Trump Is Killing Democracy

It is well established law that you cannot shout fire in a crowded place, but Trump being Trump insists that you can shout “Reichstag fire!” Lets call Trump's law and order ploy what it actually is. It is the worst and most dangerous form of demagoguery – the kind that kills democracy. What Trump calls federal law enforcement personnel have been perverted; wittingly or unwittingly they are now his Brown Shirts, and they are trying to create a Reichstag fire situation in Portland, Oregon in order to help the most corrupt, incompetent, vicious and dangerous despot, Donald Trump, hang on to his power. This is a tactic right out of the NAZI play book, which is rather remarkable considering the fact that Trump is Putin's man ho. Ah, but one has to bear in mind that Putin has morphed from communist thug to kleptocrat just as Trump has morphed from tawdry conman to kleptocrat, and kleptocrats have no ideology other than avarice and a lust for power! It is impossible to overstate how dangerous Trump is to our constitution and our democracy.  Trump's has sent his brown shirts to intimidate the citizenry of Portland and to deprive those citizens of their right to free speech and their right to peacefully assemble. And now Trump is announcing his plan to send his brown shirts to other cities to deprive the citizens there of their rights. He has not said anything about how long he intends to terrorize those cities, or if he intends to keep expanding the scope of this terror.  The greatest fear expressed by several commentators, and it is not an unwarranted fear, is that Trump will use his brown shirts to intimidate voters or otherwise interfere with the 2020 election.


I have always recoiled in disgust when I have heard right wing idiots babble about the “second amendment remedy.” We have a system. The remedy is the vote, or so I thought. But what do you do when one of the major political parties is complicit in an attack on our constitution and our democracy? What do you do when members of that party will not respond to a grave threat to this country and instead they prevent anyone else from legally removing that grave threat? What do you do when the courts cannot or will not defend the people and the constitution of this country from a lawless president who is intent on usurping all power and robbing us blind? What do you do when the system fails, and because of voter suppression, intimidation and/or foreign interference you cannot count on the next election being a legitimate election? This, I am afraid, is what we are facing; this is the very real dilemma Trump poses to those of us who believe in the rule of law. Having to act outside of the law in order to preserve the law sounds like the illogical rationalizations of a despot. But what if there is no legal way to prevent Trump from becoming an autocrat? What if Trump and the Republican Party refuse to acknowledge and abide by the results of a legitimate election? What if the so called second amendment remedy is all that is left?  We have to stop Trump, his morally and intellectually bankrupt party, and his brown shirts before it is too late!  

The Torch Is Passed

As I sat in front of my television this morning listening to people eulogizing John Lewis and C.T. Vivian I could not help thinking that the greatest patriot is the person who willingly suffers condemnation from his fellow citizens and even physical injury in an effort to make his or her country better. John Lewis and C.T. Vivian did that and more. You do not have to be black to know that they were great patriots, and we are better because of them.

As the death of these great men attests, we are losing the moral giants, the leaders who fought and sacrificed so much to make liberty and justice for all a reality. In an homage to Abraham Lincoln let my say: it is now for us the living to dedicate ourselves to completing the work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. I think that homage to Lincoln in a tribute to John Lewis, C.T. Vivian and other civil rights leaders is fitting because those courageous leaders did indeed dedicate themselves to completing the unfinished work of emancipation, reconstruction, and the implementation of the full rights of citizenship as guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

We shall dearly miss John Lewis, C.T. Vivian and so many others, but as we celebrate their lives and their work we should understand that their great cause, their struggle has entered a new phase. The torch has not been passed to new charismatic leaders but rather to a ground swell rising up from the citizenry and a moral imperative that defines what this country must become. Unfortunately, the resistance to this ground swell is as unrelenting as it is immoral. That is why we need to keep pressing forward. Any hesitation, any lapse into complacency will result in the sort of backsliding that has been so frustrating to everyone working for social justice and racial equality. As we honor our civil rights lions for their work let us do so with our work.

Ignorance And The Pandemic

Almost since the dawn of civilization educators have been conducting a war on ignorance, and since the beginning of the twentieth century Republicans have accused those educators of being socialists or radical liberals. That Trump and the far right are anti-intellectual is perfectly understandable. The Republicans and their wealthy donors depend on the gullibility of the uneducated and uninformed. Who else is going to ignore reality and buy into the absurd conspiracy theories of the radical right? What I find so perplexing is the fact that most of the news media and the pundits actually let Donald Trump and the other feckless, fascist fools define who and what is radical left or too liberal. Seemingly the Republican's ideological attacks work. So it should not surprise anyone that the most ignorant and intellectually challenged American president anyone living today can recall is taking the intellectual attacks on ignorance personally. How dare anyone fact check Donald Trump!

Trump and the Republican Party want you to believe that facts are merely partisan tools used to refute cherished beliefs, and that is bad - so bad, so very bad! Just ask Galileo. Trump also wants you to believe that people who insist on facts are too busy trying to find out out what the facts are to do anything else. Moscow Mitch, comrade William (Beria) Barr, and what is left of the Republican party would agree. Indeed those Republicans insist that Trump is just what this country needs. He is too aggressively ignorant and neglectful to be encumbered by any knowledge of history or concerns about the ramification of his actions or his inaction, and he has no conscience! Short term goals and immediate gratification, that's the ticket, that's what Trump promises.

