"Mick Mulvaney fires all 25 members of consumer watchdog’s advisory board"--- Desperate Times

This must stop.  Perhaps, I'm being too optimistic but it seems that Trump will not win a second term as his mental state is declining fast. The polls have every Democrat including Buttiege beating him. Trump will be 74.  Even the best of us with personalities basically intact suffer some decline. Some are lucky and do not but our "presidential" piece of trash pathological con man I suspect is not one.

Trump has zero administration.  He has only "acting" heads of agencies since most have quit or have been fired.  Trump cannot concentrate on anything and reads nothing but watches TV (mostly Fox.) Any personality would suffer collapse under such enormous legal stress especially a pathologically narcissistic one who is I suspect in the final analysis weak. 

Moreover, cozying up to authoritarians and leaving the democracies which cannot trust Trump in the lurch is a threat to all of us as well as to previously allied governments all over the world. Foreign policy is a delicate balance and Trump cannot even balance himself. Kim Jong-Un must be laughing when Trump says Kim sends love letters to him and that Trump would never allow the US CIA to work with Kim's brother. He actually said that.  Kim killed his older half brother with nerve gas because he was allegedly working for the CIA.  In essence this incompetent talked against our own CIA policy and sided with the brutal authoritarian murderous dictator Kim.

Something MUST stop this incompetent unfit-for-the-presidency so called "president " who is blowing up our national policy, cares about no one but himself, leaves the poor in this nation and those seeking refuge here hung out to dry and worse could blow up the world.  We live in desperate times.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/06/mick-mulvaney-fires-members-of-cfpb-advisory-board/?fbclid=IwAR3hCdNsL1lP8UQwbTB1Pmu43dFXMRzkj_8swDbuwpNkLCUcQHSm8JlGOuQ&utm_term=.017577851809

"Our Great Patriot Leader claims another illusory win"

By Max Boot [conservative]

Washington Post

 

 President Trump is the flim flam man.
He routinely takes credit for resolving crises that he himself created — and that, on closer examination, he has not really resolved. “If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea,” he said in January, even though he was the one who raised the danger level with his reckless threats of “fire and fury” and he has not succeeded in stopping North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
After offending both Mexico and Canada with his steel and aluminum tariffs and blustery ultimatums, Trump claimed credit for negotiating “the USMCA, the spectacular & very popular new Trade Deal that replaces NAFTA, the worst Trade Deal in the history of the U.S.A.” — even though, in truth, there is scant difference between the two accords.

Then, on Friday evening, just days before the tariffs he had threatened to impose on Mexico were to take effect, Trump announced an agreement “to greatly reduce, or eliminate, Illegal Immigration coming from Mexico.”

You would think by now that even the president’s supporters might be slightly skeptical when he claims spectacular achievements with details to come. But like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football that Lucy always snatches away, they immediately tried to score political points off the nebulous Friday-night announcement.
“The threat of tariffs got Mexico to agree to take unprecedented steps to control illegal migration,” crowed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who once called Trump a “con artist” before joining the sycophancy caucus. That caucus’s honorary chairman, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who once tweeted that Trump  is “an opportunist” who is “not fit to be President,” chirped: “I appreciate President Trump’s bold leadership and applaud this agreement.” The New York Post — owned by News Corp., whose chairman, Rupert Murdoch, reportedly called Trump a “phony” before becoming his courtier — opined: “Trump left his Mexico critics stunned, speechless.”

Ah, if only Trump’s toadies had waited a few hours, they might have avoided an own goal. For on Saturday, the New York Times revealed that “the deal to avert tariffs that President Trump announced with great fanfare on Friday night consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with the United States over the past several months.” And those actions — deploying Mexico’s ineffectual national guard to its border with Guatemala and allowing some asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases are adjudicated in the United States — are unlikely to have much of an impact on undocumented migration.

But what of Trump’s boast that “MEXICO HAS AGREED TO IMMEDIATELY BEGIN BUYING LARGE QUANTITIES OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCT FROM OUR GREAT PATRIOT FARMERS!”? The use of ALL CAPS — a little too insistent — and the employment of a description for farmers that sounds as if it was lifted from Pravda, circa 1935, should indicate that this fanfaronade, too, wasn’t quite on the level. And, indeed, Mexican officials told Bloomberg News on Saturday they never discussed agricultural purchases in the days leading up the ballyhooed accord.
Our Great Patriot Leader was reduced to claiming that somewhere out there — perhaps in an alternative universe where he really is an “extremely stable genius” — there exists a super-duper, top-secret accord that “will be announced at the appropriate time” but that, on this planet, neither Mexican nor U.S. officials seemed to know anything about.

The striking thing is that Trump’s con-artistry continues to find so many willing marks who will remain forever convinced, notwithstanding all that is reported otherwise, that he made Mexico bow before his awesomeness. They are abetted, these Trump dupes, by cynical Republicans on Capitol Hill who know this achievement is as phony as a degree from Trump University but pretend otherwise to flatter the mercurial and egomaniacal occupant of the Oval Office. They are secretly breathing a sigh of relief that Trump’s flimflammery averted a potentially catastrophic economic showdown. If they had a little more backbone, these Republicans would see that they have more power than they realize: It was GOP opposition, not Mexican concessions, that made Trump back down from his tariff threats.

What happens next? Well, if migration at the southern border declines in the next few months for any reason, Trump will claim credit, just as he claims credit for a fortune that he inherited from his father and an economic expansion that he inherited from President Barack Obama. And if migration doesn’t decline, Trump will holler that Mexico has betrayed him and will engage in another round of brinkmanship that might not have such a happy ending. Trump’s amnesiac supporters will not hold the success or failure of this faux accord against him; their faith runs too deep to be shaken by mere facts (a.k.a. “fake news”).

