January 27, 2019: My Mummy's Dead

“My Mummy's dead

I can't get it through my head
and although it's been so many years
my mummy's dead”

                    -----John Lennon “My Mummy's Dead”

My mother passed away this afternoon at the age of 89.  Like Mark Twain who came in with Haley's comet and would go out 75 years later when the comet returned, mom came in on the 27th and departed on the same day of the month.  There are patterns we must follow.

Mother was born just two days before the stock market crash of 1929, which unleashed the Great Depression. The markets by then already had begun to gyrate wildly as panic was setting in. Grandfather, being from the polish side of the family, with a wicked sense of humor, would tell mom that she had brought about the national—indeed international—calamity; that, in effect, news of her imminent arrival had sent shockwaves around the world leading to the collapse of the international house of cards. Mother, more like the German side of the family, had no sense of humor; for humor had long been surgically removed from the Brockhaus side, long lost to the Protestant-Lutheran world view that everything must be interpreted quite literally. Humor has no place in these spaces.

So mother would internalize the cryptic observation and carry the burden the rest of her life.

My mother loved music. She mastered the piano as a girl and would be encouraged by her instructor to apply to Julliard. But she didn't have the confidence. When I was a boy, mother would play the church organ at St. Johns Lutheran in Ludington while I would sit next to her on the organ's bench, occasionally adding a note or two to the composition. Mother would simply slap my hand and go on. By the time we moved south, those days were over.

As a little boy the family found itself living with my Great-Grandmother Brockhaus. Grandma Brockhaus had a piano and mother would spend hours playing, performing for me a personal concert that ranged from Chopin, Beethoven, Strauss, and Rimsky-Korsakov, to church hymns and swing music, to show tunes and polka's. It was an education.

She would sing along with the tunes that had lyrics with a voice that came from heaven. As age steals youth her voice has faded in recent years, and when I reach to remember I will take out an album by Judy Collins to find a sound that best fills my ears with mommy's voice.

Mom would disparage her talents citing her father's criticisms. I remember mom doing vocal exercises as she would prepare for a rare performance, usually at a family wedding or funeral. She would sing, on these very rare occasions, hymns like The Lord's Prayer or the Ava Maria which, like The Star-Spangled Banner are not easy compositions to perform. I found her fretting, in a state of agitation, before one such performance and asked her why. “My two biggest critics are in the audience,” she said to me, referring to my grandparents. In this family, we devour our young.

“I can't explain

so much pain
an I could never show it
my mummy's dead”

“Mama don't go

Daddy come home”

January 26, 2019: Before the Bar, By Way of Demonstration, Everybody Must Get Stoned.

“Well, they'll stone you and say that it's the end

Then they'll stone you and then they'll come back again

They'll stone you when you're riding in your car

They'll stone you when you're playing your guitar

Yes, but I would not feel so all alone

Everybody must get stoned”

                       -----Bob Dylan, Rainy Day Women 12 & 35

This morning, in a before dawn raid complete with a S.W.A.T. team, Roger Stone was frog-marched into a paddy wagon. So ends the career of the ReSCUMlickan Party's most notorious dirty trickster.

Stone, you may recall, has a tattoo of Richard Shithouse Nixon on his back, a commemoration of his being jerked up from the slime that is the Young Republican organization and its sister group the Young Asses for Fascism (1) and thrown upon the national political stage where he has stunk up the forum for several decades. The pungent smell of Nixon still irritates the nostrils a half-century on.

Stone, like Manafort, have been circling the drainpipes for decades, re-emerging, like some turd that cannot be flushed, in several ReScumlican administrations as well as unsuccessful presidential campaigns. And, Like Manafort, Stone was found today dragged before the bar of justice. Manafort to explain to the judge how his behavior is consistent with his plea bargain with Mueller and New York District prosecutors, Stone now finding himself before a judge in Florida awaiting extradition to points north to face justice.

The cesspool that is the Rescumlican Party predates our Caesar Disgustus by at least four decades. He is the happy beneficiary of nearly half-century century of political intrigue bordering on sedition, and he took to the cesspool like shit to a soil pipe. Disgustus did not come to 'drain the swamp''; he came to swamp the drain; and, by way of demonstration, show the country how well it can be navigated. It hasn't worked.

The Rescumlican Party has long determined that we have not seen enough of the likes of Stone. He and Manafort and Atwater followed by Rove, and now they've come—like some chronic disease—back again to stink up the forum. For it is written: “everybody must get stoned.”

Break out the shit-overshoes, it's time to clean the sty.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

____________________

1. I am referring here to William Buckley's Young Americans for Freedom, a proto-fascist youth group.

January 25, 2019: Team of Morons, The tRUMP Effect, Through Gritted Teeth

“Morons, I've got morons on my team.. We're not going to be ambushed going DOWN the mountain, we have no money going DOWN the mountain."

     ----Struther Martin in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

As the great character actor put it, we've got morons on our team. And, as economist and commentator Paul Krugman points out: “You can't fully make sense of his policy pratfalls without acknowledging the extraordinary quality of the people with whom he has surrounded himself. And by 'extraordinary,' of course, I mean extraordinarily low quality. Lincoln had a team of rivals; Trump has a team of morons.” (1)

Krugman, as examples of the daily train wreck that is this maladministration cites the Chairman of tRUMP's council of Economic Advisers who opined that federal workers on furlough were 'better off' because “they are getting time off without having to use any of their vacation days”. Aping the man at the top at the practiced art of heaping heartless cruelty upon a population now lining up at food banks, the men and women circling Disgustus are drawn to the stench of the 'fucking moron' like a vulture at a road kill.

Consider, if you will, Seen Hannity, he of Faux News and, like a number of other brainless talking heads, adviser to the 'president' of the United States. Hannity squeals about taxing the rich because so hampered they won't be able to buy those yachts and go on those expensive vacations. Oh! The injustice!

“What's amazing”, writes Klugman, “is that they are so out of it that they don't know how to pretend to care about the middle class, or what nonsense to spout in order to sustain that pretense.” (2) This is nothing new, John McCain ran an entire presidential campaign without ever once uttering the words middle class.

