When Europeans first landed on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay founding Jamestown, the bay was literally filled with fish and shellfish. Now less than one percent lives there because we have caught millions of tons, polluted the waters, and filled in much of the spawning areas. Today’s environmental activists are trying to use the basis of the bay populations of the last century to get laws passed and rejuvenation effort to try to regain those numbers. That is called shifting baseline syndrome.

I look at the sprawl of housing on Caton Farm Road west of Route 59 extending Joliet by thousands of acres. I used to drive through fields and woods getting between communities. Those spaces are now built over. It reminds me of how America has added more than a hundred million people since I graduated college. At that time we studied the population/resource rations. Several researchers thought we would always have enough fish in the oceans to feed us forever. We are not eating newly named baitfish and trying to preserve what is left of many species.

Billions of tons of coal have been stripped off the surface and over a hundred Appalachian mountaintops have been chopped off to get coal. Valleys have been filled with slag. Billions of barrels of petroleum have been refined and burned. All that smoke has gone into the air raising CO2 levels warming the planet.

When I first moved to the area, underground pipes froze, heavy snows were normal, and a 100 degree day was rare. What was called a thousand year flood now occurs every few years.

Today’s kids perceive today’s conditions as normal so that is now their baseline to work from. I remember a saying “You can’t go back” and perhaps that is my baseline syndrome problem.

Who was the greatest showman ever? Phineas T. Barnum said he was because he was an artist in self-promotion. He conned people with the truth wrapped in exaggerations and outright lies. Suckers were pulled into his world of deceit every time he made a proclamation of major and minor importance. Barnum was a narcissus who did everything he could to get media coverage of himself. People during his time did not have the advantage of science and fact checking media we do today.

I suggest we have an even greater narcissistic showman as our current President. He has an innate emotional requirement to puff up his ego by conning and lying. Instead of sitting in the oval office and working, he goes out to the front gate every day to parade himself back and forth in front of a gaggle of journalists and cameras. He creates a crisis, fumbles with it, and declares only he could have fixed the problem. Often the problem was solved during a previous administration and he only took credit.

Most of the problems he is in today are because of his paranoia and ego. People he appoints are temporary so they don’t have to be confirmed–allowable for one year–and must be completely beholden to him. They must not only do their job, but must protect him, and cater to his massive ego. Failure to do the last two will cost them their job. Many of the latest leakers and whistleblowers are his appointees who must be tired of his flagrant breaking of laws and his boasting of it.

Perhaps his fifteen minutes of fame as a disruptive President will end up a footnote in future American history books. To the rest of the world he already is.

Roger Kempa’s response to my opinion that Trump is manipulating the stock market is very thoughtful and fairly well researched. He cited the SEC Law prohibiting such action. What Roger doesn’t say is the law is based on those people making money from their actions. Mr. X buys a stock before his company releases information about a huge mineral find causing the stock to go up in price. Mr. X sells his stock and then shorts it. Shorting it means betting the stock will fall. He then lets the media know the report numbers have a decimal point misplaced and the stock falls. The paper trail puts Mr. X in jail.

President Eisenhower said we need autobahn type highways like Europe so we can move military equipment from coast-to-coast quickly. It was also a job creator. When he announced it the market rose with infrastructure related stocks raising the most. He manipulated the market but did not get any compensation for it. Therefore, no violation since it really happened. Even though many of his friends and others made money, he didn’t.

I do not know if Trump or his family makes money off his manipulations or if he does it for his own entertainment. Every time he says the Chinese are coming to the table to end the trade war, the market goes up. It goes back down when the Chinese say they aren’t aware of any such meeting proposal. One possibility is he wants to prop up the market to help him cater to those people who have investments in the stock market; the vast majority of those people is in Electronic Funds Transfers and mutual funds and is only looking at their end of the month report. His last statement was two days before the reports would have closed out for September. That is manipulation for a non-financial reason for him. It’s for his ego and to get him re-elected.