So take your damn Hydroxychloroquine, drink bleach, rip off those ridiculous masks, and go about your business the way you did before the pandemic. Take Trump's word for it: Dr. Anthony Fauci and those other doctor downers don't know everything. If Covid-19 does not kill you, you will be better off for standing up to it!

Needless to say that Trump is at war with the truth and the truth is asserting itself with a vengeance. The attendance at Trump's last rally was underwhelming, but the virus bearing droplets causing so many of his followers and so many members of his entourage to catch the Covid-19 virus were anything but underwhelming.  Much to the chagrin of the Republicans even the dumb asses are beginning to catch on. Many of them now realize that Death by virus is not be such a good thing, and it can happen to them. This is forcing Trump's spokespeople to say, “okay, you scaredy cats, wear the masks if you must, but go to the Trump rallies.

As the pandemic rages through the nation taking the lives of our loved ones and our neighbors approval of Trump's performance plummets. Unfortunately for Trump, the more unpopular a president becomes the more he is scrutinized and the greater the evidence against him becomes.  The Republicans who were too cowardly to oppose Trump are now watching in horror as he bumbles them into a disaster. Trump's “sleepy Joe” and “scary china lover ads” are falling with a dull, pathetic thud. Other Republicans, the ones involved in the Lincoln Project are not just calling out Trump for his corruption, incompetence, and disloyalty to this country, they are also calling out the senators and members congress who chose to function as soggy diapers covering Trump's ass and hauling his water rather than keeping the oath they took to defend the constitution. It is too late for any of those senators or members of congress to distance themselves from Trump now. They had their chance to do the right thing by voting to impeach Trump or by convicting him in the senate, and they did not to do it.

If you are looking for a silver lining in regard to the pandemic it is that it is doing what investigations, public hearings, and Trump's transparent acts to obstruct of justice could not do; it is making the people who are too lazy or indifferent to pay attention to politics look at just how incompetent and dangerous Trump is. That the price the pandemic is exacting for performing this service is far greater than we ever wanted to pay goes without saying, but so is the price of having the corrupt and malfunctioning Trump as our chief executive.

If Only His Grief Was Our Relief

Lately several pundits have reported that Trump is distraught, and they are questioning whether Trump really wants to serve a second term. His aids are telling him that he is on a losing path, the pundits say, but Trump cannot or will not change. Trump says he has to be who he is! Unfortunately for him who and what he is has become almost as popular as a lawn turd at a picnic. In terms of elect-ability this will make him what he fears and loathes the most; he shall go down in history as A Loser! It is enough to make a morally and intellectually impaired megalomaniac wet his bed. A normal person would spare the sheets by looking for a way out or for some action he could take that might be considered redeeming. Nothing could redeem Richard Nixon, but he at least had the decency to resign. He did not even shout you can't fire me I quit! Trump obviously has no decency, and when he is forced to leave office he will not do so quietly!

I might add here that the losers if Trump resigned would be members of his family and possibly the people who committed crimes with him. Vice President Pence would appear to be the beneficiary, though it must be noted that with Trump gone Pence would probably have to find a way to kiss his own ass.

Laws And Elections Matter

William Barr has now become something even more dangerous than a soggy diaper covering Trump's ass and hauling Trump's water. Barr is threatening to become for Trump what comrade Lavrenty Beria was for Joseph Stalin. I know that sounds like an exaggeration but I cannot overstate the danger posed to our democracy by a lawless president aided and abetted by an attorney general who deems the partisan interests of that president to be more important than the constitution and the rule of law.

We all know William Barr is a liar. He demonstrated that when he lied about what was in the Mueller report. How shamelessly partisan and dangerously unethical Barr has now become is far too evident. In the January 17, 2020 issue of the New York Magazine Intelligencer there is an article entitled, “William Barr Going After Trump's Enemies One By One.” The author, Jonathan Chait, began by reporting that “...the Department of Justice is exploring yet another probe of James Comey, the former FBI director turned Trump antagonist,...” As Mr. Chait wrote:

 “No single case is egregious enough to prove bias on its own. The pattern of selective prosecution under Trump’s Department of Justice, and his fanatically partisan Attorney General William Barr, has become evident in a series of cases that all resemble this one. The connecting thread is that Trump’s enemies are scoured for any violation that can be found, and held to the strictest letter of the law, while his allies are given broad latitude...”

The contrast between the DOJ dropping criminal charges against Michael Flynn and overruling the Justice Departments own sentencing recommendations for Roger Stone while going after Andrew McCabe, James Comey and other perceived Trump enemies could not be clearer. And it does not end there. As Mr. Chait points out:

“... Barr has appointed John Durham to undertake another even broader investigation into the FBI and the intelligence community’s Russia investigation. The probe appears to be aimed at other Trump antagonists, such as former CIA Director John Brennan. Barr has thrown his weight behind the probe, visiting foreign countries and asking their cooperation.”

In regard to demonstrations and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances Mr. Barr would appear to condition that right on a partisan basis. As Maggie Jo Buchanon wrote in a very important article in American Progress:

“When armed protesters stormed the Michigan state legislature to protest public health orders, for example, Barr was largely quiet—a stark contrast to his willingness to quickly denounce the Black Lives Matter protests occurring throughout the country as “hijacked” by far-left extremists without providing evidence to back up his claim.”

