American Petulance

 

      Historic passages are fraught with peril even when intentions are honorable. American history is presently being cast in the shadow a mad tyrant and his coterie of cowards making pact with our enemies. It is a time of subversion and carnage.  

    understatement

       President-elect Joe Biden was understated when he called Trump's behavior "embarrassing."  However you describe it, it is also dangerous. 

    Several national security and military experts have emphasized periods of transition are high alert times anyway. Trumps decapitating of our intelligence, security and defense communities is irresponsible and in some minds, traitorous.

    His behavior remains unAmerican as he continues to defy norms and intentionally seeks to undermine citizen's trust. He has no respect for the traditions that have given this diverse and rancorous nation a sense of center and cohesion.

    This is the first transition in 220 years that has not been honorable. He is the first president not to concede. That should tell everyone he is exactly what was said of him in 2015; Unfit, unqualified and lacking character. Now the loser is like a petulant punk and so, he is bent on destruction.  Sadly he has allies.                    

republican extinction

    Honor and decency have fled the Republican party and today it is nothing more than a gaggle of spineless accomplices. That is bad for the nation, destructive of the party of Lincoln and ever more a brownshirt and nazi like cult. 

    I take no pride in warning here 4 years ago we were witnessing the rise of an authoritarian regime, a slow moving coup borrowing from how the nazi's brainwashed a German nation. Others saw it as well. 

    It is important to know history and to pay close attention to the complexity of governance and to watch social norms. As a nation we have failed on this last point. Some of us were chastised for our take down of Donald Trump and the refusal of Republicans, those in office and those of rank and history, to call out the man who cares only for himself.

    Senate leader McConnell was technically correct in saying there are "options available" to the president, but there was no truth in the Trump allegations and McConnell knows that and he could see the American public soundly rejected Trump.

    McConnell is a hollow soul, there is only duplicity, greed, and a sycophant's cancerous black hole where there should be a heart. Honor and decency would be like a silver stake. He is a jackal in human form and a racist to boot.

    Bill Barr has so anguished Department of Justice professionals, past and present as to give rise to a sentiment that drawing and quartering would be an apt sentence for this delusional behemoth in horn rims. He is Trump's personal beast of burden as they lumber and hulk their way on a path of shame as they rape and bludgeon lady liberty and try to steal America.

where is courage

    How many times in the last couple of years have you heard someone ask, "what is wrong with the Republicans?"  I have wondered why some in the senate, traditionalists, have not yelled "enough is enough!"

    Trump took over and now rules the republican party. Politicians fear him. They worry he will sick his frenzied cult following on them by supporting an opponent, cutting off their life support to stand next to the till as Trump Inc. plunders public money, gives it to wealthy friends and to himself, destroys American credibility, rips apart our nation, plays the Russian stooge and dances with the devil.

    I've been reminded I should be about reconciliation and lowering the volume, but just in case no one sees what's happening here, I cannot hold my tongue. At least this leaves a record to surf algorithms for my grand kids. 

    I understand there are philosophical, political, and analytical differences. I get that people have their favorites and reasons for liking or disliking candidates. There is so much poison in the political system it is a challenge to navigate the truth, and facts. 

    Trump does not respect truth and is ignorant of many, many facts. So, regardless of your "politics," if you were one of the 70 some million who voted for him, you have ignored the truth and are ignorant of glaringly public facts. You may not like the other candidates or the other party, or their sense of things, but at least they are in touch with reality. You cannot make that claim of Donald Trump. To ignore all that he has done and all that he is doing now would have made you a good candidate to have been one of the supporters of the Nazi and fascist movement in the last century. You are how history goes so dark, and how human decency and logic is overwhelmed by madness and ignorance and grievance. 

    By the way the tax fraud who pretended to be an executive, the liar who bullied his way into leadership of the Republican party, the sexual predator who blundered this nation into ripping apart at the seams getting sick by the millions, and making the world unsafe by playing with dictators, lost the election. And you know what else, he will soon owe Russian mobsters and others some hundreds of millions in loans due, because he's the guy wrote "the art of the deal."

