The Taking down of "Roseanne" -- a clear and present danger

I have never felt such a sense of satisfaction as the axing of the cash cow ABC show "Roseanne" except, perhaps, when Barack Obama became president.  Just two minutes before the pulling of the show I was writing and calling ABC fast and furiously.  It was difficult to get in as I got bounced by various ABC receptionists.  Nonetheless I did.  The viewer opinion tape gives one only 30 seconds to respond so I read my piece with all deliberate speed.

I then got onto an ABC site where I could email my sentiments about the show and did so.  After I did I looked to the top of the site and to my joy Breaking News in red said Roseanne was cancelled!  I know it was not my call or email that was the straw that broke the camels back.  The feeling, however, that I contributed to this humane effort perhaps by millions to crush Roseanne's racist ugly sentiment gave me great satisfaction. 

Nuremberg, my political moral compass, demands we speak out against cruelty and even refuse military orders that advocate for it.  All political opinions are not the same. Some hateful destructive ones need to be verbally and electorally taken down by any legal means necessary!! 

Moreover, Constitutionally, hate speech, in my opinion, trumps First Amendment free speech because it promotes and leads to oppositional violence.  As justice Holmes said free speech does not extend to one who would yell fire in a crowded theater.  Spewing ugly hate speech sentiment as Roseanne Barr did is equal to yelling fire in a crowded theater.  It promotes violence and presents a clear and present danger.

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his majority opinion on free speech in Schenck v. United States 249 U.S. 47 (1919) the oft quoted:  

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils ...

In the instant case of the inflammatory and incendiary ugly comments of Roseanne Barr ABC had a moral and legal duty to pull the show.

The most self-serving "presidential" Memorial Day tweet by the greatest jackass president in US history

As usual the "stable genius" President Bone Spurs Tweeter-in-Chief served up a self-serving and insulting Memorial Day tweet to the vets except his tweet was not about the vets who have along with their families and friends suffered so much in war often giving the ultimate sacrifice -- their lives.  Trump's tweet was about himself, of course, and his non accomplishments .  Does his base not see through his continually self-serving and more often than not lying mendacious comments always embellishing himself, his policies and no one else?  I am hard pressed to think anyone can find this embarrassing excuse for a president credible when he is the very definition of incredulity.  This man does not care about the vets. This man who received five deferments from the military during Vietnam does not care about the vets.  This man who still presides over an ineffective VA does not care about the vets.

Memorial Day, Mr. Trump, should not be about lauding your economic non-accomplishments but should be about the self sacrifice of the few on behalf of the many.  It should be about those who have served in every war, even wars with dubious rationales behind them, because they loved their country.  Whom do you love, Mr. Narcissist President?  I think it is yourself and no one else. 

Mortar shells fired from Gaza, Israeli military says

To continue the NBC News heading: "One of the projectiles landed near a kindergarten shortly before it opened, local media reported."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mortar-shells-fired-gaza-israeli-military-says-n878076

Someone in the Metrowest News critiqued my position of negative results appending to the US embassy move and declaration of all of Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish state.  My critic said among other hostile epithets and I quote:  

 

"The Palestinian Arabs just love to use the Menendez defense, originated by Lyle and Erik Menendez, who murdered their parents and then begged for sympathy on the grounds of being orphans.

The Menendez brothers didn’t fool their judges, but the Palestinian Arabs have obviously fooled Natalie Rosen."  I responded:

I am NOT fooled, Mr. S**.  How one goes from the Menendez Brothers to a position concerning Jerusalem I have no idea. I know the issues. The dispute and war go on for decades. The goal no matter which argument one listens to is to stop the killing and, of course, without a doubt I know Hamas's proclivity for violence and the intractability of their position. That is not the question. I find your accusation, sir, insulting to me because there is no event in my memory or in history's memory that has affected me more than The Holocaust or Shoah, the event that birthed the state of Israel. I am well aware of each war and each conflict in that geographical war torn part of the world. I want the killing to stop. The issues are complex and one side does not have a corner on truth. Truth is always in the eyes of the beholder. I want to achieve a two state solution and an eradication of the killing. What is the best way can one do that after 70 years of constant war? It is not a formal capital declaration of Jerusalem by a US President who does not know his posterior from his elbow. 

To me the best way to create a cessation of death is not -- I repeat not -- on international television and computer screens to declare Jerusalem -- all Jerusalem -- the capital of Israel and moving it from a neutral Tel Aviv to an incendiary Jerusalem. Declaring Jerusalem the capital in the form of a joyous gathering of people who want that to be so creates and will create more violence. If you do not care about human deaths as a result of that I ask where is your empathy gene, Mr. S****. If both sides hold hard and fast to their positions one can be sure more violence and killing of innocent women and children, too, will continue. Excuse me if I ask where is your sense of humanity for all involved?
Moreover, I said to one who supported what I said:  Thank you, Lloyd, for your support! It is welcomed lest some think this Jew does not care about Israel when my politics many years ago was formed by the morality of Nuremberg and the unconscionable acts perpetrated against the Jewish people of the Holocaust. 

The headlines from NBC News this morning speak volumes for the veracity of our opinions: "Mortar shells fired from Gaza, Israeli military says. One of the projectiles landed near a kindergarten shortly before it opened, local media reported." It matters not what was declared the capital in 1949. Much history has been written after that fact. The US embassy until Trump was located in Tel Aviv so more tension and violence would not erupt. Ordering the US embassy changed to Jerusalem because Trump thinks that is politically expedient for him -- always him -- spells death, violence and more death. Why commit an act that will serve only to inflame. This was not a Trump building in NYC he was constructing this was a self-serving inflammatory political statement which serves only to get people killed. I must conclude Mr. S** does not care if the shelling from Gaza drops over and kills more. As JFK said we all occupy the same planet and we are all human. I rest my case!

Wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate state

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/supreme-court-sue-your-employer_us_5afb2bcde4b09a94524ca8f3

​

Yet another takeover by the corporate state. Employers now will have the upper hand and be able to force their employees to wave Class Actions in favor of individual arbitration. Now if one needs to sue you do so alone decimating the ability of a group to glean a more satisfying settlement and making the individual think now

​ ​

not worth it to sue.

Add Citizens United to the SCOTUS coterie's repertoire that gave corporate pacs the ability to fill campaign coffers to the unlimited brim buying political influence under the guise of free speech making corporations people then presto one has the corporate state. Who did not realize this? Why is there no national uprising? We are duped into thinking power must be correct. Power is not correct. Power is corrupt! Corporations are NOT people and should not have the right to overflow politicians with bags of cash to buy policy. This is legal pay to play.

The above decision disallowing class actions is yet another egregious decision Merrick Garland, Obama's choice for SCOTUS, never would have made except that McConnell Republican Leader in his

​inimitable ​

slimy way held Obama's rightful nomination back from a vote to see if Republicans won in 2016. They won alright by stealing an election. One by one corporations will encompass the whole of government and we the people will not count. What is next

​ a​

n unlimited term for Trump? Stay tuned. Nothing the right wing extremist corporate state with their blowhard

​"president" ​

Trump shocks me anymore.

If we the people, the middle class and the workers do not rise up and replace these unconscionable Cretans then we deserve the country we are getting. It is partially now and soon will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate state!

The Wedding of the World

I was up, showered at 6:00 a.m. yesterday and plugged into the omnipresent television to watch the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markel.  Usually, my attention to human spectacle of the ultra rich with salivating commoners outside who can only wish they were born into it too, is looked on by me with skepticism and chagrin as spectacles like that are not always what they appear to be if one looks beyond on their surface to what is beneath.  Each adulation of humans is fraught with disappointment, as Shakespeare said, "... subject to the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to."

This wedding, however, I thought was, indeed, different.  I was, instead of eschewing tradition, applauding it because the tradition progressed into something partially new. I was applauding it in front of the TV where only two people and one cat sat watching the pomp Americans say they eschew but many secretly love.  The cat was sleeping through it, of course, oblivious to the human culturally Everest event that was playing out before the world.  Humans, after all, are cultural beings.  We cry, we laugh, and do so many other things making our species different from all others.  Sometimes that difference is for good and sometimes, sadly, for evil.  Within the space of two days I was both crying from the happiness of a biracial royal wedding and, crying from the sadness of the Santa Fe High School massacre in Texas, as the cultural milieu in which we exist lives on a seesaw of good and evil.

The wedding was a gorgeous spectacle of a usually entirely white occurrence to a mixture of biracial beauty.  Everything to me was beautiful -- the bride, her gown, a happy Harry, the Episcopal historic church surrounding a magnificent castle of Windsor and the beautiful ceremony.  There was, however, something else even more profoundly beautiful.  There were so many persons of color who occupied roles of prominence none ever has had at a royal wedding.  The bride was a gorgeous mixture of race with her mother sitting with happiness gleaned from a daughter blessed with talent, humane values, beauty and, indeed, was an American.  In spirit I, an American, was invited to this wedding.  I cheered from our living room when Reverend Curry, a person of color, too, gave his MLKesque sermon not of some of the Bible's harsh dictates but to its simplest message of love.  He delivered it in black charismatic style that made me cry.  I loved the black chorus singing "Stand by Me," an American song, I loved Reverend Michael Curry and his profoundly moving sermon of love and I loved the dark skinned cellist who played in beautiful classical style while the bride and groom signed their pledge to each other out of the sight of all.

The royal wedding gave its viewers its usual classical elegance while giving us also the inclusive elegance of the others who make up our global populace.  To say the wedding for me was a treat is to give it understatement.  It spoke to the divisions of man; yes, to our divisions led by a president who was happily not invited because he capitalizes on the simmering hate of our nation threatening to kill it.  Harry and Meaghan's wedding teaches us is does not have to be that way; it teaches us we can include others who, historically, have suffered, as again Shakespeare would say, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

Harry and Meaghan, you showed to billions what could be the beginning of a new age.  The moral and ethical among us yearn for us to love one another, to care for one another, to empathize with one another and to help one another.  We can sow peace where there is war, we can sow love where there is hate and we can sow justice where there is none.  Jesus is alleged to have said of his disciples, "Love one another as you have loved me." I am not Christian but the beauty of some of the New Testament words sing to me a song of peace, love and brotherhood we can all achieve if we simply imagine and try.  I wish Harry and Meghan a life of good health and a life of love.  Now, go and teach our global multitudes to sin no more.

A Man Asked Over 100 People Of All Ages What They’ve Learned In Life So Far

I love life and the plethora of things to learn from science to literature. Life can be a magnificent learning experience if one wants it to be. Yes, looking out each day at the turning of the seasons; growing, changing and yes even dying as everything on earth that is alive from insects to man experiences the journey of it and its end.

Having said that I do think life can be hard. It is hard for those who were not blessed with riches or for those who were not blessed with a functioning body or a loving family. It is not hard for everyone but everyone at some time will experience his/her decay. That is hard. It is hard to go from the independence and strength of youth to the dependence and weakness of old age. I hesitate to say that I would repeat the performance and yet I feel blessed that I was given the chance to see the magnificence of it all which is after all bestowed by chance or fate.

