admits he was wrong. He never accepts any blame for anything even when he is clearly the only one at fault. With Grump, the buck always stops at someone else’s desk, never his. He has shown us day by day throughout his presidency who and what he truly is: He never apologizes; he never makes amends; he never changes; he never learns from mistakes. To learn from one’s mistakes, one first needs to acknowledge them. Our President Grump sees himself as the world’s most glorious victim. It’s simply an ego boost for Grump, one he needs ever more frequently. He—and the Republican base that see their own victimization in him—will never give up his victimhood. It makes him feel special, powerful and self-important.
 
Imagine our President Grump settling in his bed in the lonely and quiet White House on Christmas Eve. If visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, would he learn a thing from being shown the sorrows of his childhood? Like the morning briefings that he refuses to read and chooses instead to ignore, he would learn nothing. If the Ghost of Christmas Present paid a visit and Grump were shown all of the present-day misery, distress, and unhappiness that he alone has caused throughout the world, would he gain anything from it? I doubt it. A man who cannot acknowledge his own human frailty or his mistakes, he would probably sit on his golden toilet and blame the visitation on a bad meal eaten alone the night before. And should the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come show him a vision of his future with Impeachment, Indictment, Arrest and Imprisonment, would the Grump learn anything? Of course not! 
 
There will be no redemption or happy ending for our President Grump, for he truly has no soul—having sold it decades ago to the Kremlin, who clearly owns him lock, stock and barrel. As it becomes increasingly clear over time that our President Grump long ago sold out our country as well, perhaps even his base will come to see that this is simply another example of the Grump’s true art of the deal.
 
To end this in the true spirit of Christmas, I quote from Charles Dickens, who describes Ebenezer Scrooge after finding a redemption that the Grump will never find:
 
“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”

Here is the complete review from FOREWORD MAGAZINE/CLARON REVIEWS:


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SAINT UNSHAMED
A GAY MORMON'S LIFE
Kerry Ashton
Lynn Wolf Enterprises(Jan 15, 2019)
Hardcover$28.95(348pp)
978-0-692-17051-9
 
Saint Unshamed is a triumphant memoir about how one man managed to find a way out of a culture that would silence him.
 
In his memoir, Saint Unshamed, actor and writer Kerry Ashton likens shame to an insidious disease that threads through the body and the psyche, slowly destroying and devaluing everything it touches. Ashton caught it early—from his parents, from his Mormon faith, from his burgeoning understanding of his own sexuality. Brutal, graphic, and historical, this memoir tells not only Ashton’s harrowing story, but also that of the many gay men who struggled with their sexual identity and health during the latter quarter of the twentieth century.
Now capable of understanding much of what he has endured, Ashton begins with his own lack of shame, a state he spent decades trying to achieve. Shamed by his family for being effeminate and policed and punished by Brigham Young University, Ashton nevertheless emerged the victor, but he also endured electroshock therapy that forever damaged his nervous system and a disturbing and violent rape.
 
In the midst of his own story, Ashton also discusses friends who lost their lives, including gay men who killed themselves, who contracted HIV, or who buried themselves in heterosexual marriages. He gives life to rest stops and gay cruising grounds, relating both their necessity and the danger they represented for men who could not speak about their sexual needs.
Ashton also tries to make sense of his religious and family life. Strict Mormon laws regarding sex, from masturbation to intercourse to anything in between, informed much of Ashton’s suffering, but to deny Mormonism would have been to lose his family, his faith, and, in many ways, his identity as a young man. Ashton’s electric scenes speak to that quandary and make real the many parts of life that are barred to men who come out.
 
Though the memoir progresses almost to the present, with a quick screed against Donald Trump near its end, Ashton’s young adulthood and childhood produce the best-wrought scenes with the most at stake. The pacing and the tension there is literary; scenes are full and include actions and reactions. Reminiscences from Ashton’s middle age read more like reportage, without the fevered intensity of the early parts of the book.
 