     Oh and there are several jurisdictions who have some legal questions to ask him. So, please for own sanity say to "the Donald," you're fired! The rest of us have. We have to live together and jointly should send Trump to the ash pile of ignominy. 

     Stay safe. Stay vigilant.

     See you down the trail.

    

    

Descent Into The Dark Ages

   We are witness to a battle of forces. Enlightenment and ignorance vie now for the soul of the of the United States.

    It's true the contest is as old as the wash of the sea against the mountain, but it has come to this cultural age with a rapier and bludgeoning reality. In the balance is whether the democratic republic will survive.

       The rule of law, the balance of power of three branches of government, and a belief in ideal and principle are at stake.   
       Donald Trump is not the cause, he is the challenge. Trump is the poster boy for the war between knowledge and ignorance, between self interest and the common good. 

CLARITY ON COMING HOME

       
       These last months I have sought to avoid the American disease. I hope the posts from Scotland and Ireland have provided beauty and relief. Ahead in this post is more of that, but first we need, finally, to return home and see it with clarity. 

     It seems improbable, and the potential is tragic, but this American nation is on a glide path to becoming a clone of what we have always derided as Banana Republics, where a strongman or dictator rules by force, demands fealty and where the law is disregarded. It is mind blowing. 

THE AFFLICTION

    This is harsh, but this affliction has been spread by those who voted for Donald Trump, those who support him still and the cowards who have enabled him in the US Senate.
    This is far beyond partisan politics, make no mistake about that. This goes to the core of who and what the United States is and will be.
    The discontent and broken politics that enabled Trump to become a minority President, aided by Russia, has only begun to receive the volume of attention and research that will play out over decades. But our immediate focus is the immediate crisis. 

    We are watching an erosion of Congressional power and a destruction of government by law and tradition. 

• WAR POWERS-There has always been a tilt over "war powers." Who controls those terrible powers, the President or the Congress. Trump's unilateral and unadvised decision to abandon allies and give Syria a green light is a signal of how egregiously this man acts. In normal times there would be more than whimpering from a fully vested Senate. Congress has been weakened by the Republican complicity with Trump's abuse of power. They are ceding what is a constitutional role in the balance of a federal government and in this area of "war powers" they have displayed cowardice. 
• ECONOMIC INFLUNCE-Congress is losing ability to guide economic forces and trade. Trump's tariff wars leave the deliberative body of our government on the stoop. The Republican majority is complicit and appears undisturbed by another sign of lost power.
• LEGISLATIVE CAPACITY-Trump has written more executive orders than any President and the Senate leader, McConnell, "Moscow Mitch" to millions of voters, just belches approval and does nothing to seek an end the deadly cancer of legislative deadlock. In fact he is a proponent of that evil tool that undermines the very intent of the legislative branch. McConnell and the Republicans are participants in the intentional weakening of the "blocking mechanism," the advice and consent role which is intended to keep a President honest and prevent the rise of an imperial or autocratic dictator.
• CHECKS AND BALANCE-McConnell's hand in hand behavior with the White House, and his statement about cooperation with Trump during the Senate Trial will be considered one of the most shameful and wretched abuses in the history of the Senate and the United States. That and his loathsome and vile racism in trying to subvert Obama's presidency, because he was black, will last as the McConnell legacy in history, but in the interim it has helped to undermine the traditional role of the US Senate to be a Check and Balance on the other branches of government. The Republicans are complicit in the destructive racism and they are cutting their own throats and attempting to do so to future Senates. The "trial" without witnesses and the pre-declared acquittal, despite an oath, to God and to the nation, to be fair makes our senate look like that of North Korea, or Putin's Russia. For show only. McConnell would be run out of Washington if the Senate Republicans had ethics, conscience and were not also white nationalist racists, or if they had the courage of Mitt Romney. 

     On can be excused for saying the party of Lincoln is like those pathetic urine soaked, white, old sots in all the bars of the world. They've lost their character, or "spine" and are too frightened to fight back as the Trump White House does what no other has done; obstruct congress, defy subpoenas, pervert the justice department, and take this nation off the rails that have guided us since the inception. The Trump party, the Republicans he controls like a mob boss, have aided and abetted the deliberate and intentional dismantling of what we used to call the "greatest nation on earth." Republicans were once patriots. Now they are a cult. The best of the old party have fled and are repulsed. 