Krugman cites the reason for this myopia as twofold: first that the conservatives have enclosed themselves in a bubble. They have become a cult in which “contempt for ordinary working Americans is widespread—remember Eric Cantor, the then House majority leader, celebrating Labor Day by praising business owners.” Indeed, conservatives cannot mention labor, much less speak of Labor Day unless through gritted teeth.

Then there is, as Krugman points out, the “tRUMP effect”. “Normally working for the president of the United States is a career booster, something that looks good on your resume. Trump's presidency, however, is so chaotic, corrupt and potentially compromised by his foreign entanglements that anyone associated with it gets tainted—which is why after only two years he has already left a trail of broken men and wrecked reputations in his wake.

“So who is willing to serve him at this point? Only those with no reputation to lose, generally because they're pretty bad at what they do.” (3) I give you as the latest example of inspired ineptitude, Rudy Giuliani, tRUMP's attorney.

Indeed it is government characterized by Krugman as by the “worst and dumbest”.

“We will have only the best people...the best people...and the smartest too”, our very own 'stable genius' assured the unwashed. In tRUMPspeak this means that he was about to plumb the dregs and make a pig's breakfast of it all.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

__________________

1. Krugman, Paul. “Donald Trump And His Team of Morons” The New York Times. Tuesday, January 15, 2019: Page A23.
2. Ibid
3. ibid

January 24, 2019: Russia! Russia! Russia!, tRUMPspeak, Face of Treason

“Not only did I never work for Russia, I think it's a disgrace that you even asked that question, because it's a whole big fat hoax.”

     ---America's Caesar Disgustus responding to questions on the White House lawn

Alright let's translate. Whatever the pathological liar in the White House says is untrue; truth is known to stand at polar opposite of whatever comes from his mouth. Therefore to properly interpret tRUMPspeak, what our faux Caesar really said is this: “Yes, I'm a Russian agent, and it is very important that you ask that question, because Putin has put a man who was once a useful idiot and has now become a knowing and willing agent of the Russian Federation in the White House. I am the big fat hoax.”

It is all about Russia.

Many, including MSNBC's Rachel Maddow have noted how he tows the Russian line. From the Ukraine to Belarus to Montenegro to Syria, to NATO, to the European Union, to Russian meddling in U.S. and foreign elections, our Caesar Disgustus, when he is not carrying the Russian's bags, is fawning all over him like some panting teenage girl.Like that disgraceful exhibition in Helsinki, the spectacle that is our would be Caesar is, in a word, disgusting.

This last week  found him parroting the old KGB line that the Russian invasion of Afghanistan was to root out terrorists. No it wasn't. It was to prop up an unpopular communist regime. So here we have the nominal president of the United States gratuitously helping Putin scrub the historical record.

The editors of the The New York Times recently noted that “Mr Trump's behavior simply since he's been in office hasn't given any peace of mind even to those willing to give him the benefit of the doubt—at least, those outside the Republican leadership. In the past month, he announced that American troops would pull out of the conflict in Syria, something that the Russians have long called for. He subsequently said the Soviet Union was right to invade Afghanistan in 1979, parroting Russian revisionist history by claiming it was seeking to quell terrorism.

This month, it was revealed that federal prosecutors had accused Mr. Trump's former campaign chief Paul Manafort of sharing polling data in 2016 with an associate liked to Russian intelligence, the most direct evidence to date that the campaign may have tried to coordinate with Russia” (1)

May have? Of course The New York Times, America's newspaper of record, always understates the situation. It has to.  It cannot go too far out on the limb for fear of losing credibility. The fact that the paper is raising the issue at all is terribly significant.

Disgustus and his minions keep telling the nation that no one has been tougher on Russia; but as we speak his Treasury Secretary has lifted sanctions on Oleg Deripaska, with the blessing of Mitch McConnell and his ReSCUMlickan enablers; sanctions that were put in place due to the meddling and the lifting of which will mean many millions of dollars to a man that Paul Manafort owes millions.  Is this a way to please Putin and tamper with a possible witness in the bargain?   

How serious is it? The Times reported earlier in the month that the FBI had started a counterintelligence investigation of tRUMP after he had fired Director Comey. Let that settle in: a candidate for one of the two major parties in this country is subject to a counterintelligence probe to determine if he is an asset of a foreign nation—that subject now the sitting 'president' of the United States.

Now we discover that not only were there no high ranking American officials in his two hour meeting with Putin in Germany but that Disgustus took the notes of his translator and told him to keep his mouth shut. In fact, we have discovered, military, diplomatic and national security officials had to turn to the NSA and CIA monitoring of Russian intelligence intercepts in order to get even a rough outline of what may or may not have been discussed.

Why this secrecy? What is he hiding?

As the editors of the “Times” reminds us: “'There's two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,' Kevin McCarthy, then House majority leader, told his fellow Republicans at a closed door meeting, the Washington Post first reported, shortly before Mr. Trump won his party's nomination for the White House in 2016” (2). McCarthy was referring to now former Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California with whom his constituents have had enough.

Disgustus imagines his countenance chiseled, perhaps next to Teddy Roosevelt in the face of Mount Rushmore. Instead, he will find himself next to Benedict Arnold as the newly minted face of treason.

“An Bre'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

______________________

1. Editorial. “Donald Trump: The Russia File” The New York Times. Tuesday, January 15, 2019. Page A22

January 23, 2019: Heil King Cyrus, The Christian Wrong, Authoritarian And Paranoid

Earlier this month Katherine Stewart published an essay in The New York Times explaining the nearly inexplicable: how can the religious wrong—the fundamentalists—worship a man like Donald tRUMP? What on earth can these people see in a man who flouts and mocks with his every breath and action everything they hold dear?

“The month before the 2018 midterms”, Stewart explains, “a thousand theaters screened 'The Trump Prophecy,” a film that tells the story of Mark Taylor, a former firefighter who claims that God had told him in 2011 that Donald Trump would be elected president.

“At a critical moment in the film, just after the actor representing Mr. Taylor collapses in the flashing light of an epiphany, he picks up a Bible and turns to the 45^th chapter of the Book of Isaiah, which describes the anointment of King Cyrus by God. In the next scene, we hear Mr. Trump being interviewed on 'The 700 Club,' a popular Christian television show.

