Donald Trump continues looking for a scapegoat to prosecute about his failed ugly botched reflecting pool

Team Algae Trolls Trump’s Botched Paint Project At The Reflecting Pool

First they came for the algae.

Echo opinion published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel by Pat Beall

Then they came for the pink inflatable frog holding the sign that said First They Came for the Algae.

Donald Trump and his minions are grimly contorting themselves into pretzels to find the culprits behind the greening of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. 

Science has a name for it: Scenedesmus, a genus of algae fondly referred to by lab scientists as “Skinny Dead Mouse.”

Make that Skinny Dead Mouse with a knife.

Somebody had to slash a 250-, or 300-, or was it a 350-foot gash, in the pool sealant. There’s no way it could possibly be the construction; nothing ever breaks in construction, not when it’s perfect, the best, the hottest.

Grown men walk up to the edge of the pool lining with tears in their eyes, saying, Thank You, Sir, Thank You, and then even more tears, because they touched the water and now they are in jail.
Off with their heads❗ said Trump of reporter Jonathan Karl of ABC News, who dipped his hand into the public water at the public’s pool, and of a bicyclist who was so baffled by the sight of a floating chunk of blue that he stopped and touched it.

I exaggerate. Of course Trump didn’t really call for a guillotine. He demanded decade-long prison terms.

There are pictures! he thundered.

Do you see these pictures right now, Mr. President❓

“At the right time, you will see it,” he told White House reporters. “You’ll see it in court, but all you have to do is call the parks department, call Deptartment of Interior, and I don’t know if their lawyers will allow you to speak to them, because you know you write fake news.”

I, for one, look forward to blurry photos of shiv-wielding mice in masks.😼

There’s a saying in Palm Beach County, and it goes like this: Everything weird comes to Palm
Beach County.

We are a jack-in-the-box of eldritch oddballs, charming felons, generic hucksters and the truly, filthy rich, as well as the other kind.

So don’t be surprised that Trump’s Reflecting Pool Guy — the one whose company did the water purifying — recently got approval for a new, bright blue pool at his Palm Beach estate. 

Don’t be surprised that John Cafaro’s company secured that no-bid contract to fix up the reflecting pool after throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into Trump’s campaigns.

Perhaps be just a wee bit surprised that he once tried to bribe a congressman, and illegally hid a donation to his own daughter’s political campaign. And even I was surprised to learn he wants to build his new splash pool on the beach.

Yes. A swimming pool on the beach. It’s actually on a tiny spit of soil between a retaining wall and the waves, but still: The hot-tub-on-top-of-bathtub-vibe is strong in this one.

It would be easy to dismiss all this as an amuse bouche, a good snort-laugh before refocusing on the war we’re not in, or what SpaceX shares losing 23% of their value in three days bodes for the stock market.

Indeed, the Reflecting Pool is so much more. When Trump pledged to go after his enemies, supporters shrugged. After all, they weren’t James Comey or Hillary Clinton. But now, the enemy is anyone Trump says it is.

That’s how putting your hand in the water becomes a crime against the state. It’s how a cyclist becomes an enemy of the people.

The cyclist was not just arrested. Police were handcuffing him before telling him what he did wrong, he said. 

No one allowed him to make a phone call for hour, and no one read him his constitutional rights.

This pool is not murky at all. It perfectly reflects Trump’s spiteful, spiraling mental deterioration, complete with delusions of dark conspiracies. Because if Trump’s misfiring synapses can order someone arrested for something as small as this, he can order anyone arrested for anything at all — or for nothing at all.

Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer. 

A very brave U.S. Air Force officer Major Jason Watson stood where cowardly Republicans like Senator Susan Collins are too afraid to show courage

Major Jason Watson is an active-duty U.S. Air Force officer and 17-year logistics veteran who made national headlines in July 2026. He was arrested on the U.S. Capitol steps while in military uniform after publicly calling for the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. 

Air Force Major Jason Watson has never been in combat. He’s an American hero all the same. Echo editorial published in the Sun Sentinel, a South Florida newspaper.

Major Watson spoke his mind and will pay a steep price

Watson is the Air Force Academy graduate who stood in uniform on the U.S. Capitol steps in Washington last week holding a sign saying “Impeach convict remove.”

It took three minutes for the Capitol police to arrest him. That was the least of his concerns.

He’s in Air Force custody now, likely to be court-martialed. Military prison is definitely a possibility. His career is almost certainly over.

Major Watson knew what the price could be for proclaiming in public what so many others in Washington are afraid to say even in private.

Some are the members of Congress, Republicans mostly, who have been abetting Donald Trump’s subversion of the Constitution by doing nothing about it. (Like Republican Senator Susan Collins, for example❗)

Others are military officers disgusted and alarmed by Trump’s military incompetence and how Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (the wino) has been cashiering generals and admirals for being Black, female or simply for their sense of duty and honor.

And yet, precious few of those congressional Republicans have been willing to speak up for the nation’s sake.

For some mysterious reason, they are paralyzed by Trump’s tyrannical passions for power and punishment, as demonstrated by the recent party primary defeats of two respected Republican senators who he opposed.