      We have become a laughing stock, and a great concern to allies and the world. 
      People with education know this. People who are brainwashed haven't a clue.
      Millions of Americans have neither studied nor learned the significance of the Constitution, nor are they aware of what history has taught us about our 244 year experiment in government.

      When the impeached Trump took to the cameras at the White House to begin his vindictive rage and screed of revenge, the Republican Party and those who support the malicious narcissist became his accomplices. 
     When we watched the petty little tin god madness and nation embarrassing brutishness, someone on his staff should have shut it down or given him a headlock and rushed him away. But more importantly, Republicans should have joined the chorus of those who decried the un-American behavior reminding him this is how Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Amin, Kim, and other tyrants and mad men behave.
       Senate Republicans and Trump's sycophants have helped to fire a decorated veteran, a devoted public servant, a good man and his brother, who were cashiered simply because he told the truth. 
       They are also parties in the resignation of a distinguished and praised Ambassador who was the target of a slur and destroy campaign, because she told the truth.
      Truth has no place in the life of Donald Trump and no place in this Republican party and apparently is of no value to those who support this unfit and unhinged incompetent. After the Republican acquittal it is like watching a mob boss, or worse.
      The intrusion in the Stone sentencing is a frightening  extension of his dictatorial ascendency. Trump's lies would be laughable if they were not so malicious and so damaging.      
      It hurts that so many of his cult don't realize they are deceptions. They get their news from a propaganda channel and their ideas from a highly paid propagandist, liar and Russian mouthpiece, Sean Hannity and/or his sordid host colleagues who are laughing all the way to the bank. 

HISTORY HAS SEEN THIS BEAST

      A couple of years ago I was challenged by some, including conscientious friends, who said I should go easy on comparing the rise of Trump White Nationalism to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930's.  
     It should now be clear we are indeed watching the rise of a fascist movement. Trumpism condones the breaking of law, dispels any belief in "party philosophy or principle" and is loyal not to ideas and concepts, but to a man, who like the German Furerher is delusional and quite simply insane. As in the 1930's we are watching this cult being fed by deceit and ignorance. 
    There is a chilling similarity in the under current and foundational principle of occult or fantastic fantasy pseudo religious manipulations. 
    The Nazis tried by force to co-opt some of Christianity but moved into creating the myth of Aryan supremacy by borrowing from Armanism and Ariosophy.
     The rise of Trumpism was charted by Steve Bannon who is a self avowed "Primordial Traditionalist," a system of belief  created by a French Occultist Rene Guenon. Guenon, like Bannon, had been a Catholic, who became a Free Mason, who then became a Muslim and an observer and proponent of Sharia Law. 
      Both Nazism and Trumpism have views of final justice, restoring "traditional" values, end of age motivations, and destroying those they label as enemies of the state.  
     You can't make up something so bizarre. Donald Trump likely never had a deep thought in his life, but Steve Bannon knew that Trump could be "used" to mobilize the same anger, disenchantment, racial and ethic hatred, to bring about "the change" the world needed. 
      You delude yourself or are burying your head in the sand if you deny that Trumpism has become a political cult.
     
     Perceptive scholars, historians and journalists have made this case. Pulitzer Winner Bob Woodward, the first to seriously write about this administration entitled his book Fear-Trump in the White House. He said then the nation ought to be worried. The record since validates that. 
     There is no measure that finds the man who was a tax cheat, fraud, swindler, serial sexual predator, liar and racist has helped this nation. His most fervent advocates will point to his putting right wing judges on the bench, which has a lot to do with the approval of the pissy panted Republican sycophants. But close examination of the incompetence of some of those judicial appointments should set off another round of nightmares and dread. He is devaluing and weakening this nation as he builds a cult of followers.

