Author: Mike

From a historian’s standpoint–I find Nixon fascinating. He is someone who was a passionate student of presidential history and he enjoyed ranking previous presidents. He made the claim Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ were the three smartest presidential politicians of the previous century. I agree. All three were shrewd pols. Although TR’s run on the Bull Moose ticket was regretful.

My five greatest presidents go in this order… 1 Lincoln, 2 FDR, 3 Teddy Roosevelt, 4 Washington, and 5 maybe Eisenhower. Whereas I would have been keenly entertained talking over this list with Nixon-I would be completely bored doing it with Trump. He’s just not that deep. He’s not a thinker, he’s a grifter. If I were with Trump I’d ask him to rank his five greatest porn stars or pro wrestlers. That might be interesting coming from him. You know…keeping it in his wheelhouse of expertise.

Today is the 44th anniversary of Nixon’s resignation. He was never indicted in that Gerald Ford pardoned him before he could be indicted.

We’ll never know for sure what turns history would have given us if Nixon had served two full terms.

Would Ronald Reagan have emerged as the leader of the conservative movement? Would Jimmy Carter have beaten Teddy Kennedy in 1980 as the Dems nominee? History is funny in that way.

As we enter the second half of the most corrupt presidential administration in the U.S. modern presidential era with Donald Trump–it at times is hard not to compare the two presidents. But again, Nixon was interesting while Trump is a predictable self absorbed bore who panders nonsense to people who don’t read and who view the world only from one prism.. namely their own economic standing or the belief anything he is doing will eventually trickle down to them.

In honor of Nixon’s resignation here’s Pat Buchanan interviewing Nixon in 1982. I love the part where he’s cursing Robert Cairo’s biography of LBJ as only Nixon could. Whereas…since Trump doesn’t read, Buchanan would have to ask him if he preferred Ric Flair Nature Boy, Hulk Hogan, or Rowdy Roddy Piper as his favorite pro wrestler of all-time.

At this point I’m not sure. At some point you risk being perceived as being as brain dead as Donald Trump and his ‘followers’ if you do so.

I’m probably more in the Aaron Rodgers school of thought where you should just ignore Trump like any other petulant fourth grader who needs constant attention. Responding to Trump while probably somewhat gratifying gets you nowhere except in his twitter universe. It’s plays into his game of perpetual trolling.

It has gotten General John Kelly and General Bulldog Mattis nowhere. Where it has gotten these decorated generals is the perception they’ve ruined their legacies by even being part of Donald Trump’s team. If two American heroes like Kelly and Mattis can’t even handle Trump’s random yet constant stupidity—where do you think athletes are going to end up playing this game?

This is where we’re at…in a current poll…43% of Republicans who ‘still’ support Donald Trump believe he should have the constitutional authority to do away with parts of the media who aren’t in his corner. Consider what I just wrote. Consider the implications of living in an America which has become this stupid.

Especially stupid is a segment of white America which I guess thinks the answer to all of America’s problems is reverting to Dwight Eisenhower’s first term in 1952.

Even Richard Nixon in 1960 when he lost to JFK by a razor thin margin after some dubious election returns from Chicago would never have behaved like this. He went on. Nixon actually thought a recount in 1960 would be bad for the country. Can you imagine in 2016 that Trump and ‘followers’ would have ever done something like this?

I wonder what Ike would say? I wonder what fellow WWII general and creator of the Marshall Plan…General George Marshall would think?

I wonder if these 43% which Mitt Romney accidently missed on with his 47% comment know who Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall are? I wonder if they know of Nixon’s grace in 1960?

Maybe Mattis and Kelly could explain some of this to the 43% who two of our greatest generals were and Richard Nixon’s finest moment were.

Good luck with that…Generals.

2+2=5 in Trump World.

So…here’s what I’m saying here. Stop responding to Donald Trump. This is the oxygen a petulant fourth grader like Trump and his fans feeds off of.

Ignore Trump and continue doing wonderful things to help children in this country.

Don’t dirty yourself.

Be above it.

I was raised by a trial lawyer in part. I watched this part of the hearing where lawyer Bob Menendez questioned the successor to Rex Tillerson as something the United States used to call their Secretary of State.