Unlike officers in uniform, however, politicians have nothing to lose but their paychecks and perks. The “sacred honor” that 56 people pledged to each other on July 4, 1776 — along with their actual lives and fortunes — is long out of fashion in Washington.

The military has rules against campaign activity in uniform. Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice also prohibits commissioned officers from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, members of Congress, the secretary of defense and certain others.

To call for Trump’s well-deserved impeachment may be contemptuous to a court-martial, but it will be seen as courageous elsewhere.

“It’s really a question of how severe those consequences will be,” said retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was chief prosecutor of the alleged al Qaeda terrorists at Guantanamo until he resigned rather than obey orders to use evidence obtained by waterboarding.

“I knew it would end my military career, but I chose to do it anyway, because I thought it was worth it,” Davis said in an email to the Sun Sentinel. “I suspect Major Watson went through the same or similar thought process as me. Unfortunately for him, Trump is far more petty and vindictive than George Bush.”

Davis subsequently won a settlement and damages over being fired from the Congressional Research Service for newspaper op-eds criticizing President Obama’s failure to reform the process.

In 2020, he was the Democratic nominee for Congress in a deep-red western North Carolina congressional district.

According to the Washington Post, Major Watson’s protest wasn’t his first. He was an anonymous, masked participant holding an “Impeach convict remove” sign during a 22-day hunger strike last year. That got no attention. It occurred to him what would.

“In the grand scheme of things, I’m just a nobody,” he told the media before climbing the Capitol steps. “What matters far more than who I am is what I have to say and the price I’m willing to pay to say it.”

By coincidence, another well-publicized demonstration occurred in Washington on the Fourth of July. Hundreds of members of the Patriot Front, a white supremacist group, paraded through the capital. Some carried Confederate flags.

Nearly all of them wore masks, lacking the individual courage of a solitary Air Force major with a career and his freedom at stake.

Jason Watson showed them — and all of America — what true patriotism is.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant.

Donald Trump is a loser in the Iran war's "on again and off again" quasi peace talks. JD Vance is acting like a passenger on the Titanic

A very unpopular war, fought very badly: 

Florida Sun Sentinel Editorial

Donald Trump cheat and lies about everything.  Trump has no idea what he is doing in the Iran war that he created. So he invents stuff on a daily basis with a "ground-hog day" demented style deeply-flawed mentality. Obviously, JD Vance is unqualified to handle the negotiations.

With the Iran bombing paused yet again (on-again and off-again) and negotiations beginning for the umpteenth time, Donald Trump’s war has finally accomplished something considered unthinkable.

It has united red and blue America because everyone can find something in the Iran treaty proposal to detest.
America did not declare war on Iran. Trump did❗ Americans never had a chance to debate putting American blood and treasure at risk. Trump made sure of it.

Congress was kept in the dark. Trump wanted it that way. Now, Trump owns the war that claimed the lives of 13 American service members and many scores of Iranian schoolgirls.

He owns the still-unfolding economic havoc it created. He owns its unpopularity. A June AP-NORC poll showed 65% of Americans were displeased with his handling of the war, with only a majority of Republicans that are politically forced into being supportive.

A one-sided capitulation

He also owns the justifiably reviled terms of a treaty that might — or might not — end it.

Anyone who reads the outline of those terms knows that despite Washington’s lipstick-on-a-pig posturing, if America can exit this war at all, it will do so as the biggest loser.

Iran will be gifted a $300 billion reconstruction fund paid for by the U.S. and unspecified partners.

It can start selling its oil again at market rates, a massive win after being squeezed for years by U.S. sanctions. Other tankers can now freely transit the Strait of Hormuz, just as they could before the war, with no tolls.

But that’s only for 60 days. Once unthinkable, Iran now knows how to make money by blocking access to the crucial waterway, and despite the treaty talks, is already making plans to do so.

No limits on missiles

There are no restrictions on Iran building new missiles, either❓

It would not be fair to say no to Iran on that, Trump explained. Besides, he said, the Iranian leadership he once derided as “deranged scumbags” and “animals” were now “nice to deal with.”

Perhaps that is why he believes Iran will commit to not building a nuclear weapon, although it had already pledged not to do so in President Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Ever the narcissistic showman, Trump famously ripped it in two, paving the way for increased enriched uranium stockpiling, which, he once said, was the reason for this war.

As for helping the Iranian protesters that Trump once declared America would rescue? Well guess what❓

That’s not even on the table.

Living under the constant threat of Iranian-supported terrorism, Israelis have more reason to attack Iran than America, and more experience in recognizing a treacherous deal. And 92% of Israelis believe Iran has won.

True to form, the Trump administration responded to Tel Aviv criticism with a threat.

Israelis, said Vice President JD Vance, should not attack “the only powerful ally (they have) anywhere left in the entire world.”

But Trump’s war showed the world that America is not the all-powerful friend of any Mideast country.

We could not protect Iran’s neighbors and our allies from bombardment by Iran. Cheap drones rendered our battleships ineffective at keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, despite daily chest-thumping about how many bombs we were dropping.

We have fought a bad war badly, not because of our skilled and brave troops, but because of the men who led them.