The text’s moves through time are frequent and sometimes disruptive. Barbra Streisand movies are referenced to help keep years straight in the story, which also pays homage to Judy Garland; The Wizard of Ozbecomes an extended metaphor with clear parallels in Ashton’s story. Ashton’s encounters with famous people are charming and interesting in and of themselves.
 
Devastating but ultimately hopeful, Saint Unshamedis insightful as it reveals a generation of Mormon men who were hurt and sometimes destroyed by the church’s positions on their sexuality. It is a triumphant memoir about how one man managed to find a way out.
 
Reviewed by Camille-Yvette Welsch
December 21, 2018

https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/saint-unshamed/

Hi Everyone,

For today's post I wanted to share the new rave from KIRKUS REVIEWS that just came out today.

Here is the complete review below:
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SAINT UNSHAMED:
 GAY MORMON'S LIFEHealing from the Shame of Religion, Rape, Conversion Therapy & Cancer to Find My True Self
by Kerry Ashton
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KIRKUS REVIEWAshton’s (Red Hot Mama, 2015) memoir tells stories of his troubled childhood, the excitement of being an aspiring actor in New York City, and his first real love for another man.
Growing up in the heart of Mormon country in the 1950s, or the “LDS yellow brick road,” as he calls it, Ashton spent his early childhood gravitating toward performance, music, and theater—all subjects that earned him scorn from his conservative father. These painful early years also resulted in him having deep shame about his sexuality and his desire for men, which he couldn’t even admit to himself. The memoir shifts between Ashton’s first few years at Brigham Young University, where he began to make a name for himself as one of the most talented actors on campus, and memories of beatings from his father and of the erosion of his family, due to fear of sin. During college, he made forays into sex; once, he endured a brutal rape, which he willed himself to forget. However, at Brigham Young, he also met a strikingly good-looking young man named Harlan, who took young Ashton under his wing, and with whom Ashton fell deeply in love. In Ashton’s post-college life, he tried to break onto Broadway and come to terms with the psychological damage he endured in the LDS Church. He also experienced the devastating conclusion of his long relationship with Harlan. Ashton has clearly led a long, fascinating life. However, he tries to put too much of it into a single book; as a result, the passages concerning his later life feel rushed, compared to the care and detail he brings to his childhood and first years in New York, which feature wonderful run-ins with celebrities, such as Bette Davis and Stephen Sondheim. However, the memoir’s fractured structure is smart, as it allows Ashton to develop a single, riveting story about his growing love for Harlan and his battle with BYU’s unrelenting moral standards. Along the way, he adds rich perspective as he alternates between the troubled child he was, and the proud, openly gay New Yorker that he eventually became.
A moving coming-out story with an intriguing narrative structure.

Pub Date: Dec. 11th, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-17051-9
Page count: 348pp
Publisher: Lynn Wolf Enterprises
Program: Kirkus Indie
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19th, 2018

In his recent opinion for the Washington Post, the Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Eugene Robinson, brought attention to all of the lies told by our current president:
 
“Trump has been walking a tightrope of lies all his adult life, and now he is teetering. He has inflated his wealth. He has aggrandized his business acumen. He has managed to convince supporters that he is a respected businessman who brilliantly commanded a vast real estate empire. Now the law is beginning to squeeze him from all directions. His former consigliere, Michael Cohen, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison. One of the crimes Cohen confessed to was violating federal campaign finance laws by orchestrating six-figure payments to a Playboy model and an adult-film star, in the weeks before the 2016 election, to ensure their silence about sexual encounters they say they had with Trump. Cohen says he did this at Trump’s direction.Wednesday, the company that owns the National Enquirer — American Media Inc. (AMI), which is run by Trump’s close friend David Pecker — admitted playing a major role in that same hush-money scheme. The aim, according to the company, was to help Trump win the election. The bottom line is that two witnesses, Cohen and AMI, independently now implicate the president of the United States in the commission of two felonies.
 
