It’s late August, and this time of the year often has been called the silly season, because so many people are away on vacation that very little of consequence happens, leading to some strange news stories.  The Congress is on one of its many long recesses, a/k/a vacations.  This actually is a blessing, because the House, which is controlled by Democrats, only does things that harmful, crazy, or illegal.  The Senate, on the other hand, regardless of which Party controls that body, does nothing useful – ever.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as legislative paralysis is far preferable to legislative mischief.  As a result, there is precious little news coming from the Congress.  Good.  The Democrat presidential candidates are still going at it hammer and tongs, or is that hammer and sickle?  So far, the Dem presidential wannabes have promised to provide all kinds of free stuff, including healthcare, college tuition and loan repayment.  They also promise the Green New Deal, open borders, higher taxes, welfare and healthcare for illegal aliens, less military spending, and more every other kind of spending.  The Dems agree on only one thing, they hate Donald Trump.  As usual, Joe Biden has managed to provide lots of newsworthy material.  Not because of any accomplishment or noteworthy statement by Joe, however, but because every time Joe opens his mouth he seems to insert his foot into his yapper.  First, Biden, who left office in 2017, claimed that kids from the 2018 Parkland shooting visited him as Vice-President.  Then, Joe doubled down on dementia when he announced that two of his heroes, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, were killed in the late 1970’s, which I guess proves that Biden is about 10 years behind reality.  Biden followed up this gaffe by telling everyone that he was a coal miner, presumably toiling away in the coal mines of Delaware.  President Trump spent a couple of weeks at his New Jersey golf club, so the fake news media had less material from the President to lie about.  The media did its best though.  In the midst of one of the most sustained periods of economic growth, with more people working than ever before, and unemployment at historic low levels, the media decided to stoke fears of recession.  You see, there is this inversion of bond rates, with the yields on longer term bonds lower than those on shorter term bonds, or was it the other way around?.  I don’t remember.  My head hurts just thinking about bond yields.  Anyhow, that meant that recession was on the way, so the media managed to get the stock market to drop 800 points on these phony fears.  It quickly bounced back, and not many noticed anyhow, as most stock brokers were out in the Hamptons, or on Martha’s Vineyard.  President Trump played along with the economic issue, first saying he was in favor of a payroll tax cut, and then announcing he was not in favor of such a cut.  This helped out the media, which got to report, “Trump changes his mind,” which means he either doesn’t know what he’s doing, or that he’s lost his mind and should be removed with the 25th Amendment.  It’s the silly season, remember?  The weather has been pretty hot, though, so President Trump cooled things down by talking about the last thing you would expect to hear about during the Dog Days of Summer – Greenland.  That’s right, Greenland, which any devotee of Jeopardy knows is the world’s largest island.  Out of the blue (or is it out of the white?), it was announced that the U.S. is interested in buying Greenland from Denmark.  No doubt a latter day Trump’s Folly.  Trump was scheduled to meet the Danish Prime Minister on an upcoming trip to Europe.  Then things went wrong.  The Danish PM was asked about the potential sale of Greenland, and she labelled it “absurd.”  President Trump, ever the arbiter of executive civility, took offense, announced that no melencholy Dane was going to be permitted to badmouth the United States, and cancelled his trip to Denmark.  That’ll teach them.  Yes, the silly season is upon us, but have no fear.  In about two weeks, Summer will be over.   Congress will come back to town and get down to the serious work of threatening to impeach a President who repeated investigations have found to be legally blameless.  I can’t wait.