Life has been a hard ride for me. There was the pain of others close to me I witnessed and my own pain I had to endure and still do. Yet, as I sat in 5th grade class I think I realized then how lucky I was to live in a nation where I could read what I wanted, say what I wanted and ask any question under the sun of my teachers that I wanted. So yes, I have been blessed but to lose one's agility and to lose those I love or to be torn from them myself may preclude my wanting to repeat the experience again.

It is rather silly to think on this question because who of us will have that do over chance? We are born and then we die. What we do with our lives in between is our own choice. It is why I have dedicated this segment of my life to be a voice for the poor, the powerless, the rejected and the infirm so, paraphrasing Robert Kennedy, they will know someone sees their pain and wants to lessen it; someone sees wrongs and wants to right them; someone sees hate and wants to show love because after all I believe this is the one life we get so why not make this life count for something more than just one's self.

Who is the real animal? The essence of Christianity

Trump called immigrants to the United States animals.  I ask who is the true animal? Larry O'Donnell had a wonderful segment on this about the religious right and those who support Trump but who completely ignore or more likely did not know the essence of the New Testament and Christ's words: "You were hungry and you gave me food"; "You were tired and you gave me rest"; "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me." He used the Beatitudes of Christ to call out these non-Christian so called "Christians." I love those Christian sentiments. Who is Trump kidding? He cares about God and knows zero about Christianity as much as a true animal does. He says he goes to church and we know he plays golf instead. He is his usual lying self. I know Christianity and he is no Christian! Larry O'Donnell's segment on this was so moving and correct!  I urge you to Google and read it.   I almost cried when Larry delivered it.  I wrote a small email to him last night.  I said:

Larry, your last words and sentiment about Christianity were some of the best I have heard and speak to how I often have viewed the messages of Christ.  One of the first passages I memorized was Christ's words that say: "In as much as ye have done it unto these the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

In my college days during the late sixties I, a Jew, took Christ's words to heart and thought of them as my own because I considered myself a humanitarian as I believed Christ was.  Thank you for clarifying the ugliness and hypocrisy of Donald Trump.  Even he, however, would have been forgiven his ignorance by Christ and his serial adultery to which Christ would have said to go and sin no more.  I though, do not have the ability to forgive the most ignorant, inhumane and dangerous leader in our nation's history.

RESIST

Huge By Multiples of Many -- Whistleblower Leaked Michael Cohen’s Financials Over Potential Cover-Up: Report

A Whistle-blower reported -- much to his peril -- that two SARS (Suspicious Activity Reports) filed by banks to the Department of the Treasury are missing from the Treasury database.  Someone possibly vaporized them as they are missing from the bank's reporting of them.    Yesterday, on Rachel and Larry, there were many interviews of experts who know how utterly serious this is.  Possibly Michael Avenati received this information because, just speculating, the Trump Treasury Department was feared by the whistle-blower.  The alleged crimes are  endless as big as the ocean and as deep as the swamp Trump told us he would eradicate.  When one IS the swamp one will never get rid of the swamp but simply enhance it by multiples of many!

The story is here.  Read it and be amazed: 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/whistleblower-michael-cohen-suspicious-activity-reports_us_5afcd865e4b0779345d5b933

North Korea cancels high-level talks with South Korea -- MY COMMENT

Kim Jong Un's regime alleges drills between the South Korean and U.S. air forces are a rehearsal for an invasion of the North. (link below)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-reportedly-cancels-high-level-talks-south-n874396

Trump's illegalities and so obviously unconstitutional actions turning his back on the Constitutional Emoluments Clause prohibiting a president while in office from profiting by tying his businesses  to national policy should get him impeached and convicted.  Why does it seem like climbing Everest to unify the Congress against Trump and with emergency get him out of the White House where on every front he is blowing things up even courting nuclear war. 

Iran -- Trump blows up the west's best efforts to avoid nuclear war with Iran by pulling out of the Iran deal Obama (of course) with the P5+1 group of world powers - the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany signed that gave the west a chance to curtail, with inspections, Iran's development of a nuclear bomb for at least 10 years; Israel/Gaza -- is a horrific mess because-unthinking about-consequences Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem declaring all of it (holy to three faiths) the capital of Israel.  The Palestinian and Arab anger that provoked is threatening to spin out of control as the dead and the wounded Gazans mount up.  I see attempts made by Gazans to cut through the barbed wire separating the two adversarial sides in an attempt to breach the Israeli wall that keeps Gazans from the ability to work and conduct their lives while separating these rabid enemies from each other--the peace process is dead; N. Korea -- cancels the allegedly historic meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-Un because, according to Kim, the US and S. Korea are conducting military exercises Jong-Un sees as an effort by the US ultimately to invade the north.  One should note Kim Jong-Un has done this to previous administrations.  No other administration, however, has been so bellicose in rhetoric as Trump and contains a war monger Secretary of State John Bolton.  Bolton never saw a war he did not like but, of course, never has fought in one and uses Libya as a good example in which the US was involved that killed Gaddafi and now is a non functioning violent state.  Kim rethinks the meeting.