But other countries will look at this episode and conclude (a) that Trump is a bad bluffer and (b) that he is quick to declare victory even when he hasn’t won anything. The United States’ credibility is eroding as rapidly as the presidency’s dignity and decorum.

Disaster

Trump's rude indictment of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Shumer with the backdrop of the dead at Normandy was an abomination. I believe It simply shows one how frightened of them Trump is. If everyone who has a disagreement with him is a "disaster" then no one is but him.   I suspect down deep he knows that. 

He believes few of the thoughts within his admirable speech at Normandy.  It was most probably written for him as he cozies up to strongmen dictators of authoritarian countries which heretofore were US adversaries.  He impugns democracies, democratic leaders and NATO but says he has received love letters from a vicious tyrant such as Kim Jong-un of Communist North Korea and of course has not one bad word to say about Russia's Putin. 

The proper response to Fox News Laura Ingraham's political question would have been to say that day was not the day to talk about politics. It was a day to honor the Allied dead of Normandy and WWII who kept us free and saved the world!

When We See Us

I saw the great Netflix docudrama "When They See Us" about the miscarriage of justice of the case of the Central Park jogger an occurrence that happened on April 19, 1986. Ava DuVernay has constructed a masterpiece. This is one of the most wonderful docudramas based on a true incident I have seen. I remember well the chilling story about the rape and bludgeoning of a white woman as she jogged in Central Park, New York. Those of us removed from the crime had no knowledge that the police, the prosecutors and the press did such a horrendous job covering it and prosecuting it. The horrific impact on those five innocent young boys because of the guilty verdict is something no amount of settlement can erase. 

As a white person in the suburbs of another state I swallowed the verdict hook, line and sinker. Now I am ashamed that I along with probably the majority of the nation did. We did not know these boys were coerced and beaten into submission by the police investigators and prosecutors.
 
When they are found innocent years later because of sheer luck that the real perpetrator of the horrific rape and assault shared the same prison milieu as one of the boys. DNA does it again as it has many times before. It finds the real perpetrator and frees five boys who have been in prison hell unjustly for years.

In the end I cried and could not stop crying. I am still crying for the miscarriage of justice, the immense suffering of the five innocent boys, for those of us who believed the press, police and the prosecution at the time and who did not question power. Power will do anything to keep that power even if it means ruining the lives of young innocent human beings. 

Shame on the prosecutor who because of the docudrama has now resigned, shame on the NYC police of that time and shame on us who think we are in post racial times as our Supreme Court has erroneously proclaimed only to deny justice to persons of color yet again and again and again. When will it stop? This taught me yet another time to, as Howard Zinn said to me years before, always question the decisions of those in power. Who do those decisions benefit and why? 

Deep apologies to those boys, and deep apologies for a Donald Trump who knows no justice nor humanity still and who wanted execution of those innocent boys paying $85,000 to the New York Daily News advocating it without knowing a thing about this miscarriage of justice. May the Trump crime family of massive hypocrisy see the inside of those cells those boys had to endure and may our nation understand the racism that still exists here embedded in the sinew of our bones. May we always know, as the crowds in Harlem proclaimed, that black lives matter and understand well that they do!

THE TRUTH

I finished the last episode of the docudrama "Chernobyl." This is a masterpiece of docudrama excellence. I urge everyone to see it not for its indictment of nuclear power but most especially its indictment of lies told by the state to assuage the guilt of a powerful few.   Lies, in the final analysis, were responsible for the massive death count of Chernobyl. 

I emphatically recommend it to Donald Trump who knows how to tell a lie. This will tell him the cost of lies. The cost is enormous. The truth no matter how difficult must be told not only because it is ethical and right but because the truth saves lives!

Siege

Michael Wolfe was on Larry last night. He has a new book out "Siege" an extension of his last book "Fire and Fury." He said among other things Trump is getting psychologically worse and worse every day. For a person with an average job okay happens all the time but for one who has the most powerful job in the world carrying the nuclear codes with him his psychological state getting worse means we are ALL world wide at risk. How on god's earth could our nation have elected such an ignoramus with a malevolent and now declining psychological status? God help us!!

Best argument for choice I have ever read

Best argument for choice I have ever read
By: Dr. David Diuguid: Biologically, life begins at conception; otherwise, none of us would be here. Having said that“life” cannot exist outside a woman’s body until at an absolute minimum, 20-24 weeks gestation, even with the current advances in modern medicine. Thus, the question, at least until that point in gestation, is (at least in my mind), does a woman have a right to choose what happens to her body during that time period? It is NOT as simple as murder, as much as the Catholic Church would like us to believe (and by the way, I was raised Catholic). I would submit that she does. In addition, it has been calculated that at least 1/3 of pregnancies end in miscarriage, mostly secondary to genetic defects caused by the complexity of getting egg and sperm to unite and form into a normal human being, or to problems with the embryo implanting into the uterine wall. That process has NEVER been considered to be murder, even though the end result is the same.
Moreover, bringing human life into the world requires not just a commitment to carry a child to delivery. It should also require a commitment to raise that child to an age where he/she can be an independent organism. Human infants are amongst the most helpless animals in the panoply of species (it’s the price we pay for having such large heads - children have to be born before they can care for themselves, because a woman’s body can’t support them for any longer period of time, and they won’t be able to get out of the uterus if they remain any longer). Most of the sociologic underpinnings that we live by in all civilizations on earth were created to allow children to be raised to adulthood, without being killed by other species. If we are going to make the commitment to bring all conceived children into the world, then it follows that we MUST make the commitment to raise those children to a point where they can be independent. We cannot, as Barney Frank once said of the Republican Party, follow the creed that “Life begins at conception and ends at birth”. I for one am not willing to commit myself personally or to commit us as a society to the monumental task of raising all of those children to adulthood, and if I’m not willing to take on that task, then the logical extension is that I have no right to tell a woman (or a man, for that matter) that she/he must do so. I find it morally far more outrageous to bring children into the world and then to not properly care for them.

