Marj's Blog - Marj-at-Large: News &Views

Republicans Missed Their Chance

7/28/2022

In the final session of the current series of hearings, the January 6th Committee, now on hiatus, brought us the perfect two-part meme for today’s Republican party:

First, a photo of a grim-faced Josh Hawley, fist raised in solidarity with a mob of insurrectionists temporarily restrained by law enforcement outside the capitol building … followed by
A video of the selfsame guy, the junior senator from Missouri, scurrying away through a corridor a short time later as the horde he had just emboldened swarmed inside.

It’s the perfect encapsulation of the cowardice of the Republican establishment.

We all know, do we not? … that the Republican party had two get-out-of-jail-free cards they could have played that would have allowed them to derail Trump’s political career, free the party and themselves individually from his self-serving domination, and, perhaps, get back to the business of governing … if they can figure out what the business of governing is.

The House of Representatives has the sole power to impeach, i.e., to specify charges, as detailed in Article 1 of the Constitution, but only the Senate can convict an officer (in this case, the president) on the charges brought in the House’s impeachment.

And here’s the most important result of such a conviction: “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.” (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 3.)

In other words, if enough Senate Republicans (17, to be exact) had had the courage to vote for Trump’s conviction, the Senate could have barred him from holding office for the rest of his life. Voila! Freedom for all from the self-serving juvenile who has treated this country like his own personal gold-plated playpen.

The Republicans might have done well to remember the immortal words of Benjamin Franklin. Upon signing the Declaration of Independence, he reportedly said, “We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” A 100-0 vote in the Senate would have been about as clear a message as it’s possible to give. As it turned out, Trump’s still free to pursue what I hope is the impossible dream and, if not Trump, there are plenty of would-be pretenders waiting in the wings.

A Tale of Two Countries

3/30/2022

It’s difficult to be a pacifist these days. It’s only human, I think, to want revenge on those responsible for the death and destruction wrought by Putin’s forces on Ukraine. How does one not feel grief and outrage? It’s almost too much to bear, even at this remove. And yet … with all the horror and inhumanity come moments that uplift: volunteers caravanning refugees away from danger; a woman traveling with her own two children, taking a third under her wing when she finds him, a stranger, sitting in the street beside his dead mother; Chef Jose Andres and World Central Kitchen volunteers serving thousands of meals a day to hungry refugees; lively entertainers greeting fleeing young children as they disembark from trains; performers bringing the sounds of music into subways where thousands shelter, stranded; and the uncountable volunteers who donate clothing, strollers, food, personal items, and sometimes even housing to those whose homes are now destroyed.

Millions of lives have been cruelly uprooted. Surely I’m not the only one who thinks: There but for the grace of God go I. The physical devastation—the bombed-out buildings, the crushed cars, the remnants of children’s swings—we can see. But there’s so much damage that’s invisible: the emotional devastation of losing home, belongings, community, family; the evaporation of an unquestioning sense of safety; the innate belief that life somehow, eventually, makes sense. Now, innocence is lost and lives, changed. Many will be haunted forever.

On several occasions last week, for those of us luckier, more privileged, and thousands of miles removed, there was relief of a sort from the devastation in Ukraine as television turned our attention to the hearings on the historic nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson, enroute to becoming the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Going from one venue to another felt like whiplash. We went from scenes of crumbling cities, structures in flames, and crowds of refugees to the relative calm of an expensively appointed Senate hearing room where we witnessed the American political system in its typical uneven fettle.

You know what I mean. There were those senators who were interested in Judge Jackson’s previous legal experience—her rulings in cases she had heard, her work as a public defender, her views on “originalism.” There was an emotional paean from Sen. Corey Booker (D-New Jersey). But the whole process was degraded by others who littered the landscape with such ludicrous questions that they couldn’t be taken seriously. For instance …

Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina), “What faith are you?” and “On a scale of 1 to 10, how faithful would you say you are in terms of religion?”

Ted Cruz (R-Texas), “Do you agree … that babies are racist?”

Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), “Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” (Judge Jackson’s reply: “…No. I can’t.”)

Then, Ted Cruz once more, as he prodded Judge Jackson to define the word, “I think you’re the only Supreme Court nominee in history who has been unable to answer the question.”

My question is this: How many have been asked? … And how many prospective male appointees have been asked to define the word “man”?

Juxtaposed with the unfolding calamity in Ukraine, the pettiness of such questions was particularly stark. This isn’t the first hearing to go off the rails. There have been worse. But we need to do better.

The GOP: A Few Questions

10/31/2021

Even now, nearly five years after the unthinkable election of Donald Trump to the highest office in the land, it mystifies me. Not the outcome of the election itself; we can take some comfort (though not much) in the knowledge that he lost the popular vote and was installed in the White House only because of the constitutional quirk called the electoral college.

No. What mystifies me is the perilous surrender of independent thought by people who should (and do) know better. The toddler is out of office now, thank goodness. But in his wake we have the detritus of a political party that has forgotten who it is, that remains as tied to the unhinged former guy as it was during the nightmare years, and that now has a singular goal: Contaminating the election process so completely that no matter what candidate receives the largest number of votes, the Republican will win.

“Republican,” of course, no longer means what it did in the past. It once referred to a political party. Now, it refers to something more accurately known as Trumpism and it’s not a political party at all nor does it pretend to be. In the 2020 election (you may not have noticed this in the sturm und drang of the process), the Republicans didn’t even bother to write a platform. I guess we were just to presume we’d get more of the chaos of the previous four years and let it go at that.

The more I think about all this, the more questions I have and the fewer answers.

First and foremost: Why did GOP senators not take control of their fate, band together and vote to convict Trump in either of his impeachment trials? If they had, we would be rid of him (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 3) and presumably the GOP could have begun to reconstitute itself as a real political party.

That going unanswered, my next questions are these: What? and How?

What are the perks of being a Congressperson or Senator that render persons willing to
- efface themselves
- spew falsehoods
- become willfully blind to what is happening around them, and
- in general, deny their own moral compass (assuming they had one before they embarked on a political career)

Beyond the obvious threat to withhold political support and back a primary opponent, how does Trump evince such loyalty? If we were living in a rational world, we would probably guess either
- by threatening the safety of the politician and his or her family or
- by offering monetary reward

Although Trump and his gaggle of hangers-on sometimes behave as though a presidential election is just around the corner, we have three more years to go, and a lot can happen between now and then. It’s encouraging to see prominent conservatives joining others from varied political backgrounds to call for Congress to pass voting rights legislation, even if it’s necessary to change the filibuster to do so. “An Open Letter in Defense of Democracy” penned by three political thinkers and supported by many others can be read in The Bulwark.