      We must ask why do they want incompetent but ideological people on our courts? What do they want approval to do? Contravene the judicial process, roll back sentences for criminal associates, do away with Roe. V Wade, undo Brown Vs The Board of Education, begin to limit  guaranteed, until now, liberties and freedoms, deport whomever they wish, mandate the teaching of lies and distortions like those that come from the mouth of the new monarch, give corporations free reign to foul the air, water, land, rape resources, give advantage to only the wealthy and do nothing about common need?

     The difference between a Trump Rally and a Hitler speech to the masses is that Hitler spoke with intelligence, eloquence, and a lofty purpose, though evil and insane. He gave Germans a kind of faux religion and vision. The Aryan Riech-Make Germany Great Again. 
      Trump is a bloated reality television figure saying the same old lines, prompting the same old chants, blathering the same old lies, fanning the same old racism, and acting like everything but Presidential and executive. He goes before his loyal and, with a low brow but toxic mendacity, merely trolls for praise and applause in which he preens and struts and puckers like a sick, evil man from history. The bully boy who would be king.
      Hitler was deadly serious and demanded loyalty and his followers acted like a zealous, hateful, destructive movement,
       Trump too demands loyalty. He is there to bask in the limelight, to absorb all of the attention. He feeds lines to trained dogs who bark and growl on cue. He is an idiot and so, I am moved to say, are his loyal who chant back. But they too act like a zealous, hateful and destructive movement.
       Hitler's people may have been sold a kind of northern myth about a Reich that would rule for thousands of years.
       Trumps people can't trouble with concepts of thousands of years or mythic vision, they are angry, or feel betrayed, or are racists, xenophobes, or simply losers looking to get even. They want to "shake it up" without possessing a real knowledge of what it is they want to shake up, or how it  even works, or how to tell they are being swindled and hustled by a con man who has done nothing else in his life, but cheat and lie.
       I find the great irony to be that so many who believe Trump is sent here by God have never bothered to spend time researching Steve Bannon's vision, that Donald Trump is playing. If you have any curiosity about this vision of Primordial Traditionalism look it up.  Joshua Green wrote a definitive piece in the July 2017 Vanity Fair.  
     Sadly, doing research or study is beyond the desire of many voters. The Trump campaign counts on that and the loyalty of his followers, who would never challenge their leader. Cultish compliance. 

     They've seen him for going on 4 years. No amount of logic, reality, facts or truth will dissuade them. And like far too many million other US voters, they just don't know much.
      Way too many voters are ill informed. They get their info from perhaps one or two sources. As a young reporter I heard Walter Cronkite, then CBS Anchor and "the most trusted man in America" tell an audience if he was the source of their news and information, they were not fully informed. He, and others in that age, urged people to read newspaper(s)-at least two-to listen to radio and watch more than one television news program, to read magazine(s) and Cronkite urged people to read research and academic publications as well as books. We were better informed, when we had those kind of admonitions and sources.
     The sources we all rely on now have downsized. Once America was informed by newspapers and legitimate broadcast news organizations, but that has morphed to swill being piped through social media.  
      Far too much information is fractured, fragmented, not well sourced. 
      Far too many people don't understand how government is structured, or even the difference between a county councilman and a US Senator. We have become an idiot nation, unconcerned about history and its significance or the implication of our own hedonistic stupidity. Steve Bannon and Brad Parscale, the director of the Trump 2020 campaign, count on that.
     It is no wonder so many follow a reality television star but couldn't tell you what the First Amendment is, what it delineates or where to find it. 
    They can chant "lock her up" but how many of those chanters know about the Japanese internment. 
    Do you think many or even any at his rallies could tell you what is kristallnacht. Do you think Donald Trump could tell you?  Do you think any of them have read about Primordial Traditionalism?

     Trump's nation probably knows nothing about the 15th Amendment and see nothing wrong with Republican efforts to suppress votes. They worry not about how the Russian government tried to rig our last election and that "Moscow Mitch" has done everything he can to block election security, but they can be convinced hoards of illegals, or people of color might be voting.
      Cynical and sinister types around Trump understand this and they exploit it. You should read the Atlantic piece on deliberate manipulation of fact and truth and the role it will play in the Trump nation this election year.  
      Like conspiracy theories, Trump lies can thrive when people fail to have grounding in fact, history and knowledge.
The Trump supporters are easily manipulated, but so are  many other low information US citizens. 

