Republicans Need to be Gone

What are we to do with Republicans?  They all to a man (with the exception of one of them out of a total of 291 Republicans in Congress) refuse to stand by the Constitution and the rule of law.  In the Senate they all seem to have drunk some sort of potion where patriotism and reason have been dissolved.

With an Executive Branch that is simply defying all actions of Congress in its effort to exercise its Constitutional duties, they all seem to have forgotten their oaths of office.  The Trump administration has somehow lobotomized them all to simply accept what he is doing as ok.  As an American, I am simply at a loss to understand how they all seem to have surrendered their independence and their ability to think for themselves.  The only motive I can imagine is that they are so concerned about retaining their jobs and perks that their greed and personal self-aggrandizement supplants any concept of why they were sent to Congress to serve their constituents.

Because of the state of mind that they are all in, we find that our American governmental machine has been corrupted. 

As a body politic, we are suffering from another phenomena that has sinister roots and effects, because we as the voting citizens have not been paying attention to what has been happening at the local and state level.  The Republican party has been quietly accumulating power in our statehouses.  Voters are putting these people in office, and while these new legislators profess traditional Republican values, their actions reveal a more nefarious orientation.  

Look at what is happening with the passage of abortion laws in a third of the nation.  Essentially, white men who have some Christian messianic control complex have decided that they can simply pass restrictive legislation that is directly in opposition to the law of the land, Roe v. Wade.  If you have been listening to the statements from these people over the past couple of weeks, their understanding of women’s reproductive systems and their complete negation of a person’s right to control their own body is breathtaking!  Their stupidity is consummate.  These restrictive pieces of legislation show the hateful ignorance of these legislators by not even providing for exception to their actions for instances of rape and incest, much less the welfare of the mother.

What we are witnessing is a power accumulation by forces that do not represent the majority of the public that voted them into office.  It should terrify you that while 7 in 10 people in the United States believe that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and is rightfully providing abortion services to women, these legislators and the judges they appoint are quite content to take actions that are in direct contradiction to the will of the majority.  The passage of that law in 1973 began saving thousands of women’s lives, who before the enactment of that law faced dangerous and fatal occurrences at the hands of backdoor abortionists.

These same Republican legislators, who have been elected by voters who do not understand their real motives, are at the vanguard of those trying to deny minorities the right to vote, of those who pass legislation to restrict the powers of incoming elected officials for their own benefit. 

What we are witnessing is a creeping inexorable destruction of the basic tenets of our democracy.  These people are turning our nation into something we have not seen before in our 242 year history….a country that looks more like a mob-run banana republic than a constitutional democracy.

At the national level, the separation of powers vested in our three governmental bodies is being corrupted in plain view.  The Executive places himself and his minions above the law.  Republicans apparently unanimously decry all the attempts at constitutionally mandated oversight as witch hunt activity to try to harass an elected President.  Trump and his appointees dare the Congress to challenge them with subpoenas and demands to testify.

Forget that their claims of investigative abuse are truly unjustified and an excuse to misdirect the discussion. This is an abuse of power and obstruction of justice that couldn’t be more plain.  In simple terms, they are declaring themselves above the law.

So, how does the increasingly frustrated Congress deal with this situation?  That is the current dilemma that the Democratically controlled House of Representatives faces.  Nancy Pelosi’s hope is that the more factual information that finally is revealed and exposes the criminal duplicity of Donald Trump, the more that will educate and persuade the American people that they have been duped by the Trump administration and the Republicans.  

But Trump is no fool.  The more he defies any investigative effort, the more he can count on delaying any judicial resolution of the Congress’ efforts, and therefore any awareness of the American people before the 2020 elections. 

If the Democrats try to impeach him, his election mantra will be that they are ‘persecuting me’.  He will use that to engender sympathy and therefore the need to be re-elected.  If the Democrats don’t impeach him, they will be stalled by the judicial system by not being able to reveal what will most certainly be damning facts and information that would preclude re-election.