And for a more extensive list of current and former Republican officials who have indicated they lean away from Trump, see a running list in The New York Times You’ll find many familiar names: Cindy McCain, John Kasich, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John Bolton, just to name a few. Perhaps a real political party will emerge from the wreckage of the GOP. Perhaps that will save our democracy.

Half Crazed and Half Sane: Political Life in America

6/6/2021

On June 17, 1858, Abraham Lincoln accepted the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate. In his acceptance speech, he famously said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure … half slave and half free.”

Racism had enabled Whites, apparently guilt-free, to enslave other human beings. More than 150 years later, with racism still a force in America, we’ve come to another critical divide, not as cruel, not as inhumane, but dangerous for us all. That’s the divide between illusion and reality.

This democracy cannot survive, half crazed and half sane.

Lost Opportunities

Republican senators had two opportunities to join their Democratic colleagues in convicting an inept, corrupt president after he was impeached by the Democratically-controlled House. Hostage to Trump, Republican senators refused.

They then could have joined their Democratic colleagues in creating an independent panel to investigate the unprecedented (and, until the age of Trump, unimaginable) attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Hostage to Trump, again they refused.

That’s head-in-the-sand insane. The Republican party has been hijacked. It lives in the world of Donald Trump's illusion.

Meanwhile, while Trump continues to hawk the notion that the Dems "stole" the election, a video surfaces in which the Texas attorney general happily takes credit for Trump's win there. He simply blocked the distribution of mail-in ballots in selected areas, he tells us. Then there's also the inconvenient fact that federal judges rejected or declined to hear 61 of the 62 lawsuits in which Trump attempted to overturn election results in states Joe Biden won.

The Time of Magical Thinking

Analyzing stages of child development, Jean Piaget, 20th century Swiss psychologist, identified early childhood as a time of magical thinking, a time in which a child believes that what he or she wishes will affect actual events. Piaget theorized that most children emerge from that stage around the age of 10.

But as Trump continues to claim he’ll be “reinstated” as president soon, I wonder: Is Trump stuck in this stage, the time of magical thinking? And is this “stuckness” reinforced by a Republican party that has taken him to heights that, by any measure, is beyond his scope? Do Republicans truly believe their only power comes from a guy

whose support depends entirely upon their surrendering independent thought and action?

If so, they become powerful, ironically, only by becoming powerless.

Think of the consequences …

In the House, Greg Pence, Indiana 6th congressional district rep, votes against authorizing an independent investigation into the January 6th insurrection, one aim of which was to hang the vice president, aka his brother!
In the Senate, Mitch McConnell, majority leader, repeatedly demands that Republican senators block action that would support the continued existence of democracy--by authorizing the creation of an independent body to investigate the insurrection, for instance.
Republican senators, complicit in the constipation of the Senate and hungry for donations from deep-pocket donors, sheep-like, comply.

What Motivates Voters?

Still, there’s the question of what motivates the voters to cast their ballots for such a transparently selfish and unprepared man.

Science journalist Tanya Lewis, writing in Scientific American, says “What attracts people to Trump? … The reasons are multiple and varied, but … developmental wounds … make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence—while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. … When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals.”

In Plain English ...

In other words (and more crassly), it’s akin to the relationship between Jim Jones and the 900-plus members of his cult who “drank the kool-aid” in a mass suicide in Jonestown in 1978.

It should come as no surprise that Trump’s hunger for adulation is driving him to resume prematurely his “rallies.” I suppose they fill a need for a man once characterized by an interviewer as having achieved something remarkable: “an existence unmolested by the rumbling of a soul.”

Fear the Fearful Republicans

5/28/2021

Once we had two major political parties that, every four years, articulated their goals in documents known as platforms, revealing their concerns for the country and plans for improving our lives. Now we have a party that still does that and another that has been captured by the man now known as “the former guy.”

It must be terrible to be in the latter group. With a few notable exceptions, to be a Republican operative in good standing is to give up your right to conscience, critical thought and free will. Instead, you surrender to fear.

Then this is what happens ...

Your fear of large swaths of voters drives you to do whatever you can to deprive selected constituents, especially Blacks and other minorities, of their right to vote. (Witness states' voter suppression laws.)

Your fear of females (even if you’re a female yourself—go figure) means you believe state governments rightfully limit women’s control over their own bodies. Mandating vaginal probes. Requiring a pregnant woman to view ultrasounds of the fetus. Setting impossibly early deadlines for abortion decisions. (This is "small government?")

Your fear of those who identify as LGBTQ results in your failure to support states’ anti-discrimination laws in areas such as housing and to stand behind measures limiting the participation of transgender athletes in sports they love. (What, exactly, are you afraid of?)

But worse than all the above, you fear the truth. You fear the truth so desperately that you demand expensive recounts of votes in what has been characterized by those in the know as the most secure election in history.*

You fear the truth so desperately that you blocked the creation of an independent commission to investigate the facts surrounding the bloody insurrection at our Capitol on January 6th.

And this brings us to the most damning fear of all, the one that renders you powerless: You fear a man who, in four tumultuous years in office, proved over and over again that he is functionally illiterate, ill-informed, incompetent, uncaring, dishonest, cruel, a total narcissist, and completely lacking in adult social graces.

Every time I wonder aloud at this widespread selling of the Republican soul, I’m told by people of analytical bent that it’s all about power. They align with Trump in order to stay in power, the analysts tell me. But to stay in power, I argue, they actually become powerless—and worse yet, powerless in the face of incompetence.

“Doesn’t matter” is the usual return. “Just doesn’t matter. They just don’t care. They just want to stay in office.”

So . . . Self-respect doesn’t matter. How do they live with themselves?