That’s why Vance is not actually in Switzerland negotiating a treaty to end Trump’s war.

He’s negotiating how much money America will have to pay to make it all go away before the midterms.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board

Donald Trump continues to look for ways to prevent him and his crime family from IRS audits

Echo opinion letter published in the Florida Sun Sentinel news:

Donald Trump’s anti-weaponization slush💲 fund has been cancelled. (For now 😓😒)

Even usually compliant Republicans balked at rewarding Januart 6 rioters for the inconvenience they suffered being convicted of and then pardoned by Donald Trump for attacking the U.S. Capitol.

In Yiddish, rewarding criminal behavior is “chutzpah.” North Carolina’s outgoing Republican senator, Thom Tillis, called it “stupid on stilts.”

An unrelated provision, insulating Trump his family and their affiliated enterprises from IRS audits, remains intact. 

But, after criminal Trump is out of office, the IRS can return to business as usual and may begin an audit, which the Trump crime family will argue is prohibited by the dubious provision insulating them from audits.

The legality of that provision will come before the courts, so even though the provision masquerades as a legal settlement, it will not survive the legal justification that exempts Trump and associates from the IRS.

Call it “chutzpah on stilts.”

From  Sheldon I. Saitlin, Boca Raton, Florida

Donald Trump and maga cult supporters want to steal $1,8 billion of our tax money to create a slush fund and tRump is not backing down!

Echo opinion letter published in the Sun Sentinel, a South Florida newspaper:

On the infamous date of January 6, 2021, as I settled in to eat lunch and watch Congress count the presidential electoral vote on TV, I became an eyewitness to one of the worst days in our history.

I saw every frightening, disturbing moment unfold live, and I was distressed for hours. I wondered where the cavalry was to stop this violent insurrection by traitors and torture of the poor police officers and terrible threats to members of Congress running and hiding in terror.

So what insanity reigns that these dangerous violent convicted criminals, including Nazi sympathizers and racist white supremacist extremists, not only were pardoned by Trump, but now will be given $1.8 billion? It’s beyond belief.

Trump has taken huge sums of money that could pay for food for children, education and healthcare for the poor, and is giving it to vicious traitors. A special “MAGA tax” is in order to pay this outrageous loyalty payoff. The rest of us should refuse to pay taxes, like the Trump, but now will be given 💲1.8 billion❗ It’s beyond belief.

Trump has taken huge sums of money that could pay for food for children, education and healthcare for the poor, and is giving it to vicious traitors. A special “MAGA tax” is in order to pay this outrageous loyalty payoff. The rest of us should refuse to pay taxes, like the Trumps do.

From Elin Shusterman, in Boynton Beach, Florida

Donald Trump slush fund is an evil reward to support convicted criminals and the money will be used to bribe GOP candidates

Slush fund is the biggest heist in history | Editorial

The evil Trump who boasted that he could get away with murder on Fifth Avenue is pulling off something just as brazen. 

Donald Trump intends to reward people who tried to steal the 2020, election for him is the biggest heist in our history.

It’s like breaking into Fort Knox and driving off with a truckload of bullion.

Todd Blanche, his obsequious acting attorney general, also agreed to immunize America’s real-life Goldfinger, his entire family and their business from IRS audits, fines and penalties or prosecution for whatever tax violations they may have committed.

That corrupt bargain may save the Trumps 💲100 million, by some estimates. Al Capone’s ghost must be green with envy.

DtRrump was already by far the most corrupt ❗American president. But his grifting had been largely at the expense of foreign governments and other interests.

But, no more. His “anti-weaponization (aka "slush")  fund” is a new frontier in graft, a direct theft from taxpayers. 

In fact, it is the most corrupt act in presidential history. It lacks even the pretense of the bogus lawsuit that Trump withdrew when a federal judge saw it for a sleazy sham.

The Big Steal: Trump definitely deserves a third impeachment — another reason to elect a Democratic Congress in November — and one more indictment when his term ends, as this Big Steal has nothing to do with any official duty.

As for Blanche, he should be disbarred ❗ as fast as New York authorities can manage it. Trump is his former personal client as well as his present boss; there couldn’t be a more glaring conflict of interest for any lawyer.

Of note: Blanche’s Department of Justice is suing the District of Columbia Bar to thwart discipline of two other Trump stooges. 

And it proposes a regulation to suppress bar proceedings anywhere, against any present or former DOJ lawyer such as Blanche himself.

A federal court has, thankfully, already put a temporary hold on the fund until a June 12, hearing. The courts are Americans’ only hope of stopping this theft; Trump owns Congress through his control of MAGA voters who decide Republican primaries.

He’s been on a roll on that front, gloating over the defeat of such principled politicians as Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to remove him from office in 2021; Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who fought to publish the Epstein files; and Brad Raffensperger in Georgia, who as Secretary of State refused to “find” phony votes for Trump in 2021, and who just ran for governor.

The coup de grace: Texas

The climax came Tuesday in Texas with Sen. John Cornyn’s defeat by the criminal Ken Paxton, the sleazy state attorney general, a leading election denier for Trump who had been impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature over allegations of bribery and obstruction.