This know nothing president knows nothing.  He reads nothing shorter than a paragraph.  In fact, it has been said, he cannot read well nor does he have the ability to write cogent sentences as his atrocious grammar and mis-spellings of his insipid Tweets show.  He writes, at best, at a third grade level and has an attention span like that of a 3 year old.  This incompetent has the ability to order a nuclear strike.  He wants the Nobel Prize for Peace because Obama received it as if it were a shiny new truck that he wanted because Obama got it.  Trump is a 72 year old child who can lead the globe into nuclear world war.  Is there a Nobel Prize for war?  If so it will be his!

Embassy Celebration met with Gaza Massacre; Gaza protests replaced by funerals as Palestinians mark 'nakba' (the catastrophe) [My Comment]

Embassy Celebration met with Gaza Massacre; Gaza protests replaced by funerals as Palestinians mark 'nakba' (the catastrophe)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/funerals-replace-gaza-protests-palestinians-mark-nakba-n874211

My Comment: NUREMBERG WAS NOT FOR NOTHING

I said weeks ago when Trump first came out with his no thought declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli Jewish state that this would mean never ending war. Sumner Adelson financed imbecilic policy with a billion bucks that will ultimately take more Israeli lives before it is over if it ever will be over. 

This US embassy policy declaring all of Jerusalem the Jewish capital brushing the other two major religions aside without an inch of thought to the ramifications of it.  It will be using its own Jews (my own Jews) as a sacrifice to the alter of feel good news so Trump can puff his chest out and claim a victory to his base.  Trump knows nothing of Jewish history, nothing of Palestinian history and even less about the history of Islam and its divisions.   Netanyahu and his dupes are this era's Pharisees; the hypocrites that Jesus himself in the New Testament hated.  This will not end, if it ever ends, in our lifetime and we will be lucky if this does not spread to the rest of the Middle East like the cancerous policy it is. 

I have just put out of reach any hope I may have had to see Israel before the end of my life. Trump and Netanyahu have ruined the history the Jewish people who rose from the ashes of the Holocaust. They cheer in the Trump dictate of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state while the people of Gaza and other Middle East nations cry out for Israel's demise.  They may have just arrived at the beginning stages of their wish.

Why foment the simmering flame of Palestinian anger into the explosions of an an all out war? Many Palestinians are dead and many more will follow.  Jewish deaths will follow too.  All are human. Until you walk in the other's shoes you cannot know how they feel. 70% unemployment in Palestinian Gaza; their boundaries to the west are Israeli barricades and to their east is the sea.  There is nowhere for them to go.  The wounded are everywhere and there are few places to medically treat them all.  Those who are protesting by the hundreds think they have nothing to lose and, perhaps, they do not.  Jerusalem is a killing fields initiated by Trump and stupidly the raving rightwing nuts of Israel sit there smugly in their pristine American embassy and cheer while the split news screen shows the depth of Palestinian resistance and anger.

I was intensely pro Israel all of my life.  Now I will no longer give to the Jewish state unless and until Netanyahu and Trump are electorally crushed and the Jews who suffered the horrors of the Holocaust remember what it was like to be oppressed, hunted like animals and killed. Jews everywhere need to remember. Nuremberg was not for nothing. THINK!

 

4 Men Charged With Hate Crimes In Beating Of Gay Couple--My Comment

This (link below) is not surprising given the tenor of the Trumpian time in which we live. When a war hero Senator who sacrificed all for his country is spoken of by an employee in the Trump White House with such indifference impugning and verbally insulting him as he lay dying in his bed simply because Senator McCain had the gall at times to policy oppose Trump it is an outrage. The man at the top from whom this sentiment is sanctioned says nothing and the woman who said it still has her job.

Is it any wonder that these hate crimes against so many minority groups whom Trump has assaulted with pugilistic verbal venom that gays, the targets of sanctimonious teenage violence by allegedly straight men, will occur. A permission slip has been granted by the so called "president" and man at the top of our leadership, so much so he will not come out against hostile statements or acts whether it is in his office about a war hero who has opposed the "dear leader" occasionally or a vicious assault of gay men after a Gay Pride event. Our so called "president" will never decry this vicious behavior and by silent proxy concurs with and owns it.

To those teens: me thinks thou doest protest too much! Often, if one is given the opportunity to psychologically delve into the character of men who commit these violent bullying attacks one might find a fear with which they themselves struggle that they are gay too and try to prove through extreme brutal violence against gays their manliness showing the world they are "real men."

A vile act has been committed on two innocent men fracturing the cheek of one. It is happening to many in this Trumpian hate filled age. There are hundreds more like it whether against gays, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, persons of color, Asians and others.

These bullying tactics go without presidential condemnation because Trump's base loves it and wants more of it so Trump will not condemn it but rather by his reactive silence sanctions it. 

Trump is an inferior man and an inferior president. I think he knows it and he is a bully because of it. Maybe Trump, too, is questioning his manhood and intellectual virility by bullying his opposition when they cannot strike back.  We the people should strike back and we the people must strike back. RESIST!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hate-crimes-beating-gay-couple_us_5af753b2e4b032b10bfb44f3

White House official mocks McCain's opposition to the Haspel nomination for head of the CIA: 'It doesn't matter, he's dying anyway' she says.

Trump's White House employee's words about Senator's McCain's refusal to back Gina Haspel nominated by Trump to head the CIA are sickening.  The employee said about McCain: "It doesn't matter he is dying anyway."  The woman who said those vicious malevolent words should be fired.  In any other administration she would have been but in this immoral sewer of a White House she remains in place.  Trump and his cronies are crushing any semblance of empathetic humanity that is left in the White House if any has been left in place at all.  Even Chief of Staff General Kelly who calls himself a patriot supports a bestial house of lies, collusion and traitors by remaining silent or by lying himself.