First thing every morning, I read the latest posting in “Letters from an American” by Heather Cox Richardson,** a college history professor who writes clear overnight summaries of almost every day’s major political events. It’s a way to start the day without hyperbole or gnashing of teeth or other distractions. However, even Heather has limits and in one of the bi-weekly talks on her Facebook page she spoke about the danger of losing our democracy and urged her followers to contact their congresspeople.***

“I’m very, very concerned about the Republican party” she said, “doubling down on this lie [that the election was stolen], tying themselves to Donald Trump and that wing of the party … so thoroughly that it’s very difficult for a Democrat to overcome. … this is the moment when we either level the playing field again or we recognize that we’re in very deep trouble indeed. … we really need to step up now and make our voices heard because if, in fact, the Trump people lock themselves into power after 2022, we’re not going to get another chance …”****

* In Arizona, this has been done by a private company called Cyber Ninjas. I can’t help myself: Did you know a ninja is “a person trained in ancient Japanese martial arts and employed especially for espionage and assassinations”? (Merriam-Webster)

** To visit her Facebook page, click here

*** For information on contacting your Representative, click here
For information on contacting your Senator, click here

**** To see the video, click here
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Tyranny of the Minority

3/18/2021

I was introduced to life in the hallowed halls of Congress when I was 12, old enough to tolerate a modicum of boredom, but young enough to recognize absurdity when I saw it. My father was scheduled to attend a conference in D.C. (we lived in Indiana at the time) so it was decided the whole family would go along for the ride. My dad said we’d get to see where and how laws were made (or not, as it turned out) before his conference started.

The first day there, off we went to the Senate gallery, from whence we watched some grizzled “lawmaker” drone on about the number of boxcars sitting, unused, on sidings all over the country.* Happily for me, my tolerance for boredom being strained, we didn’t stay long, and after we left, I asked my dad what law they were talking about.

“Oh, they weren’t talking about a law,” he explained. “That was just a filibuster.” He went on, of course, to explain what that meant.

“Just a filibuster.” That was back in the days when a filibuster (a word which, incidentally, appears nowhere in the Constitution) meant someone had to stand up and speak for hours and hours to keep the senate from voting on a bill he didn’t want to pass. (Save for Margaret Chase Smith, they were all “hes” back then, more’s the pity.) I thought it a strange way for sentient adults to pass the time, but oh, well …

Now, however, the standing up and speaking for hours on end isn’t necessary. As Philip Bump explained in the Washington Post,“… In practical terms, filibusters these days are only rarely hours-long riffs driven by passion for a cause. They are much more frequently hand-wavey threats to offer such a speech, with the end game of forcing legislation to meet a supermajority standard before passage.”

By some arcane process a senator who knows he’s in the minority on the bill in question can, in effect, announce he’s conducting an imaginary filibuster to prevent the proposal moving through the august body enroute to

becoming a law. Sixty votes (a 3/5 majority) are required to overcome the tyranny of the minority he represents and move the proposal along in a process called “cloture.”

Currently, Republicans all over the country have been pushing new state laws to make it ever more difficult for those with Democratic leanings to vote. In response, the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, has passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. It is now up to the Senate, where Republicans threaten to block the proposal with a filibuster.

While the Democrats have a slim majority (48 Dems, 2 Independents, and the tie-breaking vote of VP Kamala Harris) and could either abolish the filibuster or make it harder (by requiring those marathon speeches, for instance), they hesitate. Why? Well, first, they’re not sure they’d have all 50 votes of the aforementioned senators and for another, when they’re the minority party, they sometimes like to use the filibuster themselves.

The fact is that the proposed voting rights act is vital to our democracy. Without it, we face a future in which Republicans can dominate the electoral college without ever receiving a majority of the popular vote. That’s happened twice already in this young millennium and we’ve all seen how that’s turned out. The GOP is now pushing for new restrictions that would make it even more difficult for minorities and the disadvantaged to vote in 33 states.

Why? In a recent Supreme Court hearing in Arizona, the attorney representing the Arizona Republican party explained that without the restriction in question, the Republicans would be “at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats.” In other words, the Republicans need to stack the deck to win.

Preserve the filibuster? Or preserve democracy? That’s the issue here. Let your senator know which is more important to you.

*Interestingly, the aforementioned trip to the nation's Capitol occurred in the last millennium. Apparently, the boxcar problem remained unsolved for a long time. I googled "boxcars on sidings" and found several newspaper articles complaining about the boxcar problem. They were published in newspapers in 2009. Click here to see the Wall Street Journal coverage.

Another Country

1/4/2021

Traveling in the Balkans a few years ago, I took a city tour with a local guide. I’m embarrassed to say now that I can’t be sure which country I was in at the time, though I believe it was Montenegro. Such is life on a cruise with way-too-brief shore excursions crammed into way-too-few days. Our city guide met us dockside, introduced herself and told us briefly about her background.

“I’ve never moved,” she said, “but I’ve lived in three different countries.” Thus she described life where unrest and fighting sometimes results in an area being taken over by another nation, which then imposes a new name and a new regime on the land in question.

Here, in my lifetime, we’ve had none of that. But still … though the land where I’ve lived my entire life hasn’t changed its name nor its political structure, for the last four years I’ve often felt as though I’m living in another country. But then, a couple of months ago, we had an election. I started to breathe again as I looked forward to sane, experienced leadership and—belatedly—for the first time, a woman (yay!) in the second highest office in the land. It felt like a homecoming.

But then … but then … the self-absorbed occupant of the most expensive government housing in the country decided he wanted to stay—the constitution, the law, and the time-honored tradition of the peaceful transfer of power be damned. And that, the peaceful transfer of power, never breached, is the keystone of this democratic republic.

As I write, I persist in believing that we’ll stave off this threat from the most ignorant and self-absorbed president ever to sully the oval office. I'd be even more optimistic if Republicans would follow the lead of their colleagues in Georgia. There, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger handled a one-hour phone call with the grace and aplomb of a diplomat as Trump demanded that he "find 11,780 votes" to put Trump over the top in that state. Later, Gabriel Sterling, Georgia voting systems implementation manager, offered up a detailed televised answer to all the accusations of voting irregularities.

I do worry about the Republican party as a whole, however. They brought us here and many of them are more than eager, even at this eleventh hour, when they should be ushering the wannabe tyrant out, to support him in his quest to overturn a free and fair election. The disregard for themselves, their constituents, and their constitutional duties is mind-boggling. Who do they see when they look in the mirror?

What Our Taxes Should Buy

2/7/2020

Nothing happens in a vacuum. The godless third-world performance of Trump and the vast majority of his congressional cronies didn’t burst upon the world spontaneously. I’m speaking, of course, about the shameless combo political rally/reality show that passed as a State of the Union address earlier this week. Absurd enough that the raucous right felt compelled to leap to their feet every time their unhinged leader offered up a little red meat (the scene was positively Pavlovian); but when they chanted, “Four more years, four more years,” you could be forgiven if you thought you were watching a scene in a banana republic chamber full of fear.

