The Useful Idiot

I thought Larry O'Donnell covered the Ukraine scandal very well vis a vie the three senior advisors to Trump -- Bolton, Pompeo and Mick Mulvaney -- standing around Trump's desk trying to dissuade Trump from withholding Ukraine aid. They must be called as witnesses in the Senate trial as this is not hearsay but direct evidence.  I kept thinking, though, one rationale not talked about enough was the Russian reason behind Trump's withholding aid. That aid composed of grenade launchers and Javelin missiles among other weaponry is lethal aid that could (1) help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression into it and (2) Could increase Russian casualties as well. 

As Nancy Pelosi said all roads lead to Putin. It is clear Putin has a self interest in withholding the Congressionally mandated US aid. Withholding this aid helps Russia while hurting Ukraine's fight against it. Perhaps Trump's rationale to work against the most formidable election opponent, Joe Biden, is a smoke screen or the icing on Trump's cake but the real winner is Putin whose position of aggression against Ukraine is advanced if US aid is withheld. The omnipresent question becomes as it has throughout the Trump so called "presidency": what does Putin have against Trump that compels Trump to do everything he can to ease US opposition to Putin?  Will we ever find out?
 
I believe Putin wants Ukraine back as it was in the old Soviet orbit, a Russian proxy. Is Trump Putin's useful idiot? Answer: YES! Vote Blue and tell all your family and friends to as well and save your nation from Russian influence if not dare I say near takeover. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my allies against Trump and even if there is one on my list who incredulously is not in the Democratic camp I wish you a happy new year too. I wish I could say I am looking forward to 2020. I'm not.  I am slowly looking for that window out of which I can jump if the Beast is god forbid elected again. I jest.  I promise I will not jump but may return to the fetal position and hide under the covers.

The holiday gift you can give all you love and/or about whom you care is to vote Democratic blue up and down the ticket!  Democrats may not be perfect but compared to the mendacious

con man thief and most Republicans who give him all their support Dems are infinitely better.  There is no comparison.

Wishing you health and of course happiness in the coming year.

"Donald Trump Is The Loneliest Man In America Those close to the president say he has no one close to him." + My Comment

He has only himself to blame and those around him who are cowards and don't know when it is time to end a disaster. Now we the American people are sucked into this morass of instability and threats from those tyrants whom he thinks are his friends but only want to do this nation and all democracies harm. We are in perilous times. This poor excuse for a president must resign and FAST!

This president is mentally ill but being a narcissist he does not know it and would never admit it. Those around him in his "acting cabinet" should do what is right for the nation and forget the demise of the Republican Party. If they do what is needed via the 25th Amendment to remove him perhaps breathing life into a near dead Party will help their own cause or they could convict on the impeachment.

Judge allows Georgia voter purge to go ahead

Republicans win only if they cheat.  Fight this action that will take place wherever there are Republicans in state offices to do this malevolent thing.  Who is the target of those purges?  If you

said Democrats you would be correct.  Write, smoke signal and protest any way you can to stop these democracy killing measures initiated by Republicans.

Wisconsin too has its Republican cronies enacting this anti democracy measure by purging and suppressing thousands of votes in an important electoral state of Wisconsin where Trump won by only 10,000 votes.  Say NO and say it loud!  Do not let Republicans steal another election!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/12/16/1906009/-Judge-allows-Georgia-voter-purge-to-go-ahead?detail=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3jS5pjAJmtGd19aTOXKydL2-W6C_9oHwzteLavoBcFd18nYPM38b1qRBM

Uncovering lost music: written by prisoners in concentration camps during the Holocaust

My comment: In my life I took many years when I was younger to develop my political philosophy. I studied political philosophy from the left and from the right. I wanted to make sure I saw the truth and could chose the most humanitarian belief system. I am a liberal left of center Democrat because there is no other political group whose essence is to care, to empathize, and to identify with the other -- those rejected souls who want to breathe free but cannot.

The reality of the Holocaust, the six million of my brethren to have experienced the most extreme brutality in human history gave voice to my politics. I have never wavered. Progressives cared about the treatment of persons of color for centuries who were treated by those who owned them as sub human and so I cared too. I care about the brutalizing of Hispanics on our borders with children packed in cages and dying of the flu and other maladies one in captivity might experience. I care about them. I care about the poor who cannot get treatment for medical conditions because they do not have the money. I care when my government takes food away from children and refuses to give medical treatment to those who cannot afford it. I care because I am part of a political party that cares seemingly the only one Party in this nation that does care. I care that the Hitlerian politics we see in this nation when the white only few raise their arms and their voices to support the brutal pathologically narcissistic sadist of an uncaring mendacious misogynist President whose name I try not to utter when using the title of president. We MUST defeat this Trumpian scourge, we must never give in to it we must as Churchill once said never surrender!
 
I urge you to watch the Sixty Minutes segment "Uncovering lost music: written by prisoners in concentration camps during the Holocaust" linked above. Then work as hard as you can to wipe the political scourge of Trump from our midst and install normal humans with empathy and humanitarian spirit to lift up the least of these to a better life and truly say never again.

https://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/

People call for Hallmark Channel boycott after network drops ads that feature brides kissing

Glad the Anita Bryant side did not have the last word. The LGBT side has a say and is yelling loud on Facebook and Twitter to counteract the so called American Family Association's million mom petition which only showed 25,000 signatures. The ADL and SPLC voiced the LGBT position. I'd like to see the American Family Association be as vociferous about child hunger as they are about opposing two women in a marriage ceremony showing affection to each other by one measly kiss. Here is a bulletin: marriage is legal now between same sex couples. See Obergefell v. Hodges. 

I think now that the Hallmark Channel cow towed to hate the LGBT side should vigorously promote its own boycott of the Hallmark Channel and other entities owned by Hallmark and voice loud support for Zola which paid for the commercial. The gay community should organize big support for Zola and make their commercial rake in big bucks for them. Kudos Zola for celebrating all love and not hate. After all as a movie about a gay relationship once was entitled "It's a Question of Love!" Get used to it!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/12/15/1905812/-People-call-for-Hallmark-Channel-boycott-after-network-drops-ads-that-feature-brides-kissing?detail=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0KYi8Bw--1erpPRryq3e4dle8UjxA_iO4FTecJUs7OQVVHvrReDZvt0QU

All that glitters: how Chump (Trump) exploited people--Beacon Free Press -- My Comment: Why I loathe, detest and despise Trump. Where is justice?

http://brooklinebeacon.com/2018/10/30/all-that-glitters-how-chump-exploited-people/?fbclid=IwAR3uWuL-bQu7FuTmml3AG4WKzlZCwm1IzJVv9zwN5k7Z1fz8tCRiusJwT60

False Romance of Russia

There was a fabulous discussion on A.M. Joe of The Atlantic article written by Anne Applebaum referenced above and linked below about the American right's intellectual support of once our greatest adversary, Russia.  It gave me much food for thought as well as ratcheting up my proclivity for worry!  After a stunning conservative party of Brexit victory in the UK and right wing tendencies showing up in Hungary, Poland  and elsewhere in Europe I keep wondering being a confirmed liberal Democrat where on earth do I move if populist nationalism takes over in Europe, the US and in other nation states.  This conservative so called intellectual phenomena are extraordinarily racist.  Even Johnson's win in the UK is very racist anti black so much so some blacks are are moving or thinking of moving out of the UK. 