Trump’s revenge tour also took down five Indiana state senators who had voted against the midterm gerrymandering to which Florida’s gutless Republicans have agreed. South Carolina’s GOP legislators deserve a special medal of courage for refusing to redistrict Jim Clyburn, a widely respected senior Black Democrat, out of his seat, too.

Belatedly, some GOP senators seem to have finally had it with Trump. They were shouting at Blanche behind closed doors last week when he refused to rule out payments to the hoodlums who tried to kill police officers protecting them on Jan. 6, 2021.

Republican Thom Tillis, who is not running for re-election in North Carolina, called the slush fund “stupid on stilts.” He and others see the GOP losing the midterms on Trump’s account, as they should, for indulging him.

Scandals, incorporated

There’s no short list of Trump’s corruption scandals; more than 100 by one count. Some of the most glaring:

• Crippling the Commodity Futures 
• Trading Commission to lay off the prediction markets 
• cryptocurrency industry in which the Trumps are deeply involved;
• Easing AI chip sale restrictions for the United Arab Emirates after it invested $2 billion in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family crypto business;
• Accepting a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, a foreign government, and promising to defend it from attacks; and
• Pardoning Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, who had been in prison for serious banking law violations. The pardon lets him run Binance again and benefit the Trumps’ crypto business.

An honest president and a responsible Congress would put a quick stop to the corruption. Repairing Trump’s vandalism of the economy, the treasury, almost every agency and institution of the government, our foreign relations and our national reputation and, not least, our national self-respect, will take much longer.

None of it — not even the slush fund — is as dangerous as the political legacy Trump has created by cultivating MAGA into a cancer on the Republican Party and on the country.

Trump saw and exploited a significant bloc of voters who do not care about democracy the way Americans are supposed to. They will still be there when Trump is long gone, ready for the next man on horseback to point them in the direction of their bigotries and fears.

From the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board 

Donald Trump is creating a treasonous slush fund to reward criminal insurrectionist supporters- using our tax money!

Echo opinion letters published in the Sun Sentinel, a South Florida newspaper:

Maine Writer opinion:  Donald Trump is telling his storm troopers to prepare for a January 6th encore insurrection by assuring them of his intention to compensate their evil fealty. ⚠️

January 6, 2021 Trump evil storm troopers will be compensated if the slush fund is permitted. But I believe Trump also intends to use this  💲1.8 million to pay collaborators to keep Republicans in kowtow positions.

Only in the U.S.A. can you get a mob together, march to the U.S. Capitol, cause millions of dollars in damage, assault the police, have members of Congress fear for their lives and subsequently be charged, only to be pardoned by the man in the White House.

How am I doing so far❓

Now the same person sets up a “slush fund” to the tune of 💲1.8 billion, an anti-weaponization fund which is blantly illegal in return for never having to be audited by the IRS.

The same person does not care about the financial condition of the citizens of this country, but he wants to reward those who damaged the Capitol. You can bet they will apply for compensation. I wonder if that will include the families of officers who died or committed suicide.

Surely a sad 😥day in America’s history.

From — Pat Eland in Delray Beach, Florida

Trump sinks lower and lower

According to Trump, Iran’s weapons have been annihilated. We won the war. Our economy is better than ever. Food costs are down. Gas will go down soon.  So why do I feel sick to my stomach❓🤢

Because Trumpzi, his family and Cabinet are existential threats to America. We stand by and watch Trump destroy all the safeguards of our institutions while Russia and China revel in the demise of our democracy. While so many suffer, our president enriches himself, his family and his cronies. These despicable acts are the norm of this administration.

Just when I think Trump can’t sink any lower, he pulls another act of sick retribution: a slush fund for the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol. The king of criminality wants to compensate the offenders whom he has already pardoned.

Donald Trump, who called his treasonous supporters (a.k.a. "storm troopers") to arms, wants our tax dollars 💲 to compensate these tyrants. And to think he was elected twice❗ A self-proclaimed king👑 ⚠️💢will be remembered for his savage disrespect for America, its people, and all it stands for.

We must vote as one. Our lives, children’s and grandchildren’s lives depend on our actions. The only way is with truth and justice — the American way.

From — Esther Feit, Delray Beach in Florida

Donald Trump and maga Republicans are stealing taxpayer money to build ugly Trumpian "brand down" relics

A failed president and his edifice complex | Editorial

Published in the Sun Sentinel in Florida

In September 1941, the death of a family member prompted President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to say how he should be remembered.

Dump tRump #ImpeachNOW ❗

One of America’s greatest presidents wanted only a plain block of stone, about the size of his desk, to be placed on the front lawn of the National Archives Building, with the words “In memory of … ”

Friends — not the government — installed it, 20 years after he died. It’s still there, although a more elaborate memorial to one of our greatest presidents now stands beside the Tidal Basin.

An elegant simplicity

Another great president, Thomas Jefferson, also insisted on simplicity. The epitaph on his gravestone would state only that he had written the Declaration of Independence and Virginia’s Statute for Religious Freedom and had founded the University of Virginia — not that he was elected president twice.

