Thomas Friedman: Democrats, here’s the sure-fire way to defeat Donald Trump: My Comment: Read, heed and share

By Thomas L. Friedman 

 

If this election turns out to be just between a self-proclaimed socialist and an undiagnosed sociopath, we will be in a terrible, terrible place as a country. How do we prevent that?

That’s all I am thinking about right now. My short answer is that the Democrats have to do something extraordinary — forge a national unity ticket the likes of which they have never forged before. And that’s true even if Democrats nominate someone other than Bernie Sanders.

What would this super ticket look like? Well, I suggest Sanders — and Michael Bloomberg, who seems to be his most viable long-term challenger — lay it out this way:

“I want people to know that if I am the Democratic nominee these will be my Cabinet choices — my team of rivals. I want Amy Klobuchar as my vice president. Her decency, experience and moderation will be greatly appreciated across America and particularly in the Midwest. I want Mike Bloomberg (or Bernie Sanders) as my secretary of the Treasury. Our plans for addressing income inequality are actually not that far apart, and if we can blend them together it will be great for the country and reassure markets. I want Joe Biden as my secretary of state. No one in our party knows the world better or has more credibility with our allies than Joe. I will ask Elizabeth Warren to serve as health and human services secretary. No one could bring more energy and intellect to the task of expanding health care for more Americans than Senator Warren.

“I want Kamala Harris for attorney general. She has the toughness and integrity needed to clean up the corrupt mess Donald Trump has created in our Justice Department. I would like Mayor Pete as homeland security secretary; his intelligence and military background would make him a quick study in that job. I would like Tom Steyer to head a new Cabinet position: secretary of national infrastructure. We’re going to rebuild America, not just build a wall on the border with Mexico. And I am asking Cory Booker, the former mayor of Newark, to become secretary of housing and urban development. Who would bring more passion to the task of revitalizing our inner cities than Cory?

“I am asking Mitt Romney to be my commerce secretary. He is the best person to promote American business and technology abroad — and it is vital that the public understands that my government will be representing all Americans, including Republicans. I would like Andrew Yang to be energy secretary, overseeing our nuclear stockpile and renewable energy innovation. He’d be awesome.
“I am asking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to serve as our U.N. ambassador. Can you imagine how our international standing would improve with youth worldwide with her representing next-gen America? And I want Sen. Michael Bennet, the former superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, to be my secretary of education. No one understands education reform better than he does. Silicon Valley Congressman Ro Khanna would be an ideal secretary of labor, balancing robots and workers to create “new collar” jobs.

“Finally, I am asking William H. McRaven, the retired Navy admiral who commanded the U.S. Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014 and oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, to be my defense secretary. Admiral McRaven, more than any other retired military officer, has had the courage and integrity to speak out against the way President Trump has politicized our intelligence agencies.

Only last week, McRaven wrote an essay in The Washington Post decrying Trump’s firing of Joe Maguire as acting director of national intelligence — the nation’s top intelligence officer — for doing his job when he had an aide brief a bipartisan committee of Congress on Russia’s renewed efforts to tilt our election toward Trump.

“Edmund Burke,” wrote McRaven, “the Irish statesman and philosopher, once said: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”

If Bernie or Bloomberg or whoever emerges to head the Democratic ticket brings together such a team of rivals, I am confident it will defeat Trump in a landslide. But if progressives think they can win without the moderates — or the moderates without the progressives — they are crazy. And they’d be taking a huge risk with the future of the country by trying.

And I mean a huge risk. Back in May 2018, the former House speaker John Boehner declared: “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”

It’s actually not napping anymore. It’s dead.

And I will tell you the day it died. It was just last week, when Trump sacked Maguire for advancing the truth and replaced him with a loyalist, an incompetent political hack, Richard Grenell. Grenell is the widely disliked U.S. ambassador to Germany, a post for which he is also unfit. Grenell is now purging the intelligence service of Trump critics. How are we going to get unvarnished, nonpolitical intelligence analysis when the message goes out that if your expert conclusions disagree with Trump’s wishes, you’re gone?

I don’t accept, but can vaguely understand, Republicans’ rallying around Trump on impeachment. But when Republicans, the self-proclaimed national security party — folks like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton — don’t lift a finger to stop Trump’s politicization of our first line of defense — the national intelligence directorate set up after 9/11 — then the Republican Party is not asleep. It’s dead and buried.

And that is why a respected, nonpartisan military intelligence professional like Bill McRaven felt compelled to warn what happens when good people are silent in the face of evil. Our retired generals don’t go public like that very often. But he was practically screaming, “This is a four-alarm fire, a category 5 hurricane.” And the GOP response? Silence.

Veteran political analyst E.J. Dionne, in his valuable new book, “Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country,” got this exactly right: We have no responsible Republican Party anymore. It is a deformed Trump personality cult. If the country is going to be governed responsibly, that leadership can come only from Democrats and disaffected Republicans courageous enough to stand up to Trump. It is crucial, therefore, argues Dionne, that moderate and progressive Democrats find a way to build a governing coalition together.

Neither can defeat the other. Neither can win without the other. Neither can govern without the other.

If they don’t join together — if the Democrats opt for a circular firing squad — you can kiss the America you grew up in goodbye.

When a Pandemic Meets a Personality Cult The Trump team confirms all of our worst fears.

A MUST READ!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/opinion/coronavirus-trump.html

Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies

This link was sent to me by a political ally.  The parallels between Hitler's rise to power and Trump's attempt at seizing, keeping and controlling power are too close to be coincidental.  It has been said that Trump kept a copy of Hitler's speeches and modalities on his bedside for nighttime reading.  If nothing else this should persuade you that a Hitlerian template has been used by Trump to ensure his electoral success.   We must by all means necessary stop him from gaining unlimited control and overthrowing all manner of institutional democracy that was once the hallmark of our nation and the envy of the world.  We must ensure the candidate Democrats nominate can win and electorally crush the con man charlatan, evil and cruel beast who currently occupies and besmirches the sanctity of the oval office and our nation.

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

The Fragility of Democracy

When I was young I became aware that in this nation I could say anything I wanted, ask any question I desired and did not have to agree with something if I did not want.  I knew the extent of free speech was nearly unlimited.  I determined the nature of the culture in which I lived as one that would always protect one's right to free speech as well as the right to read anything I chose.  I thought I was lucky to have been born in a nation whose very foundational documents I would learn were enshrined in the Constitution since 1789 by the nation's prescient Founders.