Potentially more serious for Trump and his family in the long run, however, is what the New York state probe might discover. How much of the Trump Organization’s revenue has come from the sale of luxury real estate to oligarchs from Russia and other kleptocracies? Where did these buyers’ money come from? Why was Deutsche Bank — recently raided by German authorities and under investigation for money laundering — the only major financial institution willing to lend money to Trump in recent years? Where did Trump’s company get the large amounts of cash used in several transactions that Post reporters uncovered? How much commingling of funds was there between Trump’s company and his eponymous foundation? 
 
Trump’s longtime accountant, Allen Weisselberg, has turned state’s evidence. He may be the Virgil who guides federal, state and local prosecutors through a Trumpian inferno of shell companies and opaque transactions. The outlines of Trump’s fate begin to emerge.”
 
When I read Robinson’s column, it reminded me again of the importance of truth, particularly at this time in America’s journey, when truth is under assault on a daily basis. 

Deciding whether to tell the whole truth—and nothing but the truth—was something I struggled with while writing my new memoir, SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON’S LIFE—Healing From the Shame of Religion, Rape, Conversion Therapy & Cancer To Find My True Self, which goes on sale to the general public on March 27, 2019, (though advance copies can be purchased now and at a discount price at www.KerryAshton.com). As I explain in the book:
 
“In writing one’s memoir, and choosing to go public with the most sexually intimate details of one’s life—as I do within these pages—it’s scary. It’s like opening up one’s private diary to everyone on the planet. Was I absolutely certain that I wanted to share my most hidden and well-kept secrets with the world? How would the members of my Mormon family react once my book was published? Would the conservative members of my family shun me once they read the graphic details of my sexual experiences, particularly the most vile and violent details of my rape? Would sharing these true experiences from my life with the world, even matter? Like so many in the #MeToo movement who have had the courage to come forward, to tell the truth of their sexual assault and to speak their truth to power—the most recent and powerful example being Dr. Christine Blasey Ford—would I even be believed? All rape and sexual assault victims struggle with similar questions when they contemplate coming forward and telling the ugly truth of what happened to them. Like them, I had to contend with the same inner conflicts and questions.
 
In the end, I decided that not only did I have the right to speak out, I had a sacred obligation to do so, and let the chips fall where they may. First and foremost, I owed it to my inner child to tell how he was betrayed and abandoned throughout much of my life. And I owed it to all rape victims and to all those in the #MeToo movement, especially the male victims of sexual assault, who might take comfort and find healing from my true story of overcoming shame, such that they might in turn find the courage to heal their own shame, and come out of hiding. So when I decided my book would reach the public somehow, even if I had to publish it myself, it was a solemn decision.”
 
Beyond this, I also noted in my memoir that our current political climate has brought our American society as we once understood it, to its knees:
 
“Since that fateful election two years ago, it has become harder to know what to believe in or in whom to believe. The current occupant in the White House lies about anything and everything, attacking the very institutions that uphold our democracy and the rule of law—solely to protect himself—even as his lies are presented as facts in the far-right media, while 40% of Americans believe every lie he utters. Indeed, a new Civil War is upon us, with each side claiming its own facts. But perhaps, given the nature of our current national politics, I should refer to it as our country’s first Uncivil War.”
 
Now, more than ever, our society is need of—and desperate for—the truth. As President Abraham Lincoln told the American people, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
This, more than anything, is why I chose to tell the whole truth in my memoir, shielding nothing. Only the power of truth can speak to the deceit that defines not merely our current politics but the very fabric that holds a society together. 
 
Without truth, and the recognition by all of what is fact and what is not, can we hope to survive as a people, as a country of laws not of men. 
 
The powers that be have tried their level best to muddy the waters, hide the truth and ignore or cover up the facts. Unlike Rudy Giuliani statement that “truth isn’t truth,” truth is truth and that’s all there is. 

​Contrary to Kellyanne Conway’s assertion, there are no alternative facts, only facts. Clearly, she needs to speak more often with her husband who, despite his conservative political views, shows us frequently that he has integrity, sees reality, and has the courage to address all of the corruption and illegality he sees within our current president’s administration.
 
The importance of truth—and its undeniable existence—is more important to America’s survival than ever before. 