Then, a couple of days later we had the annual Prayer Breakfast, at which Trump not only revealed his complete disdain for the event, but also his disrespect for believers. What was more astounding? What Trump said? (“ I don’t like people … who say ‘I pray for you’ when you know that is not so”). Or the laughter of the “religious leaders” in attendance as he denigrated those who pray?

Later that day came the “speech” in the East Room of the White House. The East Room: site of bill signings, major announcements, concerts, dances, award ceremonies, and—of course—Abigail Adam’s clotheslines, replete with the family laundry. The room was packed with cabinet members (Bill Barr, ever the toady, sat front row center), Republican congress members, Fox News hosts, and Trump family members, all apparently rapt by Trump’s recital of grievances and stabs at those he dislikes.

It feels like the beginning of the end. Over the years, thanks in part to Supreme Court rulings that have unleashed torrents of money that subvert our democratic process, we’ve come to resemble a third-world country: wealth concentrated in a tiny group at the top, free press denigrated, ownership of the media in the hands of a few, low-wage workers struggling to survive, education starved for funds. The list goes on.

When I’m feeling optimistic, I let myself believe this will lead (sooner, rather than later, I hope) to a realization and a consensus that we must rethink what we’ve become and rebuild a system that works for everyone, not just those at the top. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, this isn’t something that can be accomplished simply by a change of parties in control. That’s a start. But there has been failure on the part of both political parties and at all levels of government—national, state, and local—that have brought us to this pass.

Several years ago, as we launched the war on Iraq, a friend said to me, “I just feel like we need to tear this whole thing down and start over.” We didn’t, of course, and now it’s even worse. Money flows up. Problems flow down. Solutions?

While we can’t very well “tear this whole thing down,” we can, if our legislators put aside their own self-serving interest and if we all can muster up the bipartisan will, develop sensible taxation, provide the quality education our kids deserve, institute responsible action to avert climate change and restore the environment, develop and put in place a comprehensive medical care system for all, develop 21st century infrastructure in the transportation and cyber arenas, institute a rational, fact-based foreign policy that protects us and supports others in need. If we can muster up the bipartisan will, we could even abolish the distinctly anti-democratic (small “d”) electoral college, institute voting laws that guarantee one person-one vote and establish term limits so that the legislators, who often benefit financially from many of the bills they pass, are restricted in the amount of time they can spend at the public trough.

I know that all sounds “pie in the sky.” But isn’t it exactly what we should expect our government to do? Isn’t that their job? Isn’t that what our taxes should buy?

Right Matters

1/26/2020

There are bright spots. Few and far between, they burst from the quagmire of our capital and illuminate the landscape like late-night lightning in a thunderstorm.

Adam Schiff, the unassuming congressman from California and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, lit up the political landscape with lightning clarity last week—especially in closing remarks as he wrapped up the House floor managers’ presentations in support of the impeachment of Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, after a day in which the House managers provided detail after detail supporting the charges against Trump, Schiff spoke about the courage of the career diplomats who risked their futures by coming forward to testify. He challenged Republicans to display the same kind of daring.

“Why is it that Col. Vindman, who worked for Fiona Hill, who worked for John Bolton and Dr. Kupperman, why is it that they were willing to stick their necks out and answer lawful subpoenas when their bosses wouldn’t? … I think this is some form of cosmic justice—that this ambassador [Marie Yovanovitch] that was so ruthlessly smeared is now a hero for her courage. There is justice in that. But what really vindicates that leap of faith that she took is if we show the same courage. They risked everything, their careers. And yes, I know what you’re asked to decide may risk yours, too. But if they can show the courage, so can we.”

The following day, Schiff closed his final statement by appealing to listeners’ sense of what is right.

“The American people deserve a president they can count on to put their interest first,” Schiff said. “… if right doesn’t matter … it doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. It doesn’t matter how well written the oath of impartiality is. If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost. If truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. The framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves if right and truth don’t matter.

“And you know that what he [Trump] did was not right. … here right is supposed to matter. It’s what’s made us the greatest nation on earth. No constitution can protect us. Right doesn’t matter anymore and you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now, he’s done it before, he’ll do it for the next several months, he’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to. This is why, if you find him guilty, you must find that he must be removed. Because right matters. Right matters and the truth matters. Otherwise we are lost.”

Republicans, are you listening? Are you thinking? Are you taking the long view?

Would the people who raised you be proud?

Drifting Into Danger

11/5/2019

Drifting Into Danger

I’m not sure which is the most astounding: the treasonous cowardice of Congressional Republicans or the ignorance of those who support them. It’s clear that all of them—legislators and supporters alike—have been taken hostage by the most unqualified and ill-prepared president in our history. It’s the Stockholm syndrome on steroids.* How Donald Trump became, in the minds of so many, the savior—or, in his words, “the chosen one”—is an enduring mystery.

There’s plenty of blame to go around for this sad pass, and not all of the blame goes to the Republicans. An unresponsive government breeds discontent, and discontent, unaddressed, breeds desperation. Desperation, it appears, produces a kind of collective insanity.

Girded by ludicrous rulings (Citizens United,** anyone?) handed down by the Supreme Court, the Congress—its members flush with money from corporations and wealthy donors--has been empowered to ignore the needs of the many in favor of satisfying the greed of the few. This has gone on for far too long. We have tax cuts for the already-undertaxed wealthy while infrastructure crumbles, teachers take on extra jobs in order to survive, environmental protections are rolled back, children are locked in cages at our southern border, international affairs are in the hands of the gang that couldn’t shoot straight … and on … and on … and on.

Meanwhile, in the greatest of ironies, many who have gained little in the time of Trump are among those thronging to the crass performance art he calls rallies. It’s free entertainment and as full of fiction as the CBS series, Madam Secretary, which is a lot more educational.

While I haven’t given up all hope, I’m discouraged by the ease with which we’re drifting into autocracy (Madeleine Albright warned us***) and the lack of awareness of the electorate. But more than that, I’m disturbed by the irresponsibility of the Republicans in Congress. They could stop this drift in an instant but that would require courage. Instead, we have willful blindness, self-serving gullibility, groveling before a world-class bully. How do they live with themselves?

One of the advantages of longevity is the personal memory of events that those less seasoned know of only through history books. I can clearly remember, for instance, the hearings and events leading up to the resignation of Richard Nixon at the behest of his own Republican party. And I remember Gerald Ford, assuming the presidency, announcing, “Our long national nightmare is over.”

Compared to the Trump presidency, that “national nightmare” was a child’s bad dream.

Where are the heirs of that party now?

