Mark Rubin

Dear Mr. President

December 23, 2018
Mark Rubin
dear mr. president

President Donald Trump

Dear Mr. President:

I’m one of your constituents. I write because I’m concerned about you. Very concerned!

You tell us regularly that we’re not paying attention to your accomplishments. Wall under construction. Tax cuts. Stock market at record levels. No more nukes in North Korea. NATO nations—not allies, just nations—paying more bigly, because of you. Black Americans better off then ever before. And, always, you’re da Best!

We hear a different story, but that’s all Fake News, right? That’s what you say, almost every day, on Twitter. Must be true, for you’re our POTUS. You’d never tell a tale, Mr. President, would you. Not you.

Still, here you are, stuck in a public housing dump in the

Continue reading...
,
The Rest of Everything
Leave a comment

USPS – Go Post Office!

December 18, 2018
Mark Rubin

USPS – Go Post Office!

I saw a post on FB the other day, dissing the United Stated Postal Service. I don’t recall the words, but I remember how I felt: Pissed Off! I’m a big USPS fan, and reflexive jabs at it “anger up my blood.” (Satchel Paige – maybe the best baseball pitcher ever – said “avoid fried foods, which angry up the blood.” Me? Fried foods good; dissing USPS bad.)

I shop often on eBay, and I’m the a-m-a-t-e-u-r in my life. (LB loves eBay and the USPS, and she does eBay way better than I ever will.) Almost everything arrives via the Post Office. On time. Unbroken. And with a smile and more from

Continue reading...
, , ,
The Rest of Everything
1 Comment

Real Attorneys, Working

May 5, 2018
Mark Rubin

Real Attorneys, Working

Rudy

Rudy Giuliani

From time to time I write about subjects, even though I lack a deep, personal knowledge base. G-d bless the Internet, which provides ready access to reliable sources. (Yes, I believe the MSM. Working journalists—people, mostly underpaid relative to societal value, who seek truth—get the story right, mostly.) With a functioning brain which can string together sentences and organize them into paragraphs, I write posts people read. And I sleep well, comfortable that I am not offering Fake News.

Then there are those moments when I write with first-hand knowledge. Like, about real attorneys, working.

So, what do we—working attorneys—do all day? Lots. My days include telephone conferences with clients and other, along

Continue reading...
, , ,
Law, The Rest of Everything
Leave a comment

Sh*thole Countries, Trump, Differences, and MLK Day

January 15, 2018
Mark Rubin

Sh*thole Countries, Trump, Differences, and MLK Day

sh*tholemlk

Sh*thole Countries

In an immigration meeting on Thursday President Donald Trump posed this question: “Why do we want all these people from Africa here? They’re shithole countries … We should have more people from Norway.” (Mr. Trump also linked Haiti to his comment.)

Trump

First, let’s dispense with ‘did he say it’ inquiries. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) confirmed the statement. Staffers at the White House claimed the comment would play well with Trump’s supporters. Initially, the White House did not deny the reports. And Mr. Trump bragged about the comment to his friends.

Second, shame on those elected Republicans – almost of those who have addressed the comment –

Continue reading...
, , , ,
The Rest of Everything
Leave a comment

Happy New Year

January 2, 2018
Mark Rubin

Happy New Year

happy new year

Mark Rubin

Days go by fast or slow, depending on what’s up, my mood, etc. Weeks and months and years? They pass like a train in the biggest hurry to get to who knows where. 2018 already? Incredible!

With yet another loss at the end of a year, my mind wandered to an emblem of aging: more funerals than weddings. Googling that phrase took me to Ecclesiastes 7:2: It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. Hmmm! From writings which include the reminder that there’s a time for everything and a season

Continue reading...
, , , , , , ,
The Rest of Everything
Leave a comment

Kathy Griffin and President Donald J. Trump

May 31, 2017
Mark Rubin

Kathy Griffin and President Donald J. Trump

Whither Kathy Griffin and the head! Don’t look for the head here. Or for any references to stories about it, for reasons which will become evident in short order.

President Donald J. Trump told us two weeks ago that “[n]o politician in history—and I say this with great surety—has been treated worse or more unfairly.” Uh, OK. If we ignore your bullsh*t claims about where your predecessor was born. If we ignore the decision by the Republican Congress to fight President Obama at every turn, in an attempt to make him a one-term president and, after he was re-elected, to interfere with his legislative agenda in unprecedented ways. And—because we all work

Continue reading...
,
The Rest of Everything
2 Comments

The First 100 Days: Some Thoughts (Part 1 of 2)

April 29, 2017
Mark Rubin

The first 100 days of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States came and went today.* For smart, take-no-prisoners analysis from the absolutely terrific Editor-in-Chief of the New Yorker, David Remnick, read A Hundred Days of Trump. And for an “outside the box,” kinda-sorta view, read Andrew Sullivan’s piece for New York magazine, Maybe America Wasn’t Crazy to Elect Donald Trump.

I have a somewhat different take. Mr. Trump correctly notes the fact that 100 days mean nothing, really. And the fact that he made the 100 days a big deal several times (before he realized he has accomplished zippo), and can’t decide which side of the line he wants to be on—both, as usual, seems

Continue reading...
The Rest of Everything
Leave a comment

Donald Trump Steals Stuff. Goods and Services. And More!

October 1, 2016
Mark Rubin

Donald Trump steals stuff. Goods and services. From regular people, like you and me.

He stole $30,000* worth of pianos from the Freehold Music Center in Freehold N.J. (Details here.) He took more than $100,000 worth of telecom services from a company by Brian Walsh’s father. (Here’s the skinny. Worth noting? Mr. Walsh works for a Republican public affairs firm, and while he won’t vote for Donald Trump, he won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton, either.) From among the 100+ additional reports about Donald Trump stealing goods and services, his theft from the people who catered the Marla Maples wedding stands out. (Read about it here.)

Ranking Mr. Trump’s defalcations—taxes, charity, women, ignorance, boorishness, etc.—escapes me.

Continue reading...
The Rest of Everything
Leave a comment

Protest Votes = Wasted Votes!

September 24, 2016
Mark Rubin

Protest votes = wasted votes! I protested in my first two elections. Forty years ago I skipped the top line on the ballot, and four years later, in 1980, I voted for John Anderson, a Republican congressman running as an independent.

I got a pass with my protest votes, for they affected outcomes not at all. In my state the candidates I was least likely to vote for—President Gerald Ford (running against the man who beat him, Governor Jimmy Carter) and Governor Ronald Reagan (who beat President Carter)—won. Still, I felt righteous and pure, and also knew our nation would survive, no matter what. (I had history with the Carters in the 1976 Wisconsin primary, which is why I

Continue reading...
, ,
The Rest of Everything
2 Comments

How low can you go, Donnie Boy?

August 9, 2016
Mark Rubin

From the world of “How low can you go, Donnie Boy,” here’s Limbo Rock by Chubby Checker. So, how low did Donald J. Trump go today? Well, the New York Times has the story in a very balanced piece by Nick Corasiniti and Maggie Haberman: Donald Trump Suggests ‘Second Amendment People’ Could Act against Hillary Clinton. Here’s the money quote:

If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.

Michael Hayden, the retired Four Star Air Force General and former head of the National Security Agency, responded as well as anyone can when he said: “I used to tell my seniors at the

Continue reading...
, , , ,
The Rest of Everything
Leave a comment