The accidental president, Gerald Ford, pocket-vetoed a bill to name a Michigan post office for him, writing that it would be “improper for me as an incumbent president to approve legislation which places my name on a federal building. This is a precedent I do not wish to establish.”

Such modesty is lost on Donald Trump, who constantly memorializes himself with monuments to bad taste, from Washington to West Palm Beach.

He slapped his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; intends to build a vastly oversized ballroom in place of the White House East Wing he razed without Congress’ consent; proposes a triumphal arch larger than any that the ancient emperors built for themselves, which would crudely overshadow Arlington National Cemetery; and plans an enormous “Garden of Heroes” with 250 statutes of notable Americans among whom, one suspects, there will be yet another gilt image of Donald John Trump, fist raised.

When asked by a CBS News reporter whom the arch would honor, Trump replied ‘Me’.”

Trump's ugly and unpopular name is on a State Department building. His image is on gold commemorative coins, passports and national park passes. His signature is going on paper currency. He wants a new class of white elephant battleships to be named for him.

And the airport, of course

The licensing deal for Palm Beach International Airport to be named for him, as demanded by a law the state Legislature passed without local consent, requires a logo resembling the White House seal, in — you guessed it — gold with gold stars.

The renaming and branding will cost taxpayers $5.5 million and Trump will control who will be allowed to operate concessions there.

Trump’s personal edifice complex is unmoored to any qualifying achievements or to any corresponding esteem from any sector of the public, other than MAGA diehards.

In a new Washington Post-Ipsos poll, Trump’s approval rating has sunk to 37% and his disapproval has climbed to 62%. His approval among Republicans was 85%, but among independents it’s 25%.

Across the entire electorate, the public disapproves of how he’s handling every major issue, especially inflation, the cost of living, the overall economy and his illegal war.

He argues heedlessly that he needs the colossal ballroom to protect him from potential assassins, with the recent attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as the pretext.

But that thought conflicts with his personality, because it presumes that he would hunker down in the White House, never leaving for MAGA rallies or rounds of golf. It would not be an acceptable venue for independent associations that need to keep a respectful distance from whoever is president. The East Room was adequate for John F. Kennedy’s state dinners and for the one to which Trump welcomed King Charles III last week.

A poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias,” taught to generations of Florida high school students, is still listed in the state language arts curriculum. It behooves Trump to read it. It’s short enough that he could do so, without having someone read it to him:

I met a traveler from an antique land,

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert … Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant.

Donald Trump ugly memes might be his audition for a future career

Echo opinion published in the Florida Sun Sentinel

Bedeviled by the pope | Pat Beall

Pat Beall is an editorial writer and columnist for the Sun Sentinel, focusing mainly on Palm Beach County issues.

I imagine what would happen if Pope Leo took my calls❓☎️

He’d be a nice guy, of course. Too polite to point out that I am likely just one more heathen, bound to spend eternity as smoldering charcoal.

“My child,” he’d say, “I understand you have questions about the Antichrist. You are not alone, I assure you."

Oh, I know. A world leader posting an image of himself as Jesus Christ laying hands on what appears to be either Jon Stewart or Jeffrey Epstein is not automatically horn-and-tails material.

Or is it❓

“I thought it was me as a doctor,” Trump said about the ugly picture in his hideous post.

Doctors❓ Only with bombs bursting in air, twin eagles threatening, soldiers flying, a cloaked Trump healing, handfuls of white light and the miracle of thick hair no longer in need of a combover.

Well. That explains the robed surgeons. The winged proctologists.

“All this is giving off Antichrist-adjacent vibes,” I’d fret.

And so I’d lay it out for the pontiff. The Great Deceiver will have one great secret which he will tell no one. (Epstein Files.) He tricks good people who should know better. (The 77 million people who voted for him.)

He will seem to have a mortal ear wound, but lo, it was healed, and the whole earth wondered at this. (Massive cotton wad on ear.)

But mostly, I worry, the big evidence is that every devil comes with their own imp.  I speak now of JD Vance.  (Yes, the Hillbilly.)

“Pope Leo XIV should be careful when he talks about theology,” warned the newbie Catholic convert, threatening the 267th pope in a religion that dates to 30 A.D.  (Maine Writer:  This quote from Hillbilly Vance gets a "dummy" of the year award.)

And this, we should note, is not the first time Vance has tussled with a pope. Back in April 2025, he traveled to Rome to meet with Pope Francis, a fierce critic of Trump’s snatch, imprison and sort it out later immigration policy.

Vance smiled and nodded and held to his belief that ordor amoris, the “order of love,” requires that citizens must prioritize their families and those closest to them. Maybe other people, maybe later on.

He told the pope he would pray for his health. The pope died the next day.

Trump mourned his passing by posting an image of himself as the next pope.

Vance said he embraced Catholicism seven years ago because he was fed up with “a society oriented entirely towards consumption and pleasure.” Like massive ballrooms with grand stairs leading absolutely nowhere. Or a skimpily clad lady in a gigantic martini glass on the lawn of Mar-a-Lago. Or a 💲300,000, two-story high golden statue of yourself at your Doral golf club.