Trump has fueled the fires of the acceptance and even love of Russia while he tolerates white supremacy putting forth a weak rejection of it.  He commits crimes against humanity by his incarceration of immigrants and children in cages recently desiring an unspeakable unlimited detention of them.

The kleptocracy of Russia must be seen for what it is representing a nation with a weak economy and an authoritarian leader who has a penchant for allegedly assassinating those forces which oppose him.  Russia has zero plans for the transitioning of power as well.  It will have no clue as to what it should do when and if Putin were not in power.  

We must as both conservative and liberal lovers of American democracy, acceptance of diversity and adoration of free thought mobilize our huge base and defeat this

cruel, rude, narcissistic, inhumane excuse for a president, Trump, before he helps destroy the fabric of freedom throughout the world. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/

Trump’s Strongest Allies In Congress Don’t Care How History Will Remember Them--My Comment

No they do not care at all. They do not care about their legacy, they do not care how cruel the policies they support are, they do not care that the Beast wants indefinite detention of 60,000 human beings. They care only about two things: money and the power it brings. That's it. Just like the Nazis they will do the unthinkable simply to win and their followers in totally blind allegiance will support them, raise their arms and shout zeig heil! Sickening. 

The instant question at hand is how on god's earth do we get the albatross off our necks?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-allies-congress-history_n_5defdc34e4b0a59848d161dd?fbclid=IwAR3wY7YDZhrVFuDKUWuLuwftzq8TzreFyphdiB1crwjvILAc3wcEPJ-anLI

Jersey City Shooting: Suspect Published Anti-Semitic Posts, Official Says

Since the administration of Donald Trump hate crimes across the nation have occurred in great numbers targeting a number of groups. Hate crimes against Jews have also increased where most places where Jews pray have security cameras and other preventive measures to try to prevent such attacks which heretofore have been thought unthinkable.

The president sets a national example and it is imprinted in its milieu. It is no accident that they are occurring with greater frequency during the presidency of Donald Trump. Just the other day he spoke to a group of Jewish real estate brokers. He with antisemitic venom said "A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers. Not nice people at all." In an era when the president cannot censor the gross, hate filled, vituperative and ugly comments that come out of his mouth it is no wonder the statistics on hate crime are trending up.

Trump to sign order to interpret Judaism as a nationality--This won't fly

I do not think this will fly withstanding a court challenge as Trump wants to stop universities from allowing on their campuses boycott, divestment and sanction protests against Israel. He cannot limit political protests on universities it is a first amendment right and will only serve to ratchet up anti Israeli protests on universities and elsewhere.  If one is Russian can the state stop anti Russia sentiment on colleges, universities and elsewhere?

It is particularly egregious and the height of hypocrisy as Trump just gave a speech loaded with antisemitic sentiments. It was awful calling Jews real estate Jews who are horrible people but must vote for Trump as they have no choice. He is devoid of thoughtful analysis, does not read, and is ignorant. He probably will do this to recapture the Jewish vote he alienated during his speech also saying some Jews do not support Israel strongly enough. Who the hell is he to tell anyone who to support or how strongly to support it? There still is the freedom to advocate or not for political sentiment and policy in this country at least for the moment.

Death and Love in Auschwitz

This story linked below appeared in the New York Times and was written by Keren Blankfeld.  It is entitled "Lovers in Auschwitz Reunited."  The story is one for the ages guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye as it did mine. The tear fell when, as the narration related, the Allies were approaching Auschwitz and the liberation of it was at hand.  The prisoners in Auschwitz thought the Soviet army was at their doorstep but it was not the Soviet army it was the American army.  A feeling of pride washed over me as I remember an age before Trumpian fascist hate and madness when those imprisoned by authoritarian dictatorships breathed a sigh of relief that America, a democratic nation with a leader of abundant humane empathy, came to save those imprisoned in hell. 

I yearn for those feelings again as this nation continues to lock up children and many others in cages amid horrific unsanitary conditions resulting in disease and death.   This Trumpian nation has turned its back on the asylum seekers and some accept as good or are indifferent when a father drowns face down on the shores of the Rio Grande with his daughter's arm around him trying to make the arduous journey to freedom in America. Washington Post: "Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month old daughter, both Salvadoran migrants, were swept away in the river waters in a last-ditch attempt to reach Brownsville, Texas." We all should be ashamed.

Now we live in a Trump nation that could be charged with crimes against humanity because of the cruelty of the unfit-for-office president who shows zero care or concern for those who suffer the slings and arrows of tyranny.  Many innocents, including our allies who fought the terrorism of ISIS with us, have died because Trump turned his back on them and ran.  Can one imagine if  a Trump were in power as Hitler and the Nazi onslaught approached?  Who can say for certain that Trump at that time would not have supported Hitler?  Trump, a man who reads nothing allegedly has Hitler's Mein Kampf on his night table. That says it all.

VOTE BLUE UP AND DOWN THE TICKET AND SAVE OUR NATIONAL HUMANITY!

The marvelous story, "Lovers in Auschwitz Reunited" is linked below.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/08/nyregion/auschwitz-love-story.html?fbclid=IwAR3zlN2B7co-fAhTtnfWpsD1yVo1v2FGVM9g7zA6nPH07a3HX5Fz4jzCNjs

More Than 500 Legal Scholars Say Trump Committed Impeachable Acts

Their open letter comes as House Democrats are drawing up articles of impeachment for a full floor vote.

 

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/more-than-500-legal-scholars-say-trump-committed-impeachable-acts_n_5deab5a0e4b00149f74037f4

"Dirty John" a Netflix film based on a true story that will curl your hair. I see the con man Trump in all of i

There is a Netflix film that reminds me of Trump. It is stunningly frightening and based on a true story. Its title is "Dirty John."

 

One can see Trump in "Dirty John" and it is staggering the damage that can be done by the lies of one con man!