Even public health has been politicized by Trump and Barr:

“Just days after Trump specifically ramped up attacks on Democratic governors for their public health orders aimed at ending the spread of COVID-19, Barr announced that the DOJ would formally begin reviewing and challenging state public health orders.”

If all of that does not send a chill down your spine consider this report by Ms. Buchanon:

“... given what these actions suggest regarding Barr’s willingness to use the might of the Department of Justice to support Trump’s political allies, it is important to keep in mind that the DOJ has recently requested emergency powers from Congress. 

While Congress did not give in to Barr’s request, the scope of what the attorney general sought was sweeping. Under the proposal, the DOJ would have been able to petition individual judges at the district court level to indefinitely suspend certain court proceedings—effectively, giving the department wide latitude to significantly delay certain arrested individuals’ ability to appear in court.”

So much for the sixth Amendment. And then, as if this was not bad enough, we were treated to the spectacle of peaceful demonstrators being attacked with tear gas, rubber bullets and men on horse back so that Trump could stage his ill advised photo op in front of St. John's Episcopal Church while holding a bible upside down! It was William Barr who personally ordered those protesters cleared!

Add to this outrageous attack on peaceful demonstrators Trump's June 1 remarks to the nation in which he, Trump, positioned himself as "the president of law and order" and promised to dispatch "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers" to cities across the US. and you have a threat so grave that it caused General Mark Milley, the top US commander, to issue “a memo to military leaders reminding them of their oaths to protect the US Constitution and the "right to freedom of speech and peaceful assembly".

I urge everyone to heed the words of General Mattis who honestly called Trump a "threat to the constitution."  All soldiers take an oath to defend the constitution, but, in spite of many former military leaders now speaking out against Trump, we cannot depend on generals and admirals to oppose their commander in chief even when he is breaking the law. That means it is up to we the people to defend our democracy from would be despots. Anyone who does not vote Trump and his soggy diapers out of office this November is failing to protect the constitution, the rule law, and our democracy.

Would You Buy A bridge From Him

People who have a “Make America Great Again” hat and/or a “Keep America Great” hat are already buying crap as chocolate from Trump, and they believe him when he blames the Democrats for the taste. So if you are one of those Trump chumps the answer is yes, you probably would buy a bridge form him.

People who have a worthless diploma from Trump U have already been Trumped, and it is unlikely that they would also buy a bridge from him. Although, I cannot be too sure of that -- some of the people can be fooled all of the time.

Whether people who have contributed to the Trump Foundation would also buy a bridge from him depends on whether they cared about where the money was going or whether they were simply trying to curry Trump's favor. People who try to curry Trump's favor by making contributions to Trump's organizations or paying Trump directly should know that they are on an installment plan and the price for what they want from Trump will keep going up because Trump does not even meet Simon Cameron's standards* for an honest politician. As the Washington Post says: “President Trump made 18,000 false or misleading claims in 1,170 days” Furthermore, Trump will throw anyone and everyone under the bus in a New York minute.

Trump touts the use of Hydroxychloroquine as a simplistic answer for the simple minded. That simplistic answer is, in fact, one of the planks in the bridge Trump is hawking. Most of the side effects of Hydroxychloroquine are known. How effective Hydroxychloroquine is in preventing or curing Covid-19 is not known. People, such as Trump, who think they can ignore social distancing and protective masks because Hydroxychloroquine will protect them are idiots. The reason I said, “such as Trump,” in the previous sentence is because Trump is implying if not expressly telling us that he is relying on Hydroxychloroquine to protect him. Quick remedies for the virus and the economic disruption are very important components of Trump's sales pitch, and he damns the pundits who say they doubt that he is even taking Hydroxychloroquine.

Trump knows his reelection is in peril if people do not think the country is doing well under this leadership. So, like Herbert Hoover during the great depression, Trump is trying to paint a rosy picture of our situation and our prospects. Prosperity and a cure for Covid-19 are just around the corner, don't you know? The precise corner is to be determined at a later date, but you can bet that Trump is prepared to blame his wrong turns on the governors of blue states in particular and on his political opponents in general; this apparently includes all of the former presidents who know what an incompetent charlatan he is.

I should add here that Trump is becoming more desperate and dangerous as the election nears and the polls show him losing. He does not care how many people will die because he is trying to open up the country too early. He does not care how many people have to be deprived of their right to vote in order for him to win. He does not care about how many fake investigations the worst attorney general in the history of the nation has to conduct to smear Trump's opponents or how many truly bad decisions have to rendered by the Supreme Court Moscow Mitch has delegitimized. All that matters to Trump is that he is reelected and remains in office long enough for the statute of limitations on the crimes he has already committed to run out while he is still immune from any criminal actions against him. Reelecting Trump should be a bridge too far for anyone who loves this country, its laws, its people, and its system of government.

*The greedy SOB won't stay bought.