-------------------
*The Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological condition in which hostages identify with their captors and come to see them in a positive light

**In the Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court ruled that campaign expenditures by corporations and unions are protected under the First (free speech) Amendment and not subject to restriction by the government.

***Albright, secretary of state during the Clinton administration, warned of a drift towards fascism in the U.S. and other western democracies in her book Fascism: A Warning.

Wacky? Ignorant? Cruel? Trump

9/7/2019

Wacky? Ignorant? Cruel? Trump

I haven’t been writing much lately, and for that I blame Trump fatigue. I know there are many other topics I could write about, but Trump’s unrelenting wackiness, his ignorance, his cruelty, his crashing assaults on truth and reason color the universe, and whenever I try to get serious, I think “Why bother?” There are more interesting things to do: books to read, trips to plan, drains to unclog, pickleball to play, and no matter what I say, my words will not bring sanity to Trump or his chumps or the body politic.

Even though we don’t have to share living quarters with him, having Trump in our lives is a lot like living with a headstrong two-year-old. Anyone who has survived that experience as a parent knows that part of what gets you through it is knowing that this, too, shall pass. We look around and see that the universe is populated by people who once must have been two years old, but who now have recovered and no longer believe that a rip-roaring temper tantrum is the best means to an end and have some understanding of the difference between truth and falsehood and, in fact, have learned all manner of behavior appropriate to real life. Close observation of many children over many years has led me to believe that this transformation begins, in fact, soon after the child emerges from the terrible two’s. Clearly, Trump has missed his chance.

That’s the thing about Trump, the thing that makes life with him so difficult: He’s in his eighth decade; we know it will never get better. And here’s another thing: We may not have to live with Trump (thank you, universe) but he has the ability to show up in our living rooms ... and family rooms ... and (heaven help us) our bedrooms.

Mercifully, TV’s have channel changers and mute buttons and off switches and—depending on your provider, I guess—music channels for every taste, some of them featuring soothing New Age music to counteract the chaos.

Gratuitous cruelty to children, indifference to those impacted by horrific natural and man’made disasters, ignorance of history and norms of governance and simple human decency: these are unacceptable in a president of the United States. Add to that the total self-absorption, and the past few days have been ... what? Tragedy? Comedy? The theater of the absurd? While the Bahamians struggle with the devastation of their islands and catastrophic loss of life, Trump does what? ... Takes a Sharpie to a weather map and spends days defending his erroneous statement that Hurricane Dorian would impact Alabama! Over and over and over again.

And all the while, in the Bahamas, hundreds are missing and presumed dead; thousands are homeless, injured, hungry, thirsty. The Sharpie king doesn’t seem to notice. After all, Mar-a-Lago, it seems, is spared. Does anything else matter?

What are we looking at here? Psychosis? Dementia? Delusions? Regression? We ignore it at our peril. Donald Trump is a dangerous man, dangerous to civil liberties, to our economy, to a rational world order, to the health and safety of children, to our democracy and our entire way of life. He has been brought to us and propped in place by the most pusillanimous posse of politicians our electoral system has ever produced. Stay tuned.

Give Trump the Attention He Deserves _______________________________________________________________

6/26/2019

Donald Trump runs the government the way a blind-folded four-year-old approaches a pinata: disoriented, directionless, flailing.

Ignorant and empty-souled, Trump careens from crisis to crisis, each day a new episode in the melodrama in which he stars as both villain and hollow hero before a crush of complicit journalists.

How many hours of exposure have the cable networks, where so many tune in to check out the news, donated to the occupant of the White House in those south lawn scrums? How much of it is newsworthy? Informed? Accurate? How many of you, like me, have nearly worn out your mute button?

Since so much of what Trump says is untrue and since the commentators will analyze, condense, report what he said ad nauseum, and eventually label it fact or fiction, I no longer waste my time listening to his false claims and rambling ruminations. … Frankly, I can no longer stand the raspy voice, the chin in the air, the crossed arms, the inane posturing, the churlish childishness of it all.

And the trotting out of his prize collection of American sycophants to sing his praises? Oh, my! I’m not sure I have the words. Why not just play a recording of The Hallelujah Chorus? We could all sing along.

Back to those hapless reporters on the south lawn, however. I realize they collect there because it’s the one place they get a glimpse into the tumult behind those pristine white walls. Relishing the chaotic back and forth with reporters he claims to hate, Trump babbles on, and there’s the occasional newsworthy nugget.

But just once, I’d like to see Trump getting the attention he deserves—trudging towards the helicopter, alone—while  the news networks, with truly pressing business to cover, train their cameras on three or four steps of Trump’s lonely trudge, then immediately turn their cameras to  compelling concerns …

Imagine the scene: Trump trudging away as, voice-over, a commentator says, “Meanwhile, as Trump departs for a golfing weekend at Mar-a-Lago, we take you now to …

Immigrant children, ill-fed, dirty, seeking sleep on cold concrete floors, children who need social workers and nurses and trained child-care personnel, children trying to care for each other in the custody of prison guards, children confused, fearful and, for now, unaware of how this experience will scar them for life
A constipated Congress
Mass shootings
A frayed social safety net
An ill-conceived tax system
A crumbling infrastructure
A compromised voting system
An outdated electoral college that has put a president into office without a majority of the popular vote in two of the last five elections
Persistent attempts in state after state to deny women the right to determine their own futures
Egregious presidential violations of the emoluments clause, presidential affection for autocrats, presidential indifference to human suffering
Bungled relationships with our allies
Brinksmanship with those Trump sees as foes
A cabinet full of people best described as temps, and
Immigrant children, ill-fed, dirty, seeking sleep on cold concrete floors, children who need social workers and nurses and trained child-care personnel, children trying to care for each other in the custody of prison guards, children confused, fearful and, for now, unaware of how this experience will scar them for life (Yes, I know I already said that, but the thought of what they’re enduring infuriates me. I hope it infuriates you, too.)
…and
…and
…and

(Fill in the blanks above.)

We’ve heard it said over and over again: “This is not who we are.”

In that case, who are we? And how would anyone know?

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

-Thomas Jefferson-

Dysfunction Junction _______________________________________________________________

3/29/2019

Mental health therapists subscribe to various theories to understand and work with their clientele. One established school of thought is based on “family systems,” and a cornerstone of that theory is the belief that the thorny behavior of the “identified patient,” whom all believe to be the source of the family problems, is actually a response to dysfunction within the family as a whole.