What have we become under such mendacious and inhumane executive leadership? I did not always agree with Senator McCain but one thing about him is true he sacrificed for this nation, he was tortured and suffered permanent physical damage in a N. Vietnamese prison camp.  He knows well what torture can do. Who of us could stand such pain? He nearly lost his life for his nation and incurred permanent damage to his arms from that torture.  His captors offered him release but he would not go until the rest of the American prisoners were freed. He is courage, he is honor, and he is duty to country at least the country we used to inhabit. The torture inflicted by N. Vietnam is why Senator McCain is against torture now.  If this nation torturers one can be sure its adversaries will do the same and more.  It is why he is against the CIA torturer in chief during the Iraq War, Gina Haspel, nominated to head the CIA. 

The US is supposed to stand for something.  Gina Haspel used the familiar argument for her acquiescing to and committing war crimes that the perpetrators of the Holocaust employed -- I was just following orders.  The Nuremberg trials at the conclusion of WWII led by US Justice Jackson stood for something.  It stood against crimes against humanity.  It was a universal edict that was supposed to apply to everyone.  The Trump administration spits in the face of the Nuremberg conclusions and rejects our Constitutional document's Eighth Amendment specifically prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.  Moreover, this administration cares nothing about the Geneva Convention treaty it signed.

 

"Torture was the subject of the Geneva Convention as well as the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. In signing these treaties, each nation made a commitment to “take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.”

In pursuance to its agreement, the United States legislatively prohibited torture and other war crimes under 18 U.S. Code § 2441. Violators may be fined or imprisoned for life or any term of years.

Trump cares nothing about the Geneva Convention if he knows about it at all.  In fact, he said during the campaign he wants more severe torture than simply waterboarding.  Read about those who suffered waterboarding and see how easy it is to endure.  It is a brutal form of torture used in the Spanish Inquisition of 1478.  Trump is leading us into another Middle East war by his rejection of the nuclear agreement -- a war in which he will never fight nor has he ever fought in war even in his youth. President Bonespur Five Deferments Trump will send other people's children to wars with no end but not his own children.  He is raping our nation of taxpayer money as well. Both he and his family will sacrifice nothing but will make the middle class, the working class, the poor, the elderly and the sick pay.


Trump and his Republicans are about the 2% richest of this nation giving his permanent huge tax cuts to the top 2% and a smaller IMPERMANENT tax cut for the middle and working classes who allegedly gave him electoral victory but with 3,000,000 votes given to his opponent who won the popular vote. One need only look at his billionaire cabinet to see its billionaires and their deep swampy corruption.  This is unacceptable.

Trump's victory was anemic and his policies now wield destruction for those families who can least afford it.  He is bringing death to a once great democracy.  Our nation was never perfect.  What nation is but it was a damn sight better than the oligarchy it is morphing into now. 

RESIST AS YOU HAVE NEVER RESISTED BEFORE YOUR NATION TAKES ITS LAST DEMOCRATIC BREATH.  Send this to anyone you choose.

CAUSES AND EFFECTS--Read and try to understand a blogger's excellent Middle East analysis. My Comment is below it.

A blogger on my Facebook page opined about Trump's withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement formulated through years of diplomacy by the Obama administration.  I thought it was one of the most cogent analysis on a very opaque subject I had read.  The sinking of the Iran nuclear agreement is catastrophic in view of this analysis.  I post it below:

"When the Bush White House decided to topple Saddam Hussein the strongman leader of Iraq, it enabled the Iraqi Shia majority to seize control.  It kicked Sunnis, the former ruling elite of Iraq, under the bus.  The US had no plan as to what to do with them so the defeated Iraq Sunnis, with Hussein dead, ran for their lives with their weapons intact.  Panicked by this, the Sunni States financed and enabled the rise of ISIS, which quickly escaped their control and became an existential threat to its creators. The Sunni effort to replace the Allawite rulers of Syria ended up driving Assad into the arms of Russia and Iran, to the point where Lebanese, Hezbollah and Iranian troops are fighting on his behalf.

Turkey's Erdogan, seeing an opportunity in Syria's chaos to destroy the Kurds on its border, is effectively now allied with Syria and Iran.  Saudi efforts too to maintain Sunni rule in Yemen have reduced the country to smoldering ruins and have brought it into direct confrontation with Iran.

A wave of elections has handed Hezbollah control of Lebanon and a member of the anti-American Shia Badr Brigade is poised to become Iraq's President.  Seeing an immense Shia block composed of Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq take shape, and watching it abetted by nations like Quatar, the Saudis and Israel, along with the Gulf Emirates,  an alliance of them was formed to influence the US into taking sides in a centuries-old ethno-religious dispute.

They have succeeded beyond their expectations. The stage is now set for a potentially catastrophic conflagration that will set the region afire, will likely bring the military superpowers into direct confrontation, and could potentially spark a nuclear war not to mention crash the world economy, which will certainly happen if Mideast oil is cut off."

My Comment;

How many think Trump understands one minuscule part of this Middle East mess which the US created by its feckless foreign Middle East policy the War in Iraq destabilizing the region, raise your hand.  I see no hands and for good reason.  The Middle East morass takes the minds of policy experts in Middle East history and contemporary politics to understand the meaning of it all or even a part of it.  The odds Trump understands any of that on a scale of 1 to 100 are ZERO.  His presidency, to quote him, is a disaster, and we are all held hostage to it.