Too Crazy

I am going stir crazy. I need a laugh! So I sat in front of my computer thinking I could write a parody or a satire to make me laugh at my present situation, or perhaps I should say our situation. For some reason my mind turned to the great humorist, Art Buchwald. During the Watergate scandal Mr. Buchwald's column was a much welcomed laugh in a very angry world. It was a world in which everything seemed to be so exaggerated that people wanting to write parodies or satires were hard pressed to come up with anything more ridiculous than the truth. Indeed, Mr. Buchwald said that writing his column was far too easy during those years. He assured us that he was not making it up, that he was merely telling the truth and people found it funny. Thank you, Martha Michell!

Today we do not have a Martha Mitchell ringing the bell or blowing the whistle, but we do not need her. We already have the idiot in chief and the chumps who are stupid enough to believe him and support him. In which orifice does Trump propose injecting sunlight to kill Covid-19? Whichever one he chooses you can safely bet it is not where you want a sun burn and/or skin cancer. While propounding his specious Covid-19 cures Trump frequently points out that he is not a doctor. Neither was my father. My father was a plumber, but he was still far too knowledgeable to suggest that anyone should drink Drano to cure constipation, and he knew where the “sun don't [and shouldn't] shine.” Now Trump claims he was just being sarcastic when he suggested ingesting disinfectants or injecting disinfectants and/or sunlight into the body. The funny part is that the Trump chumps (particularly Fox viewers) will actually believe him unless they are among to few who wound up in the hospital because they followed his advice about taking hydroxychloroquine.

Speaking of Trump chumps, let me just say that while I am sympathetic to people who are losing their incomes during this crises, a very large number of the people demonstrating against stay at home orders are making more of a political statement than an economic statement, and they are more than willing to trade lives to gain a political advantage. One of the reasons they are willing to do this is because they are not smart enough to think about whose lives they might be sacrificing. This issue takes on a whole different meaning when the life sacrificed is yours or that of a beloved family member. But, in the name of God, the Trump chumps banish all thoughts about such consequences. In the alternative world of the right wing there is only the earthly present and an eternity ruled by faith rather facts.

There is no need to award a Darwin to the people who gather in close proximity to other chumps demonstrating against social distancing. The award far too many of those people are likely to receive is the Covid-19 virus. While I do not wish that on them, I have an even stronger objection to them passing that virus on to others who did nothing to earn it!

Oh, and one quick note to Moscow Mitch. Be careful what you wish for, dumb ass! If New York and California go bankrupt who is going subsidize Kentucky?

The Distance Is Physical

Trying to fill a prescription now is not as easy as one would think. I spent three days trying to order my medications on line only to find that I could not connect to Kaiser's on line ordering system. I tried using the option of calling in my refill order. The the voice menu they give you requires you to say or type in the prescription order number. Perhaps I simply do not know how to use this function but I could not find a way to give them multiple prescriptions to fill. This is a problem because I need to refill most of my medications at the same time. Adding still more complexity to this is the fact that the postal service does not provide street delivery up here. Kaiser has been pretty good about sending things to my P.O. Box but there have been times when I have received calls from them informing me that mail they have sent to me was returned to them as undeliverable because they used my street address. If my medications were returned to them I would not receive the medications before I ran out. So I had to use the talk to a representative funtion. Furthermore, the pharmacy where I usually go was closed, and I had to place my order with the pharmacy in Redlands. Fortunately Kaiser's menu options allow you to ask them to call you back rather than forcing you to sit on hold for four hours, and four hours is not an exaggeration!

The bottom line is that I ordered the refills on Friday, and I went to the Redlands Pharmacy on Tuesday to pick them up. There was a line outside of the building. A pleasant young lady wearing a protective mask asked if I was there to fill a prescription. When I said yes she told me to get in line. Everyone in line was observing the rules in regard to the distance maintained between people in line.

“You must be pretty busy given the fact that the San Bernardino pharmacy is closed,” I said.

“Yes,” she agreed, “and I'm form the San Bernardino office. Do you recognize me?”

“Not with the mask on.”

She laughed. So did some of the people close enough to hear our conversation. The congeniality of the people waiting in that line was encouraging. Most of the people there smiled and carried on conversations in spite of the physical distance between them and other people in line. It was a pleasant reminder that we are all in this together, and we will get through it together. I should add that people who had earthquake survival kits found them useful.  As one lady said, she was really glad her kit included toilet paper.

Covid-19 Panic

Monday I drove down the mountain to do my weekly grocery shopping. As a senior, read high risk person, I was hoping the news outlets were exaggerating about the panic buying they were reporting. They weren't! All of the markets I saw were packed with people, and many of the shelves in the market where I shop were bare. I was surprised at some of the things people were trying to hoard – such as bread and milk, neither of which have long shelf lives (frozen milk?). This made no sense to me at all. Forget about social distancing; the people in that store were shoulder to shoulder, and it took much longer to shop as everyone was trying to find alternatives for all of the things the market no longer had.

So here we had people greatly increasing their chances of getting the virus by coming into close contact with a large number other people, and they did so in an effort to prepare for the eventuality of getting the virus and/or having to shelter in place. It sounds like a self fulfilling prophesy, doesn't it? But no one said panic is reasonable. In this case the fear was so palpable that I thought I must be missing something. I looked up at the hills half expecting to see the four horsemen of the apocalypse ready to launch a cavalry charge, and expecting to hear the gun nuts locking and loading as they prepared to get and protect what they think they and their families will need in order to survive until the final day of judgment. I know that is a hell of a statement for someone who thinks it is unlikely that there is a god. And since I am obviously not qualified to render an opinion on the subject, I will leave it to you to opine about what kind of judgment there will be for people who try to prolong their miserable mortal lives by fighting non-believers and believers alike for resources even when they are sure the end is in sight for everyone.