As I matured and attended a university I learned to question everything including all those things which power mandated I must accept as truth.  I became smitten with many of the protest events of the late 60's because they provided me an insight into many of those things I later learned to be untrue.  I first then became acquainted with the history of persons of color in this nation and the so called Jim Crow laws a person of color in the south was required to follow.  I was shocked and revolted when a black professor told us that he fought in World War II only to return unable to sit at a lunch counter with whites or that he was mandated to sit at the back of the bus giving up a seat in the front because only a person of white privilege could sit there.  I became aware of poll taxes, grandfather clauses and literacy tests as a tools whites in the south used to deny persons of color the right to vote.  If one thought in the north those discriminatory practices would not happen one need only look to de facto segregation in the northern cities, or in the many schools which were separate and still unequal. 

My experience told me, too, that in war this nation was always right.  I then, however, read books like J. William Fulbright's "Arrogance of Power" or listened to lectures by Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky only to learn that the US was not always on the side of right but was often on the side of international political self interest denying rights to those who were too weak to resist.  Vietnam, for example, or the removal of the Iranian democratically elected and beloved Mosaddegh replacing him with the US friendly Shah and his brutal repressive police force Savak were examples of US power mandating results it did not have, in my opinion, the right to make.

Maturity dictates, though, once strongly held beliefs need from time to time to be reassessed.  If I have learned nothing from this evil Trumpian time I have learned to value what this nation had before his corrupt rule and how easy it can be to subvert democracy.  Edmund Burke, the 18th century philosopher said "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" and so good men in our Republican Senate have snipped at their own balance of power rights bestowed constitutionally on them to allow this corrupt con man, charlatan and malignant narcissist to keep his seat when they could have removed this cancer from our body politic when they had the chance. 

Trump has subverted our democracy, placed in power other men who are loyal only to him and not to the Constitution.  Our Founders would be aghast. He is vicious in act, word and deed locking up children in cages, polluting our once pristine waters, denying climate change and articulating all manner of vicious appellations on many innocent others whose only crime is possessing a brain to think and question all that he does. He has maligned our allies, turned his back on our friends and advocated for our enemies.  He has become a Russian asset in that he has allowed Russian power in Ukraine to go unchecked even conducting a hot war in the Donbas section and annexing Crimea.  He refuses to release his taxes leaving us to question why.  The worst subjugation of democracy, though, comes with his annihilation of the Congressional balance of power by the attorney general declaring in jack boot agreement with Trump that the president can do anything he wants, subvert any principle of a free state because the president has the Article II right to do it.  He is emulating a banana republic by firing all those who do not agree with him and replacing those eliminated with so called "acting" authorities giving him the freedom to remove and replace them at will.  Moreover, he interfered in an ongoing trial to lighten the sentence of his pal Roger Stone found guilty on seven counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction. It is the first time a president with the attorney general's blessing has interfered in an ongoing trial.  This is unconscionable.

The latest most egregious action came by his firing of the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, because Maguire did the right thing by briefing Congress about 2020 Russian election meddling on Trump's behalf.  Trump was livid at Maguire for doing the right thing, fired him and placed in that vital-to-national-security position Richard Grenell, a man of zero intelligence experience but a loyal Trump supporter nonetheless.  There are, of course, so many more examples of Trumpian usurpation of powers he does not have.  The founding fathers put in order of importance the legislative branch as Article I and the executive branch as Article II.  The Founders did not want a king but Donald J. Trump does and is using his acquittal of impeachment by the Republican majority Senate as a permission slip to do anything he wants.  Acquittal does not mean innocence and he is, indeed, not innocent.  The House found enough guilt to impeach him for asking a foreign power to investigate his presumed election rival, Joe Biden. 

Donald J. Trump is creating an authoritarian despotic tyranny before our very eyes and God forbid is poised to have the electorate give him four more years.   Benjamin Franklin when a woman asked what form of government the Founders had created said "a Republic if you can keep it" because he feared the fragility of a democracy and man's proclivity to be seduced by power and subvert it.  Donald J. Trump is doing just that!

Unitary all powerful chief executive above the law -- I have a question

I have a question for Bill Barr which no one seems to have asked yet. Barr's legal, judicial and constitutional philosophy is one of a strong all powerful chief executive.  The nation has long debated that ideological question.  For decades it has been the subject in the formulation of our Constitutional republic, through the institution of slavery, to the 20th century's Great Depression and beyond.  I, too, when formulating my political opinions wrestled with the concept of a strong chief executive. I did so because those on the right were decrying, for example, FDR's New Deal and John Kennedy's actions on behalf of civil rights, as well as Lyndon Johnson's advocacy for human rights.  The right wing for years thought it was a breach of the balance of power the Founders created for the president to stray into areas which either belong to other branches of Congress or more properly reside in the states.  Many viewed FDR's New Deal as tyrannical. 

What is the role of the Chief Executive when working to ameliorate the effects of a Great Depression, waging war, or even providing health insurance?  Up until FDR the president thought his powers were limited and that there was nothing more that could be done during the Great Depression by Herbert Hoover except to let the economy adjust on its own.   Meanwhile millions were starving and millions were sick.  Later persons of color who served the nation in war were not let into all white colleges and universities or drink from water fountains labeled "white."  These mammoth injustices which since FDR called out for strong executive power.  I advocated for a strong executive when justice had to prevail or when the existential life of the nation was in question.

Since Trump the trajectory of that power for which I once advocated can be seen through his plethora of executive orders that come down heavy not for the least of these but against those who have the least.  He has relegated those seeking protection from tyranny to mandating a new Trumpian tyranny.  He has relegated children vying for safety in this nation to cages, he has signed Muslim bans, he has cozied up to the worst of world dictators, celebrated with Russian ambassadors over a firing of an FBI director, encroached through eminent domain on private property for his wall to keep desperate immigrants out, imposed economically destructive tariffs, advocated for the attorney general to lower sentencing on a convicted felon in a case where the defendant was his friend.  This has never happened before.  He has nominated judges who do not meet even the standards of the American Bar Association. He has sent federally empowered ICE into states which have sanctuary cities to arrest those who have been given state protection.  He lowered pollution standards in streams and waterways that provide drinking water.  He eliminated standards for fossil fuel drilling and for the extraction of dirty coal.  He cancelled the nuclear proliferation agreement with Iran which was working, and he denies the scientific certainty of climate change while our nation drowns in floods and suffers along with other nations many other catastrophic weather related disasters.  Ask Australians if they believe in climate change.

Much of the power which the president thinks he has and Mr. Barr thinks lives within his presidential right to wield is dedicated to undoing the justice of many decades of injustice.  Trumpian power is inhumane, cruel, vicious and is dedicated to inflate his bank accounts and maintaining power while he existentially destroys our nation.