As I watched Donald Trump’s reaction to the recent news that Robert Mueller had concluded his investigation into the shenanigans of the Trump administration, it occurred to me that the U.S. currently is just one crushingly dysfunctional family system.

In this paradigm the President (you may have already figured this out) is the identified patient. But it’s complicated.

There are four main players in this sprawling family: The Congress, the Supreme Court, the President, and We the People, and all of us have contributed to this disarray. Trump isn’t the underlying cause. He’s just the most flagrant and savage symptom.

What roles do the rest of us play?

Let’s start with Congress, the creatures of Article I, the cornerstone of democracy, the representatives of We the People, the makers of laws, the keepers of the coffers. Heady stuff—and demanding of time and attention.

But because of our dysfunctional system—no term limits, ineffectual campaign cash constraints, demands by both parties that members of Congress spend hours every day “dialing (donors) for dollars”—legislators’ focus is too often on winning the next election and too rarely on educating themselves on the issues and making the best decisions they can for the people who sent them there. As a result, beholden to the donors whose largesse they’ve sought, their votes often reflect their devotion to their donors—and themselves.

Right now all the above is baked into the system, but congressional dysfunction is complicated by the fact that one of the major parties (and you know which one it is) has allowed itself to be taken hostage by the most unhinged, juvenile, and cruel president ever to darken the White House doors. Don’t you wonder what happens to those legislators’ self-respect? … What return they’re getting on their “investment” in moral turpitude?

Then there’s the Supreme Court, once considered the ultimate protection from injustice and power run amok. That, of course, was before we discovered there is such a phenomenon as a Supreme Court run amok: Bush v. Gore? Citizens United? District of Columbia v. Heller? Just to name a few. A majority of the court having been appointed by Republicans, this allegedly non-partisan group is a major colluder in our current dysfunction.

Of the three major players here (president, Congress, Court) the Supremes are undoubtedly the most securely insulated from outside pressures. This makes their most inexplicable rulings (money is speech; corporations are people, for instance) simply confounding. To whom are they beholden? One wonders.

It’s easy to blame all of the above for a political system that operates in chaos, rewards the wealthy with tax breaks, slashes holes in the social safety net, maintains a de facto two-tier system of justice, visits cruelty upon the downtrodden, and practices discrimination against those who are in any way “different.”

We can criticize those at the top all we want, but … we put them there. It’s up to us to sort the wheat from the chaff and elect legislators, and a president, who represent not their donors but their constituents. Not an easy task, especially in a country where education is undervalued, teachers are underpaid, test scores are king, and so many are woefully uninformed.

We all need to understand the structure and functions of government, be able to separate fact from opinion, think critically, and provide reasoned support for our opinions. How are we doing with that? What do the raucous revelers at Trump’s rambling rants tell us about their readiness to vote?

Government is serious business. Voters who prefer a bloviating megalomaniac to the serious candidates now coming forward with new ideas, clear-eyed observations, and humanitarian policy proposals clearly lack the tools needed to cast an intelligent vote. Unless we elect a responsible president and informed, articulate legislators, we’re complicit in the threatened devastation of our democratic (small “d”) way of life.

In Praise of Elijah Cummings _______________________________________________________________

3/2/2019

It was a symphony of human emotion—pain, outrage, mourning, hope; a symphony of human discourse with fugues of compassion, admonition and encouragement.

It was quintessential adult leadership, too rarely seen these days. “It” was the closing statement of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), chair of the House Oversight Committee, as the group wound down the recent hearing at which Michael Cohen testified about the transgressions of the alleged leader of the free world.

Opening slowly, painfully, pianissimo, the chair's closing statement rose to a crescendo with the now familiar “we’re better than that” before settling, andante, to recognize Michael Cohen’s personal pain. Cummings concluded with hope: Addressing Cohen directly as Trump’s former lawyer faces a prison term, he said, “Hopefully this portion of your destiny will lead to a better … a better … a better Michael Cohen, a better Donald Trump, a better United States of America and a better world.”

It was a pitch-perfect closing statement, during which Cummings showed empathy for the admittedly flawed witness, recognized the dire condition of our democracy, and defended the vital work of the committee he leads.

“The greatest gift we can give our children is an intact democracy, he remarked. “I hope the things you said today can help us get back there.”

(In case you missed the closing statement, see it here.)

Throughout the day, Cummings had guided the committee with a steady hand and consideration for those on both sides of the aisle.

He tolerated GOP members’ use of their time to speechify as they attempted to turn the hearing away from what Cohen could reveal about Trump and focus instead on Cohen’s role in the tangled Trump tale.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) Chair of the House Oversight Committee

He calmed a dust-up between Mark Meadows (R-Ohio) and Rashida Talib (D-Michigan) when Meadows claimed the freshman lawmaker had called him a racist. (She hadn’t.)
He tolerated one GOP member’s childish display of a banner sporting the juvenile taunt, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
He allowed Meadows to have Lynne Patton, a Trump-appointed African-American now heading Region 2 of Housing and Urban Development, stand mute, display-like, holding her out as proof that Trump is not a racist.
He remained impassive as Republicans—laughably, as far as I’m concerned—repeatedly called Cohen out for lying during an earlier session while we all know the most flagrant liar on the planet is Trump himself.

In short, Cummings was consistently the adult, no matter how juvenile and contentious others might be.

Closing, he told listeners we need “to get back to normal.” If leaders strive towards the standards the honorable chairman sets, we can, in the long run, do that. And we must. Interviewed after the hearing, Cummings stated simply, "This fight is a fight for the soul of our democracy.” That says it all.

Fighting Trump Torpor _______________________________________________________________

2/26/2019

I’ve been silent, so to speak, for a month. Until recently, it’s been hard to exercise restraint as I watch the craven and impolitic decisions emanating from the White House and the cowardly politicians (you know who they are) who won’t stand up to the man ensconced therein. Now, however, while I’m not indifferent, I am unschockable, and I’ve fallen into the Trump torpor commentators have feared.

Trump rambles through the verbal wilderness, and I mute the TV. I know he will lie. I know he’ll denigrate the work and wisdom and warnings of experienced national leaders; I know he’s easy prey for Putin and Kim Jong Un and the Saudis; I know he has a damningly inflated opinion of his own brain; I know flattery works; I know…I know…I know. And some days I just don’t care.