My own opinion is that our salvation is intertwined with the threat. What I mean is that even though our contact with others is a risk, it is by helping each other that we will be able to minimize the damage caused by the virus. Good people are already reaching out to help friends and neighbors, and they are still taking reasonable precautions, including social distancing. Some leaders are also trying to reason with people and calm people without understating the threat we face. This morning while outlining the steps he is taking and what he thinks we need to do, Governor Cuomo told us not to panic. I really want to thank him for saying that the panic buying is not helping. Unfortunately saying there is enough for everyone if everyone acts reasonably is a bit like an economist telling people not to sell as the stock market is crashing. What the economist is telling people is true, but most people are afraid of getting stuck with worthless stock if they follow the advice not to sell. I should add here that many people are also afraid that we will not find a way to get groceries to people in need of them. So I was pleased this morning when I saw that markets, such as Stater Brothers, were having senior hours to protect high risk people such me from the panicked throng as we shop for necessities. Hopefully we will shop for what we need now rather than simply forming a throng of panicked seniors who are determined to stock up for some possible future need.

Trump is not responsible for the pandemic, but he is a so untrustworthy that he is more of a hindrance than a help. In this regard the pandemic is just revealing once more an ineptitude that is truly astounding given the expertise and resources readily available to any POTUS. We have to put an end to the age of Trump. I don't care what the risks are in going to the polls in November. A mail in ballet would be nice, but I will do anything to vote against Trump!

Let Us Know, Joe?

I would rather have a progressive who compromises with moderates than a moderate who tries to unite the nation by making concessions to uncompromising right wing Republicans. Today the panicked pundits are wringing their hands over the threat Trump poses to this nation, and they are urging Bernie Sanders to show his support for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, by dropping out of the race. That is not going to happen – at least not yet. Bernie just announced that he is staying in the race. I know many people will disagree with Bernie's contention that he is winning the ideological debate while losing the electability debate. But Bernie is not wrong in stating that most people and particularly Democrats now favor a single payer health care plan! Most people also know that the system is rigged to allow the rich to get much richer at the expanse of the working men and women of this nation.

So if Bernie is almost certain to lose the race for delegates but he is winning the policy debate, why is he still running? The answer is that the reaction of the voters to Bernie's agenda is not that simple. In regard to health care and other systemic economic issues the devil is in the details. While most people know the system is broken, the many decades the Republicans have spent vilifying socialism and crying about tax and spend liberals continues to muddy the water. Older voters in particular are sensitive to any increase in taxes, and they often voice their objections to all taxes while ignoring the fact that what those taxes pay for actually saves them money in the long run. Meanwhile a younger generation is saying: “Hey gramps, that pothole you curse when you hit it every morning is going to cost you a lot more than the taxes you would have to pay to fix it!” The bottom line is that there is not just a divide between Democrats and Republicans, and a divide between progressives and moderates, there is also a divide between younger and older generations.

Could that be why Joe Biden has gone from portraying himself as the safe (read moderate) candidate to now insisting that he is actually a progressive candidate? To state the obvious, he will need the Bernie or progressive wing of the party and the youth vote to win the general election! In this regard I want to tell the people who are blaming Bernie for Hillary Clinton losing to Trump in 2016 to stop it! That election was Hillary's to win or lose, and, with a little help of Comey and Putin, she lost it. Then as now Bernie continues to press for systemic changes because he knows we are in need of such changes. Bernie did not set out to sabotage Hillary or to elect Trump. Whether Bernie should stop campaigning for his policies now is not an easy one to answer. Asking his supporters to hold their noses and vote for an agenda they consider inadequate in order to get rid of the dangerously corrupt and incompetent Trump agenda is going to be a hard sell. Like it or not, Bernie has redefined progressive, and Joe's attempts to now claim the progressive mantle makes Joe sound like he just does not get it. Bernie's young supporters do not have to see the end of the rainbow, but they do have to feel as though they are at least moving toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

Joe Biden has to be aware of the unrest of our times. He has to know that what he is offering is not new or exciting. At best he is saying that he has been a progressive and is not adverse to change. He should assure the voters that he will encourage and embrace any positive changes congress can deliver, and he should urge voters to elect Democratic senators and congress members who can bring about those changes. In other words, Joe Biden's first goal must be to seek unity within his own party. He needs to convince us that he will be a moderate who compromises with progressives rather than a moderate who makes concessions to uncompromising right wing Republicans. Because we all know what a nihilistic pile of crap the Republican Party has become, Joe must accept the fact that making concessions to Republicans and compromising with progressives are mutually exclusive choices.

Is there anything Joe Biden could do that would keep me from voting for him in the general election? Probably not.  As Bernie said, "beating Trump is the most important thing." What I am saying here is that we need Joe's help in convincing disappointed young people who support Bernie to vote for Joe. As I said about Hillary Clinton, this is Joe 's election to win or lose!