I therefore ask Bill Barr if he believes in a strong chief executive does he do so if the the president were a Democrat?  Does he think a unitary strong executive should prevail only if the president is Republican advocating for the richest in the nation and above the law our Founders feared?

Bill Barr Must Resign -- By Donald Ayer Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under George H. W. Bush

The attorney general is working to destroy the integrity and independence of the Justice Department, in order to make Donald Trump a president who can operate above the law.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/donald-ayer-bill-barr-must-resign/606670/

Former Deputy Attorney General Shares Dire Warning If William Barr Does Not Resign--By Josephine Harvey

Donald Ayer, a deputy attorney general under George H.W. Bush, predicts a grim outcome for America if Barr continues to serve Trump. 

A former deputy attorney general in George H.W. Bush’s administration has warned that the integrity of the Justice Department has been compromised by the current attorney general, William Barr, paving the way for “virtually autocratic” leadership by President Donald Trump.

In an op-ed for The Atlantic published Monday, Donald Ayer, who has known Barr for more than four decades and once worked with him at the Department of Justice, warned of a grim future if his former colleague is not removed from office.

Reflecting on Barr’s first year of service, Ayer concluded that he has “appeared to function much more as the president’s personal advocate than as an attorney general serving the people and government of the United States.”

Any optimism that Barr would stand strong against attempts to inject politics into the department’s work was misplaced, Ayer wrote, highlighting a series of “disturbing” events beginning with his “public whitewashing of Robert Mueller’s report, which included powerful evidence of repeated obstruction of justice by the president,” and ending with the “worst of all”: Barr’s reported intervention in the criminal prosecution of Trump’s friend Roger Stone. 

“For whatever twisted reasons, he believes that the president should be above the law, and he has as his foil in pursuit of that goal a president who, uniquely in our history, actually aspires to that status.”

The fundamental reason that Barr is unfit for office, according to Ayer, is that he does not believe in the central tenet of America’s democracy: that “no person is above the law.” 

“Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go,” Ayer concluded.

“It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen. To prevent that, we need a public uprising demanding that Bill Barr resign immediately, or failing that, be impeached.”

Ayer is just one of more than 2,000 former prosecutors and DOJ officials to call for Barr’s resignation in the wake of the extraordinary events of the past week. Last Tuesday, four career prosecutors withdrew from the Stone case after top Justice Department officials overruled their sentencing recommendation. Seemingly confirming concerns that Barr had intervened on his behalf, the president openly applauded Barr for “taking charge” of the case on Twitter. Later in an interview, Barr said that constant tweets and commentary were complicating his job.

Barr’s push back was faulted widely as an attempt to cover up what critics suggested was a coordinated attempt between him and Trump to defuse the firestorm over the preferential treatment given Trump’s longtime ally.

The Enablers

Although Trump's unethical and immoral behavior was known from the beginning the true uprooting of our democracy took 3 years to develop. Now we face an abyss. Few could have predicted his egregious lawlessness would have gotten exponentially worse since he was impeached and acquitted in the Senate. He was not found not guilty mind you but acquitted which does not mean not guilty. For his base, though, who cultishly worship Trump as a god-like figure, know little and will see it as a not guilty verdict. Not only was he monumentally guilty he is increasingly even guiltier of more impeachable offenses.

It is illegal to go after witnesses who have testified before Congress if they are telling the truth which all of them were. Sondland, a former ambassador to Ukraine, paid one million dollars to get the Ukraine ambassador position by contributing to the Trump campaign fund. In the end, he had to protect himself from perjury by telling the truth before Congress then the so called "president" fired him. 


Trump is ruining careers and maybe even the lives of those ethical witnesses who testified on oath to the truth. He even fired the Lt. Colonel Vindman, the recipient of the Purple Heart when wounded in Iraq. Trump has even gone after Vindman's twin brother as well who was guilty of nothing except being Vindman's twin brother. These heinous actions are the actions of a mafia don by not only going after those who in the don's mind betrayed him but his family as well. These are not the actions of a once democratic nation.


He, of course, fired Ambassador Marie Yovanovich whose spotless record for over 15 years at the State Department can only be lauded. Georgetown University bestowed upon her the 2020 J. Raymond Trainor Award for Excellence in the Conduct of Diplomacy. Not only did he fire her but he dragged her reputation through the mud sullying this upstanding woman of invaluable experiential excellence. Her crime? She told the truth. At the bestowal of this award at Georgetown University the audience filled with people of intellectual heft gave her a loud cheer and a lengthy sanding ovation. She deserved that and more. She deserved to keep her job! 


How our nation survives this frontal attack on its institutions I do not know but I do know the Republican Party were the enablers of this presidential monstrosity just like the Weimer Republic bestowed upon Hitler the Enabling Act which enabled him to enact decrees absent the consent of the Reichstag (Germany's Congress.) Trump now thinks he can do anything he wants because the Republicans in the Senate will have his back and never convict to eliminate him. Who could have predicted this president's Herculean efforts to exact revenge? I can only hope, the revenge enacted will be turned on its head and land on him using our Founders' only remedy -- impeachment and conviction to remove a president who defiles the sanctity of the Oval Office.

"Today's disgrace is tomorrow's legacy"

Fabulously written opinion in the MetroWest Daily News on Feb. 8, 2020 by Mr. Leo Boghosian. It is succinct, passionate and precise. I agree with everything he says and most importantly when he comments "Today's disgrace is tomorrow's legacy" I say here here!! I paste it below.

"Today's disgrace is tomorrow's legacy" by Leo Boghosian

The sham impeachment of Degenerate Donald is over and no one is surprised with the preordained outcome.

The sham impeachment of Degenerate Donald is over and no one is surprised with the preordained outcome. The House Managers should receive our deepest gratitude and respect for valiantly presenting an outstanding case of unequivocal guilt with factual evidence of misconduct knowing that it would fall on the deaf ears of their cowardly Republican colleagues. The record of their courageous efforts will forever serve as irrevocable historical reference substantiating the validity of Trump’s impeachment and his implicit guilt.

Every single point of contention raised by Trump’s defense team was designed to thwart and sabotage any and all efforts to verify the evidence produced by the House for fear of confirming the House findings despite having the right to cross examine and refute that evidence. That’s a pretty powerful symptom of a guilt syndrome, if not, tantamount to tacit admission of guilt.

Lawyers have a duty to provide their client with their best defense but to adopt the Trump playbook of evasion, digression and distortion as legal defense tactic creates a precedence which is not in the best interests of the public even in a sham impeachment. In any other ordinary trial court setting their contumacious resistance towards allowing witnesses to testify would rise to the level of contempt.

