The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While it may seem easy to be lulled into a spring stupor with the fine cool weather in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, it is hard to avoid going into shock with all the strange news coming out of the Trump administration. Around here they are calling it a “Trumpocalypse.”

But at the moment, and for the past few days, I have been struggling to decide what’s worse: the incompetent politicians and bureaucrats in charge in the nation’s capital — or the rise in the tick population in campgrounds around here.

Could there be a correlation with human induced global warming and climate change?

Google variations of the term “ticks and global warming and climate change” and you will find more studies on the issue than you will ever be able to read. What you can’t find are any studies posing the hypothesis that climate change is also increasing human stress levels. Trump’s running the country by tweet and interfering with governments around the world are bound to cause an epidemic in prescriptions for Xanax.

We arrived here just in time for Trump to announce that he was pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords, simply a diplomatic agreement signed by 196 of the world’s 198 countries to set goals aimed toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. It’s all voluntary. No, there are no “New World Order” United Nations mandates. And all the evidence suggests that countries which deal with developing and implementing alternative energy sources actually create more high paying jobs, not less.

But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good fake political news story.

Trump loves his diplomacy with Russia, seemingly because they loaned him money when he went bankrupt and could not get a loan from a bank in the U.S. He loves China now, since Ivanka’s clothing line is doing so well there.

So why does he not want the U.S. to be involved in the diplomacy on climate policy? Because rednecks in West Virginia and Mobile, Alabama, have been convinced by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News that it’s a hoax that will cost them their crappy jobs in the coal mines?

Nobody in their right mind would actually want to work in a coal mine. There, I said it.

Coal jobs are going the way of the Dodo bird no matter what the Sierra Club says or does. A politician like Trump talking about saving coal jobs is nothing more than a meme and a metaphor for sticking it to the educated professional class, especially in the Northeast, where people wear clean ties to work. Or those hippies who work at Google and Facebook in California who wear tie-died T-shrts to work and sip lattes.

To win the Republican nomination, Trump campaigned as a conservative who would get the government out of people’s lives and roll back regulations, also known as consumer protection laws and rules to make people’s lives better. Yet Attorney General Jeff Sessions is insistent that he will get all up in people’s lives in every way possible, especially those pesky pot smokers who tend to vote for Democrats.

Trump will be hard pressed to squeeze any more oil or gas out of the ground than President Barack Obama, who turned America into an exporter of oil on par with Saudia Arabia and yes Russia.

But facts don’t matter again in Washington. Just keep people hopping from one crazy tweet to the next and too stressed out to focus on the facts. People here who hated George W. Bush are talking at every bar and Facebook group in town that they would love to have Bush back. He seems like a Rhodes scholar compared to Trump.

Speaking of Washington bars and talk of politics, a number of taverns and even sports lounges are planning to project the big show on Thursday when fired FBI Director James Comey strides up on Capitol Hill to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee against Trump on all the large HD screens normally reserved for sports, mainly the games of the Washington Redskins games, the Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles.

The town is all abuzz that Comey’s testimony might be the beginning of the end for Trump and lead to impeachment proceedings or even another presidential resignation reminiscent of Richard Nixon. It is the biggest show in town since Watergate.

We will be watching with interest.

Meanwhile, be careful out there if you are planning to enjoy the great outdoors this summer. Experts are predicting a bad tick season.

Goudarz Molaei, a research scientist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, told CNN he is predicting more new Lyme disease infections in the coming months due to larger numbers of ticks and higher infection rates among them. There are about 30,000 confirmed cases of Lyme disease across the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control, although the number could be as high as 300,000 with unconfirmed cases.

Some scientists say climate change is a contributing factor, threatening the physical health of Americans.

“This year so far, we’ve received hundreds of ticks,” Molaei said. “Since April 1, we’ve received nearly 1,000 ticks.”

This greater abundance comes as a result of two consecutive warm winters, he said, which the insects are better able to survive, as well as longer springs and summers.

All these ticks can also impact your mental condition even if you don’t get physically sick. It’s an ordeal to deal with when you are trying to enjoy the outdoors, something Trump could never understand. The only time he goes outside is to ride around on a fancy country club golf cart.

Can someone explain why any average working class voter in America could be fooled by this charlatan? It is understandable why the neo-Nazis love Trump. He’s of German descent, has fake blonde hair, and of course, he’s white.

Excuse me, but I will take a college-educated smart black guy in the White House any day. Thank you President Obama for all the great sleep over the past eight years.

At least Trump will be great for the Liquor business, as they call it in Maryland. You can’t buy beer in grocery stores. You have to go to a store with a big neon sign that says “Liquor.” I’m sure they are experiencing a booming business. We talked about this at the famous Catalpaloosa fest in Silver Spring on Saturday, and one woman admitted I may be right. She caught herself drinking more every day since Trump’s election. She had to be conscious to dial it down.

The pharmaceutical companies should be paying Trump major kickbacks if they aren’t already. No doubt subscriptions for anti-depressants are on the upswing as well, along with their stock prices.

Yeah, Trump will make America great again alright. It’s easy to fool yourself that all is well when you are stoned and drunk. Maybe that’s what Trump likes so much about Russians. Don’t they all drink vodka for breakfast?

On all the local television news stations, Democrats are running commercials in the race for governor. One says he is listening closely to Trump, and concludes that “Trump is a narcissistic maniac.” That sounds about right.

I’m collecting all these ticks up for researhers who will be in the campground this weekend. Maybe I will deliver them to the White House when the notice of my official visit comes through.

See you at the tavern, if not on the hiking trails. Blues Jam at Hell’s Bottom every Tuesday night.