Times one million if he is president of the United States.

Said much better than I ever could. Boot's opinion is 100% spot on correct!! Cellphone madness

By
Max Boot
Columnist
Dec. 6, 2019 at 1:36 p.m. EST

If there were a global competition for insincerity, President Trump would have won the equivalent of an Oscar, a gold medal, a Ballon d’Or and a Vince Lombardi Trophy combined. You simply could not be more two-faced; it is not humanly possible. His picture belongs in the dictionary under the very word “hypocrisy.”
Trump, recall, spent much of 2016 leading chants of “Lock her up!” because Hillary Clinton made the mistake of employing a private server for some of her official emails as secretary of state. Trump still routinely refers to the former first lady and secretary of state as “Crooked Hillary” as if she had actually committed a crime. Never mind that the Justice Department decided not to prosecute and that a lengthy State Department investigation, completed during the Trump administration, found “no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”
And yet, while castigating Clinton for supposedly mishandling classified information, Trump has been engaging in far more egregious examples of the very same sin.

Trump began his presidency, in February 2017, by reviewing classified documents and having a highly sensitive discussion about North Korea with the Japanese prime minister not in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) but in front of fellow diners on a packed terrace at Mar-a-Lago.
In May 2017, he revealed top-secret intelligence to the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador during a meeting in the Oval Office, thereby potentially blowing a source of information about the Islamic State. In 2018, he reportedly discussed with wealthy donors at a Manhattan fundraiser the classified details of a battle between U.S. forces and Russian mercenaries in Syria.
In October of this year, Trump revealed details about the raid on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi that, as NBC News noted, “were either highly classified or tactically sensitive, and their disclosure by the president made intelligence and military officials cringe.” And, according to a White House whistleblower, Trump overruled the opposition of security officials to grant top-secret security clearances to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

But all these security breaches pale by comparison with Trump’s promiscuous use of a cellphone to conduct top-secret conversations. My Post colleagues Paul Sonne, Josh Dawsey, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller report that “Trump has routinely communicated with his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and other individuals speaking on cellphones vulnerable to monitoring by Russian and other foreign intelligence services.”

This shocking security breach became clear from the cellphone records obtained by the House Intelligence Committee during its impeachment investigation. There are numerous calls between Giuliani and a blocked number listed as “-1” that is widely suspected to belong to Individual 1, i.e., the president of the United States. We also know, of course, that Ambassador Gordon Sondland talked with Trump on an unsecure cellphone from the middle of a restaurant in Kyiv.

The impeachment inquiry into President Trump has exposed troubling cracks in the political system. (Video: Joy Sharon Yi, Kate Woodsome/Photo: Danielle Kunitz/The Washington Post)
The Post notes that Trump resisted the efforts of former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly to stop using a cellphone and to employ only White House landlines because he didn’t want his aides to have a log of his calls. It is hard to imagine why Trump would be so paranoid about being monitored by his own aides if he weren’t doing something very wrong — which, as we know from the impeachment proceedings, he clearly is.

Trump has now at least been persuaded to use a more secure government cellphone, but it doesn’t matter if he is routinely conversing with people like Giuliani or Sondland who are employing ordinary cellphones: The security of a call is only as good as its weakest link. It’s a sure bet that any halfway competent foreign intelligence service is monitoring the cellphones of people close to Trump such as Giuliani and Sondland — and the Russians are undoubtedly all over them with both physical and electronic surveillance when they visit Ukraine, which Giuliani is doing again this week.

According to The Post, John Sipher, former deputy chief of Russia operations at the CIA, and other sources said “that it is so likely that Russia tracked the calls of Giuliani and others that the Kremlin probably knows more now about those conversations than impeachment investigators.” This opens up the possibility that Trump, who may already be vulnerable to Russian kompromat because of his past business dealings and his campaign’s collusion with the Kremlin during the 2016 campaign, might be vulnerable to blackmail again because of his attempts to force Ukraine to intercede on his behalf in the U.S. campaign. This also gives Russia invaluable leverage it can use in its negotiations with Ukraine at a time when many Ukrainians are already worried that, as the New York Times put it, President Volodymyr Zelensky “may be too willing to make concessions to Moscow” because he has “no clear American diplomatic backing.”

The only thing more appalling than Trump’s cavalier disregard for the basic requirements of handling classified information is the complete lack of concern by his followers who were once so exercised by Clinton’s far more innocuous security lapses. They are championship hypocrites too. I never want to hear about Hillary’s emails again as long as I live.
###

Court Directs Banks To Provide Trump Financial Records To House Democrats

"Trump is expected to appeal the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court." 

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-banks-financial-records-house-democrats_n_5de68ac1e4b0913e6f862663

A blogger wrote: I see the SC refusing to hear the case and let stand the lower court ruling. Even the rightists and Tumpists on the court know they are lifetime appointees and will be around after Trump. If they want to be respected and taken seriously and in one case avoid impeachment , they would have to rule with the constitution in mind, seeing they are strict originalists. Congressional oversight is a primary responsibility listed in the constitution. No lifetime judges at this level would want to be associated with being a Trump apologist ignoring black letter law. Trump should be careful what he wishes for when it comes to the Supreme Court.

My Comment:  I hope the blogger is right.  It remains that these "conservative" justices do not have to be conservative if they do not want to and since they travel in the circles they do and were put on the court by Trump they may not want to either incur his wrath, ruin the Republican Party and defeat Trump in an election because of all the illegalities that it is alleged his finances would show.

Republicans have shown time and time and time again that corruption is their middle name. They will do anything for power and money including kiss an adversary's behind. Trump is SO clearly guilty of all of the impeachment charges as stellar witnesses' testimonies have shown but the Republican Senate will twist themselves into a pretzel to somehow someway give excuses and rationales for their voting with Trump and not removing him as he SO mightily deserves. SCOTUS could do the same, destroying the balance of power our Founders so judiciously created. It would be the end of democracy as we know it.

More worrying

Hoping when the Sup. Ct. says they will take up the case of the finding of the lower court that the law breaker-in-chief must produce his taxes that the Sup. Ct. will put an end to Trump's delaying tactic and find FINALLY that he must respond to Congress's request and produce his taxes that we have a system of checks and balances and he is not a king and above the law so he must produce them. I worry though that so many so called "conservatives" on the Sup. Ct. that Trump with his side kick McConnell who stopped O'Bama's superb pick of Merritt Garland that this will have a deleterious effect on decisions which should go a just way. That is I hope the Supremes will not reverse the lower court and say Trump has the executive power to stop a demand of Congress to submit his taxes to Congress. 