“As Lance Wallnau, an evangelical author and speaker who appears in the film once said, 'I believe the 45^th president is meant to be an Isaiah 45 Cyrus,' who will 'restore the crumbling walls that separate us from cultural collapse.'

“Cyrus, in case you've forgotten, was born in the sixth century B.C.E. And became the first emperor of Persia. Isaiah 45 celebrates Cyrus for freeing a population of Jews who were held captive in Babylon. Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful.

“The identification of the 45^th president with an ancient Middle Eastern potentate isn't a fringe thing. 'The Trump Prophecy' was produced with the help of professors and students at Liberty University, whose president, Jerry Falwell Jr., has been instrumental in rallying evangelical support for Mr. Trump. Jeanine Pirro of Fox News has picked up on the meme, as has Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, among many others.

“As the Trump presidency falls under siege on multiple fronts, it has become increasingly clear that the so-called values voters will be among the last to leave the citadel. A lot of attention has been paid to the supposed paradox of evangelicals backing such an imperfect man, but the real problem is tha”t our idea of Christian nationalism hasn't caught up with the reality. We still buy the line that the hard core of the Christian right is just and interest group working to protect its values. But what we don't get is that Mr. Trump's supposedly anti-Christian and anti-democratic attributes are a vital part of his attraction.

“Today's Christian nationalists talk a good game about respecting the Constitution and America's founders, but at bottom they sound as if they prefer autocrats to democrats. In fact, what they really want is a King. 'It is God that raises up a King,' according to Paula White who has advised Mr. Trump.

...”I have attended dozens of Christian nationalist conferences and events over the past two years” concludes Steward. “And while I have heard plenty of comments casting doubt on the more questionable aspects of Mr. Trump's character, the gist of the proceedings almost always comes down to the belief that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord. I have also learned that resistance to Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God.

“This isn't the religious right that we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal to its core. They aren't fighting a cultural war. They're making a direct attack on democracy itself.” (1)

Note the reversion back to ancient numerology, that is attributing significance--indeed magic--to numbers.  In this case the unhappy coincidence of the 45th chapter of Isaiah with the 45th presidency of the United States.  Never mind that man has long discovered that there are no magical properties to prime numbers or that Disgustus is actually the 44th man to occupy the office--Grover Cleveland who served two non-consecutive terms counted twice.  Never mind that this too is a bastard presidency, held by a man who achieved his goal by the most treacherous of means. .All that means nothing when you need to believe; and you believe what you are told.

My late wife was an adherent of the Evangelical Southern Baptist tradition and was deeply puzzled by her relation's sudden conversion to all things Disgustus. Why tRUMP?, she would ask. Don't they see him for what he is? The answers to these questions are frightening.

When one hears reports of the decades-long effort by the Russians to infiltrate the evangelical movement, right up to and including the White House prayer breakfasts, one begins to discern the outlines of the king-hell rat.

One also begins to see why Disgustus wears that hat with the number '45' emblazoned upon it. A modern crown for a would-be Sun King.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh

Impeach and Imprison.

______________________

1. Stewart, Katherine. “Why Trump Reigns as King Cyrus,” The New York Times. Tuesday, January 1, 2019. Page A19

January 22, 2019: Brain Dead Democrats, A Forlorn Hope, Greater Opportunities Present Themselves

“Never underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”

                            ----from The Quotations of Chairman Joe

We are now a month into this crisis; a month that America has been held hostage by a madman in the White House. What has struck me is not only the madness of the petulant would-be Caesar, but the ham-handedness with which the Democrats have responded.

As his support craters, now falling below 40 per cent of the polled population, and his disapproval numbers skyrocketing, Disgustus took to the airwaves once again to present his 'compromise'. True to form, it was no compromise at all, it was a proposal hammered out between himself, his Vice President, and his idiot son-in-law, presented to the nation as some form of concession. It is not.

He's offering temporary sanctuary for the “Dreamers” whose unsettled status was of his own making in the first place, and he's still demanding the 5.7 billion for his wall. He creates a 'crisis' and then holds the resolution over the nation as demands to get his own way. And, as Disgustus cries out “Oh, Piss Boy!”, Majority Leader McConnell comes running with the chamber pot so that he can put the contents before the Senate. McConnell, of course, can be relied upon to declare the contents 'liquid gold', leaving the House to reveal its true worth. This initiative is nothing but a transparent attempt the White House to regain control of the narrative, kind of like LBJ offering to negotiate once the North Vietnamese have surrendered. We shall see what becomes of it.

What strikes me is that the Democrats, always able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, risk losing control over the terms of this debate.

It is well and good to demand that nothing will be done until the Jackass in the White House behaves himself. This, with Disgustus, is always a forlorn hope. Nevertheless, it is clear that pressure is mounting as the FBI announced today that it is running out of materials with which to do forensic analysis, running out of even typing paper. Officials are warning that further delay in getting this crisis resolved will degrade national security.

It is an open question whether Disgustus and his ReSCUMlickan enablers want the government up and running. The longer this goes on, it has been noted on national media, the harder it will be to recruit qualified people to work for government. This is the Conservative wet dream come true.

It seems to me that the Democrats are squandering an opportunity here. The modern ReSCUMlickan party has degenerated into an unholy alliance between the religious wrong, libertarians, racists and the assorted unwashed in uneasy alliance with nouveau riche billionaires. It is an unsteady alliance held together by the willful ignorance of the great unwashed blindingly servicing their capitalist overlords. An alliance held together by 'divide and rule' politics based upon social issues and racist appeal in the service of Capital. The wall means nothing to the likes of Sheldon Adelson or the the Koch Brothers, but it has become the rallying standard behind which the great unwashed take to the ramparts.

To separate the racists from the money—for just as in slavery racism serves the money—the Democrats need to force the issue by emphasizing not the racial and cultural issues but the economic ones. If they stand solely in defense of the 'huddled masses', they will end up laying into the hands of the capitalist manipulators. If, on the other hand, Democrats make their stand on economic issues—principally who will pay for the wall—greater opportunities present themselves.