RE: the question of sex, I would dare say that there would be just as much protest from women as from men if there were a call to boycott sex (look at the reaction to Alyssa Milano’s call to inaction). Sex is fun, not to mention a basic biological drive, and you will NEVER stop sex. The most that anyone has ever been able to do is to limit sex to procreation, and even that has been an utter failure in most societies.

This discussion ultimately comes down to who has the greater right - the woman carrying the child, or the unborn child. It is not as simple as saying that the child is always first priority or the woman is always first priority. The guidelines that have been set up following Roe v Wade (a case that I think was properly decided, albeit with shaky legal underpinnings) I think are appropriate given the biological and the sociological facts with which we have to deal. Having said this, there will always be a debate as to where and when to draw the lines, which will keep our legislators and judges in business until the end of time.

Finally, abortions have been performed since the earliest time of medical care, for all of the reasons noted above, and for many others. It has ALWAYS been the most common surgical procedure in any era of history that you want to look at. We can either provide access to safe abortions, or we can put the life of both mother and fetus at risk. Having seen some of the horrors of back alley abortions, I for one do not want to go back to that era."

"Republican Justin Amash fires back at GOP critics — and makes a forceful case for impeaching Trump"

Yesterday, I was going to write an opinion on the case for impeaching the worst, most cruel, most mendacious, most obstructive abuser of power and the most threatening to our constitutional democratic way of life of any president in US history, Donald J. Trump.   Instead I wrote a piece about the verbal lying lead up to war with Iran.

In truth, that opinion had everything to do with the myriad of investigations, lies, Russian interference in the homeland and a case Mueller made for impeachment in response to Trump's obstruction of justice and abuse of power laid out in Volume II of the Mueller Report.

I was going to research it all but instead Justin Amash, Libertarian Republican from Missouri did it for me by releasing a set of his tweets that said it all.  Representative Amash wrote a well written and Constitutionally sound case of the rationales for impeachment of Donald Trump.  He is the first Republican with the moral scruples to have written such.  I could not have written one as complete as he.  Donald J. Trump  surely this deserves impeachment.  If he doesn't no one does.  I paste Rep. Amash's tweets below:

Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) is firing back at critics within his own party who slammed him for arguing over the weekend that President Donald Trump has committed “impeachable” offenses.

In a tweet storm posted on Monday afternoon, Amash issued a point-by-point takedown of all the arguments Republicans have made to shield Trump from impeachment.

“People who say there were no underlying crimes and therefore the president could not have intended to illegally obstruct the investigation — and therefore cannot be impeached — are resting their argument on several falsehoods,” Amash began. “In fact, there were many crimes revealed by the investigation, some of which were charged, and some of which were not but are nonetheless described in Mueller’s report.”

Amash then ripped apart the argument that you can only obstruct justice if you are implicated in an underlying crime — and he showed how the entire legal system could fall apart if suspects could get away with obstructing justice to thwart prosecutors from determining whether crimes had been committed.

“Prosecutors might not charge a crime precisely *because* obstruction of justice denied them timely access to evidence that could lead to a prosecution,” he wrote. “If an underlying crime were required, then prosecutors could charge obstruction of justice only if it were unsuccessful in completely obstructing the investigation. This would make no sense.”

Read the entire tweet storm below.

Justin Amash ✔ @justinamash

People who say there were no underlying crimes and therefore the president could not have intended to illegally obstruct the investigation—and therefore cannot be impeached—are resting their argument on several falsehoods:

1. They say there were no underlying crimes.

In fact, there were many crimes revealed by the investigation, some of which were charged, and some of which were not but are nonetheless described in Mueller’s report

2. They say obstruction of justice requires an underlying crime.

In fact, obstruction of justice does not require the prosecution of an underlying crime, and there is a logical reason for that. Prosecutors might not charge a crime precisely *because* obstruction of justice denied them timely access to evidence that could lead to a prosecution.

If an underlying crime were required, then prosecutors could charge obstruction of justice only if it were unsuccessful in completely obstructing the investigation. This would make no sense.

3. They imply the president should be permitted to use any means to end what he claims to be a frivolous investigation, no matter how unreasonable his claim.

In fact, the president could not have known whether every single person Mueller investigated did or did not commit any crimes.

4. They imply “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” requires charges of a statutory crime or misdemeanor.

In fact, “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is not defined in the Constitution and does not require corresponding statutory charges. The context implies conduct that violates the public trust—and that view is echoed by the Framers of the Constitution and early American scholars.

If only the remainder of Congressional Republicans would be brave enough to enunciate what they know to be true as Justin Amash did.  There is no question the president obstructed justice and abused his power many times.  Read Volume II of the Mueller Report which describes how he did in plain English how he did for all to understand.

At long last

The latest trumped up rationale attempting to justify an American war-like posture regarding the Iran threat is one I could have predicted.  One wonders why the media with the reflection of the Iraq debacle in the not-too-distant background says nothing challenging the president's veracity about the threat that Iran poses.   When asked what the threat was from Iran reality show Donald says "You do not want to know."  Sounds convincing?  No it sounds like the Trump Reality Show lie speak which I admit he does very well.  The unfit for the presidency illiterate in the White House pulled the US out of a nuclear agreement with Iran that the previous administration worked so hard to create and to which Iran was adhering.  It lowered the potential of war between the US and Iran as well as lowered the nuclear threat.  Bolton and Trump pulling the US out of it knew justification for war with Iran would be easier.