We shall have to wait to see. It would have been a just decision if the Sup. Ct. let the lower court's finding stand which would have meant he must submit his taxes so that the American people can see if Trump is a crook which everyone knows he is. His claim of executive power should ring hollow in view of so many other decisions that order him to obey Congress, the first branch of our government. I hope that decision comes down in the people's favor and fast putting an end to this breach of the public trust and enshrine the institutional nature of a checks and balances system in the same way Nixon had to produce the tapes that proved his guilt even though Nixon thought too that he was above the law. He wasn't and neither should Trump be above the law. This has profound influence on future presidencies.

Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks Subpoena For Trump’s Tax Returns

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-blocks-trump-tax-returns_n_5ddc6625e4b00149f72266cb

While this is not a ruling that Trump can get away with not showing what Congress, the first branch of government, it seems to me, should have the right to subpoena, it does give Trump until December 5 to file his brief. If they want his brief filed then it would mean, in my opinion, that they will want to read the briefs and take another 5, 6 or more months until the Sup. Ct. makes its decision which Trump, the master of court delay probably wants. Perhaps, the Supremes felt that this is a decision, much like the Nixon tapes, which carries such gravity that they must weigh in in detail.

It is hard to imagine that even court justices picked by Trump as extreme right wing justices would deny Congress its just powers that the first branch of government should have. Still, it may be that these justices will not foil a president who put them in office and face scorn in the so called "conservative" circles in which they associate.

This worries me that an opinion so obviously just and so important for future presidencies that Trump should, with haste, provide that which Congress has asked through proper subpoena on balance of power grounds. Trump is determined, though, to be seen as a unitary executive with dictatorial king-like powers who can do anything he wants casting aside into the dust bin of history the balance of power foundation upon which our form of government sits and his right wing justices may just let him do it. I worry.  Stay tuned.

How Russian intelligence officers interfered in the 2016 election--Why it could not be Ukraine

 60 Minutes had wonderful segments last night one being an explanation in some detail of the Russian hackers. It brought the issue into focus in particulars so one could see just who hacked the computers of the DNC and Democrats even on local levels. It showed the complexity of the Russian plan and how Russia was the only nation state with the understanding of espionage and ​had ​the huge institutional operation to do it. Russia after years of being a Communist state with a spy network already in place was the only state that could attempt such a feat. Russia had the means and the desire to throw an election to the best person to achieve their goals of re-establishing the Russian dominance over the US as well as take control again of its Eastern European empire after the fall of Communism in 1989.

Clearly there was NO way Ukraine was large enough nor did it have the huge ability and infrastructure it took as well as the historical reality of being an adversarial nation to the US to ever be able to perfect a presidential election hack nor would Ukraine want to nor could it perfect a takeover of the 2016 election as Russia did. Russia had institutions like the old KGB that they could call on and add to the ability to hack an entire election against the US. 60 Minutes showed the incontrovertible evidentiary truth of what happened in 2016.

Trump and his cronies including Giuliani with Nunes  we now know as a sidekick as well as others ​like the nefarious characters of Lev Panas and Igor Fruman indicted on violating campaign finance laws simply wanted to cast doubt on the upcoming 2020 Democratic leader Biden to win 2020 for Trump. Hear Democrats, too, as the ones who were hacked relate what happened from their angle. Is this Watergate II. Yes, it is except instead of a break into a building to steal secrets of the DNC it perpetrated it on modern computer systems with the ability to get vast piles of documents

and information. 

GO TO THE SIXTY MINUTES WEB PAGE TO VIEW IT OR CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW FOR THE SEGMENT. THEN SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE!

https://www.cbsnews.com/60-minutes/

Trump administration notifies owners it will survey land for border wall--eminent domain MY COMMENT

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/21/politics/eminent-domain-border-wall/index.html

There are legal challenges against eminent domain but you can bet if Obama did what Trump is doing he would be impeached and convicted post haste.  Trump simply gets away with everything especially of a racist nature.  There is nothing that 40% of this nation will not do to crush people with brown or black skin and Trump is the leader for them. It is ugly but has been the underbelly of this nation until now when a fascist like creature from the depths of the sea managed to get elected. 

The loss of Hillary Clinton has had the most profound negative consequences. I keep thinking why did she not go multiple times to Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the rust belt states she lost?  She should have but was so sure of getting their vote she passed.  Now we the middle class, the poor, the elderly, the disabled, gays, women to name a few groups are paying a hefty price.  We will pay with a loss of civil liberties and with a loss of progressive judges who can overrule racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynist policy especially in the higher courts.  Most importantly, there is a constant worry about the complexion of the Supreme Court turning white supremacist too.  Trump has nominated over a hundred right wing judges some extremists and has had them confirmed by Republican Moscow Mitch McConnell rushing their confirmation through.

I wish I were not alive for this time in history as all the progress progressives have made for immigrants, women, gays, abortion rights, minority rights, health care and many more things have been and/or will be derailed if the Trump gets a second term.  Even the baton around the world is being turned over to authoritarian dictatorships since Trump has never seen a dictator he does not love and want to emulate. A second term of this plague Trump will, of course, mean more of a demise of this nation and Lady Liberty's light.  The light will be extinguished and this nation as we have always known it will cease to exist.  Climate change may save all of us the problem as the planet may die taking all of us with it before Trump can hair spray his sticky ugly fake blond hair.

Howard Zinn said to me it matters not how high the mountain is we must climb we must climb it nonetheless and never give in.  For now I will still climb it.  I will hope even when hope seems elusive that the 2020 election is a resounding defeat for Team Trump and we can take back the place of honor among nations we have relinquished to a criminal!

VOTE BLUE UP AND DOWN THE TICKET, GET OTHERS WHO ARE LIKE MINDED OUT TO VOTE THEREBY SAVING ALL OF OUR LIVES AND THE PLANET'S LIFE TOO.

Jewish Groups Demand Stephen Miller Resign From White House+ My Comment

 I, a Jew, join those groups.

It is the height of incredulity that a man whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors and who owes his very existence to the defeat of the ethical horror of white nationalism in Nazi fascist regalia would be the cruel designer of the immigration nightmare of asylum seekers fleeing certain death in their country of origin and looking toward the US for help. They do not find help but they and their children too do find the malignity of imprisonment (and sometimes death) in the American version of concentration camp prison. 