      So what can be done.
      Well, you can be like some and hope that Trump chokes on a chicken bone. 
      Or you can be like those who fantasize that a new Booth, Guiteau, Czologosz, or Oswald will appear. 
You can hope that Melania does a Lorena Bobbitt, or you can pray that Donald Trump has a Saul of Tarsus conversion experience, or you can simply pray for him, or you can just worry and make yourself sick and depressed.
      Millions of Americans are suffering a kind of Trump depression. Shouldn't that tell us something?

MAD AS HELL AND NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE?

      Here are a couple of things you can do. 
     --Face the facts. Racists, nationalists, and xenophobes have been a strain off fabric in this nation since the beginning. They've had their moments. Once the Democratic party was the party of racists. 
      --The idea of populism and nationalism have come and gone.
      --Not all of those who voted for Trump are racists, nationalists, xenophobes or haters. He attracted those who were at the end of their wits, felt over looked and forgotten, unemployed, struggling to get by. He made them think he would take care of them. 
      --Democrats can and should pay attention to these people, listen to them, hear their pain and respond with sincerity. If Hilary would have listened to philandering Bill, she may have spoken to those voters and now she could be preparing a re-election. 
      --A candidate should address those who voted for Trump in key counties and townships that swung the electoral college and ask:
         if the coal mines have been re-opened, 
         if their factory jobs have come back, 
         if they have a new health care plan, 
         if their families are free from the fear of an opioid epidemic, 
         if their kids are going to college, 
         if they must choose between a house or car payment and medicine.

LIKE SUN TO A VAMPIRE

TRUTH CAN KILL TRUMP

       Unless you are a right to life advocate, a right wing evangelical with a belief in judgment, a lover of Russia, a one-percenter, a nationalist, or a white supremacist, Trump's record is his weak spot. 
       His supporters will cite the economy, but the cycle began long before he moved in. The Market, high though it is, is of no solace to the millions being squeezed by lack of benefits, cost of insurance, or being one paycheck from being homeless. There was more growth in Obama's years than in Trumps.
      He has been a failure in Korea, the Middle East, he's abandoned allies, made the world less secure, walked away from Climate Accords, allowed Iran to restart a nuclear weapons program, voices Russian propaganda, gave Russian spies critical and sensitive information, has been called an idiot by a revolving door of military and national security professionals, is destroying the State Department, Justice Department, EPA, run up the highest deficit ever, lies about building the wall, lies all the time  about everything.

     










If we want this
madman, would be king, out of the White House, the nation needs to pay attention to facts, reality, the truth and talk about it.  
     We need not let the media, who chase his every diversion, divert us from what is so. Trump and his mob understand the "bright shiny object" diversionary tactic. They, like Leni Riefenstahl, the Nazi filmmaker and Joesph Goebbels the Propagandist, understand manipulation of public attention and image.

WANT TO BE A KING KILLER?

      The Democrat party needs consensus, needs to gear itself to the center of this nation-working people of every color, ethnicity, belief and identity. Jobs, health care, climate, education and well being.  
      It needs to be a kind of bifurcated campaign. The Democrats should define themselves and not allow the Trump characterization be focus. They should fight back.
      The Democrats need to hold the mirror of reality up to Trump and not allow his excesses, his failures, his lies, venality, incompetence and unfitness slide from the public view.
       The candidates should stay on message--their plan for all Americans. Other organizations can take the lead on playing Trump back to America. 
      Whoever emerges as the Democrat ticket will be better than Donald Trump, less destructive than Donald Trump, will put the climate back on the agenda, will be more prudent than Donald Trump, will listen to advisors, will pay attention to national security and intelligence chiefs, will not dis them in public, will not attack the judiciary, and they will not be lining their own pockets while serving, or will not be setting up their children, and will not be Putin's stooge, will not "fall in love" with Kim, will not behave as a traitor,  will not abandon allies, or be a practicing racist and white nationalist. 

