John McCain's Bequest

This Labor Day weekend was full of John McCain.  I agreed with maybe 50% of McCain’s politics--He was too conservative and too much of a ‘hawk’ for me.  He always wanted to spend more on the military, and was first in line to act militarily against other nations.  Maybe that was somehow a ‘knee jerk’ reaction to his own particular history. 

However he was also someone who fought for the ‘little guy’.  In recent days he was the one lone warrior who foiled Trump’s plan to obliterate the Affordable Care Act, and the one lone Republican who called out the Trump supplicants currently in Congress.

This weekend was full of tribute to the man and I watched most of the services on Saturday.  The Sunday morning programs invited guests from both sides of the aisle to comment on the ‘rebuke’ to Trump and how it would affect the Mueller probe, etc. etc.  The most insightful comments came for Leon Panetta, former Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton; and former Director of the CIA and Defense Secretary for Barak Obama.

When asked what he took away from the services and the overall weekend tribute to John McCain he had a truly thoughtful response.  He said that the services and remembrances of McCain were not only a re-affirmation of the values and ideals of the American Democracy, but also a moment for all Americans to hold up a mirror and ask themselves the question, “Who am I as an American, and who do I want to be?” 

The era of Trump has made this question of paramount importance. 

Over the past two years we have seen a real change in our profile as a nation with ‘ideals’ and ‘moral values’.  Honor, integrity, honesty, and most importantly truth and the rule of law have been corrupted by this administration.  Trump is just the latest incarnation of a drift that began decades ago when our representatives made money and power the most important things in the universe.  John McCain's values were the antithesis of that.  Above all for McCain it was honesty and integrity.

The result has been the inexorable slow ebbing of those most cherished ideals that the founders hoped would guide our actions and decisions as a republic.  The result of that slide has led us to the loss of compromise as a way to make progress, and recent milestones like the Merrick Garland episode, the reappearance of overt racism, fear of the ‘other’, abandonment of our belief that immigration is the strength of our perpetual renewal as a nation, among other events.

So Panetta’s reflection has great relevance.  As the frenetic verbal abuse of our institutions (Dept. of Justice; FBI; the press) by the President grows louder every day, we must ask ourselves, “Is this who we want to be as Americans?”  Are we ready to abandon truth and accept Rudy Giuliani’s statement that ‘Truth is not truth’?  Are we going to accept autocracy and accept the premise that the only ‘real’ truth is from the mouth of Donald Trump?

As I scanned the faces of those who attended that service on Saturday, I was heartened by the cross section of political views and positions that were represented in what was clearly a heartfelt  appreciation for the values that John McCain stood for.  America was his mantra.  As Obama affirmed in his eulogy, recalling the private talks he and McCain had in the Oval during his Presidency, both he and John were ‘on the same team’ no matter how they might have differed on policy.  Can the same be said today about Republicans and Democrats, or more specifically about Trumpists and the rest of us?

I wondered about the hypocrisy of McConnell, Ryan, other Republican legislators sitting in the National Cathedral who are mute as each egregious statement and action oozes forth from the White House.  How is it possible for these men to honor what McCain stood for and then so blatantly abandon those ideals in pursuit of their own agendas?

When pundits, and those of us who still operate in the realm of truth and honesty believe that this election—a mere 60 days away—is perhaps at the fulcrum of the survival of our nation as the founders imagined it, the solemnity of that moment this past weekend is prophetic.

Dark Clouds

I am watching TV this morning after the latest round of primaries, trying to intuit what will happen in November.  I know I am not alone.

The news item that catches my eye is the report of President Trump’s meeting with Evangelists behind closed doors.  It reports that the President told the evangelical group that if the Republicans lose the House to the Democrats, “they” (I assume he means the Democrats) will change all that Trump has done immediately and violently.  Violently??

Here we go!

Remember how the election in 2016 was ‘rigged’, and Trump wasn’t sure he would accept the outcome----unless he won?  Now he is baiting his evangelical toadies with threats of violence.  His message for the midterms is if Republicans don’t win there will be violence.  What a despicable tactic.

Have we not had enough of this kind of divisive kind of language?  When I think of how far our politics has descended to the level of what passes for normal in banana republics around the world, it doesn’t seem far fetched to expect this kind of fetid threat from Trump. 

Tom Friedman writes today in the New York Times of how our politics has become ‘Russified’ after 2 years of Trumpian rule; how our Congress in the hands of the Republicans has evolved to a similar state like that of the Duma in Russia—a rubber stamp body that has abdicated it’s power for oversight and separation of powers that was created by the Founders. It is clear that Trump’s campaign rhetoric will be racially divisive, threaten violence, and play to his trope of ‘truth is not the truth’.

There was a comment written about Friedman’s opinion piece that rang true for me:

“Doesn't it seem odd that a ‘Russified’ country apparently can be redeemed through the magical powers of democratic voting? As though the most corrupt American government in living memory is going to allow itself to lose in a fair election?

At the end of 2018 when our election results are 'highly irregular,' all this effort put into winning a democratic election that we were never going to be given is going to look like the most pointless resistance one could imagine.”

If the House does not wind up in the hands of the Democrats in November, there may be no hope for the preservation of our current form of government.  If Republicans remain in control, we will never find out if the Trump Campaign was complicit in the Russian attack on our democracy since it is the Republican’s mission to corrupt the Russian probe and not let the American people know what really happened in 2016.  Treason and criminal action will have won the day.

Frankly, I am more hopeful that truth and decency will ultimately win out.  It is what our American experiment was all about.

"Have You No Shred of Decency Left, Sir?"

