From the New York Times. An actor evaluates DJT as an entertainer, which is his true ambition.
Category: Politics
Stop the Second Guessing: Enforce the Constitution
I have heard enough of the posturing and positioning on impeachment. I don’t care if there are not enough votes to convict in the Senate. I don’t care if it infuriates the so-called base. (No one cared about my feelings when they impeached President Clinton.) I don’t care about the Democrats from marginal districts who will be called on to campaign harder and argue more passionately for what is right. Will an acquittal be taken as exoneration and inspire even more abuses of power?
It is always so easy to rationalize the lack of courage.
Making the case for impeachment should be quite simple. We see it every day. DJT has no respect for the Constitution. His oath of office is treated as if it were sworn on a copy of “The Art of the Deal”. He flouts congressional inquiries and even the laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the office he holds (usually President Obama for whom he holds a very personal grudge).
So, it’s time to get on with it, Speaker Pelosi. Put the likes of Ted Cruz and John Cornyn on the spot and see if they will, in the last analysis, do the right thing. If not, allow them to align their party for the next century with the toxic ethical swamp that DJT represents.
I can’t even call him president.
Angry, Depressed and Getting Older while Trump Wrecks Our Democracy? Try This . . . .
Today is my birthday. I have been fortunate to accompany aging with a way of staying in touch with young people. It has been a nice way to temper my anger and disappointment about the current state of American politics with a little hope for the future. I would prefer to be able to do this with regular discussions with grandchildren the way it was done when the generations were less geographically mobile.
My grandchildren, all of them, now live over a thousand — some of them two thousand — miles from us. Their periodic visits offer only limited opportunity to have the kind of conversations that would allow me to explore the world from their vantage point.
If I were to sit here in the evenings getting only the news from Washington and other parts of the deteriorating world, I would be constantly moving between depression and anger. How did our generation let this happen?
We allowed the democratic process to be manipulated in such a way that a person with no knowledge or appreciation of how our government works wound up in its most powerful position. He is objectively racist in his core, selfish and self-centered to a nauseating degree, unlearned in the basic literature of democratic enlightenment, and incompetent in the skills of governing. All that has been well covered in the news for anyone who is willing to dig a little and read beyond the superficialities of cable TV, social media, and the National Enquirer.
Continue reading “Angry, Depressed and Getting Older while Trump Wrecks Our Democracy? Try This . . . .”An Open Letter to My U.S. Senators
Dear Senators Cornyn and Cruz:
I just watched you through a news camera’s lens from a distance as you welcomed the president to El Paso. It was your duty, certainly, as our state’s United States senators. But you have another duty that bears on your relationship with the president and your party. And you should be cognizant of how that relationship looks to the people you represent.
The people bullies need most and respect least are cowards. And you have met the president’s need for cowards time and time again. I think you can be better than that or I would not be writing.
I am a constituent of yours. And while we most often disagree on policy and legislation, I am nevertheless entitled to your most basic services. And perhaps the most crucial one is simply that you show courage in the performance of your duties.
The voters of Texas have entrusted you with the job of discerning what is best for Texas and America. What I am asking you to do is to sit down with members of the Senate, including the minority, your senate leadership and the president to make some meaningful decisions about how we confront domestic terrorism, racism and gun violence in our country. And I expect you to stand up to the president and the majority leader and tell them when they are wrong about the needs of the people you represent.
What happened this weekend in El Paso can’t be blamed on video games, mental health, “fake news” or social media. Gun violence at the level of horror we saw in El Paso begins with the largely unregulated marketing of powerful instruments of war to the mass market. The motive is money, not constitutional rights. Don’t look to your party and the NRA to tell you what to do. Do what is right. Do your job.
The prerequisite for any legislative solution is that you demonstrate moral integrity and enough spine to disagree with the president and the NRA.
Texans have a right to expect this from their United States Senators.
Thank you.
Lake Jackson Citizen
Ugly Doubles Down – How Ugly Will It Get?
I never thought there was much point in attempting to advise my Republican friends on political matters. But now I think they may be in more of a mood to listen than is usually the case.
In my lifetime, our politics has never been darker and uglier than it is today. Look no further than the presidency.
To begin to understand the ugliness, we have to appreciate the president’s situation. His once-upon-a-time personal attorney is in a federal prison for tax evasion, financial fraud and campaign finance violations. In his indictment, an “Individual One” was described as participating in and benefitting from those crimes but was not indicted because that individual is the president of the United States and Department of Justice policy does not allow indictment of a serving president. Rather, it directs complaints of high crimes and misdemeanors to Congress and the impeachment process. Continue reading “Ugly Doubles Down – How Ugly Will It Get?”
What a Day to Be Sending Money to the IRS
El Commandante Naranja is probably in the green room about now touching up his makeup and patting down his cowlick before he takes the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial tonight. His day was nearly ruined by news that U.S. military tanks would damage the D.C. streets and maybe cause his presidential transportation to be thrown out of alignment.
I am now wishing I had a Twitter account so I could better communicate my day-saving idea to @realDonaldTrump. But here it is: Since he can’t have tanks on Pennsylvania Avenue, maybe he could satisfy his militaristic-authoritarian dream by training some Continue reading “What a Day to Be Sending Money to the IRS”