In this blog I refer to our current president as He Who Must Not Be Named (“HWMNBN”), taking my cue from J.K. Rowland’s characterization of the utterly evil Lord Voldamart. I also refer to him as the Orange Monster (the “OM”). And, as I pointed out in my last posting on Sunday, December 9, he now has a new name, this new designation being afforded him in recent legal court filings as “Individual-1.”
 
The filing by the Southern District of New York in last Friday’s sentencing statement regarding Individual-1’s lawyer Michael Cohen, stated that Cohen coordinated with, and was directed by the OM to commit two felonies in making secret and hidden hush money payments to both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal over his alleged sexual affairs with each of these ladies, both during the time when his wife Melania had given birth to the couple’s new baby boy. The prosecutors of SDNY indicated that “Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” Essentially, these prosecutors said that they have the evidence to prove that our current president has committed two felonies. What a fool Individual-1 was to think he could get away with such felonious acts, and get away with so many other potential crimes, without eventually having to pay the piper.
 
Whether I refer to him as the OM, as HWMNBN, or as Individual-1, our current president is clearly a fool by any other name, and will always prove to be himself to be so.
 
As we learn more and more about the foolish, ignorant, impulsive, vile and cruel ways in which the OM has chosen to govern (or more to the point, not govern), his idiocy grows ever more transparent, as does the increasing danger in which his very presence at the head of our government threatens us all. Two of the OM’s most recent actions displayed his foolishness and utter incompetence for all who cared to see. 
 
First, he announced on Saturday that chief of staff John Kelly was leaving, betraying his sacred promise to Kelly that the four-star general would be allowed to announce his so-called “retirement” in his own face-saving way on Monday. Then HWMNBN proceeded to announce Ayers as Kelly’s successor before he even had the young 36-year-old’s commitment to take the job. No doubt Ayers felt that he would prefer taking his young family back to Georgia, rather than face the legal battles that would no doubt encroach on his future plans, if he chose to take the thankless and humiliating job of working for this particular president. After Ayers turned down the OM’s offer, it left our current president with no Plan B, revealing the OM’s utter incompetence and foolishness. After this public humiliation, it left our president with no alternative but to ask Kelly to stay on into January 2019, if not longer—since no one with the least bit of sense or self-esteem wants the job. After all, who would want to work with such an utter fool? As former Secretary of State Tillerson said of the president he suffered public humiliation under, the man is a “fucking idiot.” 
 
So much for the first incident revealing the OM as fool. Now comes the 17-minute televised debacle of a meeting in the Oval Office between the OM, a brain-dead Pence, and two politicians who know what they are doing, and are willing to take on our lying, cheating, compromised president.
 
As Jennifer Rubin points out in her Washington Post opinion column out today:
 
“For all those Americans who have pined for moments when someone would say, ‘That’s just false, Mr. President’ or ‘Excuse me, but you’ve been fact-checked on that repeatedly,’ Tuesday brought moral vindication. If you’ve found yourself defending the concept of objective truth or furious that the conservative movement has entered some postmodernist moment when facts are whatever you say they are, soon-to-be-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) delivered in a face-to-face confrontation over funding for Trump’s border wall. (As an aside, I’m at a loss to understand how any Democrat could oppose literally the only elected Democrat who has publicly called out the president to his face, scoring a direct hit.)”
 
In other words, Pelosi called out the president’s lies, directly and to his face, all the while the cameras rolled and the public watched on television. The OM, who had no doubt manipulated Nancy and Chuck into a televised confrontation that he thought would serve him well, foolishly overplayed his hand and was shown on public TV behaving like a Buffoon. Other names also come to mind: Idiot, Moron, Clown, Know-Nothing, Ignoramus. And what this televised meltdown also clearly demonstrated that the OM who has been cashing in on the lie that he is a superb negotiator, is actually incompetent. The OM’s trap to catch Nancy and Chuck on TV backfired into his face, causing yet more humiliation and for all Senate Republicans, who now have to wonder how, since the president proclaimed, “I will shut down the government,” and “I will take the blame for it.” When Bugs Bunny frequently said, “What a maroon!”he was no doubt thinking of our current president.
 