Trump welcomes American detainees freed from North Korea--a good thing .... BUT

I am not going to be a hypocrite. The freeing of the prisoners from N. Korea is a good thing. I will give credit where it is due. This is a good thing, Mr. Trump, and the attempt at creating a diplomatic amelioration between N. Korea and the South with the US facilitating it is nothing short of miraculous if it happens. It is too early to tell how solid this attempt will be but the prisoners are home and that is surely good. Trump's attempt at improving the relations between North Korea and the South could have a positive impact on other nations in the region and, indeed, the world.  It could tamp down the nuclear war threat on the Korean peninsula and even its occurrence as far as the US mainland if Kim Jong-un improves his nuclear proficiency which he appeared to be doing.

This does not, however, eliminate the hundreds of poisonous things that began with Donald J. Trump's ride down the escalator to declare Mexicans, crossing our border to escape a dastardly life, criminals and rapists. Trump has sullied the positive relationship between the races both here and around the world.  He has made a place for neo Nazis to spew their hate and said nothing of right wing terrorist violence more prolific here than Islamic terrorist attacks by far. You, Mr. Trump, have done many unAmerican things, including and most especially the alleged collusion with Russia which I believe has occurred.  In my mind that is treason.  Trump has advocated for many inhumane polices -- creating a wall between nations, ruined DACA separating Hispanic parents from their children, deported thousands who committed no crime but were merely looking for a better life.  He has tried to exact his pound of racist flesh on Obama by overruling much good the Obama administration did.  Trump lies and he lies all the time impugning our free press as well as his own Department of Justice.  Trump has implemented more destructive mandates including but not limited to pulling away from the Iran nuclear agreement as well as denying climate change by pulling away from the climate change agreement signed by all nations in the world except the US.  These are existential threats to our planet.

The corruption in this administration shocks the conscience of most of our nation. It increases our allies' incredulity about the reliability and the sanity of our country.  These things have disastrous consequences not only for the US and its allies but for the world entire. 

What, Mr. Trump, you do, if successful, between N. Korea and the South will be great and I applaud you for it but the evil you spawn by the rest of the ugly inhumane and profane things you do will obviate the greatness of thawing the icy relations between North Korea and the South but creating another flood that kills.

Still RESIST!

Firm Tied to Russian Oligarch Made Payments to Michael Cohen

June is busting out all over.  The chickens are coming home to roost. Massive explosions of hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments into an LLC that is tied to Michael Cohen revealed by Michael Avenati and others.  It's raining collusion. We as a nation are either going to be rescued or we are now massively in trouble.

The Iran deal that Drumpf just blew up we HOPE will not eventually blow up in our own faces; for the first time Americans could be running to the bomb shelters as the British did in WWII.  It can happen.  If Iran begins again developing nuclear capacity and we are minus allies another war in the Middle East this time against a formidable power Iran and Pakistan already has nukes.  The misfit Bolton who led us into the disaster that was Iraq said it himself.  That gutter snipe wants regime change again because after all Iraq went so swimmingly well--17 years and still blowing up. 

How many thousands more of our youth will die in Iran so that as Bolton insanely thinks we can dance into Tehran.  It is more than madness and Trump is more than alleged treasonous he is deplorably DEVASTATING to our nation!

RESIST AS YOU HAVE NEVER RESISTED BEFORE! SAVE OUR REPUBLIC VOTE REPUBLICANS OUT OF OFFICE ALL OVER THE NATION.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/politics/michael-cohen-shell-company-payments.html?emc=edit_na_20180508&nl=breaking-news&nlid=75028030ing-news&ref=headline

An intellectually argumentative position -- Morning Joe

I loved the segment on Morning Joe which was an exchange between experts discussing the difficulties of having an intellectual discussion between groups with diametrically opposing positions but the desire to have those discussions nonetheless.

I am telling you why I, a liberal's liberal progressive on every issue, find it extraordinarily difficult to have a rational discussion with those who support Trump or those who support other right wing so called "conservative" positions.

I think the reason for the difficulty and the reason these discussions devolve into explosiveness ​is because the positions that so called conservatives take if

implemented would even deny life to minorities who have been trying for decades to be given a fair shake. For persons of color the issues are obvious. If conservatives

have their way they gerrymander districts, they use voter suppression techniques, they deprive people of government assistance and even CHIP for children assistance. If people who need the help are deprived of it death is not an outrageous possibility but conservatives do not care and, in fact, I may jump out on a limb here, some are happy about it. They want it to increase their ranks and decrease Democratic ranks. If persons of color are denied these rights both voting rights, civil rights and medical assistance these are the​ life threatening policies for which conservatives advocate. Conservatives want to return to a nation of the 1950s. Anti abortion efforts kill women by forcing them to have illegal quack abortions. They die, often, from blood poisoning. It's their own body they want to control and who is to tell them they cannot -- the state?

Anti gay initiatives are deadly. Sexuality is DNA determined. So called inhumane "conversion therapy" or praying the gay away doesn't work. Millions of people will be forced back into the closet of lies, denied the benefits everyone else takes for granted through marriage and other civil rights allowed everyone else but gays will be relegated yet again to a second class status where they must be afraid if anyone knows the subject of their personal affectation. It is depressing and it is why there were and even still are so many suicides among homosexuals who love one's own sex over the other. That fact cannot be changed. It's a question of love but the truth must be suppressed. That means death to those who merely want what everyone else wants -- happiness by having someone to love and love them back with all the rights that go with it.