We know from words and deeds that neither Trump nor O’Connell are men of conscience or principle but we expect a little more integrity from members of our judicial system. Violating or abusing Constitutional authority by subterfuge or devious misinterpretation or fabrication are not enviable legal achievements. Today’s disgrace is tomorrow’s legacy.

Meryl Streep's Magical Speech at the 2017 Golden Globes -- Everyone should re-listen

to Meryl Streep's delivery of words given in 2017 that are as relevant, passionate, empathetic and humane now as they were then.  She directs them against the Bully-in-Chief​ who is an embarrassment to this nation and soils the once majesty of the Oval Office.

Forward this to anyone you choose and then in November use the only power that we have to unseat the Trumpian bullies in Congress and the bully president Trump himself from the office he was so unfit to occupy.  Vote blue up and down the ticket no matter who it is and return our country to the humane and dignified nation it once was.  

Preview YouTube video Meryl Streep Slams Donald Trump in Golden Globes 2017 Speech

Nancy Pelosi Rips Republicans For ‘Normalizing Lawlessness’ In Scathing Op-Ed -- Please read

Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote a wonderful opinion for the Washington Post which I urge all to read. It is linked below. As I write this our so called "president' has been and will be engaged in a scorched earth policy seeking revenge on specifically those who testified under oath against him before Congress by firing them. Who knows what else he may do? It is also allegedly illegal to gain retribution on those who have testified truthfully under oath before Congress. The president may think his trials are over because the word acquitted, which does not mean innocent, was used to give the final result of the impeachment Senate trial against him. It was not, however, unanimous. One Republican Senator, Mitt Romney, had the courage to vote against Trump on the first article of impeachment, Abuse of Power. Moreover, as Speaker Pelosi said Trump has been impeached for life by the House.

The editorial below is well written and all of it, I believe, true. The great Yankee catcher Yogi Berra spoke his greatest truth when he said "It ain't over til it's over" and so, Mr. President, your greatest trials may lie ahead!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/nancy-pelosi-mcconnell-and-the-gop-senate-are-accomplices-to-trumps-wrongdoing/2020/02/07/d06582be-49e4-11ea-9164-d3154ad8a5cd_story.html

Thank you, Mitt Romney

Dear Senator Romney: Reading your text as to why you voted for an article of impeachment brought a tear to my eye and I am a staunch Democrat.  I believe, Senator Romney, you are a profile in courage.  What you did will be historically profound. You may not reap the accolades now but you will in the futures to come. Everyone should listen or read your explanation as to why you voted the way you did as the only senator from the Republican Party to ever cast an impeachment vote against a sitting president of his own Party.

Thank you, Senator Romney. You gave a brilliant speech for us in our time to hear and for future generations to hear and see so they will come to understand what a profile in courage really means!

 

 

The Sultan of Hate -- The Medal of Freedom to Limbaugh?

As one blogger stated it "The only qualifier for that garbage [Rush Limbaugh] to get the medal of freedom is because in America he has had the freedom to be the absolute worst that humanity has to offer. Hopefully the next Dem retires this medal forever as being tainted & launches a Presidential Medal of Integrity instead."

My Comment: The blogger's suggestion is spot on. In this moment what Trump supporter should receive that honor? No one. There is not one shred of character, integrity or empathy in the entire lot of the supporters of Donald Trump except one. I would give it to Mitt Romney for the immense courage it took for a member of the Trumpian Republican Party to hold this lawbreaker president's feet to the fire convicting Trump on at least one impeachment count.   Giving this Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh is like giving it to Joseph Goebels, the head of the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. This act by Trump bestowing the highest civilian honor to the sultan of hate, Limbaugh, is the highest insult to all good men and women of principle and character everywhere and to those persons of artistic and cultural humanitarian excellence who have received it before!  See list of former recipients below.

Examples of just a few of the minister of hate's many malignant racist and misogynistic greatest hits of the most undeserving of the honor of bestowal of the Medal of Freedom in this nation's history.  WARNING: THIS LIST MAY INDUCE NAUSEA AND VOMITING! :

Racist:

“I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.” 
 “You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.”
 “Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
“Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
“The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.”
“They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?”
 “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back (to an African American female caller).”

Insults against women:

“Women should not be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud.”
~Rush Limbaugh, 1994 List of 35 Undeniable Truths
“Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.”
~Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, August 12, 2005.

“Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is also a White House dog?”
~Rush Limbaugh, while holding up a photograph of 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton on his 1993 television show

“They’re out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes.”
~Rush Limbaugh, on women who protest against sexual harassment, The Rush Limbaugh Show, April 26, 2004

So Miss Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”
~Rush Limbaugh, The Rush Limbaugh Show, March 1, 2012

List of former Medal of Freedom recipients. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidential_Medal_of_Freedom_recipients   Rush Limbaugh is not worthy to even shine their shoes!

Limbaugh has advanced lung cancer.   Ask me if I care.

S.C. group can reject gays and Jews as foster parents, Trump admin says

How much more disgusting can the Drumpf administration get?  I and millions like me worship the separation of church state Constitutional mandate.  Obama's rule was superb that is any organization receiving federal aid cannot do so under a religious mandate.  It cannot discriminate.  Trump is turning this on its head appealing of course to his hateful base by allowing organizations to keep certain groups out based on religion (Christian) and/or sexual orientation. 

The Founders who created the separation of church state clause just turned in their graves.   Like Adam Schiff said "our nation is lost just lost!"

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/s-c-group-can-reject-gays-jews-foster-parents-trump-n962306?fbclid=IwAR2i-fRiJcArsvAmrgkCYVTMy6ggYXEfMZCYBNTLPfs6uvbiKK73a19C9vE

Vote blue up and down the ticket!

The Liar-in-Chief -- AP FACT CHECK

Read and you will know why I watched the state-of-the-union on mute.  I cannot stand to hear his voice and the lies and really should have turned it off altogether as I cannot stand to see one half of the Congress cheering enthusiastically for those lies.  The electorate in one half the country do not even know they are lies.  FYI here are the lies.