Iran is a threat?  I suspect not.  Trump ought to take what Iran had to say in response to Trump's explosive rhetoric of eradicating Iran and, indeed, show some respect.  And by the way tell the truth.  Who is the real threat? Trump's ugly bellicose rhetoric and a president who kisses the authoritarian Putin's ring, a president who turns his back on the west and our separation of powers Constitutional democracy is not one I can easily believe.   Could the truth telling MSNBC, CNN and other credible networks ask how is Iran to react when Trump pulls out of a nuclear agreement that tamped down the threat of war between both nations?  Trump's threatening rhetoric toward Iran created one cog in the wheel of war so Trump can justify it.

Why does the real press not tell the truth about US war and why does it let Trump spew his lies and foment fear to justify it?  Get it right this time as war monger Bolton tries to ramp up Trump's words of war so he can get what he has always wanted regime change in Iran and at the same time Trump can turn the public's eye away from Trump's corruption, legal woes, obvious obstruction of justice and possible impeachment by wagging the dog's tail.  Howard Zinn used to say about a nation's leaders advocating war "question everything."  What does a nation have to gain and what do people in that nation have to gain the most from war? 

People die and some are maimed for life in war.  Taking the US government's justification for war needs to be scrupulously questioned.  Nearly 60,000 American lives were lost in Vietnam and a million Vietnamese deaths based on the Gulf of Tonkin lie; Nearly 5000 American deaths in Iraq along with its allies numbers, over 500,000 Iraqi deaths and countless others wounded and/or maimed for life based on the WMD lie.  American soldiers die in war.  Civilian innocents die in war and are often led into it by leaders who never spent a day in their life fighting it. President Bone Spur got out of Vietnam and could not tell you on which foot his so called bone spur was. 

Quoting Joseph Welch during the Army/McCarthy fabrications of Communists in the US government that ruined lives and careers in the 1950's:  "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"  RESIST!

NYT: "Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes"

As I have been saying for a long time nothing horrific about Trump ever surprises me anymore.  What would Justice Jackson say? What did Nuremberg stand for?  Our nation or part of it has gone utterly insane.  Our nation is better than that aren't we?  A question I never had to pose.

The story:  

By Dave Philipps

• May 18, 2019

"President Trump has indicated that he is considering pardons for several American military members accused or convicted of war crimes, including high-profile cases of murder, attempted murder and desecration of a corpse, according to two United States officials.

The officials said that the Trump administration had made expedited requests this week for paperwork needed to pardon the troops on or around Memorial Day.

One request is for Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs, who is scheduled to stand trial in the coming weeks on charges of shooting unarmed civilians and killing an enemy captive with a knife while deployed in Iraq.

The others are believed to include the case of a former Blackwater security contractor recently found guilty in the deadly 2007 shooting of dozens of unarmed Iraqis; the case of Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, the Army Green Beret accused of killing an unarmed Afghan in 2010; and the case of a group of Marine Corps snipers charged with urinating on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said they had not seen a complete list, and did not know if other service members were included in the request for pardon paperwork.

The White House sent requests on Friday to the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which alerted the military branches, according to one senior military official. Pardon files include background information and details on criminal charges, and in many cases include letters describing how the person in question has made amends.

The official said while assembling pardon files typically takes months, the Justice Department stressed that all files would have to be complete before Memorial Day weekend, because the President planned to pardon the men then. A second United States official confirmed the request concerning Chief Gallagher.

[Chief Gallagher’s case has been thrown into turmoil over claims of spying.]

The military branches referred questions to the Justice Department, which declined to comment on the matter.

Mr. Trump has often bypassed traditional channels in granting pardons and wielded his power freely, sometimes in politically charged cases that resonate with him personally, such as the conviction of the former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. Earlier this month, the president pardoned former Army First Lt. Michael Behenna, who had been convicted of killing an Iraqi during an interrogation in 2008.

While the requests for pardon files are a strong sign of the president’s plans, Mr. Trump has been known to change his mind and it is not clear what the impetus was for the requests. But most of the troops who are positioned for a pardon have been championed by conservative lawmakers and media organizations, such as Fox News, which have portrayed them as being unfairly punished for trying to do their job. Many have pushed for the president to intervene. The White House declined to comment.

Pardoning several accused and convicted war criminals at once, including some who have not yet gone to trial, has not been done in recent history, legal experts said. Some worried that it could erode the legitimacy of military law and undercut good order and discipline in the ranks.

Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, left, the Army Green Beret accused of killing an unarmed Afghan in 2010. Creditvia the office of Rep. Duncan Hunter"

Image

Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, left, the Army Green Beret accused of killing an unarmed Afghan in 2010.Creditvia the office of Rep. Duncan Hunter

“These are all extremely complicated cases that have gone through a careful system of consideration. A freewheeling pardon undermines that whole system,” said Gary Solis, a retired military judge and armor officer who served in Vietnam. “It raises the prospect in the minds of the troops that says, ‘Whatever we do, if we can get the folks back home behind us, maybe we can get let off.’”

Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, was surprised by the news that the president could be considering a pardon, and said ideally the chief would be acquitted at trial.

“We want the opportunity to exonerate my client,” Mr. Parlatore said in an interview. “At the same time, there is always a risk in going to trial. My primary objective is to get Chief Gallagher home to his family. To that end, Chief Gallagher would welcome any involvement by the president.”