Vance looked at this bright shiny basket of iniquities and announced: “That’s my guy❗”🙄

So too did Trump spiritual advisor Paula White-Cain, who compared the president’s torments to those of Jesus. “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” she mourned. Also? “To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God.”

Then, because Trump cannot help himself, and also because White-Cain told people not to say no, the president followed up with another bit of blasphemy: an image of Jesus with his arm around him, haloed in soft light.

To further prove his spiritual bonafides and teensy-tiny soul, he stripped Catholic Charities of $11 million to house children.

“A lot of people weren’t understanding his humor,” explained Vance of Trump’s holier-than-thou postings.

“Actually, a lot of people were,” the endlessly likeable Leo would tell me on our phone call.

“He is bedeviling us all,” I’d say. “And I’m beginning to think those big ankles are really hooves in hosiery.”

So, is he, or isn’t he❓

“No, Trump is not the devil,” the pope would assure me.

He’s just auditioning for the part.

Pat Beall is a Sun Sentinel columnist and editorial writer.

Donald Trump has a fixation on creating cruelty.

File under "You cannot make this stuff up".  

Donald Trump’s latest fantastic notion is to repurpose Alcatraz Island, one of the National Park Service’s most popular historical sites, as the remote, isolated California prison it used to be.

Nothing about it makes sense.

It was costing nearly three times as much to operate as other federal prisons, which is why Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy made the sensible decision to close it in 1963.

Every necessity, such as fuel, food and water, had to be barged in. The buildings, visibly crumbling in the salty environment of San Francisco Bay, needed major repairs. Contrary to legend, it wasn’t escape-proof, either.

A total waste of money💲💰❗

The 💲151 million that Trump is asking Congress to squander on Alcatraz would barely begin to restore it as a prison. The operating expenses would be as extreme as before, if not more so.

But at least he’s asking Congress, rather than acting by imperial fiat like he did by destroying the White House’s East Wing for a grotesquely oversized monument to bad taste.

Congress should say no.

What’s most interesting about his Alcatraz fantasy is how it displays Trump’s obsessions with symbolism and cruelty.

Trump has written of it as a “symbol of law, order and JUSTICE.” What he means is punishment as hard as possible, at least for the criminals he doesn’t see fit to pardon.

Trump was clearly under the impression that no one had ever escaped from Alcatraz. That’s debatable. Over 29 years, according to the Bureau of Prisons, 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes. Five of them are still listed as “missing and presumed drowned.”

Although San Francisco Bay is cold, the fitness icon Jack La Lanne once swam to the island pulling a rowboat, and several children also made the swim.

It would disappoint Trump to know there are no man-eating sharks.

A Clint Eastwood movie: Clint Eastwood's movie “Escape from Alcatraz,” may be all Trump knows about the subject. Eastwood's movie depicts the 1962, escape of three men who broke out of the main cellblock and vaulted a fence to the water without being seen. The FBI closed that case after 17 years, believing they had drowned, but it’s still on the active books of the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Bureau of Prisons has a super-maximum facility in Florence, Colorado, that’s far tougher than Alcatraz ever was.

Inmates, including the Mexican drug czar and escape artist known as El Chapo, spends 23 hours a day in a cell roughly the size of a parking place. Their only view of the outside world is a patch of sky seen through a window four inches wide.

It’s an escape deterrent designed to keep them from knowing even what wing of the prison they’re in.

Robert Hanssen, the Soviet spy in the FBI who’s still considered the nation’s worst-ever security breach, was at ADX Colorado for 21 years until his death three years ago.

The Colorado supermax, nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” should satisfy anyone’s thirst for harsh punishment. As one former warden described it, “We’ve figured out a system that’s far beyond death.”

But, in Trump’s mind, the public apparently needs to see something that’s more symbolic than an out-of-the way complex in remote Colorado.

‘We think he’s mad’: As far as the public seems to be concerned, Alcatraz is perfectly fine as a historical site. Some 1.4 million people visit it every year, many of them foreign tourists, and San Francisco is aghast at the prospect of losing that revenue stream to Trump’s crazy 😠😓whims❗

The scheme is far enough along that Pam Bondi visited the island with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, whose department owns it now. (This was before Trump fired the pathetic Pam Bondi as attorney general.)

Alcatraz began as a military fortress and lighthouse, then became a military prison, converted to civilian use in 1933. It had become a white elephant by 1962, the year the Burt Lancaster movie “Birdman of Alcatraz” was nominated for Academy Awards.

A New York Times reporter working on a story about Trump’s pipe dream interviewed a British couple, Tony and Deb Vickery, while they were visiting Alcatraz. They mentioned having sailed through the Panama Canal and Canada, two other Trump acquisition targets.

“We think he’s mad,” Ms. Vickery said. “We think he’s lost his marbles.”

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board in South Florida.

Donald Trump and maga Republicans like Senator Rick Scott and Senator Susan Collins are ignoring their constituents' voices

Echo opinion published in the Sun Sentinel Florida newspaper by Katherine "Kitty" Donovan:  This is not what Republicans voted for.

