This one's been sitting in the queue for a while, while the craziness just piles higher, each and every day. So let me begin by addressing just the most fearsome of so many recent lunacies.
Congress must cancel the 2001 War Powers act that gave the president (based on those WMD lies) pretty much carte blanche. If they had a glimmer of gumption they would replace it with a commission of American sages who can - if unanimous - free the military chain of command to ignore or pause precipitate or suicidal orders from any POTUS.
This would likely pass any Supreme Court test. A president is "commander-in-chief" - a tactical role afforded by the Constitution, but Congress has the right to declare actual war and that right must be taken back. Now.
And sure, the saber rattling today is about North Korea. (Elsewhere I've offered a way to motivate China to act, at last -- by declaring they'll be liable for civil damages for any actions taken by Kim. Those accountants will take that seriously!) But come on. Korea? Really?
Bannon and Gorka and every other oligarchic power center, from the Iranian mullahs to the Saudis and many less-smart Israelis to our oil barons and -- above all -- Vladimir Putin all desperately want Donald Trump to distract the world from his troubles by pouring brief swarms of pippety-poppety tomahawks into Iran, making lots of flash and doing very little real harm, while oil prices skyrocket, the mullahs crush the Persian democrats and Putin gets a loyal protectorate. And yes, the mullahs would chortle with joy, as their power in Tehran is locked-in for another generation. It is the win-win scenario deeply desired by every despot on Earth.
But enough said about today's mania. Let me now put in some bigger perspectives, before the next news cycle exhausts us, further.
== "Resistance" isn't futile. But do it smart ==
Never let it be said that the left lacks its own (much smaller but loud) array of impulsively emotional fools. “Several thousand protesters marched through downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, waving signs and chanting, “Down, down, down with Trump — up, up, up with the people” as they urged Congress to impeach the president.”
Oh sure, go ahead and march. But it’s absurd to use the “I” word, yet. Impeachment now would be the height of stupidity, for reasons that I lay down – clearly – here.
Congress must cancel the 2001 War Powers act that gave the president (based on those WMD lies) pretty much carte blanche. If they had a glimmer of gumption they would replace it with a commission of American sages who can - if unanimous - free the military chain of command to ignore or pause precipitate or suicidal orders from any POTUS.
This would likely pass any Supreme Court test. A president is "commander-in-chief" - a tactical role afforded by the Constitution, but Congress has the right to declare actual war and that right must be taken back. Now.And sure, the saber rattling today is about North Korea. (Elsewhere I've offered a way to motivate China to act, at last -- by declaring they'll be liable for civil damages for any actions taken by Kim. Those accountants will take that seriously!) But come on. Korea? Really?
Bannon and Gorka and every other oligarchic power center, from the Iranian mullahs to the Saudis and many less-smart Israelis to our oil barons and -- above all -- Vladimir Putin all desperately want Donald Trump to distract the world from his troubles by pouring brief swarms of pippety-poppety tomahawks into Iran, making lots of flash and doing very little real harm, while oil prices skyrocket, the mullahs crush the Persian democrats and Putin gets a loyal protectorate. And yes, the mullahs would chortle with joy, as their power in Tehran is locked-in for another generation. It is the win-win scenario deeply desired by every despot on Earth.
But enough said about today's mania. Let me now put in some bigger perspectives, before the next news cycle exhausts us, further.
== "Resistance" isn't futile. But do it smart ==
Never let it be said that the left lacks its own (much smaller but loud) array of impulsively emotional fools. “Several thousand protesters marched through downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, waving signs and chanting, “Down, down, down with Trump — up, up, up with the people” as they urged Congress to impeach the president.”
Oh sure, go ahead and march. But it’s absurd to use the “I” word, yet. Impeachment now would be the height of stupidity, for reasons that I lay down – clearly – here.
But the simplest is that our civil servants and military officers are now totally alert and will stymie anything truly awful. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is the Republicans’ problem. His replacement - in contrast - would run a tightly disciplined White House packed with Dominionist fanatics, bent on ending the world… and I mean that literally. Go read my many reasons for patience.
Even better would be for some Democrats to use what is blatant about Donald Trump’s psychology! Is not a single democratic politician able to see? Actually see what we have before us? Or read a psychological profile? The dems – led by Schumer, Warren and Franken – need to gather and pick straws. And the short straw “winners” will have a simple duty – that I lay out here. It must be done! For the sake of our nation, civilization and children!