[Navy SEALS were warned not to speak out about Chief Gallagher.]

Other than violating military law, the cases the president is said to be considering defy easy categorization.

Navy SEALs who served with Chief Gallagher told authorities he indiscriminately shot at civilians, gunning down a young woman in a flowered hijab and an unarmed old man. They also said he stabbed a teenage captive, then bragged about it in text messages. His trial is set to start at the end of this month. If convicted, he faces life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denies all charges.

Major Golsteyn is charged with killing an Afghan man that he and other soldiers said had bomb-making materials. After an interrogation, the soldiers let the man go. Fearing that the man would return to making improvised explosives, which had already killed two Marines in the area, Major Golsteyn later said he killed the man.

Mr. Trump has singled both men out on Twitter, calling Major Golsteyn a “U.S. Military hero,” and praising Chief Gallagher for his service to the country.

The Blackwater contractor, Nicholas A. Slatten, is one of several Blackwater contractors charged in the killing of 17 Iraqis and the wounding of 20 more on a Baghdad street. After a number of mistrials and other delays, he is the only one who has been convicted.

The Marines charged in urinating on the corpse of a Taliban fighter were caught after a video of the act was found.

The fact that the requests were sent from the White House to the Justice Department, instead of the other way around, is a reversal of long-established practices, said Margaret Love, who served as the United States pardon attorney during the first Bush administration and part of the Clinton administration.

Long ago, presidents wielded clemency power directly, Ms. Love said, but that changed at the end of the Civil War when President Lincoln delegated review of clemency requests to his attorney general. Since then, cases have generally been vetted by Justice Department lawyers before being sent to the president.

President Trump has upended that practice, often issuing pardons with little or no notice to the Justice Department, she said, adding that the fact the department is requesting files on men like Chief Gallagher at all suggests that Attorney General William P. Barr is trying to re-exert some authority over the process.

Process aside, she said that pardoning the men would be an abrupt departure from the past.

“Presidents use pardons to send messages. They recognize when a process wasn’t just or when punishments were too extreme, like for some nonviolent drug cases,” she said. “If this president is planning to pardon a bunch of people charged with war crimes, he will use the pardon power to send a far darker message.”

Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman and Katie Benner contributed reporting.

"I’m From Alabama And Gave Birth To My Rapist’s Child Because I Couldn’t Get An Abortion"

Everyone should read this story below and think what the bestial men and one woman governor of Alabama have done. Shame on them and shame on any court that does not strike down this anti-choice draconian insane law! Keep abortion private, legal and safe. Let the woman decide her fate.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alabama-abortion-law-rape_n_5cdc3627e4b09d94af53f471

The light of Day

Doris Day died today.  She lived a long, sometimes difficult but interesting life. Her name Day was a metaphor, I think, for the cultural light she reflected. I remember her well. No matter the age those who have defined an era are particularly hard to see leave us.

Sometimes I wish I could return to that innocent era where a movie like Pillow Talk with Rock Hudson could be so popular. In our age of realism the fact that Rock Hudson was gay could never be hidden and that is a good thing, however, the innocence that has been lost to a modern era that has far too much sexual realism, physical brutality and the freedom to declare the crass speech of hate okay has done something evil to our culture and coarsened it. Steve Allen entitled his book "Vulgarians at the Gate" and wrote about it.  It allows a Donald Trump to joke about killing immigrants in the Florida panhandle with no penalty levied against him for saying it. It was, he claimed, a joke after all until some sick someone who supports Trump chooses to think that a very good idea to do.

A president colors an era.  Trump's use of incorrect as well as profane verbiage defines the ugliness of our present time. There are no limits to the filth that pours out of his mouth as well as his emblem of adultery, misogyny and harassment that has defined his behavior with women.   I am sure Doris Day had something critical to say about that.  I know I do.

How has it come to this?

My father and I had many political discussions.  His views, at least initially, had a profound impact on me.  Although Republican he did not hide his love for Franklin Roosevelt and his love of Roosevelt's proclivity for verbal eloquence.  When FDR spoke my father listened.  I was born well after Roosevelt's death but I felt like I knew him.  I visited his grave, Eleanor's grave and his dog Fala's grave at Hyde Park, New York.  I stood there and cried yearning for that moment in time when he lived to be repeated in my era.  I have never known what it would be like to love a president like my father loved Roosevelt. 

I wonder, too, what he would think of our current classless and brash 1000 lies narcissistic president who loves himself more than anyone else and because he does perpetrated the greatest con of the century upon an electorate who believed the lies he told.  He was going to give big tax breaks to everyone but did so permanently only for the top 2% wealthiest telling his friends at his Mar A Lago Estate that they were going to love him come tax time.  He told his supporters during the campaign that he was going to repeal Obamacare but that he was going to replace it with something better than before, moreover, he was not going to let insurance companies get away with not paying for preexisting conditions.  He did neither.  He told them he was going to solve illegal immigration but said nothing about a Holocaustesque separation of children from their parents made worse by failing to include a way to reunite them with the parents who brought them into this world in the first place leaving them alone and afraid stuck in cages or tents.  How did it come to this?