Health care that should be a right is given only to those who have a job or can afford it and denied to the poor and denied in the past even to gay couples. This makes death a distinct possibility. As Alan Grayson​, the Democrat from Florida​,​ said if Republicans get their way make sure to die and die quickly. If Social Security and Medicare benefits for which people have worked and that sustain them in retirement years are demolished we die. It's that simple but Republicans do not care if we die; in fact, it means more for the top 2%. 

Those Republicans with whom I take issue treat minorities unequally to those things the majority takes for granted. It forces suicide as a sole option for those who cannot lift themselves up by their boot straps because they have no boots. Again, Republicans do not care. The empathy gene is vacant among Republicans.

Republicans views of war and peace are killing. How many wars have been promulgated by those who did not serve but based this nation's entry in them on lies that have killed thousands and forced now millions into refugee status. Republicans, however, do not want to give them refugee status. Where do the refugees go? They are shipped back to their own countries facing certain death. How is this fair and how does one argue nicely with those who want to inflict policies like that which do nothing less than discriminate and kill.

The Republican Party now bows ​its head to Nazis and says some are "fine people." One is running in California as a neoNazi for the Senate seat Diane Feinstein occupies. It is an anathema to tolerate that position or inhabit a Party that makes room for it. Other so called Alt Right candidates are running for positions around the nation. This cannot stand. It is inhumane and wrong.

Tell me how and I will adopt a more pacific stance in argument with Republicans but for now the administration of Donald Trump is more than lethal it is murderous. My blood pressure rises at the prospect of his getting away with all the illegalities --

​ some treasonous -- ​he ​allegedly ​has committed. It simply cannot happen but it may.

Men and Eric Schneiderman--Preliminary thoughts -- I don't get it

I am so upset about The New Yorker article by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow, two sterling journalists, about Eric Schneiderman now former attorney general, a liberal's liberal, that last night I wished I drank.  I do not drink but I wished I did because these allegations IF true, and I am assuming the women are believable by just reading The New Yorker story (linked below) is SO outrageous on a scale of 1-10 it is an infinity is sickening and a threat to liberals everywhere.  His career will be finished and if those women prosecute he could go to jail.  I went to bed thinking about it and I woke up thinking about it.  I didn't go to bed until 1:00 a.m. because I had to calm down and knew that story about one of the strongest Democrats and progressive liberals destined to do and has done big, wonderful and humane things would ruin my sleep.  I wonder how he slept. Forgive my hyperbole but I must write in such a way as to express my outrage.  It's the hypocrisy stupid!!  I just do NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT times infinity get it.  I do NOT get these men ESPECIALLY liberal progressives who commit these violent, sometimes racist, career ending outrageous acts.  Those who speak for humane justice, fairness and humanity who are in supreme positions of power to obtain that justice but commit career ending acts. Those who are the criminals of those crimes get prosecuted by men like Schneiderman and sent to jail or in Trump's Trump University civil case Trump, bastion of electorate outrage, Eric Schneiderman got him to cough up 25 MILLION! These alleged acts of sexual violence are so sick it defies description.  The HYPOCRISY is enormous.  Again, I do not get it. These men of great power think they are so powerful they cannot get caught, are above the law and the president of the United States can get away with anything even as he said if he shot someone in Time Square. I even feel bad for men who are righteous and how scared they must be.  All it takes is one time, one allegation and their career is ruined.  If JFK were alive today he would have surely been impeached and possibly convicted. JFK compromised national security by an affair he had with Judith Exner, a mob kept woman.   Just think about it.  Thomas Jefferson would have been taken down by Sally Hemmings, a slave he impregnated.  Where does it stop?  The question at hand is either power or men's unabridged sexual proclivities most women cannot understand that is so strong it simply, in many men, cannot be denied no matter how risky, no matter how threatening, no matter how illegally wrong? The earth has been around for 4.5 billion years and man, who evolved much later, has evolved to this.  Just think of all the men who preceded Schneiderman and did what he did to women with impunity no matter how violent.  With all those years of cultural advancement I still just don't get it! https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/harvey-weinstein-scandal/n-y-attorney-general-schneiderman-accused-violence-toward-women-n872181

Trump's statement to the Paralympic heroes

Never in my entire life observing things political did I ever hear a president say to winners of games for the handicapped that it was "a little hard to watch."  That is a big deal and should be aired on news commentary shows over and over again.  They often play his inane comments that are less than this presidential humongous faux pas.  Shame on that man. A heroic man who knew disability and pain, Senator John McCain, does not want him even at his funeral.  I do not blame Senator McCain after Trump's impugning the Senator's heroic capture by egregiously and insultingly with unmitigated gall dared to say that he "liked heroes who were not captured."  Odd coming from a man who received five deferments during the Vietnam War for bone spurs.  I wonder how the president's bone spurs are now.

I know what it is like to be disabled at a time when it was not as accepting as it is now but even in my day if people thought it was hard to watch they surely never said it.  On the contrary I was heaped with praise when I attempted things that many disabled never would. 

We did not have the Paralympics then but if we did I would have wanted to have been in it.  If I had had the blessing of being so athletically proficient that I was invited to the White House for recognition only to have the President of the United States tell me it was "hard for him to watch" I would have been devastated maybe even hurt for life.

Perhaps, one day Mr. Trump will know what it is like to lose the use of a limb.  I can only hope someone is there to say hey, Donald, you are really hard to watch.  I already say that but not because of a handicap but because he is without a doubt the most disgusting, irreverent, cruel, sickening, vicious, mendacious, unethical excuse for a human being to ever occupy that hallowed office.  Anyone who saw fit to vote for this fool should consider seriously the content of their own character.