The Democrats need to drive a wedge in this crack in the ReSCUMlickan foundation and they can do this with one simple demand: Tell tRUMP he can have his wall but that he and his rich friends are going to pay for it. Demand that in return for the wall, all changes in the tax code from Reagan on will be repealed and that we will return to the tax code of the Kennedy-Johnson administrations adjusted for inflation. The Democrats can further make the case by reminding the nation that the last time the middle and working classes were invited to the party it was under this tax code. Suddenly the government will presented with trillions of dollars over the next decade, money with which to rebuild our schools, our roads, our communities, money to invest once again in ourselves.

Our faux Caesar will now be confronted with a choice between his rich friends and the great unwashed. We know which he will choose and as he comes to the defense of the moneyed interests it will be clear where his real priorities lie. Disgustus would be revealed as the fraud he is, having to admit that it isn't Mexico or the wealthy that are going to be burdened with this monument to tRUMP, but the very fools that put him into office in the first place. When it becomes obvious where the burden will fall, he will hemorrhage support from all but the most deluded making him eminently impeachable.

Don't hold your breath for one must never underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

“Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

January 21, 2019: A Movement Without A Cause, No Agenda, Protesting With Platitudes

Today marks the second anniversary of the 'Women's March', sparked by and immediately on the heels of the 'election' of our Caesar Disgustus. Like my daughter, I took part in that march, she in joining the throngs in Washington D.C., while I marched with a large, albeit more modest gathering in Grand Rapids Michigan. (1)

We gathered at the Fountain Street Church and marched to Campau Square, gathering at the Rosa Parks Circle. I was interviewed, so some unfathomable reason, by WOOD-TV, the local NBC television outlet for it's evening coverage of the local news while we gathered at the church and, after the march and the protests at Rosa Park Circle I made my way back to the church once again encountering the reporter who had put me before the cameras. We spoke about the gathering and its possible significance and I commented that if the movement is to succeed, it will have to articulate an agenda.

This weekend, they gathered again, in fewer numbers, about the country. The movement is said to be fractured; riven by rival factions one of whom has embraced the Nation of Islam leader and black nationalist Louis Farrakhan,(2) an association repugnant to others in the movement.

For this reason, it is held by many, the movement has faltered.

I'm not convinced.

Addressing this issue in The New York Times, David Leonhardt observes: “When I've spoken to people from other countries over the past couple of weeks, they have been shocked that Americans have not begun protesting the shutdown in large numbers. About 800,000 federal workers have now gone almost a month without getting paid. Some are struggling to pay their rent or buy medications. Some have gone to pawn shops to get cash. Major functions of government—airline security, food safety, mortgage processing, farm assistance and so on—have been impaired.

“If this were happening in Europe, as Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago told me, people would be pouring into the streets. And yet in the United States, there has been nothing but a few small scattered rallies.

“Instead of lining up to protest, hundreds of federal workers in Washington lined up last week to eat at makeshift soup kitchens, the photos of them doing so were a study in powerlessness” (3)

Imagine, wrote Leonhardt, a progressive movement large enough to bring pressure upon our Caesar and force capitulation? Indeed, imagine a progressive movement.

What we are witnessing here isn't simply the mendacity of a cabal hell-bent on inflicting pain. We are witnessing pain inflicted upon a segment of the population long reviled by the idiot wrong. One has only to hearken back to that old racist George Wallace to find the roots of this crisis. One of the standard bromides of every Wallace stump speech was to rail against those faceless “briefcase totin' bureaucrats who somehow stood between the great unwashed and their American Dream. This bit of buffoonery happily coincides with the Capitalist's drive to strip the agencies of their regulatory power. So we find the happy marriage of Donald tRUMP with the Koch Brothers and other billionaires, just as Wallace, when he wasn't busting unions at home, would fly about the country in planes provided by Colonel Sanders, all the while posturing as the tribune of the underclass.

But I digress. Public employees have long been the whipping boy of the conservative movement because they are the last bastions of organized labor. If we can get the rubes to revile them by pointing out their job security while they increasingly have none, and remind them, not so subtlely of the evils of affirmative action, then the face of public employment is no longer the face that White America sees in its mirror. Once again the race card is played and the last bastion of the middle class becomes ever more vulnerable.

Leonardt quite rightly suggests a series of one day strikes. National strikes are a staple of European politics and can be very effective. But our masters have, it should be obvious, long mastered the arts of divide and rule.

But the question begs itself: to what end? End the shutdown? Perhaps, but then what? The reason, I suspect, that people are not taking to the streets is that like the “Occupy Wall Street” and the “99 Per Cent” movements, the “Resistance” has no agenda.

Yes it has inspired many women to get into the political arena, and this is an accomplishment that deserves its recognition. But it is not enough.

Today the nation gathered once again to honor Martin Luther King. As we mark the half-century of his passing it is worth noting how the power structure has transformed King and what this day now represents.

King comes down to us now as an apostle of peace, adherent of non-violence, who quietly pressured the establishment to let his people go. A kind of Moses, a nearly universally revered figure who led his people and the nation out of the darkness and into the promised land. In this way King has been, in the hands of the dominate white culture, transformed into that knighted state in which he represents not the struggle of the underclass but the eternally transcendent America. In the hands of Corporate America, King has undergone a metamorphosis with a face as white as the marble statue that graces the Washington Mall. A non-threatening Martin. A Martin who spoke in moral platitudes about some distant goal, like Jesus about the Kingdom Come.

But that wasn't King at all, and that wasn't the essence of the movement. It was about the urgency of now, real goals in real time. It was more like Moses speaking about the promised land and taking the people there.

The essence of the movement was not justice in service of morality; but morality in service of justice; and by that he meant economic justice. King understood that in order to exploit a human being one has to degrade him. Slavery was, after all, first and foremost an economic system. Accordingly, he drew deeply upon the religious and political tenets of our culture to justify a movement that demanded justice—foremost economic justice.

It was the bus boycott in Montgomery where it began, and the demonstrations on behalf of the sanitary workers in Memphis where it ended. And when it ended, King was already deep in planning a March On Washington with full intention of building a tent city on the Mall of the poor and dispossessed of ALL RACES from around the country in an effort to force the issue of the maldistribution of wealth into the national consciousness.