In Maine Writer's opinion, this excellent opinion could just as well have been written about Maine Senator Susan Collins.

I am a lifelong Republican from Boca Raton. I never imagined I would be writing something like this. But here we are.

Like many Floridians, I feel unrepresented — not by the opposing party, but by my own. That should alarm anyone who still believes in representative democracy. When elected officials stop listening to their constituents, we are no longer participating in governance. We are being managed.

Recently, my U.S. senator, Rick Scott, sent out an update touting his efforts to pass the SAVE Act, a bill framed as necessary to prevent noncitizens from voting. The message was urgent, emphatic and unwavering.

But, it was also deeply disconnected from reality.

There is little evidence that noncitizen voting occurs at any scale that would justify sweeping new federal restrictions. 

What the SAVE Act would do, however, is create new barriers for eligible voters — particularly married women, seniors, disabled individuals and lower-income Americans — who may face additional hurdles in proving citizenship under stricter documentation requirements.

There is also a question of scale. Even conservative-leaning data sources have documented extremely few cases of noncitizen voting over decades, compared to the billions of ballots cast nationwide in that time. Meanwhile, millions of Americans lack ready access to documents like passports or birth certificates, and tens of millions — particularly married women whose names have changed — could face additional hurdles under stricter requirements. That imbalance raises a fundamental question: Are we solving a real problem, or creating a new one?

As Republicans, we used to stand for limited government and individual freedom. We believed the burden should not fall on citizens to prove themselves again and again just to exercise a fundamental right. That principle seems to have been abandoned.

At the same time, far more urgent issues are being ignored.

We are witnessing executive actions that raise serious constitutional questions, including military engagement abroad without clear congressional authorization. 

Regardless of party, Congress has a duty to assert its role in matters of war. Silence is not leadership.

We are also seeing growing alarm from communities across the country about immigration enforcement practices — families separated, detainees held without timely charges, and reports that demand transparency and accountability. These concerns deserve serious attention, not deflection.

Yet instead of addressing these pressing issues, our leaders are doubling down on legislation that appears more about political strategy than public necessity.



This is not the Republican Party I have supported my entire life.

Across the country, Americans are exercising one of our most fundamental rights: peaceful protest. 😊❗

Demonstrations on March 28th "No Kings" 👑reflected a growing sense that voices are no longer being heard through traditional channels. Dismissing these movements does not make them disappear — it deepens the divide.

Let me be clear: This is not about abandoning conservative values. It is about reclaiming them.

We should be defending the Constitution, not sidestepping it. We should be protecting the right to vote, not making it harder. We should be demanding accountability from every branch of government, regardless of which party is in power.

And above all, our elected leaders should be listening to the people who elected them to serve.

If the Republican Party continues down this path, it risks losing not just elections but the trust of those who once stood firmly behind it.

I am one of them.

Katherine “Kitty” Donovan, of Boca Raton, is a retired Broward County school administrator with 37 years’ experience in middle schools, a grandmother of three boys and the Florida state senior ambassador for Giffords Gun Owners for Safety.

Donald Trump launched America into an illegal war with Iran and now the world is immersed living in "The Scream" painting by Poster

(Editor’s note: This editorial repeats profanity. We quote it verbatim because of the significance of the source.)

Echo opinion essay published by the Sun Sentinel's Editorial Board.

"The Scream" by Edward Munich Poster

Donald Trump talks like a genocidal maniac

Barry R McCaffrey  General, USA, Ret., "This is a continuing story of a great nation fallen mesmerized into the hands of a charlatan. We hope there are growing signs of revulsion by the American people. Bizarre. Madness. Who are these people standing with this man." 

Sun Sentinel opinion:  Never in our history has a leader made such a ghastly threat like Donald Trump did when he warned that 'a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.'

Fortunately, he backed down. Sudden wisdom, or cold feet❓

To some, it was just another TACO Tuesday (Trump Always Chickens Out). It’s preferable to think that he got wisdom rather than cold feet. Regardless, it was the right choice.

But still, it’s only an "on again off again" frail truce with Iran, a 14-day pause on what would have become — and might yet be — a monstrous war crime and an indelible stain on our nation.

It is encouraging that the Trump administration and Iran both claim victory, which would be an excuse to call off the war.

There are unconfirmed reports that some U.S. commanders were refusing to carry out genocidal orders, and that would be good news, too. (Illegal orders❗)

But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Donald Trump seems to believe he can call on the magician 🔮🙄in Ali Babba to "open Sesame" the Strait of Hormuz.  Even following a surprise announcement by Donald Trump, who claimed the Strait of Hormuz was fully opened, and the stock market subsequently closed the April 17 week in the green, his fake proclamation fell apart by Saturday April 18, when Iran announced control over the Strait.)

Congress must intervene❗

Congress must use the respite to take Trump in hand, with a war powers resolution and a serious investigation of his mental fitness. Regardless of whether impeachment is possible, it needs to be pursued.

The nation and the world have long since become accustomed to Trump’s loutish behavior, coarse vocabulary and disrespect for the dignity of his office and America’s reputation.

