Is it HOT Enough for You?

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Well, it’s time to wake up, everyone!  We have reached an interesting tipping point.

This is the summer of our discontent: 

--The temperatures are higher than they have ever been.  Our planet is no longer the place it was 30 years ago, and it will not return to its milder state for a long, long  time--if ever.  Fires.  Floods.  Storms. Only getting worse.  Was trying to torpedo the International Climate Accord a smart decision?  Is  promoting coal and more fossil fuel consumption really the answer?

Our country’s administration is straight from ‘Bizarro-land’ (remember those Superman comic episodes where Superman was not himself, but rather a rough hewn copy of himself both physically and mentally?). 

--Suddenly tearing families asunder and not reuniting the children to their mothers and fathers is somehow OK;

--One of our major political parties (or what is left of it) is committed to NOT finding out how our main global adversary attacked us in 2016 and is beginning to do it again; our Commander in Chief is supporting our enemy!

--Our President is beginning to unravel as we find out more and more about his mendacious rise to power.

Those of us who have been relatively powerless to stop, or slow the inexorable deconstruction of our democratic society wait for the great awakening....it never seems to come.

However, things may be about to change.

The honest truth is that the outsized voices of the Republicans, white supremacists, crazies who can’t think for themselves are just that—outsized.  In reality the portion of our population who are sycophants to our President—his ‘base’—is relatively small….only about 25%.  We have let their outsized voices drown out reason.  As a result we have ‘The Trump Era’. 

The inevitability of the midterm elections has become palpable and the restless majority of the population is uneasy and ready to ‘right’ the imbalance.  Those who believed that Trump's ‘solutions’ were brilliant are having second thoughts:

-The tariff fiasco is making Trump’s believers hurt!  Imagine that!  Farmers, steelworkers, small businesses suddenly paying more for raw materials or unable to get decent prices for their products are causing people to wonder if they have been mislead.  What is the plan?  There is none—be patient!  “Tariffs are great!”, says Trump.

--A substantial segment of Republicans (people who we elected!) are trying to impeach the Acting AG in an effort to discredit and undermine the Mueller probe.  Why? 

Republican majorities in all major oversight committees consistently oppose and reject any effort to uncover the truth about what happened in 2016 when Russia attacked our country!  Why??  Would patriots attempt to stop the effort to reveal how our country was attacked?  Could it be that during that 2 hour meeting in Helsinki last week, Trump and Putin confirmed and refined their plan to continue to destabilize the US by pushing harder for actions to undermine our alliances with the EU, Canada, Mexico and Nato?

--The Cohen tapes have revealed the ‘man behind the curtain’—Alan Weisselberg, Trumps CFO.  Now that he has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, the kimono is going to be lifted.  That is a big bad thing for Trump.  Weisselberg knows where all the money came from and went to for the last 50 years in the Trump business empire.  I think Bob Mueller and we are going to be finding out some not so nice stuff about who holds the puppet strings on Trumps head.

--As all these nooses keep tightening around the head of ‘the greatest President ever’, his behavior becomes more erratic and cruel.  Yesterday his administration decided to bar a ‘pool’ television press journalist from a bona-fide news event in the Rose Garden because of ‘impertinent questions’ she was asking…..about whether Trump felt betrayed by Michael Cohen!  Puhleeze!  I wonder what that means for Freedom of the Press?  Thankfully even Fox News joined the uproar created by that folly.

Have we ever seen as effective a deconstruction of our society as we see today at the hands of a group of people we elected? 

Perhaps we are at the crossroads.  The national unease and exhaustion from the last two years has made many of those who supported the Trump ascension question whether they want another two years of increasing chaos; or whether they could even conceive of another 4 years beyond that!

The midterm elections are imminent.  Throw open the windows! Get out your giant bottles of 409. Let’s clean out the moldy rot of decay that has been the agenda of those who were elected to support Trump’s great solutions for our democratic republic, and get back to promoting American ideals and the Rule of Law.  Control of Congress will return power to the people.  VOTE DEMOCRATIC in November.

Is This Where We Want to Go?

I worry that my posts sometimes seem like just another critic whining about where our country is heading, but I have become more and more concerned about the overall picture of what is happening with America’s place in the world and how Trump’s destructive behavior is changing the global power alignment.

Trump’s antics and perception of the world and America’s place in it is really unsettling, isn’t it?  

Today we were treated to another of Donald’s verbal diarrhea moments at his press conference in Brussels.  Listening to him over the past two days harping and blathering how wonderful he is for making all our NATO allies pay more for their defense, while completely ignoring any of the really substantive issues and concerns that the NATO members have is embarrassing. However the really nefarious reality is that the world’s power balance is changing at the hands of this man.  And he is doing it without challenge from anyone currently in power in American politics.

He is accelerating his attacks on all our allies while sucking

up and giving credibility to dictators all over the world….and he is dragging all of us along with him into this new nether world where our country has no friends and lots of new adversaries.  He is positioning the United States of America as an autocratic state, wanting alliances with leaders who subjugate their people, encourage violence and force to retain their power, and deal in deception as an instrument of power.  He is single handedly destroying alliances we as a country have nurtured for 7 decades since the end of WWII.  He is dismantling treaties and economic relationships with democratic allies and has withdrawn from global efforts to speak as one with regard to climate change. 

And for what gain?

