Almost half of Donald Trump's Twitter followers are fake, and he can't find anybody to be his new communications director.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

This isn't the first time someone has pointed out that a good portion of Trump's Twitter following is fake, but what's interesting is that its fakeness seems to be increasing. In January, journalist Yashar Ali ran an audit on Trump's Twitter account and found that 68 percent of his then-20 million followers were real. Now he's at 30 million followers, but only 51 percent are real, which means of 10 million followers Trump has gained since January, about 8.3 million are fake. 

In April 2016, when Trump was beginning to gain traction as a serious candidate to at least win the Republican presidential nomination, the former reality TV star had a mere 7.58 million followers, only 8 percent of which were fake, according to FiveThirtyEight. It's not surprising that as Trump's global profile has skyrocketed in the past 13 months, so too have the number of bots attached to his Twitter account—but it's astonishing how much the percentage of his followers that are fake has risen. 

So is Trump actually buying new followers? We'll probably never know, but there seems to be nothing more important to Trump than how his fame relates to that of other public figures, and it can't sit well with the president that there are currently 31 accounts with more followers than his. One of those accounts is that of Barack Obama, which boasts a whopping 89 million followers, good for third-most in the world behind Katy Perry and Justin Bieber.

I for one have no trouble believing that Trump would pay for followers so that he could look popular.

But the truth is that even when he is offering money and a job he is having trouble funding people who want to be associated with him, or his presidency.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:

BuzzFeed News spoke with 20 Republican communicators and operatives, many of whom have worked on Capitol Hill and in presidential campaigns and some who have declined previous offers to join the Trump administration. Nearly all said they would be unwilling to accept an offer to replace Dubke, who on Tuesday announced his resignation as communications director. 

"Hell no!” said one Republican — one of the most common type of responses BuzzFeed News got from operatives. “That would be career suicide.” 

Others brought a mix of dark humor. 

"That's like asking someone who just witnessed a horrific bungee jumping accident whether they would like to go next,” one Republican source responded in a text message. 

“It would be only a few months on the job before tapping out the ‘I want to spend more time with family’ email,” another said.

I really can't say that I blame any of these folks. After all who wants to board the Titanic after it is already taking on water?

Of course who needs a communications director when Trump has been handing out his cell phone number like a desperate barfly right before last call?

Courtesy of the AP:

President Donald Trump has been handing out his cellphone number to world leaders and urging them to call him directly, an unusual invitation that breaks diplomatic protocol and is raising concerns about the security and secrecy of the U.S. commander in chief’s communications.

So far only Canadian Prime Minister, and panty dampener, Justin Trudeau has actually called Trump,  and that was probably just to ask him if his refrigerator was running and then to tell him he better go after it.

I keep forgetting, how long do these train wrecks typically last before the fiery explosion at the end?

Andrew Sullivan speaks out: "Blogging nearly killed me."

Courtesy of CNN:

"The truth is, I had to stop primarily because it was killing me," Sullivan said Sunday night at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. 

"I used to joke that if blogging does kill someone, I would be the first to find out." He described the grueling pace that he maintained along with a small editorial staff. 

"This is 40 posts a day -- every 20 minutes, seven days a week," Sullivan said.

After closing down his blog in January Sullivan took some time to "detox." But on Sunday he agreed to an interview with Jeff Greenfield.

 "Here's what I would say: I spent a decade of my life, spending around seven hours a day in intimate conversation with around 70,000 to 100,000 people every day, " Sullivan said. "And inevitably, for those seven hours or more, I was not spending time with any actual human being, with a face and a body and a mind and a soul." 

"I couldn't imagine blogging the next election," he said. "I will not spend another minute of my time writing about the Clintons. Period. Or the Bushes."

Wow, you that really hits home for me, and I totally understand where he is coming from.

Personally I keep my blog posts to a manageable seven a day of the most, part but since I have no staff that means that each post must be researched, written, and edited all on my own.

And as many of you know, sometimes mistakes slip past my attention.

Also unlike Sullivan I do work out at least five to six days a week, and usually space out the workouts so that I have a reason to leave my desk and get some exercise. Since my other job also requires time on the computer it is easy to spend up to ten hours at my desk a day. And I often do.

However much like Sullivan I also find that most of my interactions with other people take place online in the form of texts, blog comments, and e-mails. I do get a few phone calls a day to break up the monotony, and I have several face to face conversations with my daughter when she is here, and others who live with here as well. So I am not completely isolated.

What's more I rarely ever feel alone, even when I am completely alone in the house.

That may have a lot to do with the constant ideas that bounce around inside of my head.

I don't actually hear voices or anything, but I have been known to talk out loud to myself when I am trying to flesh out an idea. (My daughter gives me grief about that constantly.)

And unlike Sullivan I have no plans to walk away from blogging at this time even though I have also been doing it for ten years now.

There are some changes coming however.

My buddy Dennis Zaki builds websites as a side job, and he has convinced me to upgrade IM in the near future. I am somewhat resistant as I don't usually welcome change, but he assures me the site will be much improved and more user friendly when he finishes with it.

So let me take a moment here to thank all of you for your patronage. I am well aware that there are sharper, sleeker, more content heavy websites you could be visiting, and yet I know many of you camp out here on a daily basis and I want you to know that it gives me the inspiration to keep on plugging away.

And have no fear, changes or no changes, I will still be the un-apologetically liberal firebrand you have all come to know and barely tolerate.