Trump told his fans he was extraordinarily wealthy, a fabulous businessman and smart.  They did not care he refused to show his taxes even though every other modern-day president has proclaiming ad infinitum they were under audit.  What was he hiding?   They did not care that he refused to show a copy of his grades and threatened a lawsuit if any of the institutions he attended revealed them.   When the Access Hollywood tape came out as he proudly declared because he was rich women let him do most anything to them.  Even that did not bother his so called moral Evangelical supporters.  He is the first American president to fall in love with authoritarian dictators and eschew the democracies of Europe even threatening NATO, America's premier defense of Europe.  I have read and it has been alleged that he keeps on his night table a copy of Mein Kampf, Hitler's autobiography written in Landsberg prison where he was held for an attempted overthrow of the German Weimer state.  Trump, by his own admission, has fallen in love with Kim Jong Un, the brutal executioner of the innocent of N. Korea.  Then there is always Putin, the man he loves the most; a man whom he believes did not subvert the 2016 election because Putin told him emphatically he did not and Trump believes him over the truth tellers of his own national security administration.  How did it come to this?

By far the most subversive element in which he is now engaged is threatening our nation's greatest 1789 foundational legacy -- The Constitutional separation of powers.  Our Founders formed this government so that each coequal branch of government would protect against totalitarian usurpation of power the Founders knew human flesh to be heir to.  They wanted a Republic we could keep.  Trump's hand has been caught in the cookie jar stealing all the benefits democracy has to offer, siding with dictators and denying all that our first branch of government, the legislative branch, is requesting from its second Executive branch.  Sure, Trump thinks, let it play out in the courts.  By that time he would have won a second term.  Donald J. Trump is a liar, he is a con man, he is a racist,  a self dealer, a criminal, a lousy deal maker we now know lost 1 billion bucks from from 1985 to 1994 paying zero taxes.  We now know he would be indicted, convicted and sent to jail for his myriad of crimes too numerous to mention here if only he were not president of a nation which does not indict a sitting president.  How has it come to this?

In one of my many discussions with my father I asked him about the 1933 southern Populist Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long.  My father said that he was a bad man who wanted to be a king.  Huey Long was ultimately assassinated on the steps of the Louisiana state capitol.   It reminds me of the Lord Acton quotes:

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

“Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.”

“Authority that does not exist for Liberty is not authority but force.”

“Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance.”

“Absolute power demoralizes.”  

Will our Republic stand against this would be dictator Trump or will it succumb to an authoritarian corrupt executive who in his heart wants to be a king?  We must ask ourselves how it has come to this and, if we survive it, how will we never let it happen again.

Terror on the Right

Trump Admin Disbanded Domestic Terror Unit Amid Rising Far-Right Violence

The far right is the most vicious and violent of all on the political spectrum. The far right has zero empathy and zero morality. They are exclusionary and not egalitarian or inclusive. Since their morality is zero, killing for their cause -- the white "race" is done with impunity. They do not care about those who cannot care for themselves. Their belief in a superior white race means that they want the weakest to die and government to pay nothing to help anyone. It's that simple. 

Read Mein Kampf for their road map and listen to Adolph Hitler's screaming diatribes for their inspiration.  Trump has his visions set on eradicating Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security with a rollback of corporate regulations initiated in other administrations to protect us and the planet we live on.   The only thing Trump wants to protect is his bank accounts no matter the fraudulent methods he used to accumulate his wealth.  It is time to RESIST this, and act for all of those who cannot act for themselves.

The Unsinkable Hatred of the Jew

The killing of one and the wounding of three at the Chabad Synagogue in Poway, CA, the killing of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and anti-Semitic strikes having risen 57%  in the United States forces the embers of my anger to reverberate once again in my soul, to rise up again in my consciousness and to yet again decade after torturous decade prod me to ask why. 

Shakespeare writes of Shylock the Jew in The Merchant Of Venice Act 3, scene 1, 58–68 circa 1596:

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that."
Shylock's questions are profound and yet the answers to his questions remain to this day illusive.  Why one Jew or why 6 million Jews killed beggars the imagination so we strive with dizzying thought to find rationality in the irrational.  How does a religion whose Son of God is a Jew, whose people were Jews, and whose religious practices were Jewish become the missile of world-wide vitriolic AntiSemitic hatred throws?

The answers incomplete as they are lie, of course, in two thousand years of text, bounced around over history's net in the spoken word from one generation to the next so that even utterly mendacious and insipid untruths appear as fact and are used in some ritual or another as a reason to torture and murder Jews at any time, at any place and for any reason.  Old canards are by the murder at Poway used to mix with even older accusations of deicide taken from some New Testament texts to aid in his rationale for murder.  Anti-Semitism evolves.   “You are not forgotten Simon of Trent, the horror that you and countless children have endured at the hands of the Jews will never be forgiven,” the killer wrote using the Internet as his servant.  "His thoughts reached millions around the world. But the hatred at its core could have been plucked directly from the 15th century" or even the second century to contemporary antisemitism that boasts "Jews will not replace us" as if Jews everywhere were looking to do just that. 

The longest hatred has albeit evolved over time so that it is able to neatly mix with the prevailing cultural milieu endeavoring to strike fear in the hearts of white Christian men and women everywhere that prompts them toward violence in service of it. Accusations against the Jew by white Nationalists as the polluter of whatever the white Christian race is serves up a fundamental ingredient of anti Semitism and a rationale for the murdering of all Jews. But, no, that is not enough.  Anti Semitism must rest on its initial accusation some two thousand years ago of God killer.  Who could argue with killing a people whose ancestors were guilty of committing that?  I could and you should -- all of you -- lest this Republic Franklin admonished us to keep will not be kept and this oldest of hatreds will become unsinkable.

Danger: Angry Trump supporter showed up at Hillary Clinton's home to demand her arrest

Will the toxicity of right wingnuts in their land of idiocy never give it up? The irony of it all that they still carry the burning cross tar and feathers for Hillary from a campaign three years old instead of looking at their crime syndicate lover Donald Drumpf.