In the meantime, we the citizens are the real losers:  No progress on healthcare reform, infrastructure re-building, climate change deterioration, immigration reform, too many other important issues that our representatives need to be attending to.

The Trump administration is in a sorry state.  Half the needed appointees for all manner of jobs that could at least maintain the status quo of a deteriorating governmental structure are still not made.  Appointments made are filled with incompetents—have you seen the clips of HUD Secretary Ben Carson trying to answer rudimentary questions from Congresswoman Katie Porter yesterday?  Shameful and disgraceful!  The man knows nothing about the office he occupies and nothing about the mandate HUD has to assist people in need.  He is one of the many incompetents appointed by this administration.

It is possible that Americans are waking up to the debacle that has become our daily political life.  The reaction by millions of women to the anti-Roe v. Wade actions of many state legislators could foreshadow a massive vote to change things.  Polls suggest that the wave of anti Trump voting we saw in 2018 could be a tsunami in 2020.  I am more certain than ever that the only real way to make things better in the United States at this point is to understand that all the current Republicans need to be removed.  Since they all seem to approve of Trump’s defying the rule of law, they have no business being our representatives.  They should be voted out en-masse at the earliest opportunity.  Only when we place people who place the rule of law, honesty, integrity and patriotism above all else will we have any hope of redemption.

Last Exit Before the Toll

I have written so many times already about how disgusted I feel about what is happening vis-a-vis Trump and his actions and the state of our country.  I think I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing left to do or say regarding my effort to persuade any of you that we are in desperate straits concerning our future.

Trump will continue to push against all the boundaries of the rule of law until we finally get rid of him. And it is entirely possible that we will not actually get rid of him, in which case the America we once knew will be no more.  And it is probably unrealistic to expect to wholesale rid ourselves of what has become of the Republican Party and its sycophancy to the Trump administration. 

There seems to be this insurmountable barrier of obliviousness, unconsciousness  and ignorance that a substantial portion of our countrymen can’t seem to penetrate.  That is perhaps the biggest surprise that I have regarding the state of our union.  I know there have always been squabbles between branches of our government, but what we are seeing now is the inexorable destruction and dismantling of a moral architecture that has guided our country for the past 229 years since 1787 when the Constitution was ratified and signed.  I wonder what the framers would say about where we are today and what has become of their work.

Actually, I think some of the Sunday talk shows should create some ‘special editions’ where they have some of the Framers of the original Constitution on as guests to debate the state of the nation with some of our current politicians.  That would make for some interesting television!

We, whether wittingly or unwittingly, elected an autocrat to be President.  Many would say that he is just part of a worldwide wave of such individuals, mostly if not all men, who have answered a yearning for something more than the inaction and incompetence of democratic systems that simply react too slowly to an increasing rate of demand for action to solve increasingly complex social problems.  That is probably true, however it is most painful to see the net effects of that when we have lived in the most revolutionary free social system the world has ever seen.  It is heartbreaking to see the breakdown of such carefully constructed norms that protected our citizens from despotism and bondage for the past 229 years. 

We now have a leader who is actively trying to investigate and prosecute his countrymen who have opposed his autocratic actions.  He wants us to believe that a free press is the ‘enemy of the people’.  His sycophantic Republican Greek chorus chants his tune like the blindly following lemming-like followers of dictators like Mussolini or Hitler.  I wouldn’t be surprised if during the next election cycle, he gets all his Republican legislative supporters to offer up a bill to extend his ‘reign’ or time in office, just like the weakened leaders in 1930s Germany did when they made Hitler Chancellor and then President after he suspended individual and civil liberties.  Hitler convinced the mass of Germans that they needed to fear the Communists.  He brought together the unified right/conservative/nationalist coalition of the time to consolidate his power and essentially become a dictator.  Sound familiar to what is slowly happening here?

Don’t scoff…we are headed in that direction.