      So Democrats, unless you want 4 more years, get your house in order. Back whoever wins the nomination. 
      America is sick. We are sick of Trump and his deceit and dictatorial aspirations. He is poisoning our way of life, our decency, our government, our sense of who we are. Our children need to learn Trump is not "normal" and his ways are vile, aberrant and criminal.  
        We can and should talk about that. 
        In 2016 the majority (millions more) voted against his "highness." The power is in the vote, at every township level in the nation. That is the task. That is the cure. That is the light to keep us from plunging into the new dark ages.

   I welcome your comments and thoughts in the responses below. This is something we need to share and talk about. 

ENDING WITH SOMETHING SWEET

    Adare in County Limerick is one of the prettiest place in Ireland, which suffers no shortage of beauty. 

  And Adare is a village with the traditional thatch roof cottages and buildings. We found them mesmerizing.

   The Earl of Dunraven, who played an historic role in building the village, is commemorated in the village hotel.

    A lovely park reflects the verdant beauty of Adare.

   And Irish friends in a good room, make for a good day.

    See you down the trail. 

Christmas Ghosts Visit Donald Trump

    If Harvey Weinstein were still in the game he might be doing a remake of The Three Amigos- Jesus, Donald and Vladimir.

      Although the Christianity Today editorial would probably change that. The magazine that Billy Graham founded and that has been down the middle and a little to the right on most secular and theological issues has sent a broadside to the right wing of the evangelical brothers and sisters.

     It said Donald Trump has abused his power, violated the constitution, has dumbed down the idea morality with his government and is himself "a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused." They say he should be removed from office. 

     I have a bone to pick with CT and a thought about the impact of this further down the post, but first...

a personal note to the president

   Mr Trump,

    It is highly unlikely these words will find their way to your possibly soulless and certainly empty eyes, but I wish they would so you cannot escape a reality, the truth that people know about you. (By the way, your eyes would not look so beady if your face were not so bloated and you could change that if you did some real exercise. Getting in and out of a tanning bed, creating that coiffure and eating KFC does not count as exercise.) 

   Perhaps you will be visited by the Ghost of Richard Nixon, or Abe Lincoln if the Dicken's specters are busy lobbying at the McConnell house. Abe and Tricky Dick might run you around the presidential bed. Until then, my Christmas message here will try to channel the Ghost of Christmas Future.

     When you die, as you will, the taint of impeachment will be the first thing future generations will know about you. A close second will be what a foolish, pathetic, deceitful and abusive oaf you were. With time will come the myriad details of your massive tax fraud, business failures, cheating, and pages of despicable behavior and judgement. 

     Your presidency, including your court appointees, will be with an asterisk, that is denoted as a campaign assisted by a foreign power. History will record how you then became a lap dog and stooge for a ruthless Vladimir Putin complete with all manner of speculation as to your "bromance" with him. 

     Perhaps he was the "real man" whom you could only pretend to be. He was a tough guy KGB apparatchik when you were filling tabloids with your own tales of deception and cheating in your personal relationships. Who calls radio and tv stations using a fake name and posing as a spokesman for Donald Trump to brag about Trump's romantic prowess? Who? You did.

your legacy

     At some point cultural history will dissect your classless demonstration of "new rich" with your garish and tasteless faux opulence? There will be theories about  trying to be a king. It's a cliche', the trashy trying to gild with gold. It's like putting lipstick on a pig.

    You will probably be remembered as one of the biggest liars in history. It's so serious major news organizations actually do tabulations. 

    First president to be impeached in a first term-there's another historical note that will follow you when you are dead and unable to tweet a retort.