It was embarrassing for Mike Pompeo. There was nothing he could do. There’s nothing Sec Def Bulldog Mattis can do. There’s nothing General John Kelly can do unless you decide to quit and discontinue lying on behalf of Donald Trump.

It’s not like these were Perry Mason questions. Any first week first semester law school student would have asked them.

It’s all so embarrassing.

Welcome to the Banana Republic. But I guess we should be grateful in that Scott Pruitt wasn’t elevated to Attorney General.

So…this is what it feels like to be a Banana Republic. Man oh man. Why didn’t Rex Tillerson and his wife tell Mike Pompeo how it feels to be a make believe pretend Secretary of State?

Well, of course, I guess he can’t given that he’s a former KGB agent and president of Russia. But in a way, this is the Republican Party of Putin circa 2018.

Stunning when you think this is the same party which gave us Lincoln. Gave us Teddy Roosevelt. Gave up Ronald Reagan winning the Cold War.

Stunning how history in two short years has gone from Lincoln-Roosevelt-Reagan into a collection of people who look like the characters in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs movie.

It is what it is.

So, yeah, given what the defenders of Trump are still saying… why not Putin in 2020 winning the American presidency?

This would be the video for the first ad.

Given the situation with Carmelo, this is a fairly decent ending as far as I’m concerned. OKC gets rid of the elephant in the locker room and will save itself around $100 million dollars without having to stretch Carmelo’s $27 million over three years.

But more importantly OKC gets a talented guard in Schroder who if he will embrace the Sixth Man role could genuinely help the Thunder.

When I think of Schroder’s game I immediately think of Reggie Jackson. Two players who can get to the rim and score the ball. I do not think of either as premier starting point guards for contending teams in this league.

OKC has a premier starting point guard—his name is Russell Westbrook. What this Thunder team needs is for a guard like Shroder who averaged just over 19 points a game last season to come off the bench and score the ball. This also makes the Thunder much faster. This also gives Billy Donovan the opportunity to develop sets with Westbrook, Paul George, and Schroder all together on the floor.

I’m thinking 28-30 minutes a game for Schroder if he embraces this role in Oklahoma City. I’m thinking he would clearly have a chance to be one of OKC’s six best players who could fill a role which has been empty since Reggie Jackson was traded to the Detroit Pistons.

So if you had to pick between Reggie Jackson, Dion Waiters, and Dennis Schroder as your Sixth Man…I’m thinking Shroder and Jackson are about the same with Waiters being better on the defensive side of the game.

To me, this was very simple, Carmelo is too old and too slow to play with the greyhounds Sam Presti has on his roster. Never again will we see the Thunder wait for Carmelo to lumber up the floor and run an awkward offensive set geared to get Carmelo a touch.

The Hawks will waive Carmelo and someone in Houston, LA, or Miami will eventually pick him up. Good luck, Carmelo.

It was a horrible situation, but given the options, this is interesting. This gives the Thunder a chance to become a better basketball team and save a $100 million dollars.

If Schroder can score 19 points a game and not turn over the ball the Thunder just completed their team makeover which in reality started on July 5th, 2016.

And, in essence, that’s precisely what has happened these past two years as Sam Presti has remade his team in Oklahoma City after Durant’s departure to Golden State.

Say what you want, but I would give Presti an A for the manner in which he put a team around Russell Westbrook which should have a chance to win around 50 games this season if Billy Donovan can connect the dots as an NBA head coach.

Fantastic summer for one Sam Presti. He’s done everything I’ve asked for as a rogue Thunder blogger with the exception of getting Brian Davis out of the Thunder broadcast booth.

This isn’t cruel. Put Matt Pinto in the booth and re-assign Brian Davis as the sideline reporter and put Leslie Mac with Antonio on the post game show. Nobody has to be fired. Nobody has to be a grinch.

Anyway, it’s a good sign for me when that’s the only thing I can bitch about heading into August.

