For the Love of our Country, Take those Keys.

A few weeks ago, our older neighbor lady backed her car out of the garage and then got out to close the garage door. In the process she forgot to put the car in park, it rolled into her and she broke her leg in two places. Some time later I asked her husband how she’s recovering and in the course of our conversation he mentioned that he needs to watch her closer because he’s noticed that she has started making mistakes when she’s driving. I don’t know that she is no longer capable of driving her vehicle safely, but we briefly talked about the difficulty of taking the keys from elderly parents, and how it takes away their freedom.

Studies have shown that drivers age 80+ have 5.5 times more accidents than middle age drivers. And while we have many programs and graduated licensing steps for teen drivers, there isn’t really a specific way of easing elderly drivers off the road unless family members take the initiative. Elderly drivers cherish the freedom that driving gives them, and adult children find it hard to step into an authority role with their own parents. Sometimes it takes a serious incident before the decision is made to take the keys. In my family there were no car keys, but rather a horse and buggy. My grandfather set out one day to make the trip to his son’s house. I’m guessing at most the trip should have taken an hour, but it was 24 hours before we ever saw Grandpa again. Those 24 hours were enough for the siblings to realize that Grandpa shouldn’t be able to drive the horse anymore.

With our families becoming increasingly nuclear, there’s little chance that grandparents live with their children so the loss of a vehicle can greatly affect their life. If children live nearby they are able to help with doctor appointments and grocery shopping, but it takes some co-ordination. Sometimes it’s easier to allow a slow-building potentially dangerous situation to continue because you know it will take extra sacrifice from yourself and siblings to assist your parents with their activities, and the parents aren’t eager to be dependent on you.

By now you may be wondering WHY I’m writing this…. Here it is: Somebody needs to step up in the White House and do the adult thing and take some control over the elderly man living there. I don’t care if you’re republican or democrat, it should be obvious that this man needs some guidance. First of all, yes, the president has the right to fire the director of the FBI. But it’s not a good idea to do everything that you are allowed to do. And the fact that no-one in his inner circle had the guts to say ‘No, Mr. President, this is a very bad idea to fire the man who is overseeing an investigation into people from your campaign. This could be seen as obstructing justice, sir, and so you may want to hold off on that idea.’ So that would have been step one in being responsible. But let’s say the president didn’t listen to your advice and he said ‘I’m going to do it anyway.’ Then the next step as a responsible adult would be to say, ‘Ok, Mr. President, this will probably cause some uproar among the media, so let’s get our communications team together and make sure everyone has the correct story and that they are ready to defend your decision. Could you give us a day or two to get everything in order?’

Obviously no adults stood up to do those things, or they were shot down by the aging man in office. And they went out and did their best to defend his decision to fire Director Comey. They did an admirable job of pretending it wasn’t about the Russia investigation. They even made sure the Vice President gave some interviews to try and tap down on the furor.

Now the President must not have been happy with the job his spokespeople were doing. Or maybe he just likes giving interviews, I’m not sure what the reason was. But he gave an interview to Lester Holt. And in the interview he admitted that he was thinking about the Russia investigation when he decided to fire Comey. Oh, and Rod Rosenstein’s recommendation that wasn’t really a recommendation, that had nothing to do with it. He would have fired Comey anyway.

Two things regarding the interview: the responsible adults, and especially his lawyer, should have physically locked him in a closet to stop him from doing that interview. I don’t care if he is the president of the United States, it was Stupid and Irresponsible and potentially incriminating. I mean it was good for those who wish he would get impeached, but it was not good for the President, and if you are serving the president it is your duty to occasionally step in and stop him from making these mistakes. The second thing about the interview: he just made his Vice President look like a liar. Pence said the firing was because of Rosenstein’s recommendation, but now Trump says it’s not. I’m not even going to mention all the other people who look like liars.

So now it’s Friday morning, and at every step, the President has made bad choices this week. There’s not much left he could do, right? We shall just let him watch news shows and drink Diet Coke today while we try to fix the mess. BUT NO-ONE TOOK HIS PHONE!!!! For the love of our country, please take away his access to Twitter!!!! And so on Friday morning the president tweets that we can’t expect his spokespeople to be honest, because the White House is a busy place. And he threatens Comey with ‘tapes’ in a tweet that sounds like witness intimidation. WHERE IS HIS LAWYER?? Why is no-one stopping this train-wreck? I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t care if he’s impeached. But there are people who do care, and would like to accomplish some legislative wins while Republicans are in control of the WH, the Senate and the House. I’m not sure why Paul Ryan or McConnell don’t take his phone and hide it in the White House Gym.

The investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign obviously irritates the President highly. Here’s the thing, I really doubt that Trump himself knowingly colluded with the Russians. He strikes me more as the ‘Useful Idiot’ (that’s an actual Russian term for people that they can use). But with all the stupid and moronic things that Trump is doing he makes himself look incredible guilty. He clearly hates having his authority questioned but unfortunately for him, that’s part of being president. People are always going to be questioning things you do. The adults should sit him down and say, ‘Mr. President, we need to put this Russia thing behind us. So let’s take some steps to be very transparent with the American people and make sure that we don’t look like we are hiding anything. For starters, we could release 20 full years of your taxes. And let’s order everyone from our campaign to release any and all documents that Congress or law authorities request of them. Let’s offer to sit for hearings.’  The way things are going now, it won’t be the campaign activities that take down this administration but the idiotic things they do in an effort to make this investigation go away.

I’m talking to you, Ivanka and Jared. Ivanka, you have the most to lose in this mess. Your family fortune is built on the Trump brand name and without it you won’t be very much. You might be worried that Daddy is going to cut you from the will if you stand up to him, but I’m pretty sure the alternative is worse. I wouldn’t have said this even two days ago, but with the way things are going right now, I wouldn’t be shocked if people would end up doing jail time for some of the stupidity that is occurring because you and others who know better won’t step up to the plate. Now don’t get in an uproar, I didn’t say I expect it to happen, just that it wouldn’t shock me. Ivanka, I think you have enough of influence with your dad that you can tell him to make changes or you won’t work for him. He obviously cares for you a lot, and I beg you to take advantage of that for the sake of this country. And if not for us, do it for your children.

And if nothing else, just take away the phone and access to Twitter. If it makes your life easier tell your brothers to do it so you won’t look like the bad one.