I can’t respect the man or the knowledge and wisdom of those who put him there. And, while we’re on the subject, let me point out that the politicians who helped him onto his perch on the catbird seat aren’t only those of the Republican stripe. The blame lies with all those who, for years, have pandered to wealthy donors in order to serve their highest priority—holding onto their own powerful perches—rather than serving the true interests of their constituencies. The gaping income gap, the national debt, the stagnation (or reduction) of wages, welfare for the rich at the expense of those who live on the edge of survival, crumbling infrastructure, failing schools—all those and more are largely attributable to legislators who have failed us.

Remember that old saw? Which comes first—the chicken or the egg? Do we have failing schools because we have failing legislators? Or do we have failing legislators because we have failing schools?

Regardless of the answer, the dilemma we’ve created for ourselves is partially (but only partially) the result of two obvious factors: The first, a flawed system, which not only tolerates blatant gerrymandering but also holds the country hostage with an antiquated electoral college; the second, an inadequately educated populace, often poorly served by schools that fail to adequately teach history, the basics of democracy, and critical thinking skills.

Neither of these situations—or any of the other causes of our malaise—will be corrected any time soon. In the meantime, we need to fight Trump torpor.

TrumPutin, the GOP and the Stockholm Syndrome _______________________________________________________________

1/22/2019

In 1973, four bank employees were taken hostage by a couple of criminals in Stockholm, Sweden. By the time the hostages were freed, they had bonded with their captors who, during the six-day standoff with law enforcement, held their captives’ lives in their hands. Since that time, the morphing of fear into dependency and gratitude towards captors who spare hostages’ lives has been known as the Stockholm Syndrome.

Thus, the title of this piece. While Putin doesn’t literally hold Trump’s life in his hands, he holds powerful purse strings—in other words, money—which Trump apparently values as much as life itself. The man loves money. That much we know. And Trump seems to love the Russian who has taken him hostage.

What we don’t know is what Trump fears. Putin, yes. But what, specifically? And what’s the potential pay-off—or punishment—that turns the insult-spewing U.S. leader into the fawning acolyte of the Russian autocrat?

Unfortunately, the hostage-taking doesn’t end there. Cowardly, prevaricating, selfish, inarticulate, and totally lacking in class, Trump long ago made hostages of Mitch McConnell and a large swath of the GOP.

The result, of course, the last obvious victims in this round of hostage taking are the 800,000 federal workers who now stand to lose homes and health at the hands of the government they serve.

Meanwhile, Republicans are paralyzed. While 800,000 government workers get no paychecks, Republican lawmakers, having fallen under the mysterious TrumPutin spell, do nothing.

Already hostage to Trump’s gratuitous cruelty, thousands of migrants remain in limbo, unknown numbers of their children apparently lost in what passes as a “system.” Struggling, low-income families are denied the vital resources needed to sustain children’s nutrition and meet their health care needs. Law enforcement, criminal justice, air safety all are threatened. Administration “spokespersons” make fools of themselves on national TV. The administration has become a bad joke, the fevered dream of a Grade B moviemaker’s nightmare.

TrumPutin, if you’re listening, quit wasting our time and money, put a lid on the rhetoric, open up the government we’ve all paid for, and get to work. Solve problems. Don't create them.

Dems to Shift Focus to Problem Solving ... What a Concept! ________________________________________________________________

12/16/2018

A few days ago, newly-elected House Democrats, apparently so recently arrived in D.C. that they haven’t lost their perspective, called on party leaders to focus on solving problems and make actiontheir number one priority.

The goal is to avert a stampede into a congressional investigation of the many crimes and humanitarian sins of Donald Trump in favor of actually getting something donewhen the new Congress convenes. Investigating, after all, is currently in the hands of Robert Mueller and his staff, who seem to need no help in that regard.

A congressional investigation would, no doubt, make headlines; it would entertain those who, addicted to Trump’s tantrums, taunts, and tweets, want politics to be a “reality” show experience; it would provide fodder for cable news TV which (make no mistake) has flourished on the chaos they’ve brought us by their nonstop coverage of Trump’s shenanigans on the campaign trail and beyond.

But an investigation wouldn’t respond to John McCain’s remonstrance in one of his final appearances on the Senate floor: “We’re getting nothing done, my friends. We’re getting nothing done.”

The time may come for investigation, but right now the country is hungry for solutions to long-neglected problems that, in one way or another, affect us all. Single party government by the Republicans has accomplished next to nothing, as McCain recognized.

“Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the internet,” he demanded. “To hell with them. They don’t want anything done for the public good. Our incapacity is their livelihood. … What have we to lose by trying to work together to find … solutions? … The success of the Senate is important to the continued success of America. … That responsibility is more important than any of our personal interests or affiliations.”

The same can be said of the House.

With Democrats about to dominate the lower chamber and some Republicans beginning (it seems) to see the truth behind McCain’s rebuke, it’s time to listen to the invigorated newcomers that will soon inhabit the House. It’s time for Congress to focus on infrastructure, criminal justice reform, exploding student debt, for instance. It’s time to develop a sensible, humane immigration process. It’s time to address the issue of homelessness, ethics in government, election reform.

There have been glimmers of hope in some arenas—in the recognition, for instance, that we incarcerate many more people than we need to in our bloated (and inexplicably partially privatized) prison system.

Eventually, perhaps, we can even tackle two areas that suck the lifeblood out of the body politic: the oceans of money that dominate our electoral politics (thanks, Citizens United) and a tax structure that prioritizes lowering taxes for the wealthy over sustaining safety net systems for the less fortunate among us.

Obviously, we can’t do all of this at once. But we can start.

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
Edward Abbey, American author and essayist

Time's Up (We Can Dream Anyway) ________________________________________________________________

8/8/2018

I used to be a proponent of campaign spending limits—and still would be if I thought it had a better chance of survival than a lizard in the path of a Mack truck. Likewise, I support limiting campaign season to something less than a full-time occupation—say, three months in advance of a primary, another three or four before a November election. The time left over by collapsing the time on the campaign trail might be used by incumbents to try legislatingfor a change. (Take a minute to wrap your head around that one.)

Not to mention any names, but some people prefer electioneering to governing. Not to mention any names, but this is especially true of folks who know nothing about government, who think (just for instance) that judges “sign bills” and whose idea of consultation with foreign policy experts is (just for instance) “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.” What???

But I digress. We really need to talk about Congress.

Legislative Posts Captivate

In that arena, I’m willing to abandon my fixation on the undeniable need for campaign finance reform in favor of limits on the number of terms a legislator may serve. I say this because it has become increasingly clear that legislative posts are so captivating that otherwise rational, sentient beings are not only willing, but positively eager to sell their souls in order to hang onto them. Limiting the length of time they spend in the moral rot along the Potomac would afford them the opportunity to redeem themselves by going home and performing productive work—provided, of course, they resist the temptation to dive deeper into the swamp and join the K Street crowd instead. This is a dubious assumption we mustn’t make. But that’s a topic for another time.

