March 29, 2019: In Defense of Reticence, Need for Ablution, Time And Space

"The operative word is reticence.  In reticence one finds space and time; in space and time one finds reflection; in reflection one finds wisdom; in wisdom, understanding."
                   ----from "The Quotations of Chairman Joe"

“Mount a small rebellion against the quickening of time”, exhorts conservative columnist David Brooks in The New York Times. (1) About this brother Brooks is quite right.

“There is a rapid, dirty river of information coursing through us all day. If you're in the news business, or a consumer of the news business, your reaction to events has to be instant or it is outdated. If you're on social media, there are these swarming mobs who rise out of nowhere, leave people broken and do not stick around to perform the patient Kintsugi act of gluing them back together.” (2)

Brooks' illustrated his point through reference to Kintsugi bowls which were made centuries ago and when broken in shards painstakingly glued back together with a technique, using lacquer and gold that rendered them more interesting and more valuable than they were before.

“There's a dimension of depth to them. You sense the original life they had, the rupture and then the way they were so beautifully healed. And of course, they stand as a metaphor for the people, families and societies we all know who have endured their own ruptures and come back beautiful, vulnerable and whole in their broken places.

“I don't know about you,” writes Brooks, “but I feel a great hunger right now for timeless places like these. The internet has accelerated our experience of time, and Donald Trump has upped the pace of events to permanent frenetic.” (3)

Indeed he has. But Disgustus is merely the symptom not the disease. Brooks in conjuring other examples to explain his need sheds additional light. He talks about an artist named Makoto Fujimara whose work requires time to appreciate. It is not the stuff—like so much modernist shit that can be beheld and dismissed at a glance. No, Fujimara takes time. It takes time to be drawn into his work, for his work to reveal its textures and complexities. Time, which in the modern age, appears to be in short supply.

Similarly, the savaging of time by the modern age when it comes to the Sabbath:

“The great philosopher of time is Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. In his great book 'The Sabbath,' he points out that the first sacred thing in the Bible is not a thing, it is a time period, the seventh day. Judaism, he argues, is primarily a religion of time, not space

“'The seventh day,' he writes, 'is a palace in time which we build. It is made of soul, of joy and reticence. In its atmosphere, a discipline is a reminder of adjacency to eternity. Indeed, the splendor of t he day is expressed in terms of abstentions'

“The Sabbath, he continues, is not a rest from the other six days. It is the peak experience the other six days point toward. On this day the Orthodox do less and in slowness can glimpse the seeds of eternity.” (4)

Likewise, the Greek concept of Kairos, a time measured not quantitatively, but qualitatively, time measured not by the clock but by the experience.  It was the Greeks that gave us representative and participatory governance but a governance that required not only the comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the "polis" (5) but the need for reticence and reflection embodied in the concept of Kairos, a time when one must sometimes experience life "slowly, serenely, but thickly." (6)

Yes! Again, not to belabor the point, this is a modern malady that predates tRUMP by several decades. Over the last half-century, we have been about the business of warping time in the name of commerce. It was, after all, to meet the needs of the shipping industry that mechanical clocks were invented. (7) It was, after all, to meet the needs of the railroad industry that time zones and universal time became absolutely necessary. Finally, it was to meet the needs of the retail industry that the blue laws were overturned and commerce would continue every day of the week if, indeed, every hour. Gone is time and with it space. In what amounts to an ongoing assault on time the market forces have systematically eliminated more and more personal space.

The result is that we are now immersed in turmoil; constantly bombarded with enticements and demands, forever caught in the eternal 'now'; submerged in the cross-currents of an ever more incomprehensible ocean, as the underbelly—from cheap goods to tawdry politics-- is continually pumped unwelcome into our living rooms.

One gasps for air; one seeks the surface if only to momentarily gaze once again upon the stars and fix a position. This takes increasingly strident effort, for it demands that space be cleared and time at the surface.