Pining For Normalcy

All right, I understand the hand wringing and the pants wetting. I know that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to this nation's security and democracy since the attack on Pearl Harbor. And I know that Trump is being aided and abetted in his attacks on the rule of law, on our form of government, on the climate, and on our elections by a political party that has become so corrupt and self serving that it is willing to forsake the very principles on which this country was founded in order to further its own selfish interests. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our situation is grave and that the panic of so many pundits is not without cause. I hear their wails and their cries: We desperately need to throw Trump out of office and to discard the soggy diapers covering his ass and hauling his water -- Moscow Mitch, et al must go! I hear the fear in the voices of pundits such as Cris Matthews and James Carville as the say we cannot do that by nominating a socialist to run against Trump. I hear them when they say that what they want and what they believe the people want is a “return to normalcy.”

While I agree that people want to reestablish a basic decency and patriotism to our society and our government, I have to say that the panicked pundits are missing something that is very important. “Normalcy,” is a word popularized by Warren G. Harding, and “normalcy” as it was defined then and now has failed. The American standard of living is on the decline and people are in pain! Sadly, too many people have responded to this by blindly embracing the demagoguery and destructive impulses of a tyrant who is lashing out at minorities and tearing our government apart at the very time that many of the services and protections our government provides are most needed. In other words the Presidency of Donald Trump is a product of the economic and social angst caused by our failure to adjust to a changing world. One only has to look at the almost fanatical followers of Bernie Sanders to realize that his rise is also attributable to this angst. Not since the great depression has their been a time when this country was so in need of wide ranging systemic changes. Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, and Elizabeth Warren realize this. The so called moderates fall way short of what is needed. Therein lies the problem. If it takes a moderate to defeat Donald Trump and the party of corruption the needed changes will not be made, and we will find ourselves with another perhaps even a worse despot than Trump!

This leaves us with a difficult choice. Bernie is jumping out to a strong lead, and I am concerned about reaction to Bernie calling himself a Democratic Socialist. Change is scary, and after one hundred and some years of trying the plutocrats and their Republican lackeys have succeeded in vilifying socialism. A perfect example of how successful the Republicans and plutocrats have been in making socialism and socialist loaded terms can be seen in Bloomberg's comments about Bernie calling himself a Democratic Socialist:

"We're not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that," Bloomberg told Sanders. "It was called communism, and it just didn't work."

Talk about a throw back to the cold war. I guess some civics teacher forgot to tell Bloomberg that communism and socialism, particularly Democratic Socialism, are not synonymous. Socialists are not monolithic. Communism is the most extreme form of socialism and has always been widely opposed by most other socialists. Americans who are democratic socialists do not want to nationalize industries. They want instead to regulate industries in order to protect and encourage competition and workers, and they want government health care, education, and safety nets, much in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. The challenge for the Democratic Party if Bernie is nominated is to get people to look at Bernie's policies rather than the socialist label. It is easier to get young people to do this. Young people are not as afraid of change because so many of the things they are experiencing are still still new them. They did not go through the cold war and were not subjected to decades of disinformation about socialism and socialists, and they know that what we now have is no longer working for the majority of the men and women of this country.

The challenge of getting an older generation to set aside their fears and actually look at what Bernie is proposing is not an easy one, but that does not mean that Bernie cannot win. As some of the pundits have opined, it will take a movement, perhaps a revolution to defeat Trump and address the malaise that now afflicts us. This is no time for a nap! I will support anyone the Democratic Party nominates, but our candidate must not be the not Trump candidate or, even worse, the not Bernie candidate. Our candidate, whether it is Bernie or someone else, must be aspirational and inspirational if we want to succeed! We, as a nation, need to believe and achieve! We need to act boldly to build an economy and a future worthy of the great republic that became a symbol of hope, freedom, and prosperity.

Jonesing For Moral Courage

In announcing his intention to vote for the conviction of Donald Trump in the impeachment trial Senator Doug Jones (D Alabama) quoted Robert Kennedy:

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.

Doug Jones did not look for an off ramp that would keep him from colliding with the Trump supporters in his red state. He did not try to come up with some absurd compromise that might compromise the constitution and/or the rule of law. He did not advocate censuring Trump or finding Trump guilty on only one of the articles impeachment. No, Doug Jones took the issue head on by correctly stating that the evidence required a guilty verdict on both articles even though much of the evidence that should have been heard and seen was withheld by Trump and by Republican senators.

To do what Doug Jones is doing when he is up for reelection this year in a red state takes courage and a patriotic willingness to sacrifice his self interest for the good of this country.  At a time when so many, mostly Republicans, cower in fear and bow to the demagoguery of a lawless and despotic president Doug Jones stands as a profile in courage. He is an inspiration to us all.  He is what we like to think of ourselves as being and what we want our children to become.

Thank You, Senator Jones!

Who Will Defend Truth, Justice, And Democracy

George Orwell's novel, 1984, was prescient, but no one thought it could happen here – not in America. Now, however, a morally and intellectually bankrupt cabal of unpatriotic cowards has taken over the Republican Party, and that cabal is actively fighting to replace the rule of law with the rule of Trump! Bear with me here as I set the scene before describing the Republican attack on the rule of law.