Eli Stokols of the Los Angeles Times later reported,"It sort of spiraled out of control, and when the President left the Oval Office after Pelosi and Schumer left, a number of people saw him, he stormed out of the Oval, walked into an anteroom just off the Oval Office, and had in his hand a folder of briefing papers, and he just scattered them out of frustration, threw them across the room and expressed frustration to the people who were present.”
 
Indeed, Nancy Pelosi came out of this meeting triumphant. As Washington Post columnist Colby Itkowitz wrote, “Pelosi emerged from the meeting not some wilted flower, but a symbol of a woman who doesn’t have time for male posturing. ... Pelosi kept her composure throughout the charade, continually trying to bring the conversation back to a place where actual dialogue could occur.”How true!
 
Indeed, a fool by any other name--whether as the OM, as HWMNBN or as Individual-1—remains the same fool he proved himself to be during the presidential election campaign in 2015 and 2016, and as the fool that he has proven himself with every step he has taken as our president since he was inaugurated. And, since he never listens to anyone’s advice, he no doubt will remain that same foolish and arrogant fellow, undaunted by change, idiotic in the smallness of his humanity, when he either leaves the White House through resignation or removal from office. 

​John Dean of Watergate fame made news this week by saying that because of the latest revelations coming out of America’s Justice Department of Friday, both by Mueller’s team and by the Southern District of New York in sentencing statements—two on behalf of our current president’s past lawyer and fixer of all things both dirty and obscene and one to clarify the president’s campaign managers “crimes and lies” made in violating his collaboration with the Special Counsel’s Office—that our next congress, to be seated and sworn in on January 3 of next year, will in the end “have no choice but to impeach” our 45thpresident.
 
45—who I refer to as He Who Must Not Be Named (“HWMNBN”), taking my cue from J.K. Rowland’s characterization of the utterly evil Lord Voldamart, and who I also refer to 45 as the Orange Monster (“OM”), now has a new name. Now we all know him by another name, brought about his own deceitful, evil, and totally illegal acts, as designated in legal court filings as “Individual-1.”
 
The legal court filing by the Southern District of New York in their Friday sentencing statement regarding Individual-1’s lawyer Michael Cohen, was terrible news for Cohen, but even worse news for the OM. In Friday’s filing, the SDNY Prosecutors explicitly stated that Cohen coordinated with OM on hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal over the OM’s affairs with them: “as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” That’s our current president, the OM unfortunately still inhabiting the Oval Office. 
 
Essentially, Prosecutors of the Southern District of New York have accused the OM of committing, coordinating and directing two felonious acts. That means that they have the evidence to prove that our current president has committed two felonies. Indeed, He Who Must Not Be Named has now been named a felon. The question now is what, if anything, our new congress will ultimately do about the fact.
 
If we are to remain a democracy where no one is above the law, this means that every member of our new congress, both Democratic and Republican, must impeach the president. Otherwise—even if no other crimes are laid at the feet of the OM by Mueller, which seems exceedingly doubtful as we learn more and more about what Mueller has already uncovered in the Special Counsel’s investigation as to the conspiracy that was coordinated between Americans and Russians to undermine and to subvert the results of our 2016 presidential election—the congress will have to decide whether they will let the president go unindicted and unpunished for his accused felonious conduct already proven and stated in legal black-and-white. 
 
Since the U.S. Justice Department has decided (erroneously, I believe) that a sitting president cannot be indicted if it can be proven that he has committed crimes, it will be up to our next congress to impeach, as this will be the only remaining recourse in bringing our feloniously accused president to justice.
 
Will American remain a democracy, where it is shown that no one—not even the president—is above the law? Or will we become an aberration where all are guilty excepting the president, no matter what crimes he has committed in the past and continues to commit in the present and into the future, no matter what lies he tells, who he pays off, or what destruction he brings upon the social fabric of our judicial system, upon our laws and what little will be left of our sacred institutions?
 