To achieve these ends, King would not only demonstrate but would do so in an effort to bring attention to and demand remedy for specific issues whether it be voting rights, school integration, public housing, jobs, or the ending of real estate practices that segregated neighborhoods.

And he would break the law in order to achieve these ends, because justice demands a higher service, a higher morality than currently codified in the law. It was ugly. He called upon the nation to face itself, to live up to its promises, to be what it pretends to be. In so doing he was, and had to be, intentionally confrontational, and the confrontations provoked often violent eruptions. The racism that pervades this country was put on television for the nation and all the world to see.

These are radical ideas and strategies. Indeed, they are revolutionary. So confrontational that violence was King's—and the movement's—constant companion.

For his efforts, King was hated and reviled. It was after he was safely dead that his image was scrubbed white.

Progressives need to learn from the entire history of the Civil Rights movement, as well as the Progressive, Anti-slavery, Suffragette, and Labor movements. Nothing is gained without struggle; nothing is gained without putting your body on the line; nothing is gained without cost. Foremost, nothing is gained without an agenda. You cannot win protesting platitude. You must make demands.

Our ancestors understood this. The Progressives sang “We will have our eight hours” and organized unions and took to the streets to get it. Likewise the suffragette in the streets to get the vote. But it was to get the vote—not simply to draw attention to the evil. One must organize around specific remedy.

The fear among the progressives is that if we take a stand on specifics the movement will splinter and die. This is not the lesson of Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights Movement, or any effort to achieve justice. To not put forward a list of demands will ensure the withering of the movement for there will be nothing about which to rally.

Just ask Martin Luther King or, for that matter, Martin Luther.

Impeach and Imprison.

_______________

1. See. February 26, 2017: Support and Rememberance, To The Ramparts, Seeking Ablution
2. see. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Farrakhan
3. Leonhardt, David. “Where Have You Gone, Resistance?” The New York Times. Monday, January 21, 2019. Page A19

January 20, 2019: Blood Wolf Moon, Age of Disgustus, No End In Sight.

"If the impeachment provision in the Constitution was not written for our Caesar Disgustus, then for whom?; and if the time to act is not now, then when?"
            --from "The Quotations of Chairman Joe"

Tonight as we witness one of the astronomical anomalies, a blood wolf moon, the nation suffers its second anniversary marking the “Age of Disgustus”. As the “Blood Moon” passes over a nation held hostage, it is long past time that the “Generation of Swine” take stock of the damage done.

It has been a month now, with no end in sight. Good governance, if not the national interest and common decency, require an urgent end to this madness. But to do so will require that we dump tRUMP.

“There's a strong case for waiting for the 2020 election”, (1) opined Michael Tomasky in The New York Times, a position echoed by former Democratic Congressman Barney Frank on the season's premier of Bill Maher's show late last week. He wasn't minimizing the principle, that the impeachment process was written with Donald J. tRUMP entirely in mind.  Tomasky was making the case that his removal from office by the voters would be seen as more 'legitimate', and inflict heavy electoral damage upon the Rescumlickan party in the bargain.

There is a case to made for this, but it overlooks a couple of salient points, the first of which is iterated by the quotation above from the Chairman. The fact is that the 'boomers' had made a mockery of impeachment in the 90's, not that our ancestors, in the Andrew Johnson imbroglio, hadn't done likewise. Remember, it was our fathers who moved to impeach Nixon, the electoral representation of the Generation of Swine was by then only half way toward full dominance. That is, the republic had, by the early to mid-seventies, swallowed only about half the rat. It was the nineties that gave us full-throated 'boomerism' when the likes of Clinton and Gingrich rose to power. And, true to form, we were 'entertained' with a political farce known as the “Clinton Scandals”; a seemingly unending demonstration of moral turpitude and lack of political as well as personal judgment; none of which rose to the level of the occasion; but all of which stunk up the public square—a stench that lingers to this day. Ergo: Benghazi and the missing emails.

It was the usual performance one has come to expect from the “Boomers”, who consistently get their kickers in a knot over nothing but let serious high crimes and misdemeanors go unpunished, if not unnoticed.

This, of course leads us to our present conundrum. How do we dump tRUMP?

First, it is important to understand that Disgustus will not go lightly into that good cell. No, the king-hell boar will go kicking and squealing, claiming that the office will have been stolen. This response has been amply demonstrated. In 2016, following suggestions by his Russian handlers, he laid down the gauntlet, openly declaring that he would recognize the electoral returns only if he won; that the election was being rigged; and that he would challenge any result that did not give him his god-given office and authority. This arrogance was further underscored in 2018 when the Rescumlickans openly questioned election recounts in Georgia and Florida as recounts were being done, even though their candidates were then in the lead and the outcome looked entirely favorable. The destruction of democratic norms demonstrate that there are no Nixon's, not to mention Al Gore's, men who put the republic ahead of party, present in the current cesspool that is the modern ReSCUMlickan Party.

Disgustus will squeal no matter how the coup de grace is administered.

To venture down the road of impeachment promises, then, to restore the legitimacy of this constitutional remedy and, incidentally, serve as warning to any future chief executive. It represents a last chance of the Generation of Swine to achieve at least a measure of self-respect.

Yes, I know, the chances of conviction in the Senate are slim, and the failure to convict and remove would be seen as a cleansing agent, seemingly removing the tar from our intrepid Br'er Fox. But this depends upon how this is done.

I am struck, at this point, by the fact that it has been a nearly a month since the Democrats have taken control of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees and there have been no hearings on what everyone knows has to receive a thorough public airing. And the clock is ticking, for we do not want this to drag into next year. A resolution on Disgustus must come, and it must come quickly.

The dragnet must bring up this rogue's gallery  of bottom feeders before the kleig lights and grill them on the barbie. We must hold hearings and we must do it soon.

Secondly, each committee must forego the urge of members to engage in the questioning, for this will lead to grandstanding. Instead, each committee must leave questioning to appointed legal counsel where the likes of Manafort, Cohen, Gates, et.al., would suffer the inquisition by interrogators who, in a subdued monotone, would simply keep to the script. “Just the facts, Ma'am”, as Jack Webb's Joe Friday would say.

