by Michael DePaoli

(Michael DePaoli is a bored, certified attorney in both Arizona and California—that latter BAR exam ain’t easy, pardner– and the author of the eBook: Movie Theatre Therapy; and he is the creator of the Youtube videos: Tachistoscope, and Tachistoscope Sunsets)

1. WORLD LEADERSHIP

Did Borat support Trump? “Verrrrry nice!”

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN

Over the last two days in this city in the central Asian city, Turkey (where Donald Trump has an interest in a large office/hotel/retail complex), and Russia (a country that for some reason or another has a fascinating hold over Trump), along with Iran and select Syrian rebel groups, held a meeting to discuss peace. It appears that a flimsy ceasefire agreement might have been forged. Of course, Trump and the bulk of the media and most of the USA were all too overly concerned about the size of Trump’s crowd to notice that in the Trump Kingdom the words “America First” really mean that we are going to allow Russia and Turkey to have more power and more influence over an extremely unstable part of the World.

2. Oscars: Out of Reacher

The Academy Award Nominations were announced this morning. It appears that once again the Members of the Academy have snubbed Tom Cruise. I mean, come on, if the award might be about “acting” then Cruise should win it every single year he makes a movie. Wait, just hear me out, because if the press reports and interviews could be believed, then Tom Cruise (his stage name) is nothing more than a confused, dorky, drama-geek type of loser kid who had an abusive father and who attended fifteen schools in fourteen years. Seriously, if people just read the Wikipedia article on Cruise they might stop hating on him. So, the reality is that Tom Cruise is a messed up human being, just like the rest of us. But, on screen, he plays the consummate and studly cool guy. His performance in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was stunning, because he was acting, because that is not who he is in real life. If the Best Actor award were based upon the creation of a fictional persona (i.e. acting), then Tom Cruise should be the winner, every year, because that is what he does, with style.

Anyway, aside from that, my prediction is that someday the Academy Award Nominations will be gender neutral, and when that happens you will see ten women be nominated and zero men be nominated for best actor.

3. MELANIA: LONG FORM IMMIGRATION DOCUMENTS 

Melania puts new emphasis on the term “better half”

I have nothing against Melania. She is gorgeous and personable and wonderful. Indeed, she has the appearance of a highly-trained and lethal KGB spy handler who has been assigned the impossible task of protecting an orangutan. The problem is that I believe in justice and fairness, and I believe that justice and fairness need to trickle down from the top. So, to the extent that Trump really wants to deport millions of people and rip apart families for illegal immigration, he should start with his own family and expose the truth about Melania by releasing her long form immigration documents. I have no idea what “long form” documents might mean in the immigration arena, but I want them released, just because that is what Trump demanded from Obama.

Seriously, Melania was born in a communist country and she is married to a communist sympathizer, so we should really get to the bottom of her immigration by looking at all her documents. To the extent that Trump (the communist sympathizer) does not want Melania to release all her documents about her past, then he should seriously shut up about all other illegal immigrants. Indeed, it is downright disgusting that in a capitalist culture we would want to arrest the people who want nothing more than to work hard and earn a wage.

And, where is Ann Coulter in all of this? I am calling her out, because I remember one of her books where she made such a big deal about communism and spies and the corruption of America, blah, blah. Ms. Coulter is not protecting us from Comrade Trump. Where is she when we need her?