Miller is like the Hitlerian beasts who were ultimately responsible for approximately 50 million killed in the theater of WWII. If I were to create a film about the rise of Nazism Stephen Miller could, right out of central casting, play Gobbles's or Himler's part!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jewish-groups-stephen-miller-resign-white-nationalist_n_5dd69935e4b0e29d72800575

A harsh historical judgment

Fiona Hill was a phenomenal witness as were so many of those who ​have ​testified​ in the impeachment hearings of Donald J. Trump. Many were career diplomats with advanced degrees and possess a commitment to our nation, its national security and not to a political party. They have and Fiona Hill has served both Republican and Democratic presidents. Trump's trumped up desire for investigation of Ukraine and the Bidens for the hacking of the 2016 election is not only self serving and wrong but is a strike at the heart of this nation's national security by the president of the United States who would rather cast blame onto Ukraine, an ally in the center of Europe and gateway to Russia, while he absolves Russia and Russia's Putin for its obvious crime of 2016 US election hacking many times indicted by US national security agencies​ as well as ​Special ​C​ounsel Robert Mueller​'s​ indictment of ​ 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, charging them with conspiracy to defraud the United States​.

​
This is not only wrong but, is, in my opinion, a treasonous high crime as Trump appears to be acting as a Russian witting, unwitting agent or useful idiot playing into the hands of Russia, an adversarial power, while he jumps in bed with his love Putin, a corrupt demagogue. It is stunning. Nothing less than NATO is at stake and 75 years of crafting post WWII western alliances. Putin sees Ukraine as Russia's because of its fall out of Russia's orbit since the ​demise ​of the old Soviet Union. Russia would like it back as its invasion of Crimea and its hot war against Ukraine's Donbass south eastern portion reflects. It is clear Russia's objectives are an undermining of NATO, the west while creating a divided US and a weakening of US support for Ukraine with the hold up of much needed US weapons to defend itself against Russian aggression. Putin sees this as his ticket to ride roughshod trying to regain Russia's former eastern block nations at the expense of those nations that want western culture and democracy.

If the Republicans in the senate vote to acquit Trump on the articles of impeachment charges brought by the House, which I have every reason to believe they will, they will, as I see it, be an accessory after the fact of treason. History, one hopes, will judge them harshly assuming they even care about that. Trump's guilt of bribery as well as obstruction of Congress is as plain as Trump's bleached blond hair!

CNN: Flat Earth conspiracy is growing especially among born again religious zealots--THE JOKE IS ON US!

Is this a joke? No.  This is why Charles Pierce wrote a book entitled: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free," which can be purchased on Amazon, and why Marx said religion is the opiate of the people. I am most definitely NOT a Marxist and believe in regulated capitalism but on this one issue Marx was right. Extreme religious fundamentalist fanaticism and orthodoxy keep our nation from scientific and cultural advancement incapable of replacing irrational superstitious hocus pocus with indisputable fact.

As one of my FB friends pointed out Stephan Hawking said "greed and ignorance will make humans extinct."  Scientific truth cares not whether one believes in it. Science will do what it will do despite man's rejection of it to the detriment of us all.  The joke in the end is on us!

A quote from the link below:

Trump constantly lies and the elected Republicans in Congress support him in these lies. These people take the word of Rush Limbaugh, a high school graduate, over well-respected academic institutions and the mainstream media which neither supports the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party. It is pretty neutral. They do not listen to mainstream science. They do not do the hard work that scientists have done to reach their conclusions. They simply find some person (hopefully famous, maybe somebody way out of the mainstream of science whose views have been proven false, an eccentric) who support (or whose words can be twisted to sound like they support) their views. We have lost our ability to think critically and determine accurate, unbiased sources of truth and information. We have lost the notion of objective truth ! And all of this is extremely dangerous !!!

VOTE BLUE, THE PARTY OF SCIENCE AND TRUTH TO SAVE THE PLANET AND US -- Send this opinion to anyone you choose.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/17/1900204/-CNN-Flat-Earth-conspiracy-is-growing-especially-among-born-again-religious-zealots?detail=emaildkre

Another quote from Malcolm Nance's book "The Plot to Betray America."

"In the Plot to Betray America" "I detail how Donald Trump, his political team, his family, and his most loyal American followers deliberately tried to get away with the greatest act of treachery in the history of the United States--an open in-your-face betrayal of he oath of office for money, power, and the chance to fundamentally break the traditional American system of government and damage our national security to benefit Trump's allies in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and a newfound friend in North Korea. Trump has tried to make America essentially a Moscow-backed autocracy filled with obscene corruption. Gone is the accountability and image of transparency in a constitutional democracy that so many Americans would find they had taken for granted." 

"The Plot to Betray America" "is the story of how equal measures of hatred, ambition, ignorance, and superstition have come to tear America apart. It is a nightmarish take, two parts political thriller and one part spy novel, of how the formerly hardline anti-Communist Republican Party has turned on a nation's norms and shredded its belief in the Constitution to cover up the crimes of a pathological liar. History has revealed that Trump is a man who could barely construct a comprehensive sentence on tangible policy to the American people but has managed to use raw power of the Oval Office to subjugate the 60% of American citizens who oppose him and to ignore any law that suits him. This man has created a for-profit concentration camp system and was publicly overjoyed when he separated thousands of Central America, Honduran, Guatemalan, and Nicaraguan children from the parents and caged them in desert prisons. The worst part of the story is how easily one third of the nation has been brainwashed into backing a man who thought the pinnacle achievement of his life would be to construct a building emblazoned with the word Trump in Moscow, the capital of our enemy."

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE OF THIS SPELL BINDING BOOK BUY IT OR KINDLE IT.  YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!

SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE. 

A quote from Malcolm Nance's book "The Plot to Betray America"

"America is the greatest power the world has ever seen simply because it harnesses the strengths of all those who seek her bounty. Where the transgressions of parents could always be atoned for by the children who stood firm to refine the American promise."

Malcolm Nance -- "The Plot to Destroy America"

FABULOUS segment and interview on Joy Reid of that brilliant scholar on American national security, Malcolm Nance.  His most recent book "The Plot to Destroy America" is a must read.  I intend on downloading it to my Kindle.  He is riveting.  I hope others in my top six MSNBC commentators, Ari Melber, Nicole Wallace, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, and Larry O'Donnell have him on at length with, perhaps, Steve Schmidt to discuss our national treasonous betrayal by Donald J. Trump and his corrupt minions to subvert our democracy by reaching out to Russia, once rejected by the right and now loved.  The eternal question is why.  I believe Malcolm Nance answers that question. 

Senate Confirms Wildly Problematic Trump Court Pick Steven Menashi

"He’s never tried a case. He condemned women’s rights and diversity. He refused to answer senators’ questions. Republicans confirmed him anyway."