But his increasingly erratic conduct of late commands the attention of Congress, because it bears unmistakable signs of worsening mental decay in someone who can singlehandedly order the use of nuclear weapons.

A telling symptoms of dementia is a loss of inhibition. Until now, presidents appreciated the power of their words, and whatever their private thoughts, none ever spoke so venomously as Trump at war.

No president has disgraced our nation with such vulgarity as his social media post on the Christian faith’s holiest day, Easter Sunday:

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Whether our nation is at the whims of a madman is a question Congress should pursue.

Israel’s hidden role

The other is the extent to which Trump was led into the crisis by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who craved U.S. support for another war with Iran.

In a remarkable exposé, the New York Times described in detail how Trump secretly received Netanyahu at the White House on Feb. 11, for a hard sell on what a war might accomplish.

Netanyahu and his team framed a “near-certain victory,” (lunacy❗) the Times said. “Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.”

According to the Times, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told Trump some of it was “farcical” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also his national security adviser, called it “bullshit,” but Trump eventually wore down all the internal doubters except for Vice President JD Vance. Pete Hegseth, his self-styled secretary of war, was all for it.

Despite the fake truce that took effect, Hegseth threatened ground operations to seize Iran’s enriched uranium. 

So much for certain victory. None of it happened.

Trump’s outbursts bespoke the frustration of a thoroughly incompetent ruler who began a war with no plan for how to conduct or conclude it and was unprepared for Iran’s resistance.

War: What is it good for❓

Trump's illegal war's main accomplishments are to inflate energy prices, depress the stock market, destabilize the world’s economy, betray Ukraine by waiving sanctions against Russia’s oil, replace one fanatic Iranian ayatollah with another, and harden Iran’s dictatorship and nuclear ambitions.

Congress should also scrutinize how Hegseth, a man far out of his depth, has been demoralizing and destroying the Department of Defense, purging it of anyone who might question illegal orders or represent diversity. His purge of senior officers who are Black or female has been conspicuous.

His dismissal of General Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff early in his term, along with two subordinates, was without precedent. George reportedly opposed the attack on Iran.

Republican senators praised George for his service, but they failed to condemn Hegseth.

In his farewell letter to his troops, George said they deserve “leaders of character.”

So do we all.

P.S. Maine Writer question❓  Has Iran surrendered yet❓

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. 

Donald Trump needs psychiatric care and behavioral health counseling. He creates evil and Republicans must remove him from office!

Re: “Donald Trump talks like a genocidal maniac” — Sun Sentinel Editorial, April 8, 2026.

I hope Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine will find somebody to read this echo opinion letter to her, published in the Florida Sun Sentinel.

Thank you for your excellent editorial about Donald Trump’s un-fitness for office.

Trump revealed a murderous philosophy shared by other 20th century dictators: genocide. On social media he threatened that “a whole civilization will die tonight” unless Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz and end hostilities (a war Trump himself unilaterally and illegally launched against Iran).

Trump's hideous statement was condemned around the world, and it should have shaken every American to their core.

Such an evil threat cannot be dismissed just because he failed to carry out his apocalyptic blackmail threat. 

Just the fact that he made such a dangerous declaration, and is capable of such thinking, is proof about his sociopathic mind.

As the former Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on tyranny and genocide, put it, “Whatever happens tonight, or any other night in this war, is now legally defined by Donald Trump's dangerous statement.”

Snyder says Trump practices “sado-populism,” using threats and cruelty to subdue his perceived opponents while sabotaging democracy by “destroying institutional trust.” Trump has spoken. 

We must repudiate Donald Trump. Americans must reject his tyranny. #ImpeachTrumpNOW  #25thAmendment

From — June S. Neal, in Delray Beach, Florida

Donald Trump and maga Republicans must end propaganda about Trump's illegal Iran World War- one lie leads to more lies

Michael McFaul @McFaul on X/
"If we already won the war in Iran as Trump claims why are we sending more soldiers to the region❓"
Trump announced that we “militarily” won the war. 🤥
Echo opinion letter published in the Florida Sun Sentinel news.

But, obviously no one told the Iranians, who continue to inflict damage on us, Israel and their Middle East neighbors.

Iran is clearly trouble for the U.S. and for the region, but to eliminate it is a task for a competent administration requiring a well-planned military operation. We are witnessing chaos.

A Sun Sentinel reader suggested that “once the dust settles,” Iran will return to the western democracy that it once was.

Iran had a democratically elected prime minister from 1951, until a CIA-led coup ousted him and reinstalled Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi to power in 1953. So ended Iran’s “western democracy.” 

Iran has no tradition of democracy and does not know how to function as one.

Anti-American sentiment runs deep in Iran, driven by people who have no problem becoming martyrs. Its leaders on any given day know that Americans will not tolerate our young men and women being “boots on the ground,” which would lead to death or injury to our troops.

Come November, Donald Trump will get the regime change he seeks: his own.

From Bob Stein, in Boynton Beach, Florida

Maine Writer:  Donald Trump is full of bullshit.  Senator Susan Collins should be calling for his removal from office.  

Sadly, Senator Collins has no courage, she is worse than the lion character in the Wizard of Oz.  Collins is "Concerned but never corageous".