For all of you who righteously feel that climate change is a ‘hoax’, I would encourage all of you to watch Al Gore’s encore documentary: “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”.  I am sure all you climate deniers will recoil at this suggestion, but in the spirit of being open-minded, please evaluate the veracity of the scientific facts he presents.  If you have any shred of intellectual honesty, you will come away from that film with some real questions about your own fallaciously based beliefs.

What is the real danger here?  Let’s imagine what will happen over the next couple of years leading up to Trump’s attempt to be re-elected.

Trump will continue to make a fool of himself on the world stage.  He will lie and self-aggrandize all the time, issuing ultimatums to former allies to do what he wants or he will simply destroy the alliances that remain.  He and his sycophants will continually undermine efforts to finish the Mueller investigation, and denigrate law enforcement institutions we have relied on for literally 100 years.  He will bully Republican legislators to promote his agenda of hate, limited immigration, and attempts to undermine the press.

I think you can look for a meme that will appear claiming that our elections are all rigged by the ‘deep state’ which is trying to undermine his Presidency.   This will accelerate as we approach the election in 2020, leading to claims that whomever he opposes has sabotaged his campaign.  In fact we might expect that claim this year at the midterm elections, which Trump will then propose should justify re-evaluating the Bill of Rights.

There will be continued attacks on the press as the enemy and continued denial of Russian interference in our electoral process.  Look for incessant misdirection as he pushes for continued dismantling of our institutions. 

His latest maneuver to protect himself from danger from Mueller and Michael Cohen’s investigation is to select Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court nominee.  Of all the potential candidates, Kavanaugh has expressed clear support for protecting the sitting President from investigation, indictment, subpoenas, etc. Cagey eh?

The frightening part of all this is that it is working.  Trump’s base does not care about what is happening.  Mostly, they don’t have the awareness of where this is leading. They all believe in his fearless and inexorable efforts to dissemble.  They don’t truly understand the ripple effects happening now and how it will ultimately change the world for our children. 

Unless we can stop Trump’s agenda by changing control of the House of Representatives in November, we are headed for a realignment of the world’s power centers and America becoming a client state of Vladimir Putin.  (Can you imagine writing that statement during the Presidencies of Clinton, Bush or Obama?)  Do we as citizens really want to move our country into that kind of scenario?

This pivotal vote approaching in November may be the only moment we as Americans have to halt the march toward autocracy.

We have a real sickness in America right now…a denial of responsibility for honoring truth and humanity.   Tolerating, and in some cases endorsing, the detention of infants without their parents is the mark of a society truly in decline. 

Where are the children?  Our government and this administration will not tell us; hides it actions from us; promoting cruelty in the pursuit of a misguided hatred of immigrants and asylum seekers.  The administration neither had, nor HAS any plan to return the children to their parents.  The government is extorting asylum seekers to accept deportation or they won’t get their children back..What does that have to do with American ideals?  It’s just one horrific symptom of disintegrating American values.  Signs of additional destruction are all around us. 

How do you feel about that?  How are we able to accept this redefinition of the American dream, our democracy and most of all our human compassion?

We must recognize the critical nature of this moment and not simply throw up our hands and leave the responsibility to protect our ideals and morality to someone else.  WE must do it. 

Where's Barry?

Barry, Bill, George, George W., Jimmy!!  Where are you guys?? 

All you living Presidents are uncharacteristically mute!  At a time when there is so much despair amongst the believers; at a time when your encouragement is needed; at a time when the country needs to hear your ‘call-outs’ of the bad actors and the megalomaniac in the White House, you are all mute!  Why?

I know there is an unwritten maxim that ex-Presidents don’t talk about the current office holder or offer any criticism, but really guys……..We are all watching the very foundations of our institutions wither away, enduring unrelenting attacks on the rule of law.  Surely you can peek out from under the covers and call a spade a spade!  Go on TV and let the assholes have it!  What have we or you got to lose, right?…..only our country!  Good Lord there are so many targets you could aim at:

--Mitch McConnell, perhaps the most sinister force to ever be a majority leader who has single handedly corrupted ‘regular order’ in the Senate; who defied the Constitution by corrupting the mechanism for a President to choose an appointee to the Supreme Court.

--House Republicans, colluders with the Executive in attacking the rule of law; willfully undermining a proper investigation into the subversion of our democracy by a foreign power; abdicating their responsibility to be a

balance against abuse of power by the President; debasing and changing the concept of ‘oversight’ into a force for intrusion and interference and conspiracy on behalf of the President.

--The process of undoing all kinds of regulations put in place to protect the people of the country for the benefit of big business and corporate America.

--Donald J. Trump, for being a loudmouthed, crude, cruel, narcissistic, sociopathic whiney little bitch encouraging corruption in his appointees and his actions to withdraw us from every meaningful international relationship instituted over the last 70 years; for lauding dictators and strongmen while insulting and demeaning our allies all over the world.

--And finally the Democratic party for being such wimps; for not being able to conjure up the balls to shout loudly and clearly that on most critical issues more than 2/3 of the citizens of this land have consensus-- on gun violence, abortion, gay marriage, health care, immigration, etc.

Your country needs to hear your voices!  As examples of intelligent humanistic leadership you must be an example that our children can readily see every day in some way to reassure them, and all of us, that there will be a better day in America.

There is no excuse for remaining silent.  Silence on your part suggests fear, or at the worst collusion!  Be brave, Mr. Presidents!  Speak out!  Encourage all of us every day to not falter, to VOTE in November.  Our very existence as a democratic nation depends on it!