 

 ttps://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/ap-fact-check-trumps-claims-in-his-state-of-union-address?fbclid=IwAR05WFazdHM4_RpvgSMMYjETqiiRrnnzAphMT4ChoqsRPwxQQOcPnIzTXd4

2020 Iowa Caucus Updates: Delayed Results Lead to Confusion -- My Comment -- CAUCUS CONFUSION/MOCKING THE ANTHEM

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/politics/iowa-caucuses.html?emc=edit_na_20200204&ref=headline&nl=breaking-news&campaign_id=60&instance_id=0&segment_id=20950&user_id=85a8ac1c6f518c011d82f4864472cc9b&regi_id=75028030

CAUCUS CONFUSION:

MY COMMENT:  GET RID OF THE IOWA CAUCUSES. IT'S JUST PLAIN NUTS!!! THIS ABOVE ANYTHING ELSE SHOWS ONE THE INCOMPETENCE INVOLVED IN THE CAUCUSES. IT HAPPENED DURING THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY IN 2016 AND NOW IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY. IF THIS DOES NOT CALL FOR PAPER BALLOTS I DO NOT KNOW WHAT DOES AS IN THE AIR THERE IS RUSSIAN MANIPULATION OF THE CAUCUS.  ONE CAN ONLY IMAGINE WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN NOVEMBER.  EACH SIDE NO MATTER THE RESULTS WILL CALL IT RIGGED ESPECIALLY OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM EMBARRASSMENT, TRUMP.  SEE LINK BELOW FOR A PICTURE OF HIS OUTRAGEOUS MOCKING OF THE ANTHEM DURING THE SUPERBOWL!

THE RATIONALS FOR THIS CAUCUS FIASCO ABOUND. THERE IS TOO MUCH AT STAKE.  ELECTING DRUMPF AGAIN IS OUTRAGEOUS.  INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS!

See the hypocrite Drumpf mocking the anthem link below.  Hypocrisy thy name is Trump!

https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article239913588.html?__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR0chTilVbjFMexJeCn55LPF5V0aqaXr_mFmoqC_RSPN2lQTxbuqOqEeMeU

Jared Kushner: Palestinians Have Never Done Anything Right in Their Sad, Pathetic Lives + My Comment

Now that is such a great way to win friends and influence your adversaries. What a DOPE. IF someone told you, Jared, which is more likely a truth that YOU never have done anything right in your sad and pathetic life how would YOU feel? Who taught you the art of negotiation, the Nazi school of law and diplomacy? JERK!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/jared-kushner-peace-plan-palestinians?fbclid=IwAR3Gl35TTeJ3NP6s73qYEWG7u69bDwHL_B29kiPqja3JoYUWkGrWRdIchsY

Progressive journalism is under attack. By Emily Singer The American Independent

Trump and his Republican Party of the Trump Cult have accelerated the pace, they had to.  For over 3 years they have be going about tearing up and then to rewrite the Constitution so it conforms not with a Democracy, but an Autocratic one party dictatorship. They will say and do anything tho defend the undefendable. They will stop at nothing to keep this criminal on the throne for his guilt,  his shame, Trump's crimes and abuses are also theirs.  They have placed Trump and in turn themselves above the law and above the rest of US. They have told Trump and Trump was eager for the recognition acceptance of his God like status, indeed, to not believe Trump is not the " Chosen One" make You and I enemies of Our Own Country.

To want this greedy racist ignorant presidential MORON to answer for his many sins and crimes makes me a liberal socialist a bad evil person and all that is further from the truth I am an American and I see TRUMP and the GOP KILLING OUR COUNTRY !

An Interesting Take: By Benjamin Whitney Winthrop Shallop

Benjamin Whitney Winthrop Shallop

As much as it pains me to say it, I must admit that I prefer there be no witnesses in the Senate Trial. Better this farce be blatant than to lend it any shred of credibility. 

No amount of witnesses or evidence will ever convince the Republicans in the Senate to stand up to this tyrant and do right by their country. I could opine on the reasons why....cowardice, racism, corruption each could be explored in great detail, but the end result would be the same: they will not only not act against a tyrant, they will gleefully cheer at the fall of the Republic governed by the rule of law and the rise of a dictatorship governed by the whims of a narcissistic psychopath. Given the foregone conclusion it is blatantly obvious that any witness, any real exploration of evidence, would only serve to legitimize this monstrosity...and I have no desire to legitimize any of this. Let it be shown for the farce it is.

This is not to say our Republic is dead, just that it is critically endangered. Whether or not the Republic is dead will be up to all of us this November. It’s not enough to vote, you must volunteer, make calls, knock doors, donate to organizations that get the vote out, register voters and do everything you can to actively engage in the democratic process. Do everything you can to ensure this Orwellian Cliche and all his enablers are defeated come November or hail Caesar and kiss your Republic goodbye....there is no middle road.

I could not have said it better myself

In a Boston Globe Sunday column entitled  "When doing the right thing no longer matters"  and written by Michael Cohen, a Globe columnist, I quote some of that which

describes the ever so sad impeachment saga.  Everyone including most Republicans I estimate know beyond a shadow of a doubt

this president is profoundly guilty of impeachable offenses.  We know he will never be held accountable because of a simple fact that the Democrats do not hold the majority

in the Senate where he is being tried.

The saga we know will end with the corrupter and liar in chief never being held to account for the plethora of unconstitutional deeds he has committed.  Worse than that

though are the thoughts contained in Cohen's editorial.  They are in pertinent part the following:

"HE'S GUILTY ... is THERE REALLY ANY DOUBT?  With those words Thursday evening, Representative Adam Schiff, the lead prosecutor in the in the Senate

impeachment trial of Donald Trump, summed up the totality of the case against the president.   Over the course of three days Schiff and his colleagues

offered overwhelming evidence that Trump abused his office for personal gain.

The case was so overwhelming, in fact, that the president's allies haven't even bothered to seriously rebut it. 

Yet, Senate Republicans could seemingly not care less.  They've dismissed the House managers case as "nothing new" or said it doesn't amount to evidence

of wrongdoing.  They've voted down motions allowing for new witness testimony and the subpoenaing of documents.  They will almost certainly vote to acquit him --

perhaps as soon as this week.

This outcome is as certain as Trump's guilt.

Why are they doing it?  The most obvious answer is that they want to keep their jobs.  The more distressing one is that there's little incentive for them to think

about anything else.

Every Republican senator knows that turning on Trump means putting their political careers  in peril.  And for those in seemingly safe seats -- and not up for reelection

this year -- removing Trump from office would likely produce a bloodbath for Republicans at the polls. 

Even for those Republicans who are retiring there is little to be gained from demanding witnesses or subpoenaing documents. ... Who needs the aggravation of doing the right thing,

when there is seemingly no penalty for doing the wrong thing?

Indeed, if there's any lesson we've learned over the past several years, it's that for the most powerful and well connected among us, the consequences for bad behavior are few

and far between. 