== Pundits: Good, the Bad the Hopeful and Ugly ==
I’ll start with the ugly. This essay, by Vijad Prashad is utter drivel. A complete panic-rant. It contains almost nothing that is either true or helpful. And hence, I urge you to read it and inoculate yourself against the kind of leftist babble that will not aid us in our mission of overcoming the right’s psychotic madness. Panic… does… not… help.
In sharp contrast is this test of your maturity: "How I became a man without a party," by Bruce Bartlett, a lifelong Republican who served in the Reagan White House. (His latest book: The Truth Matters: A Citizen's Guide to Separating Facts from Lies and Stopping Fake News.) In moving gradually – then hastily – against the growing Republican/confederate insanity, he does not apologize for – or recant – at least some of the Reagan-conservative views that he then supported. Others, he admits, appear to have failed. But, he asserts, they sincerely seemed worth trying, at the time. In other words, while conservative, he is also a human being and citizen who is grownup enough to heed facts and evidence.
Bartlett now freely admits what any sensible citizen must: that the entire conservative movement has been hijacked by monsters.
“The incompetence of the George W. Bush administration finally drove me over the edge…. In 2005, I wrote a book attacking Bush from the right called “Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy”. No Republican today would disagree with a word that I wrote, but, at the time, criticizing a Republican president was grounds for defenestration. I was fired from my job at a conservative think tank and banished from polite Republican company.”
“For a few years, I still considered myself to be a Republican, hoping that some degree of sanity would be restored. But it only got much worse. The election of Obama seemed to drive even moderate Republicans over the edge into hysterical hatred and opposition, egged on by the so-called tea party, which consisted entirely of people who knew absolutely nothing about government or policy except that they were mad as hell.
“This dictatorship of the idiocracy drove me out of the GOP. I began referring to myself as an independent. Once freed from needing to feign party loyalty, I found myself receptive to ideas I had once rejected out of hand. I wrote a book that was skeptical of supply-side economics — the Republican theory that tax cuts are the cure for every economic problem. I wrote columns sympathetic to the welfare state and other heresies. I lost the last few Republican friends I had.”
In other words, this fellow is an archetype of the people we must find, hunt down, and confront, grabbing their lapels until they agree to harrow with us out of hell. Nothing else will make the needed difference, more than luring ten million residually sane, decent, patriotic, science-admiring American “ostrich conservatives” to lift their heads out of denial. Just 10 million, out of a population of 360 million. If we can win over that many more Bruce Bartletts, the nation – and civilization – will be saved.
I referred to this elsewhere, in urging that the Democrats create a Big Tent that’s welcoming, even to Americans who retain this or that conservative trait or view. And yes, I describe where to find candidates who can invade red districts and do this on the ground. Taking our country back. See one spectacular example that has gone viral, a retired Marine Lt. Col. fighter pilot -- she may make a huge difference in Kentucky! Though overall, little good will be done unless these super-smart missiles are aimed into every single red state assembly and senate district, too.
Ah, but will we welcome these folks? Bartlett – apparently sincere – fears we won’t. He writes, “I’ve grown to hate my former party. You’d think this would make me a prime candidate for recruitment by the Democrats. But I’m not. First, no Democrat has ever reached out to me. I am not insulted by this, only surprised. And my efforts to suggest ideas to Democrats have been uniformly rebuffed. Like the Republicans, Democrats are wary of apostates and are only receptive to those born into their church, it seems.”
Ah, but will we welcome these folks? Bartlett – apparently sincere – fears we won’t. He writes, “I’ve grown to hate my former party. You’d think this would make me a prime candidate for recruitment by the Democrats. But I’m not. First, no Democrat has ever reached out to me. I am not insulted by this, only surprised. And my efforts to suggest ideas to Democrats have been uniformly rebuffed. Like the Republicans, Democrats are wary of apostates and are only receptive to those born into their church, it seems.”
Like so much of what this former Reaganite believed, we must prove that this, too, is mistaken.
== The soup-du-jour ==
The article/essay that's circulating most widely, right now is "How America Lost Its Mind The nation’s current post-truth moment is the ultimate expression of mind-sets that have made America exceptional throughout its history," by Kurt Anderson, which appears in this issue of The Atlantic.