On a sidenote, as a Philly fan, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot never made an impression on me one way or another. A bit of a project, but clearly an athlete with fluidity and speed. Maybe they can turn him into another Thabo—although I guess he was Swiss. Here’s the thing though, he was the 24th player selected in the first round of the 2016 draft. So, in essence–Presti is already hedging on the 2022 conditional first round pick he just gave up to make today’s trade. Watching this dude is like reading a Michael Lewis book on commodity values. He’s always thinking two moves ahead. I think he has a history degree as well.

The third leg of golf’s Grand Slam begins in less than an hour with the beginning of the 147th British Open.

And what a glorious Grand Slam it has been so far this golf season with Patrick Reed holding off Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth with some of the grittiest golf ever displayed at Augusta National.

Then the U.S. Open where Brooks Keopka overtook Dustin Johnson with a win which puts him in elite company as one of the game’s current greats.

Jordan Spieth has struggled a bit this season with the putter. Yet, since 2015, he has been golf’s pre-eminent player in golf’s major events. Since 2015–Spieth has the lowest aggregate score in the majors. And put this on your data card…he’s one putted 360 times in the majors since 2015.

Spieth is a bulldog. A champion’s champion. I’m not picking him to win, but I wouldn’t discount it either.

I love the British Open. I truly do.

I’m going in this order with my picks:

1 Tommy Fleetwood, 2 Rickie Fowler, 3 Patrick Reed, and 4 Jordan Spieth.

It appears the Kawhi Leonard saga is over in San Antonio. Reports have Leonard going to the Raptors with his expiring contract for DeMar DeRozan who has three years remaining on his current deal with a player option in the third year going to the Spurs.

Unlike Little Rush Limbaugh Jr/ Jim Traber…I love Popovich and he’s the NBA coach I’d most want to play for. We both have history degrees. We’re both Anthony Bourdain foodies. He served in the Air Force and both of my father-in-laws were career Air Force. So—in a way thru them…like Pop I’m an Air Force guy who hates Trump.

The Spurs had no choice. They had to get an All-Star caliber player for Leonard. I have no idea if Leonard stays in Toronto, but he will quickly realize he was just traded to the coolest city in the NBA. My guess is he will love it in Toronto.

DeRozan was a USC guy and probably isn’t thrilled to be moving to a Trump hard red state place like San Antonio, but I’m going to guess Pop pushes the right buttons and things turn out decent in San Antonio.

So…with this trade I would probably put the Spurs and the Thunder in a dead heat to battle for either fourth or fifth in the West.

I’m happy for Pop. I was worried about him. He had a rough year.

I’m not going to litter too much on my blog on Donald Trump. I’m not going to gloat either because yesterday and last week were possibly the lowest moments in U.S. presidential history.

Even worse than Nixon’s disgraceful exit from office.

What we have is a president who has pretty much openly committed treason, perjury, and obstruction of justice—and yet his party does nothing.

There is no Howard Baker as I see it on the horizon on the cusp of telling Donald Trump to his face he is unfit for the office.

Mitt Romney might want to revise his 47% comments from 2012. What Romney would need to say in circa 2018 is that 47% of the people who are members of the GOP shouldn’t be allowed to vote in national elections and compromise the national security of the United States.

The scary thing is Mike Pence’s comments yesterday were even more clueless than those of Donald Trump.

Can any honest person discount what would be said by these 47% if Barack Obama had done what Donald Trump did yesterday in Helsinki?

A great week-end for the OKC Thunder, but the truth of the matter is after spending nearly $300 million dollars this team is probably around a four or five seed in the West. If you’re going to spend that kind of money you better be prepared for LeBron and Kawhi in LA and the Warriors never standing pat.

It makes no sense to put that money in the pot and not even be the favorite to win the Northwest Division. We know where the Lakers are going. We know the Warriors just added DeMarcus Cousins. But on a positive note the Rockets lost Trevor Ariza.

Here’s the simple truth, Sam Presti needs another really good player and I don’t mean Nerlen Noels. A difference maker. Preferably.. a hybrid guard who’ll be the Sixth Man.

Eric Gordon would be good. Marcus Smart could possibly help this team or so could several other Boston players.

I’m assuming Sam Presti has another move coming.

Nerlen Noels University of Kentucky 6th player taken in 2013 draft