Destroy the economy -- keep your millions in bonuses and certainly don't face criminal charges.

Advocate torture, support a disastrous war -- remain a respected voice on foreign policy.

Repeatedly lie to the American people -- go on "Dancing with the Stars"

Brag about grabbing women by their genitals -- become president.

As Harvey Weinstein's trial for rape began last week, how many of the people who enabled his sexual assaults and harassment had lost their jobs or paid

a price for what they had done? How many of Jeffrey Epstein's enablers have been held accountable.

But worse than the lack of accountability for bad acts are the downsides of acting courageously.

In 2018, Christine Blasey Ford went public with charges of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  Now Kavanaugh has a lifetime appointment

to the highest court in the land and Ford was forced to move four times because of threats. ...

In a society where acting with integrity and courage destroys careers and bad acts are quickly brushed under the rug, there is little incentive to do the right thing."

I URGE  YOU TO READ THE OPINION IN ITS ENTIRETY ON PAGE K 1 IN THE SUNDAY GLOBE or posted below.  I could not have said it better myself!  

https://www.bostonglobe.com/.../when-right-no-longer.../...

GOP Senators Face Threat: ‘Vote Against the President and Your Head Will Be on a Pike’ -- My Comment: A Medieval prison

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/vote-against-the-president-and-your-head-will-be-on-a-pike-942631/?fbclid=IwAR3MHk-hSvnxeQTUsz48j5J-wCON0A4MSQE__v2TZDr8aCh2f3MpVeIrmjg

Narcissistic sociopath Trump's reign of terror is ugly and brutal.   If I were a Republican I would want either out of this Medieval prison or I would want to get together with those Republicans who know this present day Torquemada's power must be stopped. It is only then that what is in truth his weakness masquerading as draconian barbarity will be rendered impotent to hurt or to threaten them no more.

Those Republicans that support him and agree to go along with his cruel demands simply empower him to bully all of them without end. There should be a revolt within the Republican Party to render this sickening man powerless so that he will not bully them or anyone anymore.

Who would have the courage within the Republican Party to free themselves and others from the madness that is Trump?  Like dominoes they should fall from his stranglehold and in doing so save this nation and the world!

HuffPost Adam Schiff: 'Dangerous' Trump Must Be Removed -- MY COMMENT: THIS LINCOLNESQUE SPEECH MUST BE HEARD

ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANT SPEECHES I HAVE EVER HEARD. ADAM SCHIFF'S WORDS WERE STUNNING. I URGE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT HEARD THEM TO CLICK ON THIS POST AND LISTEN. THEN SEND THEM TO ALL WHOM YOU THINK WILL LISTEN AND THEN IF OR MORE PROBABLY WHEN THIS WOEFULLY UNFIT FOR THE PRESIDENCY, DONALD TRUMP, IS NOT REMOVED THEN VOTE BLUE UP AND DOWN THE TICKET TO MAKE SURE THIS PSYCHOLOGICALLY DAMAGED PATHOLOGY NEVER SEES THE INTERIOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE AGAIN!

Scroll down to the bottom of the link

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-impeachment-adam-schiff_n_5e2a6649c5b67d8874af4059?fbclid=IwAR1IF6leHcrzUXqcQhqHbT0Ol90bsFrXQI2KvFg3JY9ZpxWPhdiimrh5C1k

Trump Removes Pollution Controls on Streams and Wetlands

That ignorant bas&^% is deliberately trying to kill us. I loathe him more than I have words to express. It's an outside guess that the dastardly impact of this will be felt when Drumpf is not in the presidency so it will be felt in the next generation and the one after that. I hope someone mounts a strong objection to this. It is unconscionable!!

For your children's sake and for their children who come after them write Senators who are Republican about this noxious thing Trump is doing. Tell them to prevent this then tell them to IMPEACH AND CONVICT THEN VOTE BLUE UP AND DOWN THE TICKET!!

 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/climate/trump-environment-water.html?emc=edit_na_20200122&ref=cta&nl=breaking-news?campaign_id=60&instance_id=0&segment_id=20558&user_id=85a8ac1c6f518c011d82f4864472cc9b&regi_id=75028030

Magnificent I Have a Dream speech--Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963

I place the I have a dream speech here in its entirety below.  It is one of the greatest speeches in American History and for those of us who have empathy especially in view of the dastardly presidency of Donald Trump which has enveloped our nation it guarantees us to shed a tear.  He and those who defend Trump  have spit on our Constitution.  Listen to this speech by the great Martin Luther King and hope our nation can reverse all that has been done by Trump and his Republicans to erase equality for all people in this country who have worked so hard to get it.  We who yearn for justice share Martin Luther King's dream!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARvrvJV4th4&fbclid=IwAR3HMqTNihez5BCEWI5Rfu1djHP4hFhapZcHWOL_vNQWKySNh3FRwrVBON8

From Martin Luther King, Barack Obama to Trump

I watched and listened again to the Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream" speech delivered at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. The speech in magnificent totality ends by saying:

"... we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God almighty we are free at last"

tears rolled down my face.  My tears were composed of equal ingredients happy and sad. Tears of happiness because the nation until the present time had worked to achieve some of King's dream.  The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson SCOTUS decision which said separate can be in fact equal was overturned by the 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education momentous decision that found separate is inherently unequal paving the way for the integration of public schools across the nation.  Further efforts were made to root out the decidedly unfair and unjust consequences of being born black in this country such as the 1967 Loving v. Virginia another SCOTUS decision allowing interracial couples to love whom they choose and marry if they want.  More decisions rained down ensuring one's birth could not dictate where one chooses to live, eat or what section in a movie theater one decides to sit. 

The Alabama bus boycott of 1955 initiated by Rosa Parks who bravely refused to sit in the back of the bus helped erase the noxious rule that black people had to sit in the back of the bus because the front was reserved for whites. Ultimately landmark civil rights law would be enacted in the 1964 Civil Rights Act which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.  When one examines the advancement of persons of color through the present one is heartened by the immense progress that has been made.  The election of the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama, would become a seminal moment in the struggle for civil rights that was previously thought unthinkable and impossible.  It became not only thinkable but quite possible. 

How on God's earth did this nation achieve all the aforementioned equality and then elect, perhaps, the most malevolent, evil, racist and corrupt president in US history, Donald Trump?  A closeted hateful white supremacist and malignant narcissist calling himself a right wing nationalist became its 45th president ignoring the win of a Democrat by using the archaic electoral college to bypass a popular Democratic victory and place him in office.  While my tears are those of part happiness sadness still composes them as our republic now sits teetering in precarious balance because no law and no court decision in favor of human rights can erase the deep entrenched white racism that has always existed in this land. It is why the Republican Party today and its leadership are nearly all white. 