In this way day by day, on national television, the nation will witness just how corrupt is this administration. A thoroughgoing probe, beginning with the Russian connections and then branching into related subjects like Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross' connections and corruptions, and then down through the cabinet and former cabinet members. As the curtain is pulled back to reveal the cheap carnival barker turned “Wizard of Oz”, the fraud that is our Disgustus will become evident to all but the most hopelessly deluded. His impeachment and conviction will achieve the legitimacy it deserves and the luster of the constitutional remedy will be restored.

And, as the probes continue it is certain that Rescumlican senators up for re-election will begin to feel the heat and join others in disowning this national embarrassment.

It is going to be dicey in any case, for Disgustus is no statesman. He will not resign, except to save his fortune and keep himself and his family from the penitentiary. We cannot allow this. It is time for this nation to see the chief political scoundrel, as well as his enablers, frog-marched from the corridors of power into long-awaiting confinement. This will have a salutary effect upon the nation, for it will restore confidence in the rule of law as justice  is visited upon the heads of the mighty.

We are not heading into a constitutional crisis. We have long been in one, for this marks the second anniversary of the national nightmare that is Donald J. tRUMP and all that he represents. If we fail to impeach and convict then another precedent will have been set, one that all of us are likely to rue. If Donald tRUMP cannot invoke the constitutional remedy then impeachment is no remedy at all. 

As we move to openly investigate, Disgustus, ever more paranoid and unhinged, is likely to do anything. We, as a nation, can recoil at the prospect or we can see it as an opportunity to restore the institutional norms intended by our forebears; that is re-establish meaningful and effective checks between the branches of government. I suggest that once this crisis reaches critical mass that responsible heads move to impose serious restrictions on presidential authority.

First, pertaining to the power the presidency has taken upon itself over command of the armed forces. Yes, the president is commander-in-chief, but this has been construed to mean that he can launch, on his own authority, offensive actions anywhere in the world; and, given the recent use of the armed forces during this fake crisis on the border at our last election, this aggrandizement of authority is being extended to the unchecked use of military force within the country as well.

The Congress needs to use this crisis to redefine this role by using the war power provision of the Constitution to restore some balance. Congress should act and declare that no use of the military will be undertaken unless Congress makes an open declaration of war or hostility. That is, the Congress should construe its sole authority to declare war to include any hostile action, leaving the president only the power to react to an overt attack upon the United States. The Congress should also construe this power to include the use of force against any domestic insurrection. In this day and age, the Congress can be quickly gathered for such response, or the body could be gathered electronically in order to provide authorization.

Secondly, the Congress should, in a bipartisan declaration, serve notice to the courts that if they overrule this legislation a judge or justice so ruling would be immediately impeached.

Third, the Legislative branch needs to gain more control of the Judiciary. Judges, including Supreme Court justices, should be appointed for fixed terms, say 6 years. Long enough to overlap presidential terms, but often enough for the Congress to exercise effective 'judicial review'. This would prevent the country from being saddled with the likes of Clarence Thomas and Antony Scalia leaving justice waiting in the wings until they mercifully pass on.

Fourth, as a further restraint upon the executive, the Senate and the Senate Judiciary Committee needs to establish the doctrine that the Constitutional provision that the role of the Senate is one of “advise and consent” when it comes to judicial nominees, is not one of tacit consent. Instead the Senate should present the executive with a list of nominees from which the president can choose. This would fall under a useful and workable definition of 'advise'. Any other names sent up to the hill for consideration would be dead on arrival.

It seems to me that these measures would breathe new life into the Constitution by reinvigorating the separation of powers by the assertion of the Congress in the balance. This way the renegade actions demonstrated in the ever-reemerging imperial presidency as well as an overly activist Supreme Court, would be brought into check and balance.

It is unlikely that the Democrats, judging from the remarks of Congressman Frank and others on the panel of Maher's show, will rise to the occasion. It is even more unlikely that the Rescumlickan Party, itself up to it's eyebrows in treachery and treason, will find it's spine. Of course, the chances of that are less than that tomorrow will bring another blood wolf moon.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh.”

Impeach and Imprison.

_____________________

1. Tomasky, Michael. “What's the Best Way to Dump Trump?” The New York Times. Monday, January 14, 2018. Page A24

January 19, 2019 Pride and Prejudice, Spite and Malice, The Lady Says No

The federal government has now been under a partial shut down for nearly a month. In what began as an act of pride and prejudice—an attempt to build, like some modern Hadrian, a monument to himself, and fund that enterprise by naked racist appeal; Disgustus now finds himself trembling before the likes of Limbaugh and Coulter while stories of families being evicted, workers unable to buy groceries or medicine haunt the news. The bastard 'president', finds himself alone performing unnatural acts upon his cheeseburger as he twits away his presidency.

Famously captured on tape telling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that he would happily take the credit for closing down the government unless he got his wall, Disgustus now finds himself boxed into a corner, his support bleeding and, in his words, taking a beating.

Indeed according so a recent Gallup poll, Disgustus has now lost the support of a majority of white voters who do not have a college education. Confronted with the spectre of the loss of the 'great unwashed', Disgustus took to the airwaves earlier in the month addressing the nation from the oval office.

Many in the media, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC among them, openly questioned whether the networks should broadcast the speech, noting that little would be added to the discussion and much would be added to the level of misrepresentation by this White House. Some suggested taping the speech and then interrupting Disgustus on the replay with fact checks setting the record straight. Nevertheless, the networks broadcast the speech.

It was bad enough that the media gave Disgustus the national stage, but not content with presenting a shit-storm of lies Disgustus, taking to the internet before the speech made an appeal for campaign contributions. As reported by Lawrence O'Donnell in the aftermath of Disgustus' performance, Trump made an appeal for contributions to support the wall, but in the footnotes the money was to go to the re-election committee. So here we have our bastard 'president' using an oval office speech in order to solicit, by invidious means, campaign contributions. Another norm of decency shredded as this clown further defiles the office.