Just look at the position the administration is taking with regard to Congressional oversight.  They simply are rejecting what has been a fundamental tenet of our Constitutional system.  And with a Congress that is not united in its protection of that oversight responsibility and obligation, there is no one to stop this inexorable march to autocratic power. 

You probably say, “The Courts will stop this slow but steady spiral…” but not really.  McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate have made it their mission to ratify the nominations of as many far right judges to the Court system as they can, as fast as they can.  The balance of power in the Supreme Court has shifted with the illegal stopping of the nomination of Merrick Garland and then the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, along Republican party line votes.  Trump now has ‘his court’.  Let’s see if the decisions of the Court chart a course that is congruent with current accepted law and Constitutional norms, or strike out in new and ominous directions at the behest of a President who does not believe in the rule of law and only pays lip service to the Constitution.

As much as I hate to say it, our last exit before the toll appears to be the election of 2020.  Over the next 17 months, watch for the increasing vitriol against all opponents of Trump in the upcoming election.  He and his lackeys will try to paint them all as criminals in some way.  He will claim they supported “Lock Her Up” Hillary. He will label them as socialists, maybe even Communists (Just like Hitler did in the 1930s).

He will continue to lie to the country about what he is doing, as he has done consistently since he was elected.  His policies will be more and more hidden in secret conversations with like-minded autocrats like Putin, Xi of China, and European leaders like Viktor Orban who he said he was honored to have sit next to him in the Oval Office yesterday.

His appointments will be more like Bill Barr, as he brings people to the administration who will kow-tow to his policies of exclusion, fear, innuendo and lies.  He will resist any attempt at oversight.  He will do whatever is necessary to stop investigations into his actions that are clearly against the law.

As we approach the election of 2020 he will incessantly claim that there is fraud going on and he is being denied his victory because it is all rigged against him.  Remember, he has still not admitted there was Russian intervention in our election of 2016.  He will never admit it, and it will be present again in this cycle with his blessing. 

Isn’t it amazing that his Attorney General is now investigating the reasons for the appointment of Mueller as Special Counsel, when the reason for it is so plain to see.  We were attacked by a foreign enemy who monkeyed with our election!  Mueller laid out that event in great detail and secured indictments for over 30 people!  Is that not reason enough for us to have done the investigation?  Trump is telling us there was no problem with that, and in fact we should ‘investigate all those who perpetrated that hoax on the American people’!  That is insane.

Yes, the day of reckoning has appeared on the horizon.  Our election in 17 months will be the crossroad where we must choose the path for our future.  Pull out your suitcases, lovers of liberty and freedom!  You may be packing for a long journey to a far better place after November 3, 2020.

What Happened to My America?

The members of the Republican Party in America are not true Americans.  True Americans believe in The Rule of Law, and the Rule of Law has somehow slipped from Republican's consciousness.  In lockstep they vote along party lines to blindly support a President who, according to the Attorney General of the United States, can end an investigation into himself if, in his own opinion, he is being implicated in a crime.  In other words, they all support a man who believes he is above the law.

Not one Republican in either the House or the Senate objected to that statement made by the Attorney General when he testified, under oath, in the Senate.  All of them never objected when the Attorney General lied to the Senate about the letter he received from Special Counsel Mueller regarding his concerns about misleading the American people about the report he submitted..  All of them support the President’s blanket denial to provide ALL documents and testifying personnel to the constitutionally mandated Legislative branch that is charged with oversight of the Executive branch. 

Who are these people who have control of the Senate, led by the most corrupt and anti-American of them all, Mitch McConnell?