May he not see another term in an office he has abused with filth.  I pray our nation survives this intemperate jerk and I surely hope I will survive him as well!

A Pakistani City Hit 122.4 Degrees In April, Probably Setting A World Record - My Comment: REPEAL AND REPLACE

There is no climate change is there? Yes, there emphatically is and it is not simply the temperature in Pakistan that is at issue. It is the strongest storms, droughts, and fires ever recorded on the planet. It is the Everest size tornadoes we see in the west, it's the huge mudslides from torrential rains in California sparing no one not even the 2% wealthiest as many have lost their multi-million dollar homes to it. It is the massive hurricanes on the east coast. It is Hurricane Maria, a rare Category 5 storm, that hit Puerto Rico the devastation from which the island still has not recovered.  Electricity is still out for thousands and there is putrefied drinking water with the disease it births. It is Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey and, yes, remember Katrina?

The always lying Trump does not give a damn as long as his entourage of the wealthiest 2% can afford repair of anything that goes awry. I hope I live to see the day when even Mar-A-Lago falls into the Atlantic because the rising oceans everywhere will affect everyone. Trump's alleged billionaire bank account will not save him. Where will his god, he says he believes in but we know he does not, be for him? Answer: Nowhere. Climate change is an equal opportunity employer.

Those of us who revere science, know climate change is real and have been saying so for years. We will be swept up with its onslaught that makes the Biblical story of Noah's Arc look like a child's swimming pool. We and generations after us will not be spared. Our mendacious, cruel, wretched and racist president promises climate disaster by pulling out of the Climate Change Agreement signed by nearly every nation on earth. Moreover, he courts a nuclear agreement with N. Korea but rejects a finalized nuclear agreement with Iran that is poised to give those who want to avoid a planet destroying nuclear holocaust a 10 year reprieve from the most devastating annihilative weapon on earth sitting in the middle of the most contentious human tinder box on earth. Trump is the Anti-Christ of the modern era and he is the promise of Revelation about which Evangelicals love to preach but for whom they love to vote.

Fred Trump (Donald's father) what have you spawned? Trump is a terror unleashed on our nation and the world. We must repeal and replace him by any means necessary!

RESIST and save yourself, your children and your children's children from the most destructive man on planet earth.  Vote Democrat in November, 2018 and beyond. 

Pass this on to anyone you choose.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?compose=163301c713356296

"John Kelly is right about the president" -- PLEASE READ IT IS A MUST

 Please read and send this to all you know.

John Kelly is right about the president

By Michael A. Cohen   May 01, 2018

White House chief of staff John Kelly thinks the president is an idiot.
So says a new report by NBC News that relies on multiple White House sources. Apparently Kelly views himself as “the lone bulwark against catastrophe, curbing the erratic urges of a president who has a questionable grasp on policy issues and the functions of government.” In making this case to aides and other White House officials, according to the report, Kelly has called the president an idiot not one time in a fit of frustration, but rather “multiple times.” Kelly has called the allegations “BS.”

Kelly’s ridicule of the president’s intelligence is not an unusual occurrence in this administration. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly called Trump a “moron” — a charge he refused to deny.

Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster complained that Trump is “idiot’’ and a “dope” who has the intelligence of a kindergartner. 

Even outside confidants like Fox News head Rupert Murdoch are not too impressed with the president’s intellect. Murdoch called Trump an idiot after struggling to explain immigration policy to the president.

Kelly’s latest indiscretion is yet another broadside to hit this White House, but the shock here is not that Kelly (and a healthy percentage of White House officials) thinks his boss is an idiot. What would be shocking is if he didn’t think that to be true.

All you need to do is listen to Trump speak or watch him try to explain any of the myriad policies that a president is supposed to understand in order to do the job. Trump talking about immigration or North Korea or health care is like watching a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. We know from repeated White House leaks that the president doesn’t like to read; that aides need to talk him out of harebrained ideas, or use models and dioramas to explain complicated issues to him. According to a recent report by Reuters, “Trump was shown a scale model of North Korea’s sprawling nuclear bomb test site with a removable mountaintop and a miniature Statue of Liberty inside so he could grasp the size of the facility.” If ever a visual aide said a thousand words. 

If there’s a scandal in Kelly’s true feelings about the president being revealed, it is that so many of the president’s closest aides are critical of his intellect. Imagine what they see from Trump, on a daily basis, that causes them all to draw the same conclusion.
It’s one more example of how Trump is the “emperor has no clothes” president. It seems everyone who works for this administration has to publicly assert that he is able to carry out the functions of the presidency and that he is engaged on policy issues, when in reality he’s intellectually naked as a jaybird. In the days after the Ronny Jackson debacle, administration officials like Sarah Huckabee Sanders publicly claimed that Trump’s nominee to become head of the Department of Veteran Affairs had been “more vetted than most nominees,” when, in reality, no one believes that and Trump’s own aides leaked to reporters the fact that Jackson had not been vetted at all.

No one believes the White House’s own talking points — not even the people who work in the White House. Perhaps the 30 to 40 percent of Americans who still support this president have convinced themselves that he’s smart enough to be president, but frankly, that says more about them than it does Trump.
I suppose this is the ultimate example of how Trump has gaslighted the country. Most of us can see that the emperor has no clothes. White House aides mutter under their breath and unload to reporters; members of Congress complain off-the-record or talk among themselves; journalists come up with euphemisms to capture Trump’s intellectual limitations. We can pretend that Trump is wearing the finest and most magnificent garments in the world. But the truth is, John Kelly and former administration officials are right about the president — and we all know it.