"Carnival barker" Donald Trump has single-handedly degraded U.S. politics over the last month, which is no mean feat for a profession rife with charlatans, profiteers, shameless self-promoters and lately, self-righteous fundamentalists. As a result, Trump has further sullied the reeling Republican moniker.

Backed by the power of a top-rated prime-time reality TV program, Mr. Trump bullied the President of the United States into releasing personal and private information, his long-form birth certificate... a disclosure never before asked of any U.S. president or vice-president in history.

Why? We can only surmise. The obvious difference between Barack Obama and the other forty-three U.S. presidents is painfully glaring:

• President Obama's face is a different color.
• His name doesn't sound like someone whose ancestors sailed on the Mayflower.
• His childhood upbringing didn't parallel American 1950s white-family fantasies like Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver, or Ozzie and Harriet.

In my Southern California middle-class neighborhood, President Obama's personal story falls well within the norm of today's quintessential American Experience: one parent born outside the U.S.; a portion of one's childhood spent in another country; relatives of various faiths and ethnicities and who speak several languages.

But apparently in Mr. Trump's mega-wealthy conservative circles, an admired, successful member of an ethnic minority is viewed with suspicion and paranoia.

Now, Donald Trump is questioning President Obama's college credentials. Mr. Trump seems to assume that Ivy League universities are all-white bastions of brilliant scions from extremely wealthy families such as his. In 2011, this Ivy League stereotype diverges greatly from reality. For example, at Yale University:

• 56% of undergraduates earned diplomas from public high schools
• 43% of students are of a non-white ethnicity
• 55% of undergraduates received need-based scholarships/grants from Yale
• The average need-based scholarships/grants per undergraduate is $36,600
• 17% of Yale students are from foreign countries
• Average SAT test scores for incoming students cover a wide range, are high but far from perfect

When smacked with the mortifying fact that he's been exacerbating racial tensions over lies, gossip and nasty innuendoes about President Obama, Mr. Trump bragged, "I'm very proud of myself... I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully, getting rid of this issue."

I believe that Donald Trump exploited President Obama's ethnicity to boost ratings for his The Celebrity Apprentice reality-TV program, and possibly for political gain.

Mr. Trump's boorish, huckster behavior tarnishes the reputation of even politicians. P.T. Barnum might be proud, but American forefathers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams would be appalled beyond measure.

I used to watch Trump on TV, and half-admired his entrepreneurial guts and fun bravado. Today, I only see a vain, prejudiced blowhard who, to score a few measly ratings points, tried to impugn the dignity and honesty of the President of the United States.

In protest, I plan to hit The Donald where it hurts him most: I will never again watch one moment of any TV program or buy one product associated with Donald Trump until Trump ends and sincerely apologizes for his salacious rumor-mongering about Barack Obama, our nation's first African-American president.

I urge you to join me in boycotting all things Trump.

The catastrophic 2010 BP oil rig explosion and Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the devastating 2011 post-tsunami nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan both serve as mega-scale examples of mankind poisoning earth's land, sea and air, as well as human, animal and plant life.

As a symbol of man-caused environmental degradation, I'm particularly horrified by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is a swirling vortex of non-biodegradable debris, mainly plastics, located in the north Pacific Ocean. The National Science Foundation estimates the patch could be twice as large as the state of Texas.

Truth is, though, that much of the damage to earth's resources is wrought by small choices we collectively make every day... in our modes of transportation, trashing and recycling habits, food and drink preferences, home appliances and technology choices. In our mindfulness in using power and fuel in all forms. And especially, in our political choices.

I suggest that you mark Earth Day 2011, which is April 22, with three simple but constructive steps:

1. LEARN about the heroic work being done by one agency or organization in protecting the world's environment. Among the most worthy are:

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - Agency goals include ensuring that "all Americans are protected from significant risks to human health and the environment where they live, learn and work" and "federal laws protecting human health and the environment are enforced fairly and effectively."
• The Sierra Club - A 1.4 million-member non-profit that seeks to "educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment" and to "explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth."
• World Wildlife Fund - A 5- million-member global group that bills itself as "the world's leading conservation organization." WWF's mission encompasses "promoting sustainable approaches to the use of renewable natural resources" and "promoting more efficient use of resources and energy and the maximum reduction of pollution."