== The soup-du-jour ==
The article/essay that's circulating most widely, right now is "How America Lost Its Mind The nation’s current post-truth moment is the ultimate expression of mind-sets that have made America exceptional throughout its history," by Kurt Anderson, which appears in this issue of The Atlantic.
It might not cheer you up. (And I don't agree with every appraisal.)
But now that the War on Science and against all fact-using professions has spread to include the "deep state" FBI, Intelligence agents and the U.S. Military Officer Corps, we really need to dust off our supposedly superior brainpower to solve the potentially lethal sickness of Idiocracy.
Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was released from prison in Minnesota. For 6 years this admitted child molester was head of the Republican Party and the GOP's standard bearer. He declared the "Hastert Rule" that threatened punishment against any Republican who, at any level or for any reason, ever negotiated - even over matters vital to the national interest - with any Democrat, helping Rupert Murdoch to turn the GOP into the most tightly disciplined partisan machine in U.S. history.
Hastert's #2 Republican - Tom DeLay - who raised political cheating to a high art, also became a convicted felon.
(Oh and count the number of Fox News ranters and GOP congressmen who have been revealed as sexual predators! Two recent examples? Members of the Oklahoma legislature were forced to end their time in office prematurely. State Rep. Dan Kirby (R) had a nasty habit of making unwanted sexual advances toward female members of his staff, while State Sen. Ralph Shortey (R) allegedly had an even nastier habit of paying for sex...with children. So, they're both out. Then of course there's more recent news about Fox's alleged sexual predator number... 20? Eric Bolling.)
(Oh and count the number of Fox News ranters and GOP congressmen who have been revealed as sexual predators! Two recent examples? Members of the Oklahoma legislature were forced to end their time in office prematurely. State Rep. Dan Kirby (R) had a nasty habit of making unwanted sexual advances toward female members of his staff, while State Sen. Ralph Shortey (R) allegedly had an even nastier habit of paying for sex...with children. So, they're both out. Then of course there's more recent news about Fox's alleged sexual predator number... 20? Eric Bolling.)
Hastert's tenure, two heartbeats from the presidency, followed the previous top Republican - a 3x divorcé - and preceded the fellow who lied to us all about WMDs and plunged us into trillion dollar quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. But fundamentalists will make any excuse for the stunning immorality of GOP leaders - including the present "grabber."
They excuse these opposite-to-Jesus stinkers for one reason. Because they hate the same folks. Scientists. Teachers. Journalists. Law professionals. Anyone who deals in facts.
They excuse these opposite-to-Jesus stinkers for one reason. Because they hate the same folks. Scientists. Teachers. Journalists. Law professionals. Anyone who deals in facts.
When you have a common enemy, all is forgiven. And yes. Judge a movement and its members by who they proclaim as their enemies! All the folks who look at God's creation - called objective reality - with Heaven's greatest gift. Honest curiosity.
== Miscellaneous Facts ==
The U.S. teen birth rate plummeted 53% since 2007, with a 9% drop in 2016 alone, as all of the vigorous Obama-era programs took full effect.
Robert Reich is pushing Medicare-for-all… and sure, yeah, I support it. But with open eyes, cause there are problems. Medical care is unlimited, "non-fungible," and hence has to be rationed in one way or another. The old vile insurance system rationed by kicking out the sick and the poor to die. Europeans ration by committee and giving 'priority' to children who calculate out to have more quality years at stake. In pushing medicare-for-all, you are asking for the latter. Be honest about it. Yes it is better, but don't pretend it'll be problem-free.
Oh, ye yanks out there; do you know any verses of the Star Spangled Banner, other than the first? Have a look - and listen to - the fifth verse added by Oliver Wendell Holmes, as our nation fell into treason and Civil War, back in the 1860s.
Here’s half:
When our land is illum'd with Liberty's smile,
If a foe from within strike a blow at her glory,
Down, down, with the traitor that dares to defile
The flag of her stars and the page of her story!
The reference to betrayal from “within” seems especially apropos, as a New Confederacy rises, bent on destroying our Great Experiment in ways far more devious and effective than mere secession. Read - and listen to - the rest. Feel stirred, awakened, and roused to duty.
