The Iowa return of Donald Trump

THE DONALD IS BACK! Donald Trump, birther, BS artist and the only person with a bigger ego than Newt Gingrich, will be the host of still another debate before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus. The Dec. 27 event, which will hype Trump more than the woebegone GOP candidates, will be in Des Moines and sponsored by Newsmax, a very conservative outfit that has puffed up Trump with a number of friendly references to his singular importance to the conservative cause. I think the Newsmax crowd would really like to see him back in the race, for which Trump is especially grateful. It keeps reminding everybody - including him - how really important he is.

Actually, this may be a first for a potential presidential candidate: Interrogating the others who would be his opponents as he does job applicants on his TV show. His ego could reach beyond the point of no return by looking at, say, Michele Bachmann and asserting, "You're fired."

For some reason, I am besieged by e-mails from Newsmax with warnings from a Dr. David Brownstein, often challenging the conventional wisdom of medical science. The latest warning is to avoid flu shots. Something about mercury in the serum. Or, "The one thing you do for your prostate every morning." Other than taking it with you when you go for a long walk, I don't know what Newsmax is proposing. Didn't open up the text.

Each day, scary health tips for someone like me, who was under the wing of two uncles who were very good physicians. But even scarier is the fact that The Donald is sitting in front of a TV camera and measuring the worth of each candidate on stage. Upstaging them, really.

But as the call from the control room softly summons the conductor the moments before the opera:

"Maestro to the pit. Maestro to the pit."

In this Des Moines opera buffa, Trump is handed the baton.

Republican theocracy rising again in Iowa

THE QUESTION WE face, Dear Friends, in the next half-year is not whether the nation will survive the Zombie-like creatures that inhabit the political Right (Wrong?) and close down state governments, but whether we can survive the rampant madness of the Republican presidential candidates heading into the Inquisitorial Iowa caucuses. The Christian Crusaders, on the march for a theocracy, have now elevated homosexuality and same-sex marriage to first place in their dire predictions of how we are all going straight to hell. And when we flinch upon hearing of Morals Police in other countries whose religious insistence leads to unthinkable abuses, let us turn to fanatics like Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum for our wackos.

Having been a political writer and editor for many years, I concede that such reporting would be better satisfied today solely by religious writers prepared to sort the nonsense from the nonsense. We have now reached the point where Santorum, the modern version of Savanarola in a business suit, has gone to public confession to tell us about his wonderful relationship with his wife, if not yet the Iowa Republicans.

Here's what he owned up to:

"I pledged personal fidelity to my wife when I was married to her. And pledged the same, that I would not involve myself in any other relationship with anybody else who is married. So that's a pledge I've taken and I take every single day when I - as a married person and feel very comfortable making that public statement."

Good for you, Rick. But why should anybody but the saints and sinners who will be evaluated in Iowa care, particularly those souls who spend most of their time trying to make ends meet or looking for a job?

Did I mention that Santorum's confession was part of his attack on same-sex marriage in a pledge circulated by an Iowa outfit called the Family Leader. Among the things the Santorum/Bachmann agreed to , if president, were bans on "all forms of pornogrphy and prostitution, infanticide, abortion, and other types of coercion stolen innocence."

Oh, in an article posted by Raw Story, they also promised to appoint conservative judges.

That, of course, would guarantee that the circle would be unbroken.

Independence Day: Religion, parades, politics

Independence Day weekend notes:

We read that the high priestess of the Tea Party was fully occupied with her business at hand: Speaking from her space station high above the usual political crowd, Michele Bachmann soared into the pages of the Biblical Chronicles as she urged the worshippers at two evangelical churches in Iowa to get right with the Lord . According to the Des Moines Register, Bachmann, a Republican presidential candidate, drove home her message with her scriptural route to salvation for America. She assured her audience that "if we do as Chronicles tells us, if we humble ourselves, and pray and confess our sins, and turn away from our wicked ways, and ask an almighty God to come and protect us and fight the battle for us, we know from his word, his promise is sure. He will come. He will heal our land. And we will have a new day."

Tall order, even for God.

Meanwhile, we also have read that Michele's husband, Marcus, who refers to himself as her "strategist', operates a Christian counseling service in Minnesota largely directed at making homesexuals "ungay". Indeed, he believes that gays are ...well here's exactly how he has put it:

'We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined.''

The quadrennial tent revivals in Iowa, otherwise known as the Republican caucuses, can't come soon enough.

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We spent some time as spectators Monday at the annual Fairlawn Fourth of July Parade. It is an annual Tootsie Roll shower and horn honking blast, the latter exercise as a means to liven up the pageant. I'm a sucker for Sousa marches but this parade has only one marching band in a mile of firetrucks, classic cars, politicians, martial arts and landscaping promoters. Well, the kids got pocketfuls of candy and loved it.

One surprising entry was Michael Williams, Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic's chief adversary in the Democratic primary. It isn't every day that a candidate in one city tries win favor in one of the suburbs. Meantime, Plusquellic was at Lock 3's big Fourth of July rib festival to introduce the Akron Symphony Orchestra performance and later the fireworks. It's where I should have been to hear the missing Sousa marches.

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Less surprising in the series of weekend events was the unanimous nomination of Summit County Republican Chairman Alex Arshinkoff to the Board of Elections - a seat he had held before he was unceremoniously thrown out by former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. When he is reappointed by Jon Husted, Brunner's Republican successor - not IF - he will succeed Brian Daley, Arshinkoff's early choice to keep the seat warm until the boss was able to return with the changing of the guard in Columbus. But as the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. After his nomination on Saturday, Arshinkoff was full of humility to return to doing "the people's work," as he described it, and spent the rest of the time slamming board member Wayne Jones, the county Democratic chairman. Here we go!