In the House of Representatives Republicans made no attempt to defend Trump by denying the allegations or offering any evidence that would point to Trump's innocence, instead they disingenuously characterized the procedures as unfair, obstructed the proceedings with spurious objections, and held a ridiculous demonstration. As Axios pointed out, the Congress Members who stormed a closed-door hearing to protest an alleged lack of transparency in the impeachment inquiry were sitting on committees with the power to question witnesses and review documents. Those so called secret depositions they were protesting were no secret to them. Many Republicans even questioned the deponents, and they were given as much time to ask their questions as Democratic senators were given. The vote to send the Articles of impeachment to the senate went mostly along party lines with only three Democrats voting no and one independent voting yes.

Now we come to the Senate where the articles setting forth the allegations against the president are to be tried. Notice that Article I, section 3 the Constitution says, “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments.” The use of the word “try” was no accident. Our founding fathers knew that trying a matter meant hearing and weighing the evidence and that there were established procedures for doing that! Notice also that the Senators are required to take the oath of affirmation: “I solemnly swear (or affirm) that in all things appertaining to the trial of ____, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God.” Yet Moscow Mitch's first draft, “... of the Senate rules of engagement blocked new evidence unearthed in the House impeachment investigation from formally being presented in the trial without a separate vote... [And t]hat left room for Trump's lawyers to move immediately to dismiss the impeachment charges if they so chose...”

As Senator Schumer said: "Under this resolution, Senator McConnell is saying he doesn’t want to hear any of the existing evidence, and he doesn’t want to hear any new evidence. It’s a cover-up, and the American people will see it for exactly what it is." Senator Schumer's description is still accurate even though the house managers were allowed to use evidence from the house impeachment investigation. The latest poles showed that 75 percent of the respondents want to hear witnesses at the trial of Donald Trump. The people are not as stupid as Moscow Mitch thinks. They know that this is Not A Trial. They know it is Moscow Mitch's show, his sham, his farce, his corrupt cover up! Lamar Alexander, who many pundits have mistakenly described as an institutionalist, let the cat out of the bag:

"There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a 'mountain of overwhelming evidence,'" Alexander said in a statement. "Our founding documents provide for duly elected presidents who serve with 'the consent of the governed,' not at the pleasure of the United States Congress. Let the people decide."

It does not take much reading between the lines to understand that Alexander made up his mind to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump regardless of what the evidence showed. Indeed he does not even want the American people to hear witnesses with first hand knowledge of Trump's offenses or to hear what is in the relevant documents Trump has refused to turn over to Congress in defiance of lawful subpoenas. Apparently Alexander like the rest of the Republican senators is afraid that the people of this great country will be appalled by what they will hear and see if all the evidence is presented! In this regard Senator Alexander is ignoring the very people he would make the judges and jurors. He, Senator Alexander, is in effect participating in a cover up by withholding the evidence voters need to make an informed decision about Trump's behavior and the extent of the corruption within the Trump administration. If extorting the aid of a foreign country in Trump's election bid is not an impeachable offense, what is? If Trump's unconscionable obstruction of justice and congress is not an impeachable offense, what is? And another cover up is not going to change the answer to those questions!

This brings me back to the statement I made in the first paragraph when I wrote that “... a morally and intellectually bankrupt cabal of unpatriotic cowards has taken over the Republican Party, and that cabal is actively fighting to replace the rule of law with the rule of Trump!” I know that sounds extreme but lets examine the facts. Donald J. Trump is a corrupt and incompetent president who is ruled by his greed and self aggrandizement, and he will do anything to feed his coffers and his ego. The impeachable behavior charged in the articles impeachment are not singular events. As the Mueller Report clearly shows, Trump welcomed the help of Russia in the 2016 election and obstructed justice in an effort cover up his complicity. In other words, Trump has shown a pattern of corrupt behavior that indicates he will continue his unethical and lawless behavior if he is not prevented from doing so. Foreign interference in our elections is one of the things our founding fathers feared most. They knew that such interference brings with it an undue influence of foreign nations on our elected officials and the laws and policies of our government. No one with a triple digit IQ and any knowledge of government and/or history could possibly think that Trump should not be removed from office for what he has done! The argument that we should let the voters decide was soundly rejected at the constitutional convention. Since there were no term limits at that time any impeachment resulting in the removal of a president from office would take the decision out of the voter's hands. The founding fathers knew the urgency of preventing a corrupt and/or despotic president from causing more damage to the Republic and its laws is paramount. The damage caused by an illegitimate election is far too likely to be irreversible. And once liberty has been taken away it usually takes a violent revolution to restore it. If the voters must decide whether a President who is abusing the power of his office is to be removed from office, and in the case at hand they must, they should also judge the morally bankrupt cowards who refuse to discharge the duties of their offices in accordance with the oath they took to "support and defend the Constitution.”