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Well, we certainly have taken a turn in the last 48 hours with regard to the facts that have emerged about the complicity and conspiracy of Donald J. Trump and the campaign finance felonious actions pleaded guilty to by his attorney, Michael Cohen.  Mr. Trump has been flopping like a beached fish on a dock trying to obfuscate his own involvement in Cohen’s criminal activity with comparisons to accidental infractions by the Obama administration as opposed to the criminal intent behind his own actions.  His interviews with Fox News mushing the truth with his gibberish only serve to illustrate his stupidity.  There are tapes, sworn oaths and admissions that clearly implicate the President of the United States in a criminal conspiracy to influence the outcome of a national election to his own benefit!

So really, how stupid are the Congressional Republicans to still remain silent?  Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan haven’t commented……They are in a ‘no-win’ situation.  They are faced with the uncomfortable truth that was inevitable!  Republicans have surrendered their party to people who have no respect for the truth or the rule of law.  They have finally found themselves at the intersection of loyalty to a cult figure and their oath of allegiance to protect and defend the Constitution.  They are faltering and trying to figure out what they should do—hence the silence!

This is perhaps the point of no return for these ‘representatives’ of the people who sent them to Congress.  The sudden realization that the people they represent, the so called “Base” of the party, doesn’t really care whether their standard bearer is a serial liar and a criminal is fully upon them.  Their tolerance for the slow destruction of our institutions, their tolerance for the corruption of our government (from the disgrace of the Merrick Garland nomination to the destruction of the Affordable Care Act to the separation of children from their parents at our southern border), their tolerance for lying and the abrogation of the rule of law has now reached a decision point.

The fact that our President condones criminal activity, lies openly about all manner of things, has surrounded himself with thugs and criminals who have been indicted, plead guilty to criminal charges, and have been found guilty of financial crimes is now openly apparent.  And we still await Special Counsel Mueller's report on the Russian collusion!

And so the moment of truth has perhaps arrived for the Republican party, or what is left of it.  Do they continue to support the Trump cult or do they accept responsibility at this late date to be a patriot and protect and defend the Constitution?  How do they want to be notated in history?

That moment in history when Joseph Welch had the signature conversation with Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Army/McCarthy hearings; when Welch finally asked McCarthy whether he had “any shred of decency left” comes to mind.  Is it time for us to ask Republicans in Congress, “Gentlemen, do you have any shred of decency left?”  Are you ready to be patriots or will history remember you as cowardly supplicants to a fundamentally flawed President.  Your moment of ‘decency’ has arrived at last.

If you don’t choose country over Trump, we need to shed ourselves of all of you! 

"Just a Matter of Timing...."

The recently released audio of Devin Nunes revealing the actual Republican plan for managing the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh vs. the impeachment of Rod Rosenstein unmasks the cynical effort to protect President Trump above all else.  Where the Congress is supposed to act as a check and balance on the Executive Branch, instead Republicans are abdicating their oaths of office to protect their own and Trump’s ass.  Instead of acting in the interests of the people they represent by searching for the truth about what happened in 2016, they rather are attempting to hide the truth, discredit the search for truth and destroy the mechanisms for justice.

Now we discover that the Republicans in the Senate are doing everything they can to restrict the availability of the background documents pertaining to the record of Kavanaugh’s actions and involvement in the Bush White House.  Why?  Because it turns out that Kavanaugh may have lied to Congress during his previous confirmation hearings when he was nominated to be a DC Court of Appeals judge in 2006, and the Republicans are only interested in expediting the confirmation of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as fast as possible.  If they restrict the background documents that would clearly answer the question of Kavanaugh’s duplicity and medaciousness, then their goal of confirming him quickly will be met.

The reason this is crucial to their plans is an emblem of their cynicism.

If Kavanaugh is in place as the swing vote on the Supreme Court, then Constitutional questions arising from the impeachment of Rosenstein or a subpoena of Trump to Mueller’s grand jury that will surely reach the court will probably be decided by Kavanaugh’s vote. 

In 2006 Kavanaugh told the Senate in his DC Court of Appeals hearings for confirmation that, as a member of the legal department in Bush's White House, he had nothing to do with any discussions or decisions about policy regarding enhanced interrogation techniques or torture during the early Bush years.  If that was a lie, as the documents that Democratic senators want to review may reveal, Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court may be in real jeopardy.  Republicans would rather have a duplicitous judge on the Supreme Court to further their own interests, than to insure that the Supreme Court is a check and balance against the Executive and the Legislative branch as the founders intended.

(The first case that Kavanaugh heard in his new position on the DC Court of Appeals concerned the retention of a captured prisoner at Guantanamo and the issue of interrogation.  That particular court hears many similar cases.  If in fact Kavanaugh was not neutral, but had in fact developed or opined on the interrogation policy of the Bush Administration, he would probably not have been confirmed for that judgeship. Senate Republicans want to hide this information so they are now restricting documents detailing his activities in the Bush Administration.)

The reason the impeachment of Rod Rosenstein has been put on hold is that if it were to proceed, then the Senate would have to stop any further business while they adjudicated the impeachment case against Rosenstein.  Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court is more important.  The Republican plan is to take up Rosenstein’s impeachment right after the election.  Even if the Democrats win majority control of the House in November, the Republicans have the time between the election and the seating of the new Congress in January of next year to impeach Rosenstein; try him in what will still probably be a Republican Senate; convict him and replace him with someone who will fire and stop the Mueller probe.

THAT is the plan that Nunes was describing in the surreptitious audio recording made at the re-election fundraising event for Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodger last week.

These people will stop at nothing.  The integrity of our government is clearly at risk.  There is such consummate corruption and deception in this administration that it will take several election cycles to clean out this rot.  However the first hurdle is for all of us to take our responsibility seriously and vote in this midterm election.  If we fail to have a change in the House majority, the next two years will be worse than the last two, and frankly the ruins of our democracy will be all of our faults!