The journey from slavery to freedom is still long and while the the arc of freedom bends towards justice it can also back up and reverse itself into many years of social injustice yet again.  Donald Trump has given voice to the heretofore voiceless white supremacists, Proud Boys, Ku Klux Kansmen, gun advocates, well armed militias and other right wing extremists ready to sing Dixie while they threaten and advocate the overthrow of this nation. He calls some American Nazis and tiki torch carriers good people as good as those protesting them.  Sorry, Mr. Trump Nazi's are not good people. They are vicious anti Semites, racists and they are killers.

Hitler was a white nationalist.  Right wing Nationalism is mean, it is cruel, it is evil and it stands gun ready to overthrow the government of this country sanctioned by the dog whistle of this nation's historically worst president who says he can shoot someone in Time Square and get away with it.  He is being impeached on this day to see whether he can get away with other nefarious activities through the entire control of a Republican Party which loves money and power over truth and allegiance to the ideals of this balance of power nation.  His henchmen in that party and he need to be electorally crushed because impeachment conviction by a Republican majority Senate seems impossible. 

I want to hear our words to a new spiritual.  Free at last, free at last thank God almighty we are free of the curse of Trump at last!

Thousands Of Pro-Gun Activists And Far-Right Extremists Swarm Richmond, Virginia

Who the heck is trying to steal their precious guns for which the white supremacists think the government is coming? This is ridiculous. Look how long it has been taking after the Sandy Hook horror killing of 26 people 20 of whom were children to get simple legislation which would make background checks mandatory.

Sure the psychotics among the gun rights demonstrators in VA of which I can guess there are a number surely do not want background checks. Sorry, I do. In no way do I think lawmakers would touch the holy Second Amendment. Perish the thought. The Founders included the Second Amendment because coming from the perils of a monarchy and being 13 small colonies they wanted to make sure a dictatorship never developed by having a well regulated militia like the modern National Guard to defend them from that.

I aver our Founders never thought we would become a nation of 350 million people many of whom are in love with their guns. Our government will never (if Trump is defeated) turn into a raging dictatorship or monarchy. If I could wave a magic wand I would monitor those who want to buy a gun and further eliminate those tissue tearing weapons of war like the assault rifles. Unfortunately I am a lonely Democratic liberal who realizes this nation simply loves its guns. I wish it loved people as much!

Trump may not be removed by the Senate — but he’s still terrified of his trial. Here’s why

My Comment: This article below expresses exactly what I have been saying.  It is beautifully written and is right on point.  Why is Trump's base even in view of the fact that Trump's economic policies do not show that he gives a rat's petuti for their economic interests but really only cares about the interests of the top 2% as his permanent tax cuts for the rich show as do the trade tariffs which have wreaked havoc on farmers and others in the middle and working classes. So why do they support him no matter what he does, no matter how unethical he is, no matter how many crimes he commits and no matter how much he destroys our system of checks and balances the Founders so brilliantly bestowed upon us over 200 years ago.  The answer of course lies in racism, sexism and homophobia.  As long as Trump delivers on those things which he does his nearly all white base will continue their allegiance no matter if he betrays their social and economic class. This author below sees it the same way and writes about it more completely: 

Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon January 17, 2020

 

Donald Trump is scared. The Senate trial following his impeachment for a blackmail and campaign cheating scheme starts next week, and it’s driving him to distraction. He was supposed to host a lame event at the White House on Thursday to bolster fake concerns that white evangelicals are being oppressed, but blew off pandering to his strongest supporters for an hour, likely because he couldn’t pry himself away from news coverage of the impeachment trial’s kickoff. After ending the event swiftly, Trump then tweeted angrily, “I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!”
(As with most things the president says, this was untrue — he was impeached weeks ago, in December.)

Trump’s cold sweats are significant, because everyone who has been following this case knows that the Senate will acquit him. Not because he’s innocent — no one who has actually consulted the evidence is foolish enough to believe that — but because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans who control the Senate decided long ago that they would cover up for their shamelessly corrupt president no matter what he does. With such an assured outcome, Trump’s fears seem overblown and silly, even for someone crippled by sociopathic narcissism and its accompanying paranoia.

But it’s also true that high-profile travesties of justice, such as the one Senate Republicans are currently preparing to commit, can often provoke major political backlash. Getting a jury to acquit the obviously guilty can, as history shows, cause a public that’s already outraged about the crime to get even more furious. That, I suspect, is what Trump is sweating.

What the Senate is about to do is akin to the practice of jury nullification. That’s where a jury decides that either they don’t think the crime should be a crime at all, or that they believe people like the defendant should above the law, and so refuse to convict no matter how guilty the defendant is. This something that in theory, and sometimes in practice, can be used for good as when a jury refuses to throw someone in prison for a low-level drug offense, or refuses to enforce a law restricting free speech. But historically in the U.S., jury nullification has tended to be used to uphold injustice and reinforce racist or sexist systems of power.

In other words, exactly what Senate Republicans are planning to do. That becomes more obvious every day as more evidence of Trump’s guilt comes out, from the revelations by Rudy Giuliani’s former associate Lev Parnas to the Government Accountability Office declaring that Trump broke the law by withholding military aid to Ukraine.

The most disturbing and frequent historical examples of jury nullification come from the Jim Crow South, where it was normal for all-white juries to acquit Klansmen and others who committed racist murders — not because they genuinely believed they were innocent, but because they believed it should be legal for white people to murder black people in cold blood.

The most famous of these cases was that of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, two white men who murdered a black teenager named Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955. That the men had committed the crime was not in doubt — they described the murder in great detail to a reporter for Look magazine. But the all-white, all-male jury refused to convict, and didn’t really bother to hide the fact that they did so because they didn’t think white men should be punished for killing black people.

Unfortunately, this problem of white jurors refusing to convict in cases where the victims are black has not gone away. For instance, in the 2012 Florida killing of black teenager Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, a nearly all-white jury voted to acquit Zimmerman, even though Martin was apparently just walking home after buying some snacks and Zimmerman had been warned by a 911 operator not to pursue him — and even though Zimmerman’s only basis for suspecting Martin of anything was his race. The one woman of color on the jury has since publicly lamented the process and describes what sounds a lot like bullying from the white women in the room.

The defendants in those cases walked free, but the outrage that followed had political ramifications. Till’s murder helped draw national attention to the evils of the Jim Crow South and helped bolster support for the burgeoning civil rights movement. Martin’s murder, decades later, helped build support for what became known as the Black Lives Matter movement.