This dispute is ostensibly about building the wall. Disgustus presents it as a barrier holding back the brown hordes threatening our southern frontier. Those familiar with its origins speak of the wall as a means of reminding candidate Disgustus to mention immigration on the campaign trail. When he discovered that mentioning a wall brought a roar of approval, it became a stock item in his stump speech. Later he added the proviso “and Mexico will pay for it”, because he quite rightly ciphered that the Generation of Swine is not about to pay for anything.

The President of Mexico was having none of it, telling tRUMP and then the world that Mexico isn't about to pay for any 'fucking wall'. That left Disgustus trapped in a corner with his pants down.

Hemmed in by Mexico's obstinance on one side, Coulter, Limbaugh and his rabid base on the another, and the resistance and disgust of the Democrats and independents on another, Disgustus has become a cornered rat looking for some way out.

So he called the Democrats to the White House to 'negotiate', beginning the meeting declaring that he wants 5.7 billion dollars for this monument to himself. The lady said no. Disgustus, not familiar with such a rebuff, declared the meeting over and stormed out the room. Pelosi, emerging on the White House Lawn, told the nation that the 'president' behaved like a petulant child, having a temper tantrum and, reminding the nation that federal workers cannot simply call daddy to fund the household until this storm passes, suggested that perhaps the Disgustus intransigence had something to do with his inferior sense of masculinity.

A few days later, Disgustus, still searching for an exit, called together a delegation of House Democrats in representing conservative districts hoping to peel them away from the Speaker. It didn't work. The Lady said NO!

Then came the shot across the bow when early this week Speaker Pelosi sent a letter to Disgustus disinviting him from appearing in the House Chamber to deliver the State of the Union address.

“The Communique was at once excruciatingly polite and brutally dismissive, driving home how the power dynamic has shifted on Capitol Hill” wrote Michelle Cottle in The New York Times, “if anyone has the chops to manage Mr. Trump's brattiness, it is Ms. Pelosi.

In a tit for tat, Disgustus took away military aircraft in which members of Congress were to visit Afghanistan and Iraq.

“It was a transparent bit of retaliation for Ms. Pelosi's taking his big television moment away from him—not to mention a blatant attempt to drag the speaker down into the sort of cheap playground tussle at which the president excels.”

As Ms. Cottle notes, Speaker Pelosi is no stranger to the male ego; the chauvinist braggadocio and the insecurities it betrays. She was dismissed as an “airhead” by Democratic Leadership when she early in her career sought the leadership of the national party. She struggled with and finally transformed the 'boys club' that has been the United States Congress. She is nothing like the moronic neophyte presently occupying the Executive Mansion.

“This time around,” Observed Ms. Cottle, “Ms. Pelosi is aiming not merely to rein in the out-of-control president but, in the process, to deflate his cherished image as Master of the Universe. She has mocked Mr. Trump's obsession with what she terms his 'manhood' and gone all in with the grandmother-wrangling-an-unruly-child shtick. What he paints as strong leadership and holding his ground, she dismisses as a temper tantrum. Rather than outrage or disbelief, Ms. Pelosi's most common response to Mr. Trump amounts to one long, exasperated eye roll.” (1)

The adults have, like rats jumping ship, left the White House. But the adults have arrived in the people's chamber of Congress; and the adult in the House has spoken. The lady has seen a thing or two. The lady has been around the block. The lady knows how to read the wind. The lady knows how to count heads, and the lady demonstrates that she will not respond to intemperance; she will not respond to petulance; she will not respond the temper-tantrums. This isn't about the wall, it is about having tantrums when one doesn't get one's way. Lady said “No”.

Go ahead big boy, try and flog grandma. See what that gets you.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

________________

1. Cottle, Michelle. “A Game of Spite and Malice”, The New York Times. Friday, January 18, 2019. Page A22

January 5, 2019: tRUMP is a Fraud, Like A Parasite, Stench Of Corruption.

Next to building that great wall, the campaign promise that was sure to be raised at every fevered gathering of the great unwashed was the call to “drain the swamp”. It wasn't quite clear what the idiot meant by this, but there was a general understanding that he would wage war against the lobbyists on K-street that had so successfully stymied the will of the people.

What Disgustus didn't tell his howling herd is that the man who he introduced as the manager of his campaign was none other than the man who invented the swamp in the first place.

“During the years that followed World War II, Washington's most effective lobbyists transcended the transactional nature of their profession”, wrote Franklin Foer, in The Atlantic Magazine. “Men such as Abe Fortes, Clark Clifford, Bryce Harlow, and Thomas Corcoran were known not as grubby mercenaries but as elegant avatars of a permanent establishment, lauded as 'wise men'. Lobbying hardly carried a stigma, because there was so little of it. When the legendary lawyer Tommy Boggs registered himself as a lobbyist, in 1967, his name was only 64^th on the active list. Businesses simply didn't consider lobbying a necessity. Three leading political scientists had studied the profession in 1963 and concluded: 'when we look at the typical lobby, we find its opportunities to maneuver are sharply limited, its staff mediocre, its typical problem not the influencing of Congressional votes but finding the clients and contributors to enable it to survive at all” (1)

All this abruptly changed with the arrival of the clown from California, late host of television's “Death Valley Days.” After Watergate, notes Foer, “Republican lobbyists were particularly enfeebled. Generations of Democratic majorities in Congress had been terrible for business.” (2)

Into this political world stepped a new generation of political operatives, men who had been schooled in the cesspool of the Young Republican organization, been brought to Washington by Richard Outhouse Nixon, and returned by the Rescumlickan electoral wave of 1980 that brought a washed-up actor to the White House along with a Senate majority. Men like Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Lee Atwater. Within a decade they would begin to transform the industry into such proportions that by the time fellow Boomer Newt Gingrich emerged as Speaker of the House, former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder would lead a small band of Democrats up the steep steps to the roof of the Capitol Building and hang a giant “SOLD” sign upon the Capitol Dome. The Congress was now open for serious business.

And, as predictable as the morning sunrise, the nation was soon knee deep is scandal as the swamp rose from the fetid marshes of the Potomac, down Pennsylvania Avenue and right up the steps of the Capitol itself, with scoundrels like Jack Abramoff (3) racing to the trough closely on the heels of the Savings and Loan Scandals (4) . By the time the Gingrich had arrived to steal Christmas, the swamp monsters were already well entrenched feeding off the political carcass like the parasites they are.