2. CHANGE one habit. And become an advocate for that change. Five Ways to Help Save the Planet in 30 Minutes or Less is my latest favorite article on the topic. In it, author Larry West, About.com's Environmental Issues Guide, suggests five painless ways in which you can "Invest half an hour to protect the environment by changing how you live each day." (Frankly, you should be doing all five!)

3. SUPPORT one political leader who has demonstrated uncommon courage and leadership on environmental public policy issues. My personal favorites are California Gov. Jerry Brown and both of California's U.S. senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, but other accomplished environmental legislators include:

• Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both of Washington
• Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado
• Sen. John Kerry, who has shown extraordinary, and largely unheralded, leadership on climate change and energy security.

On Earth Day 2011, if each one of us takes responsibility (and merely 30 minutes) to thoughtfully LEARN, CHANGE and SUPPORT, we together hold the power to change the course of U.S. environmental politics and public policies for the better.

Never play poker with Barack Obama if you can't stand to lose. And don't try to outwit this President politically if you're whiny and thin-skinned... or worse, blinded by arrogance.

Master strategist Obama will deftly set you up and defeat you most times, long before you even realize you're holding a losing hand. Barack Obama is a survivor, and he has the sly smarts to back up his driving instincts to win. Just ask brooding Republican Congressman Paul Ryan.

Three years ago, New Yorker magazine ran a brief, tantalizing tidbit entitled "Aces" about Barack Obama who described himself as "a pretty good poker player." Wrote columnist James McManus:

"Perhaps realizing that both the Chicago machine pols and the downstate soybean farmers viewed him as an overeducated bleeding heart and a greenhorn, he decided to woo them with poker... Along with another freshman senator, Terry Link, Obama started up a regular game in Link's Springfield living room. It began with five players but quickly grew to eight and developed a long waiting list...

"Obama's analytical mind helped him excel at draw, stud, and hold 'em, and also at the sillier, more luck-based variants of the game that other players chose, such as baseball...

"Link describes Obama as a 'calculating' cardplayer, avoiding long-shot draws and patiently waiting for strong starting hands. 'When Barack stayed in, you pretty much figured he's got a good hand,' former Senator Larry Walsh once told a reporter, neglecting to note that maintaining that sort of rock-solid image made it easier for Obama to bluff."

Obama's political skills are likewise calculating and rock-solid, as hilariously demonstrated last week by Congressional Republican whining after the President's superb budget deficit speech. In summary, the delicious dramatics were:

• Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, new House Budget Committee Chair, presented on April 5, 2011 a boldly conservative budget plan for fiscal year 2012. Ryan's plan was designed to decapitate President Obama's 2012 budget proposal. The two competing plans encompass sharply differing philosophies of the role of government. As a result, Ryan was widely praised in the media as "serious" and "visionary."

• For his April 13, 2011 budget deficit speech, President Obama graciously saved prominent front-row seats for Rep. Ryan and other House Republican leaders. Flattered, they accepted. Blinded by new power, Ryan and ilk apparently assumed the President felt forced to bend to their conservative ways.

• Instead, President Obama delivered a liberal stem-winder of a speech which " he used... to clearly distance himself from Republican plans to heap tax benefits on the rich while casting adrift the nation's poor, elderly and unemployed. Instead of adapting the themes of the right to his own uses, he set out a very different vision of an America that keeps its promises to the weak and asks for sacrifice from the strong." per the New York Times.

• Immediately after the President's Speech, Rep. Ryan simpered to the press that he was "sad... sincerely disappointed." "Someone pass Budget Chairman Paul Ryan a tissue, because it appears President Barack Obama has broken his heart," commented the Daily Caller.

  

• Two days later, President Obama was "accidentally" overheard trash-talking Rep. Ryan to Democratic donors, "So when Paul Ryan says his priority is to make sure, he's just being America's accountant and trying to you know be responsible, this is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for. So it's not on the level."

"Who's serious now?" sneered Nobel Laureate economist and political progressive Paul Krugman in his New York Times column. "Paul Ryan... sounds upset. And you can see why: President Obama, to the great relief of progressives, has called his bluff."