Sometimes the backlash to injustice can be earth-shaking, as happened in 1992, when Los Angeles was torn up by riots in the wake of the acquittal by a majority-white jury of four cops who were caught on video severely beating Rodney King, a black motorist they had pulled over for speeding.

These are all racially loaded cases, of course, which sets them apart from Trump’s impeachment over his efforts to cheat in the 2020 election and his cavalier willingness to use government resources to force foreign leaders to help him do so. Trump’s inevitable acquittal in the Senate won’t be quite the gut-punch so many people feel when white men get sprung for committing racist crimes.

Still, the social circumstances of Trump’s upcoming acquittal go straight back to those same forces of white supremacy that have led to so many other travesties of justice in the past. After all, the main reason Senate Republicans are averse to taking what seems to be an easy way out — convicting the obviously guilty Trump and letting his Republican Vice President, Mike Pence, take over — is because they fear crossing the notoriously loyal Trump base, who represent their only possible chance of holding onto the Senate or retaking the House this November.

And the reason that base is so loyal, as with many things in this country, relates to racism. Trump’s base is motivated by what sociologists delicately call “racial resentment,” which is a nice way of saying that these white people see changing demographics in the U.S. and growing challenges to white domination, and they’re angry about it. Furthermore, they see President Trump, a blatant and shameless racist, as their best weapon to fight to preserve a system of white supremacy.

As long as Trump keeps delivering on the racism — which he has done in a myriad of ways — his base doesn’t care what crimes he commits. After all, Trump committed his crime to hang onto power so he can continue to inflict cruel racist policies on our entire nation. In that sense, this case shares a common root with those more explicitly racist acquittals of the past. They’re all part of the long and ugly American tradition of letting white people get away with crime, so long as they do it in the name of white supremacy.
But watching obviously guilty people get away with it can also have a galvanizing political effect, and not just when the crime itself is racially provocative. As the #MeToo movement and the Women’s March demonstrated, Americans have also been roused to outrage when men commit sexual assaults and get away with it. And the ongoing fascination with gangsters who finally get caught after evading justice for years — Al Capone, Whitey Bulger, John Gotti — suggests a real hunger to see bad guys pay for what they do.

That’s what Donald Trump fears: That his acquittal will not be read as an exoneration, but as yet another famous miscarriage of justice that leads to outrage across the nation. Let’s hope his worst fears come true.

I Pray for Our Nation

We all need  to work tirelessly to rid ourselves of the plague of Trump.  The latest is that Lev Parnas, Giuliani's go to man in Ukraine, working with another Republican low life from Connecticut has coughed up a trove of the most incriminating documents seemingly threatening the wonderful Ukrainian  Ambassador Yovanovich as they, if one can believe it, were monitoring her, her computer, her cell phone and her comings and goings in Ukraine and to remove her from office.  One might think we lived in a third world nation controlled by Mafia-like figures. 

The greatest gift we can bestow on the American people and us is to rid ourselves of Trump Corruption, Inc. either through impeachment conviction or by the secured vote. I ask all Dems and those who sympathize with us to monitor the vote to make sure Republicans do not corrupt it.  Republicans win when they cheat and Democrats stay home.  Get out the Democratic vote!

Look up the latest Trump fiasco in Ukraine, the subject of the Articles of Impeachment, to listen with incredulous ears to what has been going on with Trump minions in Ukraine.  It is guaranteed to make one ill.

I pray for our nation at this most unsettling time!

 

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/house-intelligence-committee-handwritten-notes-ukraine_n_5e1e4746c5b674e44b8f362e

Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment--My Comment: from the inside out

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/politics/russian-hackers-burisma-ukraine.html?fbclid=IwAR2ittLz3udPr_KihbQipumSU4eVl0QjH9kkCEh7EY4LNC2p9UjXVdu7dQY

This is so unacceptable in our democracy it makes my head explode. Where is the FBI, where are other institutions that should be preparing for something Mueller told us would happen? Russia will and is stealing the 2020 election for Trump.  Why am I not surprised?

This president will do all he can to allow Russia to do this encouraging Russian hacking those entities that could get Trump to steal an election yet another time to get him elected. This is an abomination. The FBI, the CIA, the NSC and Homeland Security should be working at this NON STOP to halt this Russian (or any foreign government) from attacking and interfering in this nation's democratic process. This is an act of war as if a nation dropped a bomb on it attempting to destroy it. Russia is desirous of pulling this nation apart and destroying it from the inside out

"Chris Cuomo Exposes Trump’s 2020 Strategy: ‘Keep People Pissed Off And Frustrated’

The CNN host said the president needs 'Orwellian double-speak' to win."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chris-cuomo-donald-trump-2020-plan_n_5e1d7402c5b6da971d1bb9b9

‘When They See Us’ Wins Big At Critics’ Choice Awards After Snubs -- My Comment -- It's about time

"When They See Us" wins at Critics Choice Awards after rejections: I cannot think of one film that deserves it more than "When They See Us." The horror of the Central Park jogger and the rush to white judgment arresting the wrong young black and Latino teenagers  is front and center about the dastardly issue of race in this nation. Persons of color have suffered since the first slave ship dropped off its accursed cargo in 1619 in Virginia.

Things change from generation to generation, of course, but being born black in this nation always was and still is fraught with danger and unjustifiable racism. Hollywood is finally waking up to the contribution persons of color have made. It's been a long journey from Gone With the Wind's Mammy to "How they See Us." All I can say is it's about time! 

 

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-they-see-us-win-critics-choice-awards_n_5e1bc64bc5b6da971d1814a5

Soleimani's dead. Do I feel safer?

The assassinated Soleimani was a very big player next in line to the leader of Iran. A million Iranians came out to grieve him. Although he was an enemy of the US he was loved by many Iranians. Trump could have taken out anyone or secured the bases he says were under constant threat even though they cannot be named.  Whether one hates Soleimani or not, the order to assassinate him ratcheted up exponentially a widening war worry.  Worse, the jet liner that was either mistakenly or not-so-mistakenly taken out by an Iranian missile carries with it the possibility and fear of a rationale for a widening war. Iran is removing the evidence of the air crash so those neutral entities like Ukraine, Canada and even the NTSB from the US will not have important pertinent wreckage for analysis.

Further, Manuchin just announced new sanctions which will devastate the Iranian economy even more. I don't think Iran will simply say ho hum okay we understand. No, it is yet another provocative act by this incompetent administration to send chills down our spines.  Do I feel safer now that Soleimani is dead? Answer: No most definitely not!