Freeing the Beholden

As voters, we stand to benefit from term limits in a number of ways, most notably by freeing (or perhaps forcing) our elected “leaders” to vote their conscience. Look at it this way: If you’d been held hostage by the likes of Donald Trump simply because you feared losing your job, imagine going to DC for a final term. You can’t be re-elected because you’re term-limited. Imagine the freedom. Imagine thinking for yourself. Imagine speaking your genuine truth. Imagine casting a vote that actually serves the common good.

And one more thing. Remember elementary school? Taking turns? Sharing? The founders didn’t expect legislating to be a lifetime job. In no endeavor are fresh eyes, diverse backgrounds, independent thought, and sundry passions (notof a sexual nature, in case you’re wondering) more vital to healthy functioning.

The law of averages would dictate that there are some fine, upstanding legislators in our capitol. But when the party of the president controls both houses of Congress and that party allows itself to be held hostage to a bloviating, ignorant “leader,” the jig is up. Clearly, the only goal of most Republicans in Congress is to get re-elected.

This is not to say that Democrats aren’t driven by the same goal; it’s just that I can’t remember them ever being driven into such paroxysms of lunacy that they went along like sleepy sheep to (just for instance) …

the wanton willy-nilly separation of children from loving parents
lining of the presidential pockets with blatant violations of the emoluments clause
presidential secrecy regarding tax returns
expensive photo ops, AKA “summits” (you know—with Kim Jong Un and Putin)
gratuitous hostility to our allies
transformation of the White House into a “reality” psychodrama
exploding deficits
tax cuts for cronies and crumbs for the rest of us
the failure of ordinary civil conduct in favor of juvenile tweets, verbal mocking, insults, and attacks in endless campaign style rallies (Incidentally, are taxpayers funding all that hoopla and, if so, why?)

Seriously? Why?

You get the picture. How does Congress take this guy seriously? And why?

I’ve already told you. The perks, the connections, the attention, the status, maybe some book deals down the line—and who knows what else? I realize what common wisdom says: term limits are “unwise … impractical … will never happen … “

Yes … and an African American can never be elected president … and women can never make it in politics … and you just have to put up and shut up when it comes to sexual harassment … and people will never give up smoking ……

Nero Fiddled, and So Does Congress _______________________________________________________________

7/13/2018

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. But we do things differently here.

Congress fiddles while our wanna-be Nero, befuddled and reckless, blunders about the globe torching alliances and embracing foes.

I’m not sure which is more dangerous—the roving wanna-be or the Republican-dominated Congress, whose incompetence was on full display in the joint hearing of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees yesterday. For nine hours, that group grilled Peter Strzok, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI, whose major mistake was using his FBI-issued cell phone to send the kinds of text messages millions of us write every day—words expressing dismay and disgust over the politics of our time.

His most egregious offense, in the view of his GOP inquisitors, seemed to be that when his girlfriend sought reassurance Trump would never be elected, Strozk had replied “…we’ll stop him,” thus shocking the tender sensibilities of the Republicans, who saw it as a threat.

I was briefly in Madrid during the run-up to the 2016 election. One evening while a group of us dined at an outdoor café, a Brit stopped by our table seeking the same reassurance. We offered it, saying things like, “… we’ll never let that happen …never fear; not a chance …” Strozk’s response sounded a lot like ours. No threat, just a naive statement we believed at the time was true.

Carried gavel to gavel by major networks, the committees’ hearing offered only one thing: incontrovertible proof of the dysfunction of our legislative branch. What the committees saw as the purpose of their hearing is unclear. They were confused about the difference between political opinion and bias. Mr. Strzok helped them with that—or tried to—as he explained that we all have opinions, whereas bias means we allow those beliefs to so taint our view that we act, not in accordance with known facts, but in conformance with our beliefs. (I might add, since Mr. Strzok didn’t, that a lot of that tainting goes on inside the beltway these days.)

In my opinion, the purpose of the hearing was about the same as the purpose of those ever-recurring falsehood-strewn Trump rallies—entertainment for the GOP base, spiced by dismay for the rest of us. Now, in all honesty, there was some entertainment involved. At one point, Rep. Louie Gohmert, (R-Tex) alluded to Strozk’s infidelity, which was, incidentally, unrelated to the subject at hand. With that, the Dems had had enough; they roared disapproval, and an outraged New Jersey legislator, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman demanded of Gohmert, “Do you need your medication?”

Clearly, the GOP needs more than their meds. Spending nine hours in a pointless hearing … while thousands of children, ripped from their parents, remain alone; while Trump insults our NATO allies in Brussels; while anti-Trump protests erupt in the UK; while wanna-be Nero insists he wants to meet alone with his hero Putin?

Really? Republicans, you control Congress. What say you?

The GOP and "The Least Among Us" ________________________________________________________________

5/1/2018

In case we had any doubts, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has demonstrated once again that the Republicans really are the party of unbridled greed and pure hypocrisy. He did this when he fired Rev. Patrick Conroy, a Jesuit priest who has served seven years as chaplain of the House of Representatives after complaining to the priest that some of his prayers in the House were too political. And thus, Ryan confirmed that justice and mercy has no place in the politicos’ hallowed halls.

The speaker found particularly offensive the prayer Conroy offered during the tax cut debate when he prayed that legislators would “guarantee that there are not winners and losers under new tax laws, but benefits balanced and shared by all Americans.”

Shortly thereafter, Conroy says, Ryan approached him to say, “Padre, you just got to stay out of politics.”

At various times since, however, Conroy has offered prayers that legislators would act with decency and compassion for their fellow human beings. The ideas espoused are classic New Testament fare, notions like …

helping “the least among us”
serving “other people in their need . . . those who work but still struggle to make ends meet”
being “mindful of those whom they represent who possess little or no power”
acting to “fulfill the hopes of those who long for peace and security for their children”

Having had enough of all that, Ryan demanded Conroy’s resignation.

“Only in this perverted time could a priest lose his job after committing the sin of crying out for justice for the poor,” writes Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Post. “But then, look around: Everywhere are the signs of a rising kleptocracy. The $1.5 billion tax cut did make winners of corporations and the wealthy.”

And Paul Ryan? His dismissal of the chaplain shows, as a prosecutor would say, consciousness of guilt.