There will eventually be only one choice left to all members of our new congress: Will they choose to stand up for our democracy and all that we have valued as Americans for over two centuries, or will they stand against it?
 

If you believe all of the praise being heaped upon President George H.W. Bush this week by friend and foe alike, one couldn’t blame you if you have come to think that our 41st President conducted himself like a saint. The old adage that one should not speak ill of the dead has a good deal of wisdom in it, so I will tread lightly here, but I do want to set the record straight. Though moved by the outpouring of love for 41 since his passing, and for the many good things that have been said about him in tribute over the last several days, our 41st President was no Saint George. He did a lot of good things while in office, passing the Disabilities Act for one, and holding world peace together when the Soviet Union collapsed, and so much more. But, like most people, he also had his flaws and made his mistakes.
 
For one thing, 41 ran one of the most blatantly racist presidential campaigns since the Civil War, utilizing a “Willie Horton” ad to despicably tar and feather his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis. And Bush’s campaign not only played the ad constantly, blatantly stirring up animus against African-Americans, it also dredged up as much fear among their white voting base that black men were being released from prison and coming after them, to pillage, rob, rape and kill. And this was not just one ad. This was, in fact, the entire basis of the Bush campaign. And it was all lies and distortion, an utterly unfair attack that was flat-out racist. 
 
Clearly, 41 was willing to do and to say anything to get elected. 41 chose as his political henchmen two of the most despicable people in recent history, Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes, to do this dirty work. Lee and Roger, who together caused more harm to America in their lifetimes than any two men I can think of at the moment, were the sort of folks 41 ran with. 
 
Before Reagan was elected president in 1980, he sent 41 to negotiate illegally with Iran to continue to hold Americans hostage until after the election. On the day of Reagan’s inauguration, the hostages were finally released. This was no accident; it was planned and negotiated by Bush 41. 41 was also involved neck-deep in the Iran-Contra scandal. We will never know what sort of illegalities he committed during that particular episode, for which he never paid any price. 
 
And then there was 41’s willingness to lie to the American public during his presidential campaign, not only about William Horton and Dukakis but also about his position on new taxes. “Read my lips: No new taxes!” he retorted over and over and over again on the campaign trail, when he knew taxes would have to be raised for the good of the country. Tax hating Republicans never forgave him for that big lie. Spouting and promoting that lie cost 41 a second term, and rightfully so. Clearly, 41 was willing to say and do whatever it took to get elected, so he was no saint. Few people conduct themselves like saints, particularly when they are politicians. Mormons never get tired of referring to themselves as “Latter-Day-Saints,” but most of them don’t act like saints either. No, the fellow in question, Bush 41, was no Saint George, but when compared to the current occupant in the Oval Office, the man I refer to as the Orange Monster (or "OM"), 41 certainly looks like the saintliest of saints.
 
Despite his many flaws and political gaffes, George H.W. Bush showed a decency and dignity and a respect for the office that he held as our Commander in Chief, that illustrates for us how president are supposed to behave in office, and just how much the OM is utterly devoid of such qualities of leadership or character.

Bush 41, despite having grown up in privilege like OM, was able to act on the world stage with humility and grace. Setting aside the unforgivable “Willie Horton” campaign, Bush 41 did not demonize his political foes, as the OM does. Nor did 41 disgrace his office, as the OM does on a daily if not hourly basis. Rather than attack the rule of law and all of the underlying institutions and norms that uphold our democracy as the OM does, George H.W. Bush acted as a stalwart protector of the institutions of our government.
 
Indeed, when one compares He Who Must Not Be Named ("HWMNBN") with George H.W. Bush, the contrast could not be more glaring. Even when one compares the OM with President George W. Bush, our 43rdPresident—the second worst president of our entire history—HWMNBN makes even W look like a saint. If, in fact, I was forced to choose between two more years of George W or with the OM, I would choose W. At least W (pronounced double-yuh) possessed some kindness and compassion, even though he went about making horrible mistakes, one right after the next throughout the years he was afforded as our president, a gift handed to him by Bush 41’s judicial appointments on the U.S. Supreme Court. In contrast, the OM is an empty suit, devoid of any good qualities, lacking the slightest bit of competence, and overblown by an inner narcissism that spreads throughout the world a vile lack of compassion or empathy for anyone or anything but himself. 
 
