Just Shaking My Head........

I keep reading and hearing all the pundits who are analyzing how Trump is going to prevail again in the election of 2020.  It is truly frightening to think this man could be re-elected.  Peter Baker of the New York Times describes how Trump has never considered himself the President of all the people, and has simply rejected any obligation to represent all the people of the country.  He speaks only to his base.  He now proclaims that all Democrats are treasonous.  He rejects any conventional obligation felt by all previous presidents since the 1800s to reveal his business interests, tax returns, or other engagements that might be directly opposite and conflicting with the interests of the country.  He simply doesn’t care.

And yet, there is still almost half the country that is OK with that.  His politics of discord, division and prejudice strike a sympathetic chord with so many of our citizens!  This is a disheartening realization for those of us who imagine an idealized vision of our country.  The concepts of honesty and integrity and the rule of law are simply not valid for Trump and his followers.  They are simply not as important as winning at all costs, regardless of the method.

Trump’s policies are policies of cruelty.  There are so many examples of his heartlessness.   “His new budget strips away essential resources across multiple agencies and offices that serve Americans with disabilities”, according to Tom Ridge in an editorial in the New York Times.  “Budget decisions that harm people with disabilities and their families will hurt our economy and weaken us all.”

What are we to make of his immigration policies of separation and rejection?  He is trying to blame his policy of separating children from their families on Obama.  While there were instances of separation during Obama’s presidency, children were separated from parents only when authorities had concerns for their well-being or could not confirm that the adult was in fact their legal guardian, but not as a blanket policy.  In April 2018, at Trump’s direction, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department would prosecute 100% of illegal border-crossers in a policy known as "zero-tolerance." Adults went to jails and awaited criminal proceedings. Children were sent to detention centers run by the Department of Health and Human Services, were placed in deplorable confinement and many were eventually placed in foster care.  There are still thousands of children not reunited with their families and the Trump Administration simply didn’t care enough to keep decent records to enable reuniting the families.

All environmental regulations are under review, and destructive dismantling of all the protections for clean air and water are being discarded in the interests of corporations who want the shackles removed so they can increase their profits while not caring in the least about fouling our environment. 

Secrecy and non-transparency are the watchwords of the Trump Administration while they rail at the Congress for trying to exert its legal authority to provide oversight to the Executive Branch.  Trump calls them traitors and never satisfied liberal socialist activists trying to accomplish a coup d’etat!  Can you imagine any President since George Washington trying to sell that bill of goods to the citizens of the country?  He has single-handedly deconstructed the Justice Department and rid himself of anyone who tried to dispute what he considers his unrestricted power to interpret the law for himself.

After witnessing so many examples of bad policy, failed leadership and mean spirited lying to all of us, what comes next cannot be good…..

And so here we are at last on the eve of the release of the ‘lightly redacted’ Mueller Report.  Why in God’s name are our Congressional representatives not allowed to see the complete report?  We, as taxpayers, have paid for a report that tells us how our election was compromised by a foreign adversary.  We must see it.  We must depend on Congress to take appropriate action against a President who may have obstructed justice and abused his power.  It is their duty to examine fully ALL the evidence.  That evidence would be the basis of any action the Congress decides to take..The Constitution demands that. 

So why should we tolerate the object of the investigation, President Trump(in the incarnation of William Barr),  deciding how much of the report we or our representatives should be allowed to see?  The only conceivable reason he and his compromised Attorney General are trying to spin this report and pre-sell his innocence is probably because they have something awful to hide.  The shameful behavior of William Barr in continually trying to summarize the findings is an effort to obfuscate and paint the results of a report that none of us have even seen!  How ridiculous!  The reality of how the President is pressuring William Barr to provide cover for him is a disgrace.  Barr is supposed to be the Attorney General for all of us citizens.  He has become just another lackey for a disgraceful President.  Barr’s reputation is lost because of his bending to Trump’s will.

There is so much wrong with the way this is being handled that it boggles the mind.  Our Constitution is being crushed by this Presidency and his Justice Department. 

What do you think George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton would have to say about all this?