I came home from Italy with a cold. The first one in a few years. I thought I had come back with all these ideas to write about, but even though I feel well enough to write, unusually for me, I find I have nothing to say. 

One thing that's nice about going away from the US for a week is I feel removed from the Trump madness. I was unable to keep up my steady diet of Maddow. I got home on Monday night just as she was coming on. I couldn't get into it. Same thing has happened each night since.

So much of what people report seems to be showing that Trump is inconsistent and ill-informed, and irresponsible. But this is already factored in. The guy is a shameless kleptocrat. He's almost certainly maneuvering the country to make himself richer. He probably already is much richer than he was when he took office. Before long he will pass Putin as the richest person in the world. 

As with the kleptocrats who ran the Bush II government, Cheney and the defense contractors, this is a very inefficient way to transfer wealth. Too much waste. Someone should try to make a deal with Trump and the Repubs. Resign, you get to keep all you stole plus a premium. Surrender your Twitter account and finish your days playing golf all around the world with other rich folk. They can even teach you how things work, how exciting for you, now that you seem to care! 

I guess I had something to say after all. :balloon:

PS: Another idea. Since Putin gave us Trump maybe he should have to take possession of him after he leaves? Or maybe he and his hackers can figure out how to get him to leave sooner? We can make it worth his while. I bet by now Putin has buyer's remorse. If POTUS blows up the world, Putin and Russia are blown up too. There's no magic shield that protects him from Trumpocalypse.

PPS: I was going to point to an article on a news website about Putin being the richest guy in the world, and while the major sites are much faster than they used to be, they are all still too offensive to point to. Time, for example, starts playing music almost as soon as the page loads, and then starts playing video. What if you're working in an office or reading in a library? Can't point to that. And US News pops up a Subscribe dialog before it lets you read anything. Now that's just insulting. So I left out the pointers. Trust me. A lot of news orgs think he's the richest guy. You can do the search yourself. 

PPPS: The NBA playoffs start on Saturday. I'll make a guess for the first time on this blog. Boston vs Golden State, with GS winning in five. 

PPPPS: If only the old Mission Impossible team were still around, in a dark corner of the CIA or KGB. They could give Trump a drug to convince him that he won. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain would play the role of Kushner and Ivanka. It doesn't matter what he won, just that he won. Yes yes, you won, you really won, you were tremendous, you are the greatest, now goodbye! 

PPPPPS: One more thing then I really have to go. This was my first trip to Europe, ever, where I had good connectivity all the time, thanks to Google Fi. It worked everywhere, reasonably well, all things considered. My last trip to Italy, even though I had T-Mobile, which was supposed to be good in Europe, I never got online at all.