Trump's crimes are ENORMOUS and his unconstitutional behavior mind numbing. You idiot, Mr. Cross Hat, take a look at Matthew 7:5: "You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of another."

Hillary's "crimes" if she even had any which she does not pale by comparison to Donald the Emolument's Clause violator, the obstruction of justice and abuse of power, money laundering, self dealing, mendacious criminal Trump!

 

 

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/24/1852755/-Danger-Angry-Trump-supporter-showed-up-at-Hillary-Clinton-s-home-yesterday-to-demand-her-arrest?detail=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3Gdk8d6kxUOU-I1ZnVuyJ_idwwbhSe1JiU03eoB9S60dPYzV4OeJ4cmaY

Where I stand -- the Mueller Report -- lives of generations

Where do I stand?  The short answer is I am not sure.  The issues are not only complex but of the gravest nature that Democrats get it right.  The Report was as impeccable in substance as it was long in length (448 pages.)  I am of two minds one of which was formed by a political ally and compatriot. 

 

My first thoughts last evening:  If Democrats controlled the Senate there would absolutely positively be enough -- more than enough -- evidence to impeach this so called president.  He would not only be impeached but he would be the first president in US history to be convicted and removed from office. Three presidents in American history are of impeachment note -- Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, Richard Nixon in 1974 (resigned before certain impeachment and certain conviction in the Senate) and Bill Clinton.  No president has been convicted ... yet.  Today the Democrats do not control the Senate Republicans do.  Because of that conviction on impeachment would be nearly impossible and, as many say, would be a waste of time. 

Maybe it would not be a waste of time. Looking at the Clinton impeachment.  In 2000 the electorate gave Republicans the presidency.  It gave them the House and the Senate through 2007. Maybe we could have our cake and eat it too. Trump could definitely be impeached by a Democratic control of the House. Although there would be no conviction in the Senate that impeachment in the House would historically stand. It would be an eternal stain on Trump and his presidency even if he could not be convicted in the Senate. The election of 2020 because of the shameful stain of impeachment as well as a huge amount of evidence against him on obstruction could throw the 2020 election entirely in Democratic hands.  From what I have investigated after the Clinton embarrassment impeachment and during the contentious 2000 Bush presidential election the Republican Party kept control of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate until 2007. This time Democrats could take it all.

Another view:

"In the case of this lunatic president, the House going after him would be throwing raw meat to his base. The last thing we want is to have him re-elected! To some extent we need to listen to Nancy and the House Committee Chairs. Remember that the chairs will investigate and may get lots more incriminating evidence on him, including the financial information. Once he is out of office, he could be a busy boy in court for some time" If found guilty no one would be there to pardon him.  He could end up in jail.

Presidential historian John Meacham believes in the Constitutional process which leaves it to Congress to remove a president from office.  While this would be the optimum way to proceed practicalities may need to dictate otherwise.  There are serious cases against Trump and others in the Southern District of New York and elsewhere.  Trump will, I believe, pay and pay dearly.  Perhaps, we should not court even the possibility of handing impeachment red meat to Republicans during the 2020 campaign. Perhaps we should let the exposé which Mueller has iterated en masse to perfection in his Report which we should read and let the massive obstruction of justice and other malevolent acts do its electoral job.

Note Bene: Listening to Congressman Tim Ryan 3rd District of Ohio on Morning Joe who attended a town meeting last night.  He said no one in two hours of discussion mentioned the Mueller Report.  He said no one cared about the Mueller Report but they cared about making ends meet, jobs and they cared about their children.  That says a lot and from my observation tragically so.  Nothing less than our democracy is at stake.  It envelopes all issues economic, political and most importantly international.  Life and death issues are mandated by a president.  It is one of the most important choices we can make.  We must think about who we are and who we want to be.  Nothing short of the lives of generations are at stake.

Survival of a Nation: Reconstruction--America After the Civil War

I watched Part II of this two part work of excellence on PBS, Reconstruction--America After the Civil War. Part 1 dealt with the beginnings of slavery to the end of it in 1865. The first slave ship arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Slavery ended as an economic practice in 1865. For nearly 250 years persons of color had to endure conditions beasts of burden did not even have to endure.

Worse still once the Lincoln assassination occurred persons of color slowly but surely began to endure a second humiliating institutional reality almost mirroring the slave system itself. Reconstitution Part II deals with the reality of Jim Crow in the late 1800's and the federal government relinquishing enforcement of the freedom that the union Civil War victory brought. How persons of color had to endure such indignities for so many years I will never know. Even Courts including the Supreme Court of that time would not protect them.

Sound familiar as the immoral right wing so called "conservative" justices of our time call our society a "post racial" one. It has given racist whites free rein to think of creative ways to deny persons of color the vote and has eradicated that part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that oversaw those states, especially in the south, which most egregiously flouted civil rights law.

Think about it. What have both state and federal white Representatives, Senators, and Presidents done by placing right wing extremist judges on both lower courts and the Supreme Court?  They have packed the courts with extremist right judges undermining the last vestige of hope to maintain racial equality.

How ironic that the very first bone of contention slavery may result 400 years later in a permanent civil schism in our nation in our time. Watch these episodes narrated by the historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. and then RESIST the cancer of Trump and his presidency that permanently threatens our body politic today. The price of Trump's corrupt presidency is not only felt today but may survive for decades to come IF our nation survives at all.  VOTE DEMOCRAT IN 2020 to make sure that it does.

Video: Pete Buttigieg Speaks French During French TV Interview on Notre Dame Fire

https://www.newsweek.com/pete-buttigieg-notre-dame-cathedral-speaking-french-notre-dame-fire-gerard-1397610

WHAT A GUY!!!