At the risk of sounding looksist, this is one ugly beast inside and out. All I can say is elections matter! Vote blue up and down the ticket.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steven-menashi-republicans-senate-confirms-trump-judge_n_5dcd9beae4b00b9293bff09a

"The Plot to Betray America" Inquiring minds want to know

Malcolm Nance has written​what I think is​ a very good book entitled "The Plot to Betray America." It involves Trump cancelling a routine Navy maneuver around the Black Sea attendant to national security because he thought it would threaten Putin! ​ Malcolm Nance, ​​according to Wiki, "​is an American author and media commentator on terrorism, intelligence, insurgency and torture. He is a former United States Navy senior chief petty officer specializing in naval cryptology. ​​Nance is an intelligence and foreign policy analyst who frequently discusses the history, personalities, and organization of jihadi radicalization and al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL); as well as counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare. Schooled in Arabic, he is active in the field of national security policy particularly, in anti- and counter-terrorism intelligence, terrorist strategy and tactics​ ... .​​  I​n 2016, he published the book, Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe,​ ​and published The Plot to Hack America the same year​."​

The subject of this book if true​ is stunning​. If anything can be labeled treason​ against this country​ this can. I continue after a thousand days of this Cretan's ​acting ​presidency ​to ​want to know ​what​ on god's earth Putin has on Trump that he continues to want to court his favor, continues to be enamored with the substance of Putin's dictatorial leadership and continues to be in love with Putin​'s personality​ specifically so much that he will do anything ​not ​to offend him even if it means he commands ​reversal of ​a policy at the expense of US national security. Trump was furious and stopped Navy routine maneuvers around the Black Sea that were within the proscribed limits​ and that the US and other nations conduct all the time​. He was furious because he thought it would offend Putin. Really? Routine US military exercises around the Black Sea made this acting president furious because he thought it would offend Putin? I am stumped.

If Trump were a closeted gay I would think Putin was the love of his life. Yes, I surely know Trump has no homosexual proclivities. That is clear. B​ut​ what I cannot account for is Trump's sycophant behavior towards Putin. Putin the former KGB member, the former good Communist when Russia was Communist Trump admires. Is it only money or real estate? Is that the tie that binds? Or is it something else no one has guessed. Inquiring minds want to know!

Iran-backed Islamic Jihad Says 'We Are Going to War' With Israel After Assassination

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/iran-backed-islamic-jihad-says-we-are-going-to-war-with-israel-after-assassination-1.8118638

NOT good. Elections matter. Netanyahu may be singularly going to war with Hamas which means judging by what they delivered after Netanyahu ordered the assassination of a top Hamas leader and killed his wife in the process Hamas showed it has strength with a retaliation of 50 rockets only 20 of which Israel stopped. One hit Tel Aviv coming close to two cars on a highway which it thankfully missed.

A policy of war and not diplomacy has implications for the world equipped with nuclear capabilities on both sides. How is our own useful idiot beholden to Russia and Putin going to respond to this?

Trump says he may begin cutting Social Security and Medicare if he wins in 2020

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-may-begin-cutting-201130207.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=fb

For all you Republicans and/or others who are contemplating a horrific vote for Trump in 2020 and who are 65 or approaching that age, beware of how you vote in 2020. You may be voting against your benefits.

Pass this on to anyone you choose!

Poignant words from Charles Pierce in Esquire

This is an excellent piece posted by a political ally and fellow FB blogger quoting Charles Pierce who wrote "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free."

"In my life, I have watched John Kennedy talk on television about missiles in Cuba. I saw Lyndon Johnson look Richard Russell squarely in the eye and and say, "And we shall overcome." I saw Richard Nixon resign and Gerald Ford tell the Congress that our long national nightmare was over. I saw Jimmy Carter talk about malaise and Ronald Reagan talk about a shining city on a hill. I saw George H.W. Bush deliver the eulogy for the Soviet bloc, and Bill Clinton comfort the survivors of Timothy McVeigh's madness in Oklahoma City. I saw George W. Bush struggle to make sense of it all on September 11, 2001, and I saw Barack Obama sing "Amazing Grace" in the wounded sanctuary of Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

These were the presidents of my lifetime. These were not perfect men. They were not perfect presidents, god knows. Not one of them was that. But they approached the job, and they took to the podium, with all the gravitas they could muster as appropriate to the job. They tried, at least, to reach for something in the presidency that was beyond their grasp as ordinary human beings. They were not all ennobled by the attempt, but they tried nonetheless.

And comes now this hopeless, vicious buffoon, and the audience of equally hopeless and vicious buffoons who laughed and cheered when he made sport of a woman whose lasting memory of the trauma she suffered is the laughter of the perpetrators. Now he comes, a man swathed in scandal, with no interest beyond what he can put in his pocket and what he can put over on a universe of suckers, and he does something like this while occupying an office that we gave him, and while endowed with a public trust that he dishonors every day he wakes up in the White House.

The scion of a multigenerational criminal enterprise, the parameters of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. A vessel for all the worst elements of the American condition. And a cheap, soulless bully besides.

Watch him make fun of the woman again. Watch how a republic dies in the empty eyes of an empty man who feels nothing but his own imaginary greatness, and who cannot find in himself the decency simply to shut the fuck up even when it is in his best interest to do so. Presidents don't have to be heroes to be good presidents. They just have to realize that their humanity is our common humanity, and that their political commonwealth is our political commonwealth, too. 

Watch him again, behind the seal of the President of the United States. Isn't he a funny man? Isn't what happened to that lady hilarious? Watch the assembled morons cheer. This is the only story now."

Mr. Rogers Enduring Wisdom by Tom Junod

This is an excellent article by Tom Junod in the Atlantic. It is a bit lengthy but superb!

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/12/what-would-mister-rogers-do/600772/

To Adam Schiff re: Bolton

It will restore my faith in our nation if John Bolton the uber hawk and by his description uber patriot if he would testify before the committee whether by subpoena or by his own choice. I believe Adam Schiff should think carefully about bypassing this man by just appending him to the obstruction of justice count. He belongs front and center because of who he is and always has been an ardent adversary of Russia and its totalitarian leadership!