The Trump-controlled statistics department says the inflation rate is under 2%. The Federal Reserve uses the same statistics to determine their policies. I remember one of Trump’s offhand remarks that he had told the department head to keep inflation numbers low and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers at least 1% higher than Obama’s. Whether the numbers are accurate, I don’t know. We do know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics just announced the hiring pace for the last year, on average over 50,000 per month, was too high. Trump’s people say 2018 GDP was 3.1%; it was actually 2.5%

Did you know Trump just forced the Mexican tomato growers to raise prices by 40% on regular tomatoes and 85% on organic tomatoes? This has been done on a wide range of products we buy from abroad. When we import more expensive items, the domestic producer raises their price to increase profit raising inflation.

Trump put high tariffs on China so most of the companies which have moved their production out went to Viet Nam where labor is even cheaper. Now he is looking at putting tariffs on Viet Nam.

Recently he said “one of the fun things about being President is putting tariffs on other countries.” Tariffs are just toys to amuse him. His tariff toy has real world consequences. He wants businesses to move away from China but where can they safely go? Businesses are afraid to invest in new projects because they don’t know what he will do next. An example is USS Steel beefed up production to meet the demand caused by sanctions. Sanctions went away and now they are laying off jobs. Manufacturing jobs have been decreasing for over a year, not increasing as he constantly proclaims.

The new statistics shows the Emperor has no clothes!

When Bill Walsh, a former Republican Congressman, Tea Party leader, and talking head on 560 Radio, agreed with me about Donald Trump, the world flipped over. On Chicago Tonight’s August 19 episode, he said, “Trump lies every time he opens his mouth,” “He only cares about himself,” “He isn’t morally fit to be President,” and “Republicans don’t care about debt and deficit under Trump”.

Walsh helped to put Trump in office but saw within a few days he had made a mistake. He says he has come late the show of actively voicing his opinions of how Trump has damaged America. He considers Trump’s playing up to Putin against his own intelligence agencies to be “un-American.” He would, I think, have got too traitorous if Paris Shultz had pushed him for more.

When a radical far right wing nutcase like Bill Walsh sees the disaster we have as President, maybe millions of others will open their eyes. I hope whoever the next President is, signs an executive order eliminating every order Trump gave before trying to figure out if any were good for the country as a whole. He has destroyed decades of work by bi-partisan congresses and Presidents. He has often run down Presidents of both parties as if he is the first smart one.

When Walsh agrees with me on Trump’s ability and ego then maybe Trump will be put on the dust pile (Note I said DUST.) of history in 2020.

            Donald J. Trump has always thought more of himself than anyone else because of his pampered life. He has lied, cheated, and flouted laws all of his life. He has deceived millions of people into thinking he is looking out for their best interests by catering to their lowest denominator. He is able to jump back and forth over the fence while deceiving each side into believing he is defending their values. The following are four of his deceptive practices. He has always been a racist like his father. The white supremists know this, but he has managed to convince some racial, ethnic and white people he isn’t. When he was running, he was asked about his religion and what church he attended. He told which one, but the minister barely remembered him. When asked about the difference between the two sects, he didn’t know there is one. He says he is against abortion, yet he has given tens of thousands to Planned Parenthood. He actually said he is for the sanctity of marriage. He is a confessed adulterer and married three times.

            When Trump is cozying up to his dictator friends in public and private, he jokes about how he wishes he could get rid of the press and the investigators looking into his actions. He just said the former with Putin an in the past with Kim and Xi. Trump can’t kill journalists like Putin and the Saudi Prince, so he tries to persuade his followers that all news media is fake except Fox, which supports him. Too often Fox persuades him to do things against the input from his advisors.

            Like Trump’s dictator friends, he rules by executive orders even when the law and courts have ruled otherwise. A recent example is his executive order to put a citizenship question on the census questionnaire. The Supreme Court just ruled it illegal. Another is keeping migrant children longer than the legal 72 hours. Most of his immigration policy is illegal. Shifting designated funds around by executive order is illegal.

            Trump is constantly dictating to the rest of the world what he demands they do to satisfy his ego. He has pulled out of long standing treaties and alliances because he wanted to show his power. He thinks by threatening other countries with military action, he can make them kneel before him in submission. Kim is playing him now and Iran’s religious government and military are showing his fallibility. In spite of his constant claims to the otherwise, his tariff wars have accomplished nothing but closing world markets for his own country.

            The President’s constant lies and threats are becoming more transparent as more Americans and nations see him for what he is: an emperor with no clothes.