The bottom line here is that if you refuse to enforce the laws and the ethics governing our elected officials, including the President, those unenforced laws and ethics are moot and become utterly meaningless. Democracy and the rule of law go hand in hand; you cannot have one without the other. In this regard the cover up is as dangerous as the offenses Trump is trying to hide. One only has to look at the fact that Trump replaced Jeff Sessions as Attorney General because Sessions was not doing enough to protect Trump from the Muller investigation to see this. The person Trump chose to replace Jeff Sessions as Attorney General is William Barr, who is acting like disgraced and convicted former Attorney General John Mitchell. Instead of protecting the people of this country William Barr has prostituted himself in the service of Trump. He, Barr, misrepresented the Mueller report, refused to enforce congressional subpoenas in spite of the fact that this is one of the Justice Department's duties, and refused to conduct legitimate investigations that might uncover the misconduct of the executive branch, thus forcing the House to conduct the impeachment investigation. Barr has placed the President above the law, and he, Barr, has become an active participant on the wider conspiracy to cover up Trump's crimes and misconduct. Furthermore there is evidence that he and other members of the Trump administration knew and may have participated in the crimes and misconduct they are trying to hide. So here we have the department of justice violating the very laws it is charged with enforcing.

Since Republican Senators have refused to protect the constitution, it is now up to we the people. And thanks to Republican senators helping Trump hide documents and deny access to witnesses we do not have much of the information we should have. What we do know is that no member of the Republican party in Washington has clean hands in this matter. This makes our choice very clear. We can choose the party of Trump or we can defend a democracy that still believes in the rule of law. We cannot endure the rule of Trump and keep a democracy that believes in the rule of law at the same time! We must throw Trump and the dirty diapers covering his butt out of office. The price Republican legislators have to pay for participating in the cover up and refusing to hold Trump accountable must be a high one; it should be the end of their political careers!


I know the votes have not been taken yet, but the fix is in; there is no way the Republicans are going to throw Trump out of office. I also know there is someone out there who is responding to my previous paragraph by saying, “But what about the economy?” My answer is that it took George W. Bush the better part of two terms to crash the economy, and it took Barack Obama the better part of two terms to get us out of Bush's recession. Reelecting a corrupt, incompetent, destructive despot just because he has not crashed the economy yet is downright foolish. 

Democracy In Peril

Make no mistake about it the farce and the fraud the Republicans are perpetrating against the American People in what they, the Republicans, are trying to pass off as the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump is a threat to our democracy and the rule of law. I know that may sound alarmist or too strong, but it is true. Donald Trump's stonewalling of congress, his defiance of subpoenas, and his violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 pose a direct and dire threat to the separation of powers our founding fathers provided as a safeguard against would be despots. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office even said that Trump broke the law when he withheld from the Ukraine the aid Congress provided to help the Ukraine defend itself from Russian aggression. Furthermore Trump's efforts to elicit the help of foreign governments in his effort to win elections threatens the very legitimacy of our elections and flies in the face of our founding fathers worst fears.

We as a people have to stand up to would be despots if our democracy is to survive. No tyrant usurps power on his own. He or she always has collaborators. In this regard it is all too easy to look at Moscow Mitch McConnell, who broke the senate, delegitimized the courts and has become the face of a virulent and very destructive partisanship that flies in the face of the role the loyal opposition has to play in any democracy. Indeed it would not be unfair to say that McConnell and his ilk prepared the way for trump and therefore have a strong interest in perpetuating the rule of Trump. But even collaborators such as Moscow Mitch are not enough to destroy democracy, more is needed to enable the tyrant's usurpation of power. And that takes us to the role of people who ignore the danger posed by aspiring despots and negligently and/or naively seed power to so called strong men. By failing to protect its role as a check and balance to the executive branch Congress is seeding power to Trump.

For years now I have been saying that the Republican senators are living down to my lowest expectations. They have now hit a new low. I watched with some dismay as they marched in lock step with Moscow Mitch. They, those outrageously partisan senators, were trampling on the rules and procedures long used to provide fair trials as they raced to reach predetermined conclusions that will serve as their justifications for dismissing the Articles of impeachment brought against Donald Trump. “But this is not a court trial,” they belch as if a real trial of one of their own gives them indigestion. What they fail to address is the fact that trial rules providing for the introduction of evidence through witnesses who are questioned and examined is the best way of determining the truth. Indeed the jury is called the trier of facts. They, the jurors, are tasked with weighing the evidence to determine the facts. That is rather hard to do when you refuse to allow the presentation of all of the relevant evidence. And believe me the unanimous vote by Republicans to table all of Senator Schumer's Amendments that would result in the testimony of witnesses Trump has prevented from testifying thus far and the production of documents Trump has withheld thus far really means burying those amendments and the evidence those proposed amendments call for under the table where they will remain out of sight if not out of mind. So close your eyes, cover your ears, and repeat after me: “Na! Na! Na! Na! Na! Na!”

It is up to you to do something about this dangerous and willful ignorance. Let your senator know that being complicit in this unconscionable cover up is dangerous to his or her career. You might add here that it is better to be primaried by angry dumb asses than it is to lose the general election because you violated the oath you took by refusing to stand up for a fair and impartial trial! You might also remind those senators of what Adam Schiff said about the courage and patriotism of the wonderful civil servants who risked their careers by obeying subpoena's and telling the truth to congress. Adam Schiff then implored all senators to show the same courage and patriotism. We should expect no less from the people we choose to represent us!

Kudos to Adam Schiff and the other House Impeachment Managers! They are all doing a terrific job. I was delighted to see on the internet the praise for Adam Schiff and his masterful opening statement. And yes, I agree with the people who are saying: “Adam Schiff Rocks!”