    But mostly you will be remembered as a joke. You are the lying hustler bully who played the race card, appealed to the angry and yes some legitimately overlooked citizens, along with kooks, xenophobes, residual nazi and fascist sympathizers (Steven Miller), racists, the poorly or uneducated, and just plain losers. You stirred a cult that worships the absolute worst of American culture. You have unleashed division, legitimized stupidity, nurtured meanness, crassness and hatred. You demean manhood and you degrade humanity. 

your list of kings

    I know you call yourself a Nationalist. The world may remember Hitler and Mussolini as nationalists on the list of evil humans. There have been other dictators; Amin, Stalin, Franco, Duarte, Mao, the Kims, Caesar, Ataturk, Garibaldi, Duvalier, Attila the Hun, Torquemada, Khan and others. But you are not on that list. No, you will be remembered as the not so bright and troubled little rich boy who wanted to grow up to be on that list, but were too incompetent. You passed only the disgusting level. 

     Your distinction is that you are forever great fodder as a joke, a laughable would be tyrant. You have been a tool, a stooge. You are the man who went broke running a casino, who failed, always. The name Trump will go down in the halls of history as meaning failure, clown, disgusting, a kind of biological waste product.  In our house, as our grand daughter was working on toilet training, we referred to her filling her diaper as "making trumpies." 

     Isn't that a wonderful legacy mr president?

     I wish you a Merry Christmas and hope the happiness of the New Year is that you return to Trump Tower and/or Mar a Lago where you contemplate the stunning change of fortune in the Senate and meet continuously with a team of lawyers helping to prepare for the first of a lifetime of trials. 

      Sincerely,

      A Tax Payer

the evangelical thing

   I know people who are otherwise pleasant but with whom I disagree on theology and politics. They are representative of who I hope will read the CT article, because while it may be comfortable to think you have it all figured out, a neat and tidy understanding of, as Bill Buckley said, "God and Man...."such thinking can lead you to dark places of wrongfulness, including judgmentalism and false teachings. 

     In making the case to the right wing of the Christian world CT say the Trump administration is morally unable to lead because of "gross immorality and ethical incompetence."

      To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

    That part of the editorial cuts right to the heart of matter for some of Trump's base---- though many of his supporters are only as "church going" as is Trump himself! Just another fraud, working both ways.

      I take exception to this CT contention

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

    The first paragraph is, in a non-theological phrase, pure bull shit and it is one that Trumpists and Republicans have used from the beginning. 

   And Trump had a chance to participate, send records and witnesses, but defied congress, and thus the obstruction charge. CT-you get an F on that.  

   BUT hold that thought and suspend my judgment and consider that on the night of Obama's inauguration Republican leaders met for four hours to plot how to block the Democrats on "every single bill and every single issue."

    Then less than two years later in October on the eve of the first mid-term election McConnell admitted what was the Republican interest when he spoke to the National Journal

   "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one term President."
                            Mitch McConnell

   The rest is history, including the abusive act of denying a supreme court appointment to Obama.
    I do not think the effort to impeach began with the election. The effort to impeach began when Donald Trump proved true to what 55 top Republicans who served at the highest levels in Republican Presidential administrations warned in August 2016 that he was unfit, unqualified, lacked the character and would jeopardize national security.
     Like right wing evangelicals, Republicans have been fooled, or worse, with Trumpist perversity. My understanding of Christ's teaching and practices lead me to different understandings than right wing evangelicals, but I paraphrase an old saying. You need to be careful with whom you dance.
      While the group CT is trying to reach, and while the once Republicans the Lincoln Project are trying to "deprogram" may not be dancing with the evil one, they are dancing with Donald Trump, who CT says is a perfect "example of someone who is morally lost and confused."
       I am not so charitable. From my secular side of the street, whatever else he is, Trump is a traitor to the US.
        The Ghost of Christmas Future is still conjuring what that will mean to "us all, everyone."

         See you down the trail.

SHE SAYS-HE SAYS and A Few Diversions

   In this post, we'll open and close here-something good, something very good and nice. We need diversions, don't we?

  The other stories in the Kavanaugh confirmation coming up, but first a good bye------

one tough old bird

     Our little village tucked between the Santa Lucia Mountains and the Pacific lost a big force this weekend, Reggie Perkins at 92. Some of us lost a buddy.

    Here's an sketch of how tough Reg was. A few years ago he had a heart attack on Christmas Eve. He was back on the tennis court New Year's Day.  