A blue wave or a nation of none

Finally, some good news has washed over me.  The bellwether national election results last evening for Democrats were an endorphin high.  The endorphins are so pleasurable that I yearn for more and more and more because it feels so darn good.  Now, finally, a shift has occurred in the land of Republican red to a land of Democrat blue.  Kentucky with the upset win for governor of the Democrat Andy Beshear tells the tale.  Trump went to Kentucky trying his best to work the Trumpian charm he thinks he has so the incumbent Bevin would win.  He said it would be a rejection of him if Beshear beat Bevin, a Trump loyalist who was rather detested in his state.  It was particularly satisfying that the narcissist Trump was foiled.  He was right it was a big election.  As much as it was about support for the Democrat Andy Beshear it was, importantly, a rejection of Trump too.  You must not lose, Trump commanded, at his pre-election feel good rally in Kentucky.  How could you do that to me, he asked, because everything is always doncha know about Donald Trump to Donald Trump.  Kentucky by electing Beshear, defeating Bevin and by proxy Trump it defeated Trumpian injustice.  When justice prevails it is a satisfying feeling.

Even more poignantly exciting was that Democrats in Virginia turned their state entirely blue.  Democrats hold it all -- the governor's seat, the senate, the house and more.   For the first time in 25 years Democrats in the state of Virginia are in total control.  It was a wonderful night for Democrats and progressives to behold.

Democrats, though, cannot rest.  We must be vigilant all over the nation going forward trying to turn entrenched red to blue in states like Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Colorado and more. And most importantly we must defeat Donald Trump in the general election next November.  Democrats and progressives must stand for hope and not fear, for foreign engagement and not isolation, for democracy and not dictatorship.  We must stand for the balance of power our Founders bestowed upon our nation and not for a unitary executive they loathed.  We must stand for science and not science denial, for love and not hate, for humanitarian policies and not the policies of racist destruction.  We must stand for election honesty and we must stand for all inclusiveness and not racist white separatism that allows a man to throw battery acid in the face of a person of color simply because his skin is dark or yell "go back from where you came."  I ask back to where?  The United States of America is their home.    We must turn a blue wave into a blue tsunami. We must examine our national character and be a nation for all or we will be a nation for none.  

Scientists Declare A Climate Emergency, Warn Of ‘Untold Human Suffering’--The life you save may be your own!

As the mendacious madman takes the US out of the Climate Change Agreement signed during the Obama Administration scientists are telling us untold human suffering will be the result of Trumpian folly. Elections have consequences and in this case deadly consequences for the children, grandchildren and for great grandchildren yet unborn! This action by Trump spells murder. Our president will be held to account for not only the murder of human beings but the murder of the earth.

Science does not care. Science will do what science does irrespective of the consequences of rancid decision making. When 99% of scientists agree we are in a climate emergency of global climate change brought on by man's overuse of fossil fuels believe them. Believe what they say or don't. It will be at the peril of all of us if we do not.

You get the policies for which you vote. VOTE BLUE ALWAYS UP AND DOWN THE TICKET and save our planet's life before it is too late.  The life you save may also be your own!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/scientists-declare-climate-emergency_n_5dc0a206e4b0bedb2d513df8

Man, 61, arrested for allegedly throwing acid on Latino man's face in possible hate crime

Mahud Villalaz, 42, who is an American citizen, suffered second-degree burns to his face after a man he described as being white and in his 50s or 60s berated him and threw acid at him.
In security video first obtained by WISN-TV, the two men are seen talking in front of a restaurant when the suspect points at Villalaz and then tosses the acid at his face. 

Villalaz can be seen stumbling away from the man, who then slowly walks toward Villalaz.

A GoFundMe page has been established to help pay for Villalaz's medical bills and lost wages while he recovers and gets additional medical treatment. Villalaz is a welder and continues to suffer from blurred vision in his left eye stemming from the attack.

By 5:30 p.m. Sunday, $700 had been raised toward a $15,000 goal. [give if you can]
On the GoFundMe page, his sister Priscilla Villalaz thanked police for making the arrest and thanked well-wishers who reached out to them."

usatoday.com

Man, 61, arrested for allegedly throwing acid on Latino man's face in possible hate crime

Russia Picked Donald Trump and Ran Him for President, Former Israeli Intelligence Officer Says--BIG SURPRISE -- NOT!

"Russia chose Donald Trump as the U.S. presidential candidate who would be most advantageous to Moscow, and used online tactics to win him the presidency, according to a former agent of the Israeli intelligence agency the Mossad.

"Officials in Moscow looked at the 2016 U.S. presidential race and asked, 'Which candidate would we like to have sitting in the White House? Who will help us achieve our goals?' And they chose him. From that moment, they deployed a system [of bots] for the length of the elections, and ran him for president," former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo told the audience at the Marker's digital conference in Israel on Monday, where experts gathered to discuss online disinformation campaigns and bots.

"What we've seen so far with respect to bots and the distortion of information is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the greatest threat of recent years, and it threatens the basic values that we share—democracy and the world order created since World War Two," Pardo noted, according to Haaretz."

My comment: Russia may as well have attacked the US with bombs.  The damage that has been done by Donald J. Trump to our nation is as all encompassing as if they had.  Our entire system both domestic and foreign policy has been overturned.   If, finally, the curse of Trump is electorally eradicated it will take years to undo.  Send this to whomever you choose and make sure to tell them to vote blue up and down the ticket!

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-picked-donald-trump-and-ran-him-president-former-israeli-intelligence-1273009?fbclid=IwAR0qamhjcsiry6wBrOHM--qNcmYI54XmCmb5p1CygWnHZZy4eoJly9UpuFo

Elizabeth Warren -- Middle class will NOT pay one penny for Medicare for all--Please read her statement

Here is what Elizabeth says re: Medicare for all.

We need a health care system that reflects our values.

No American should ever die or go bankrupt because of health care costs. And no for-profit insurance company should be able to stop any American from getting the care they need.

Health care is a human right, and that’s why I’m fighting for Medicare for All. It’s the only plan that gives everyone in America full coverage, with the freedom to see any provider, with no premiums, copays, and deductibles — no restrictions, no surprises, and no one going broke because they get sick.

Today, I’m releasing my plan to pay for Medicare for All. My plan won’t raise middle-class taxes by one penny. In fact, my plan puts $11 trillion back in the pockets of American families by virtually eliminating their current premiums, deductibles, and copays — that’s bigger than any tax cut in American history.

To cover the cost, we start by taking the money that employers are currently paying in the form of premiums to private insurance companies and have them pay it to Medicare instead.

We make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations, Wall Street, and the richest 1%, and cracking down on tax evasion and fraud.

Try our new calculator to see what our plan for Medicare for All would mean for you.

Health care is personal for you, personal for me, and personal for every family in America.

My daddy’s heart attack nearly sent our family skidding over a financial cliff.

Today, I think about all the kids this year who will face the double blow of nearly losing a parent and then watching their lives turn upside down as their families struggle to pay a growing stack of medical bills.

I spent my career studying why so many hard-working middle-class families were going broke. For years, my research partners and I traveled across the country, from bankruptcy courtroom to bankruptcy courtroom, talking directly with people who’d seen their lives turned upside down.