Richard Engel -- on Assignment -- a must see

Not only does Richard Engel do a segment on Steve Bannon's attempt at subverting Pope Francis and creating an uber conservative Catholic Church but he also does a segment on Russian systems in Moscow and maybe elsewhere that are dedicated to foment discord among adversarial groups especially in the western democracies.

It is why those of us dedicated to humanitarian causes and nonviolence should not get into shouting matches with extremist right wing fanatics religious or otherwise or use profane language in heated arguments. I will try to follow my own advice.

The best way to fight this onslaught is either by not reacting or by reacting with peaceful sentiment and humanitarian beliefs. Watch Richard Engel's On Assignment if you haven't to see how this is being done. [linked below].  The Russian attempt is brazen and getting worse as time goes by probably into the 2020 election!

Think for yourself and do not allow them to destroy what is good and humane in our nation.  Pass this on to anyone.

https://www.msnbc.com/onassignment

The Politics of Peace--My letter to Congresswoman Rashida Talib

Dear Congresswoman Talib: I want to address the right wing violence and ugly verbiage levied against you in particular and Muslims in general.  I am a Jewish woman and heretofore an ardent supporter of the State of Israel. Since, however, the election of the aggressive and in my view closed minded Netanyau with the help of the corrupt, inhumane, mendacious and cruel Trump I have changed. I want to tell you why I have changed which includes both the etiology of my historical position and the one to which I subscribe today. My political bent has formed since 1958 when I as a child viewed the first film on the Holocaust. The devastating Holocaust history of the Jewish people became the footing on which my politics stood. My politics is still left of center BUT the historical rationals in our era have changed. I joined J Street, a progressive Jewish organization, which seeks peace not against Palestinians but WITH Palestinians. I believe in fundamental fairness, justice, and I believe human beings can work together to find that commonality which can work against violence, against war, against hate but for understanding and peace. I seek not to move away from what you say but urge you to soften what you say so that it falls on more receptive ears. I ask you to try to use my experience as your own guide to speak to Palestinian hardship as well as the Jewish Holocaust experience to talk to people with an understanding of both sides and a standing against hate both Netanyahu and Trump perpetuate but do not ameliorate.

I was against placing the US embassy in Jerusalem, so cavalierly talking about expanding settlements and the appropriation of the West Bank. This cruel and inhuman treatment of Palestinians cannot stand and should not stand. Recognizing the Holocaust taught us to speak out against injustice and is its most profound instruction. Those of us who desire humanitarian and just politics must not let cruelty stand because I believe it will mean more violence and death for both Palestinians and Israelis if not to the world at large. Your points are listened to by me. References to old antiSemitic memes provoke anger in all Jews but understanding of both positions will speak for truth, justice and peace! That is what must be emphasized by you and should speak to the politics not of war and hate but of understanding and peace.

Assange innocent?

The US is surely not the only aggressive nation on planet earth. I would put, without a doubt, Russia into that illustrious group and Putin one of the worlds most belligerent and corrupt authoritarian dictators at the helm. Assange played footsie with Russia and Putin. I submit he was no choir boy. Moreover, from accounts of those who worked with Assange he was a beast and allegedly no joy for whom to work.

Assange I suspect, but have no evidence of this, was paid by Russia and had a hand in the electoral 2016 cabal. I am politically left of center BUT that does not mean I am willing to look the other way when it comes to nation states whose behavior is egregiously immoral and people like Assange do not do that or Snowden for that matter takes cover in Russia. In my opinion, it is a world where the lesser of evils must be taken into account. Putin and his oligarchic friends kill their opposition with mind numbing cruelty and invade neighboring nations to rule with an iron fist. I would like someone like Glenn Greenwald or Noam Chomsky for once to be an equal opportunity employer and call out a nation like Russia or Saudi Arabia and many more whose behavior is worthy of scorn!  Going on RT (Russia TV) and proclaiming Assange's innocence is laughable and more laughable is Putin proclaiming Assange's capture was a violation of freedom of the press.  Hah! Putin is no civil libertarian. Go there, criticize Putin, and see which area of Siberia you end up or worse and most probably so you will end up dead killed in Saudia Arabian brutal form.

I say follow the money. Assange stole classified information and it has been alleged got paid mucho dolares to release it and worse played into Trump's hands. Oh how Trump loved Wikileaks he said 160 times. That alone puts Assange in the unethical dumpster!

Yes, it is a cruel world and a spy vs. spy world. The US must play that game too and be protective of itself to survive. I'll take the US any day over so many others most especially Russia but I want to take it WITHOUT the democracy destroying Trump!

White House proposed releasing immigrant detainees in sanctuary cities, targeting political foes+ my short comment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/white-house-proposed-releasing-immigrant-detainees-in-sanctuary-cities-targeting-political-foes/2019/04/11/72839bc8-5c68-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html?utm_term=.d2e0aae9fdc8&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

My Comment Trump is a bastard! He is the worst president in US history bar none. Something has to be done as he is leaving this nation unsecured vacancies everywhere. He knows nothing about anything. He cares NOTHING of homeland security but wants to penalize those who are the neediest. Christ would be leading Sanctuary Cities.

Trump is the evil ANTI-Christ who needs to be taken down by the Republicans who staggeringly support him and the worst of the worst policies and department heads who know nothing about the department they lead. He lies ALL the time. He is a corrupt conman who has taken his base for the ride of the century.  He is a beast and Dems better get the gd word out and do it FAST or you will be seeing him for god forbid four more years ruling over the death of our Republic.

Perhaps Israel will be an option for me if the unthinkable happens. RESIST AND GET OUT THE GD VOTE!