In watching today the funeral honoring our 41st President of the United States, and seeing all of the other living presidents sitting together on the same row, they all, down to a one, look like saints incarnate when sitting next to HWMNBN.

When Michael Cohen pleaded guilty last Thursday that he lied to Congress about the Orange Monster’s (OM’s) interests in building the Moscow tower, it was not at all surprising. He Who Must Not Be Named (HWMNBN) had put together an entire administration comprised of people who lie at every turn, and usually on his behalf. Yet it was important news just the same. 
 
Cohen, who probably knows more than anyone about the OM’s business dealings — except perhaps the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III — admitted having falsely claimed that efforts to build a Trump Tower Moscow ended in January 2016. It turns out that Cohen was negotiating with Putin’s office in the Kremlin through mid-June of that year, up until the time that HWMNBN secured the Republican nomination for president. All the while, the OM was giving rallies all across the country constantly insisting, while lying through his teeth, that he had no business dealings with Russia, no contacts, no collusion, no nothing. Clearly he defrauded the American people to get himself the Republican nomination and later the presidency. Not only was the OM negotiating with Putin and the Russian government at the time that he was campaigning for president, he had apparently offered Putin, President of our nation’s worst adversary, a $50 million penthouse apartment in the Moscow Trump Tower project once it was built. There is a word for such secret deal making: It is called bribery.
 
As for the OM’s perpetual lying to the American people, his base and almost all of the elected Republicans don’t seem to care in the least. Impervious as his loyalists are to his despicable and dishonest behavior, nothing the OM ever does or says, no matter how repugnant, seems to cause even a stir among the Republican members of the House and Senate who survived the blue tsunami of our midterm election held in 2018. Surely the midterm election was a judgment on the OM and his circle of liars, but still Republicans could care less. 
 
Since HWMNBN was inaugurated, almost everyone within his inner circle has been caught lying. Michael Flynn, the admitted felon, lied (and he, of “Lock her up!” fame, no less). This indictment was followed by that of George Papadopolous, who is now sitting in prison for his crimes and lies. Then came Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman, who recently ended his plea relationship with Mueller. Then came the deputy campaign manager, and on and on. In truth, the list of proven liars has grown on a nearly daily basis, since the presidential inauguration of January 2017. The OM’s own lies, which have averaged nearly 10 a day since he took office, according to The Post’s Fact Checker, haven’t yet hurt him with his (dare I say it?) “basket of deplorables”.
 
There are so many liars in the OM’s circle, he being chief among them. Now the number of OM associates who’ve already sang for Mueller now seems to outnumber those left for him to get rid of. Surely, a preponderance of evidence can’t be far off. With Cohen’s plea, HWMNBN is now officially a person of interest and even has the legal name of Individual 1. 
 
For nearly two years, HWMNBN has attacked the FBI and the special counsel, and literally anyone else who has dared call into question his behavior or lack of decorum. If someone is innocent, they do not need to go on the attack constantly the way the OM has. If he had nothing to hide, he would clearly have stood aside and encouraged a full and complete investigation to exonerate his reputation, rather than attempt to obstruct justice at nearly every turn and with nearly every act he takes.  
 
From early in his campaign, while the OM was privy to his secret business negotiations with Russia, he was touting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia generally. It’s clear now that the OM lied again and again about his business dealings with Putin and with Russia, and most importantly, Putin and the Kremlin KNEW he was lying. This itself gave the Russian government kompramat on the man they would soon choose to help elect as America’s next president. 
 
HWMNBN was compromised by the Russian government even before he descended his golden escalator and declared his candidacy for president. In my view, he was Russia’s choice from the beginning, because they owned him from the beginning. And all the lies, lies and more lies told since then have been about covering up this one crucial fact. From where I sit, the OM has knowingly and wittingly sold out his country to benefit himself and his dreadful mob-like family.