In fevered, irrational response to President Obama's words, House Republicans voted nearly unanimously, 235 to 193, to pass Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan... a plan that entirely kills Medicare by replacing it with on-your-own health coverage by for-profit corporations. Per a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 69% of Democrats and 61% of Republicans oppose major changes to Medicare.

The President again goaded House Republicans this past weekend by attaching signing statements to a six-month stopgap budget bill, indicating that he plans to ignore directives to defund certain presidential advisors.

Wrote the White House, "Legislative efforts that significantly impede the President's ability to exercise his supervisory and coordinating authorities or to obtain the views of the appropriate senior advisers violate the separation of powers by undermining the President's ability to exercise his constitutional responsibilities... "

House Republicans are seething and still overreacting, while President Obama, of course, maintains his legendary cool.

As all good poker players know, cool wins. He who loses his cool loses. Always.

In this round, President Obama clearly outstrategized and outsmarted "naively optimistic" Rep. Ryan and hotheaded House Republicans.

And in an almost unimaginable boost to House Democratic prospects in 2012, all but four House Republicans are on record as voting to kill Medicare, a program beloved on a bipartisan basis by a huge majority of Americans.

Privately, poker player Obama couldn't possibly be more pleased by how he played his political hand.

Essential Reading

• Obama Triumphs With Budget Deficit Speech, But Does He Mean It?
• President Obama's Plan to Reduce the Federal Budget, Spending
• Paul Ryan Budget Proposal Passes House Vote (Huffington Post)
• Paul Ryan's Road Map to Ruin (U.S. Economy at About.com)

In his budget and fiscal policy remarks yesterday, President Obama finally took leadership control of a crucial debate by firmly taking a stand, a liberal stand, before Congress wrestles in earnest with the issue.

The question remains, though, when Obama is no longer shielded by the presidential podium... when he's ensconced in tense closed-door room haggling with Tea Party-acolyte Republicans...

• Will Obama hold his ground for "the kind of country we believe in?"
• Will President Obama staunchly stand for his deeply held progressive beliefs that "each one of us deserves some measure of security and dignity?"
• Or will he wilt and timidly fold in the face of fierce conservative opposition, as he did on the public option in the health care reform debate?

President Obama's speech outlining his four-part plan to reduce the federal budget was overdue manna for Democratic ears. Shades of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy, the President grandly orated:

" This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page; it's about more than just cutting and spending. It's about the kind of future that we want. It's about the kind of country that we believe in.

He traced the historic American economic compact for "shared responsibility and shared sacrifice," and pointed out, to seething Republican chagrin, that the Bush years squandered a budget surplus inherited from Democratic President Bill Clinton:

"America's finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

"But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program -- but we didn't pay for any of this new spending. Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts -- tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country..."

I unequivocally support President Obama's four-part plan which he describes as "a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over 12 years... It's an approach that puts every kind of spending on the table, but one that protects the middle class, our promise to seniors and our investments in the future."

(Read briefly about the four parts at President Obama's Plan to Reduce the Federal Budget, Spending.)

Our nation faces a fiery debate in coming months over raising the U.S. debt ceiling and in formulating the fiscal 2012 budget. In particular, President Obama and Congressional Democrats will counter Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's budget proposal which columnist E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post correctly calls "truly reactionary" and "an effort to slash government programs, in large part to preserve and expand tax cuts for the wealthy."

President Obama closed his remarks by referencing our country's foundational beliefs, "But no matter what we argue, no matter where we stand, we've always held certain beliefs as Americans:

• We believe that in order to preserve our own freedoms and pursue our own happiness, we can't just think about ourselves.
• We have to think about the country that made these liberties possible.
• We have to think about our fellow citizens with whom we share a community.
• And we have to think about what's required to preserve the American Dream for future generations."

That's change I can believe in. That's change entirely consistent with the prosperity goals President Obama set forth in his 2011 State of the Union address.

I just pray that Mr. Obama has steeled himself to finally stand behind his inspiring words.

Essential Reading

• President Obama's Four-Part Plan to Reduce the Federal Budget
• Paul Ryan's Road Map to Ruin (U.S. Economy at About.com)
• Summary of Major Ideas and Plans - Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address

Related Reading

• New York Times - President Obama, Reinvigorated
• E.J. Dionne at the Washington Post - Obama's deficit speech: Worthy of a president
• Joan Walsh at Salon - That's what it means to be a Democrat