One of the biggest reasons we found? Medical problems. In 2007, my research found that the number one reason families were going broke was health care — and three quarters of those who declared bankruptcy after an illness were people who already had health insurance.

Between 2013 and 2016, the number one reason families went broke was still because of health care — even though 91.2% of Americans had health insurance in 2016.

It’s clear: Families are getting crushed by health costs. But you know who’s doing great? Private health insurance companies — they’re sucking billions of dollars in profits out of the system.

Under Medicare for All, we’ll rein in the corruption, waste, inefficiency, and corporate profiteering in our health care system.

And we can pay for it without any new taxes for middle-class families. Existing federal and state spending on health care stays about the same. Business spending on health care stays about the same — payments just go to Medicare instead of private insurers. And yeah, big corporations, Wall Street, and the top 1% pay their fair share.

Everyone’s covered, it’s fully paid for, and independent economists have verified that it’s doable. This is how we end the stranglehold of health care costs on American families and provide one of the greatest federal expansions of middle-class wealth in history.

In just a few steps, use our calculator to find out how Medicare for All would affect you. And share what you see with your friends, your family — with everyone you know.

Person to person, story by story, we’ll fight the misinformation from giant health insurance and drug companies who are desperate to stop anything from getting in the way of their profits. We’ll make it clear why we need to fight for Medicare for All — because it will make a real difference in people’s lives.

Trump’s Syria Troop Withdrawal Complicated Plans for al-Baghdadi Raid

NYT:   "For months, intelligence officials had kept Mr. Trump apprised of what he had set as a top priority, the hunt for Mr. al-Baghdadi, the world’s most wanted terrorist.

But Mr. Trump’s abrupt withdrawal order three weeks ago disrupted the meticulous planning underway and forced Pentagon officials to speed up the plan for the risky night raid before their ability to control troops, spies and reconnaissance aircraft disappeared with the pullout, the officials said.

Mr. al-Baghdadi’s death in the raid on Saturday, they said, occurred largely in spite of, and not because of, Mr. Trump’s actions.";

My Comment:  It's a miracle the raid was completed successfully no thanks to the stable genius who nearly screwed things up by his Syria withdrawal!  The withdrawal did not last long. Troops as I write this are being diverted to the Syrian oil fields.  Trump said of Iraq when we began that war based on lies that we should have kept the oil.  Who would notice?  Seems like a war crime to me to go in and steal a nation's assets.  True to the fascist MO.  Invade, bomb a nation into oblivion and then steal everything that is not nailed down.  Sick.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/us/politics/baghdadi-isis-leader-trump.html?emc=edit_na_20191027&ref=cta&nl=breaking-news?campaign_id=60&instance_id=0&segment_id=18289&user_id=85a8ac1c6f518c011d82f4864472cc9b&regi_id=75028030ing-news

Question and Critique everything

I am inclined to give kudos when kudos are due. They are due now. The death of ISIS leader Al-Bagdadi seems to have been well organized and perfected.  Kudos to the military who faced danger completing it.   Still, I have questions.  How did the special ops unit get Baghdadi's DNA if he blew himself up and then the whole big strong building collapsed around him as Trump said? How is that possible? When Bin-Laden was killed it was a clean killing so DNA could be collected. Did the US have an original sample of his DNA to compare with that of the deceased?   Why too was Al-Baghdadi hiding  in an inhospitable place for ISIS?   Kudos to the men who risked their lives to get Baghdadi but I do wonder how true all of Trump 's description of the take down is given Trump's penchant for lying.

Moreover, and most importantly, because Baghdadi was killed that surely does not mean ISIS is dead. ISIS will regroup and live to fight another day with new leadership.  ISIS will never die because it is an ideology with thousands who support it.  This reinforces those of us who decried Trump's abandonment of the Kurds thousands of whom died fighting ISIS with us.  Worse still, the ISIS prisoners did escape numbering hundreds if not thousands to go where? Europe about which Trump does not care or even to the homeland of which Trump claims he cares about so much.  Thanks to Trump this nation will not enjoy the help of the very effective Kurds in eliminating ISIS again. 

Trump's hostile rhetoric calling Baghdadi a dog and a coward running crying and screaming down the tunnel was unnecessary.  It will do nothing but inflame followers of ISIS.  It surely will not scare its members into submission.

Trump did not inform Congressional leadership of the Bagdadi raid which traditionally presidents do for top secret military missions.  He claims he did not because of leaks but truth is I suspect it was revenge against Democrats for their very effective impeachment process.

Trump even in military victory sows the seeds of division in a land he claims to love.  One should question and critique everything or accept the negative foreign policy consequences which could be many from a man who is unfit for the office he holds. 

Elija Cummings 1951-1-2019

My heart is heavy because of the loss of this greatest of men. My tears well up as each speaker sings his praises. He was a yardstick for good and a moral compass for all that is right. He fought for it and then died too soon for the mind of those who loved him to comprehend. Rest easy this warrior for the greatest good. Rest easy for this champion of the poor. Rest easy for this leader who had a passion for humanity and showed us the path to perfection to which this nation should strive.

Elijah Cummings was a charismatic giant who stood on the shoulders of those giants who made this nation into a beacon of liberty's light for the suffering, for the poor, for the immigrant, for the sick and for the dispossessed. I love you, Elijah Cummings. We who consider ourselves humanitarian will miss you more than you will ever know.

Let's get real about Tulsi Gabbard!

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/10/18/1893465/-Let-s-get-real-about-Tulsi-Gabbard?detail=emaildkre

If you are anti Trump as I am do NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT vote for a third party candidate like Tulsi Gabbard or Jill Stein. I don't care how convincing their arguments are that Clinton lost on her own. Bull pucky. Third Party candidates like a Ralph Nader or a Jill Stein lose it for the Democratic progressive candidates period end of story. DO NOT DO IT IF YOU LOATHE, DETEST AND HATE DONALD TRUMP. IF YOU DO VOTE DO SO FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY NOMINEE!!!

• 
  

  There is talk that Russian bots are posting for Tulsi Gabbard solely to give Donald Trump the win. Say NO to a third party candidate that is solely there to hand a victory to Donald Trump. Think historically how much better things would have been with an Al Gore presidency which Nader negated -- All those lives lost in Iraq would be living now and climate change would have been addressed. Jill Stein is a Russian bot too. How much better would we have been had Hillary taken the electoral college instead of the three million popular votes by which she won. THINK PRACTICALLY DO NOT NOT NOT VOTE FOR TULSI GABBARD.