Republicans have sold their souls to Donald Trump.  Why?  Well, mainly, I think they just want to hold onto their jobs and are willing to suck up to the guy who threatens to oppose them if they try in any way to oppose him.  My fear is that they have lost their way with regard to the oaths of office they took when they assumed their positions.  If you look at the morally corrupt policy positions they support because of Trump, it is hard to believe that any human being, much less an elected official who supposedly represents citizens, can be on board with the following: 

a) separating children and parents at the border and not caring about their reunification;

b) claiming that women and their doctors plan ‘execution of babies’ after they are born;

c) removing all regulations concerning pollution and environmental controls;

d) supporting a call by Mitch McConnell to ‘close the case and move on’ from the investigation into the Russians attacking our democracy and apparently being unconcerned that there is no real resolution or plan to stop a renewed attack in 2020;

e) being silent while the President repeatedly fosters hate and racism against minorities and especially asylum seekers—even to the point while speaking in Florida two nights ago where he implied that the only way to stop the ‘invasion’ of immigrants might be to shoot them;

f) coddling and praising criminal dictators who repress and kill their own people;

g) repressing our own citizens who are trying to exercise their right to vote using voter suppression techniques and gerrymandering;

h) completely rejecting climate change as the extinction level event that it is;

i) relentlessly attempting to take away health care coverage currently covering over 20 million people without a clear substitute;

j) rejecting all attempts to impose even the most simple gun control actions, as event after event unfolds where innocent children in schools are dying.

Separate from all the above, they apparently all believe that Trump is completely exonerated from accusations of obstruction of justice, even though over 700 bipartisan prosecutors agree on the record that they could instantly indict any other person accused of the same crimes…..and win the cases with ease.  And all the while the obstruction continues unabated where legitimate subpoenas are ignored, legal document requests are ignored, where the Secretary of the Treasury flagrantly violates the law by not providing the Ways and Means Committee of the House its requested tax documents for Trump which it is entitled to by law.

The reason all this is so disturbing is that our country is in the hands of these despotic people.  Our republic is being changed and corrupted by these people who don't care about precedent set by our founders, who most certainly are turning in their graves.  There is no rational reason for their blindness to humanistic values.  It can’t be simple political sycophancy.  Why would so many people abandon the rule of law in favor of a man like Donald Trump?

I guess only history will offer the answer after perhaps 20 or 30 years pass….that is if there is to be any history of the United States of America as we remember it.

What Has Happened to Travelling?

Travel used to be an adventure!  It was exciting to get on a plane and go somewhere different, explore, dine, go for an event….a chance to extract yourself from your daily routine to have a vacation, mini or regular.  Not any more!

I just returned from a wedding in Toronto that we planned to be a travel adventure and a chance to reconnect with our friends and their family and be a part of a wonderful weekend. 

Boy, was I disappointed!

Traveling anywhere is now not an adventure, but rather a gauntlet!  Maybe it’s simply that the romance I associated with traveling was never as great as I had imagined.  Rather, I think it is because the conditions have changed in the industry(specifically in the air travel industry), and frankly, there are just too many damned people going everywhere!

Our trip to Toronto required that we have an interim stop in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Apparently American Airlines has its hub there and unless you have a non-stop direct flight to a major metropolitan center like New York, Chicago or LA, you must change planes in Charlotte.  The actual flight to Charlotte from RSW (Fort Myers) was pretty good.  American’s equipment is clean and has more leg room than other airlines like Delta or United which crams you into smaller and smaller spaces unless you pay extra for the privilege of being able to get out of the window seat without making the other two passengers seated next to you get up and move out into the aisle.  Maybe the least the other carriers could do is provide catheters so you can dump your excreta right there at your seat!  (Although then they would have to provide clinical catheter rooms at the airport to install them in everyone, so nix that idea!)

The really nightmarish part of this experience was the scene at Charlotte’s Douglass Airport!  The layout of the Charlotte airport was conceived by long distance sprinters with spaghetti for brains!  It is a real challenge to make it to other gates in time if there is the least bit of human congestion….and believe me there is plenty of that!  Literally hordes of humans make a direct path impossible.  Dodging and weaving between all the bags and people is horrible.  I tripped at least 3 or 4 times because people are really pretty rude when they are in a hurry. 