As Foer points out, the man most responsible for morphing lobbyists from 'wise men' to 'swamp monsters' was none other than the man managing tRUMP's very own campaign, Paul Manafort. Manfort had come to Washington, like Stone, Atwater and a host of others as a campaign organizer. When his champion was driven from office he, like his cohorts, moved to lobbying. These were lean years, relatively speaking, but years in which they would make a few dollars and hone their skills. With Reagan came a chance to get back into the major leagues. And, sure enough, they found the suitable sponsor. With newly acquired access to power, Manafort pioneered a new kind of lobbying, lobbying not for particular interests, but lobbying the very people he worked to get into office. This symbiotic relationship, like a parasite to a host, has proved just as endurable, and just as toxic to the political body of the nation.

But Manafort, a resourceful lot, wasn't finished. He branched out representing foreign nationals and foreign leaders, including some of the most reprehensible and despicable regimes on the face of the earth. Among these, the Russian-backed regime in the Ukraine was hardly the worst of the lot.

These are the people that surround our Caesar, drawn to Disgustus by the stench of corruption like seagulls at the dump.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison

_______________

1. Foer, Franklin. “American Hustler, Oligarchs, Shady Deals, Foreign Money—How Paul Manafort Helped Corrupt Washington and Laid the Groundwork For the Subversion Of American Politics”. The Atlantic Magazine. March 2018. Pages 62-78 See page 67
   
2. ibid. Page 67
   
3. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_Indian_lobbying_scandal
   
4. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis
   
   

January 2, 2019: The Wall Cracks, A Deep Descent, Disgustus Is No Lincoln

In an opinion published in The Washington Post, Senator-elect Willard “Mitt” Romney excoriated our would be Caesar for his failings in office. Romney's commentary in today's Post, entitled “Mitt Romney: The President Shapes the Public Character of the Nation. Trump's Character Falls Short” is published here in its entirety”

“The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.

It is well known that Donald Trump was not my choice for the Republican presidential nomination. After he became the nominee, I hoped his campaign would refrain from resentment and name-calling. It did not. When he won the election, I hoped he would rise to the occasion. His early appointments of Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Nikki Haley, Gary Cohn, H.R. McMaster, Kelly and Mattis were encouraging. But, on balance, his conduct over the past two years, particularly his actions last month, is evidence that the president has not risen to the mantle of the office.

It is not that all of the president’s policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on China’s unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency.

To a great degree, a presidency shapes the public character of the nation. A president should unite us and inspire us to follow “our better angels.” A president should demonstrate the essential qualities of honesty and integrity, and elevate the national discourse with comity and mutual respect. As a nation, we have been blessed with presidents who have called on the greatness of the American spirit. With the nation so divided, resentful and angry, presidential leadership in qualities of character is indispensable. And it is in this province where the incumbent’s shortfall has been most glaring.

The world is also watching. America has long been looked to for leadership. Our economic and military strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more esteemed. Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world. In a 2016 Pew Research Center poll, 84 percent of people in Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Sweden believed the American president would “do the right thing in world affairs.” One year later, that number had fallen to 16 percent.

This comes at a very unfortunate time. Several allies in Europe are experiencing political upheaval. Several former Soviet satellite states are rethinking their commitment to democracy. Some Asian nations, such as the Philippines, lean increasingly toward China, which advances to rival our economy and our military. The alternative to U.S. world leadership offered by China and Russia is autocratic, corrupt and brutal.

The world needs American leadership, and it is in America’s interest to provide it. A world led by authoritarian regimes is a world — and an America — with less prosperity, less freedom, less peace.

To reassume our leadership in world politics, we must repair failings in our politics at home. That project begins, of course, with the highest office once again acting to inspire and unite us. It includes political parties promoting policies that strengthen us rather than promote tribalism by exploiting fear and resentment. Our leaders must defend our vital institutions despite their inevitable failings: a free press, the rule of law, strong churches, and responsible corporations and unions.

We must repair our fiscal foundation, setting a course to a balanced budget. We must attract the best talent to America’s service and the best innovators to America’s economy.

America is strongest when our arms are linked with other nations. We want a unified and strong Europe, not a disintegrating union. We want stable relationships with the nations of Asia that strengthen our mutual security and prosperity.

I look forward to working on these priorities with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other senators.

Furthermore, I will act as I would with any president, in or out of my party: I will support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state, and oppose those that are not. I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault. But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.

I remain optimistic about our future. In an innovation age, Americans excel. More importantly, noble instincts live in the hearts of Americans. The people of this great land will eschew the politics of anger and fear if they are summoned to the responsibility by leaders in homes, in churches, in schools, in businesses, in government — who raise our sights and respect the dignity of every child of God — the ideal that is the essence of America.”

                                                         ----Mitt Romney

While it is troubling to see Romney declare fealty to the scumbag Mitch McConnell it is encouraging to note that even in the face of misguided approval of the tax policies, deregulation and threatening trade wars, Romney is, nevertheless, holding Disgustus to account. Perhaps Mitt, who would have made a much greater president than Disgustus, will live up to that greatness by becoming the rallying post upon which the salvation of the republic now rests.

Perhaps this is the beginning of the end. Perhaps this is the “shot heard 'round the world”, for indeed, as Mitt declared, the whole world is watching and the Wall around Disgustus is, indeed, cracking.

It is significant that Romney should call upon the legacy of Lincoln and rightly point out that the president should unite us and encourage us to “follow our better angels”. For the contrast cannot be any more stark. Disgustus has no moral compass. He knows no “better angel” either within or without him. Cornered and now alone with only his cheeseburger and his demons, he sees only darkness as he stares into the deep abyss.

Disgustus is no Lincoln. As we speak historians are busy re-evaluating the mistakes, and misdeeds of Grant, Harding and Nixon. One can hear, in the distance, that perhaps a complete re-evaluation is in order, perhaps the carving of these three upon Mount Rushmore itself. After Disgustus every other president stands like a giant upon the historical record.

“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”

Impeach and Imprison.

__________________

(1). The Washington Post, January 1, 2019 Opinion