     A WWII vet, he had been a battalion chief on the LA Fire Department. He helped build the Cambria Fire Department and served on the community governing board, the CCSD.

      He and his late wife founded a volunteer group that assists people in need or needing medical equipment, or trips to the doctor. They started the annual Easter Egg hunt. He was active in the American Legion and had been a long time treasure of the Odd Fellows benevolence lodge.

     On the tennis court Reg, who played up to only a few months ago despite knees that hurt him every minute, had one of the toughest drop shots in tennis. He chuckled many times as I ran like a banshee to get to the ball, only to watch his patented spin make me look like a fool. I was not alone.

     Reg was one of the founders of the "prayer meeting" that I was invited into about 12 years ago. A group of old boys meeting on someone's porch or deck at precisely 4:00 to have coffee and a cigar, if you were so inclined. Way back the group met on Wednesdays and Sundays. In the last few years the gatherings were on Sunday and wine had been added as well. As a new retiree in the village the tips, insights and history I heard from Reg, John Angel and the late Phil Allen, plus the jokes, made a newbie feel right at home. 
      Reg listened more than he talked, but when he said something, it stuck. These were truly old boys still full of life. 

     It was only a couple of weeks ago Reg was on my deck reminding me I needed to add cushions to my hard wood furniture. We all thought Reg would go on forever. He filled his 92 years and left us all with a target to shoot for. He will be missed.

     What you see in the frame above is the largest lemon I've seen. It was grown locally.  How big is it?

an appropriate pause

     In a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, the new accusations have to be taken seriously enough to be investigated and either tossed aside or validated. 

      What's the rush? Mitch McConnell considered a year a valid wait. The Kentucky wheeler dealer denied America's first African American President a chance to get even a hearing on his nominee. So, what's the rush now? Does someone sense American voters are fed up with Republican rule and acquiescence to the malignant narcissist and Russian stooge?

      More important than Republicans protecting their advantage is the fact the American public deserves resolution as do Judge Kavanaugh and Professor Ford. And the same goes for the more recent accusers and the Judge. 

       But there is an ugly strain in all of this. Some, on both sides of the political aisle, wonder if accusations this old have any bearing on the decision. The default position for many is, what really matters is if the judge is telling the truth. Well of course that matters. 

      But I am one who thinks the behavior all those years ago matter as well, though it is complicated. It is possible that people can change. I think it is entirely possible that youthful and foolish behavior can be left behind. And we know  drinking can contribute to poor judgement and horrendous behavior--but....wrong is wrong, and violence is violence. Also, a patriarchal mind set is wrong and too often has been enabling. 

       The idea that "boys will be boys" is wrong headed and dangerous. That attitude permeates American culture and it was certainly in play at the time that Judge Kavanaugh was a beer drinking, hell raising, privileged preppie and Yalie. It was wrong and if we are ever to get fair and healthy in relationships between men and women we need to recognize it. It shouldn't have been condoned then. It cannot be condoned now. Should it bar him from the court? If it was something he did repeatedly, but now lies about, then yes.

       If Kavanaugh did not in fact act like a boorish, privileged drunk punk then it goes beyond what and how he described himself at the time. Still I'm sure boys who behaved badly have grown to be responsible adults and that may in fact be the case for the judge, unless he is lying now, embarrassed about his previous alleged behavior or too drunk to remember.
       He is where few people go, nominated to the Supreme Court and we have a right to know. Our right to know supersedes his privacy, her privacy, since she had made the accusation and certainly supersedes any thing Mitch McConnell wants.

      The last thing on this is fairness-fairness in this case and the historic issue of fairness in how women have been second class, abused and treated. I read this contemporary culture as being invested by women and men who say

time's up. We want to play by new rules.  We want to play by fair rules.

      I think there is enough accrued injustice and resultant anger that the old white men on the Judiciary Committee better realize what year it is and what fair now means. If Republicans behave as they did in 1991, they belong on the ash bin.

and now to the diversions

there are some things you just can't explain

no matter where you look

relax

at this age, and in this time, diversions are healthy

cheers!

      See you down the trail.