Then there is the condition of the infrastructure at this airport.  Concourse C is literally under construction and renovation from start to finish.  Cardboard covered floors alternating with stretches of cement, open ceilings with ductwork and wires everywhere, and unpleasant noise from air-conditioning not sound protected make the experience untenable.  If it rains, you can multiply the misery by at least twice.

There were no delays on the outbound trip, so the layover for us was ONLY 2.5 hours!  The return trip was another story.

There was apparently a thunderstorm during our incoming return flight, which necessitated a ‘hold’ for only about 30 minutes.  Our chatty captain told us that planes were being stacked up in holding patterns at the 4 corners of the airport’s airspace 50 miles out in all directions, with a total of about 80 aircraft suddenly thrown off schedule, which meant that all the connections got messed up as well.  When we finally landed, the airport was like a colony of human bacilli!  Since the concourse was under construction there was only one set of bathrooms available and the lines were interminable.  Good luck if you had cramps!

Our flight was being rescheduled as we watched the only flight board in the concourse being re-shuffled.  Our departure went from 7:55pm to 9:25pm to 10:03pm while we stood there!  Multiply that by 20 odd gates at just this concourse, and there are 5 of them, and you get the picture.  There were lines all the way into the concourse at the American Flight service desk that required a wait of anywhere from 30-60 minutes until you could get someone to talk to you face to face to try to re-route you or give you some updated information.

Since my wife was sick from something she caught on the plane on the way up to Toronto, the prospect of us sitting in this hellhole of an airport for the next 2+ hours waiting for a flight that might not even happen was too much to bear.  I stood in line for an hour to get re-ticketed to fly out of Charlotte the next morning.  Of course the airline declined to pay for our hotel room.  They did agree to reschedule us at no charge however, which was the least they could do.

So we finally got to a close-by Holiday Inn for the night and got a decent night’s sleep.  First thing at 7:30 we were on the hotel shuttle back to the ‘flight pit’ for another running of the gauntlet!  At 8:00am the airport was at least civilized in terms of the crowds, but over the next 60 minutes as we waited to board our flight, the human swarm increased 5 fold to give us this environment:

We are talking 9:00am!  I am sure the rest of the day was no better.  My only advice is to do whatever you can to stay away from this airport.  Fly another airline.  Any blip in the weather results in the chaos I have just described, and I have to believe that this is almost a daily occurrence.

The trip to Toronto was a revelation in terms of the human congestion that exists in that city.  The weather was grey, cold and rainy for 90% of our time there.  While I can only compliment the city planners for their use of mass transit and fully operation traffic signals complete with countdown clocks, the sheer press of human presence is overwhelming! The traffic is bumper to bumper in most parts of the city, and the condition of the roads is abominable!  Potholes bigger than anything I saw in my 30 years of living in New York dot the streets and you don’t see them until you are on top of them.  I chose to rent a car at the airport, which after my recent experience in Kingston, Jamaica, teaches me I should have been severely spanked!  Since the rules of the road are identical to the US, it was at least navigable, but the traffic was really horrible at or near rush hour.

Maybe it’s just that living in Naples, Florida has spoiled me, but it just seems like there are too many people out there!.....especially in the larger cities.  The people in Toronto were especially courteous at all times, but even the highways were jammed like you would see in a cartoon!

The event we attended in Toronto was a delightful wedding, but every experience surrounding the event was jammed with people in too small spaces.

I can only say that when we finally got off the plane in Fort Myers and emerged into the well lit, immaculately clean spacious airport; and glided smoothly with no delays to our car in long term parking, leading to a relaxing 20 minute ride home on well paved 6 lane highways with no delays and plenty of ‘green’ and sunshine to view on the way, “Thank God we are home!”

Traveling is no adventure today, it is an unpleasant challenging gauntlet.  And for sure I will never choose to fly through Charlotte unless someone can sedate me and wake me up when I arrive somewhere else.