Imagine if we actually, collectively, paused a day a week and took the time. Perhaps we would once again gaze upon the stars and fix our position; once again find our bearings; once again regain our peripheral vision. We would, for the moment, step back from the struggle,  our collective careening from pillar to post, from headlines to outrages. We might then regain perspective, contemplate our true place in the cosmos, and ponder the corruption of our politics, the bankruptcy of our economics, the tawdriness of our ethics and the sterility of our religions.  And, perhaps in the bargain, for the first time comprehend the outrage that mud now sits on the throne, and the throne on mud.

Alas, we possess no time; we are afforded no space; we are given no peace. The Sabbath and its sanctuary have long since been violated. The Capitalist Pig has long since seen to that. This too is a measure of what we've lost.

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

Impeach and Imprison

____________

1. Brooks, David. “Longing for An Internet Cleanse” The New York Times. Friday, March 29, 2019 Page A25
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. See previous post, " December 2, 2014: Generation of Swine, The Idiot, Bad Citizenship
6. Op. Cit
7. The sextant was used to find longitude but latitude required a reliable means of keeping time. One needs both a reading of longitude and latitude to fix one's position in the open sea.

March 28, 2019: Would a Dick, Before the Priest, Flogging The Children

Whatsoever our Caesar Disgustus sayeth of another, that he himself would be.”

                   ----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

Observing the behaviors of our Caesar Disgustus, comedian Bill Maher noted that his actions seem animated not by questions of policy and judgment but by asking the simple question “What would a dick do?” Maher then listed several policy reverses instituted by our prime ignoramus that make no other sense. Why call, for instance, for the return of coal? Why insist that we once again turn to asbestos? Why reverse regulations on Monsanto banning use of chemicals that cause brain damage to children? Why insist that we once again put lead in bullets? Why? Because he can. He can be a dick, and that is all he can be.

And now we find, after taking a 'victory lap' in the aftermath of the summary of the Mueller Report, that he once again simply cannot help himself. Crowing about the “witch hunt”, and “presidential harassment”, he simply could not leave well enough alone. Instead with the ink still drying on the attorney general's four page summation, our Disgustus once again goes after the signature Obama piece of legislation: the Affordable Care Act.

Gail Collins writing in The New York Times observes: “But then he took off on the worst victory lap since—well, do remember that baseball player who celebrated his grand slam home run by leaping in the air and fracturing a leg?” (1) That about sums it up. He simply cannot leave Obama alone.

The last thing Congressional ReSCUMlickans want to do is return to the health care fiasco. Vowing to make the ReSCUMlickans “the party of health care”, about which he has now famously declared himself to be the resident expert, once again our intrepid Disgustus is walking all over himself as he lurches forth snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Mitch McConnell is not amused, basically informing the White House that they are on their own. McConnell, who has been burned more often than he cares to recall as one agreement after another vanished before his eyes as the White House moved goal posts, has no stomach for this telling tRUMP that he can deal with the House Speaker.

“Republicans in Congress began desperately leaking the news that they had tried to talk their alleged leader out of the idea. The Democrats were almost swooning with joy. Really, Trump could not have made them happier if he'd announced that he planned to unveil a new tax cut called Help for The Greedy Rich” (2)

Meanwhile the administration has reversed position and is now backing challenges to the constitutionality of Obamacare currently working through the courts. This latest stratagem is reportedly the brainchild of the White House Chief-of-staff who, with the support of other idiotlogues in this maladministration won the day over the strenuous objections of attorney general William Barr. Barr should have resigned.

It seems to me that we do indeed have a constitutional question here and it is not about the legitimacy of the ACA. It is about the failure of this administration to faithfully execute the laws. It seems to me that on its face the administration is bound to defend any act of congress in the courts and failure to do so is a violation of that oath. But then, we are in the grips of graduates of schools of law that have no understanding of constitutional questions.

So once again, private “Bone Spurs” quick on the heels of his Department of Education eliminating funding for the “Special Oympics” and severe cuts in school lunch programs and other help for the needy, picks a fight with the weakest, most vulnerable members of society. Confronted with real wealth and real political power Disgustus drops to his knees like an altar boy before a priest. Then, when vespers are over he seeks a playground and begins flogging the children.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

______________________

1. Collins, Gail. “Bad Times in Trumpville” The New York Times. Thursday, March 28, 2019
   Page A25
2. Ibid

March 27, 2019: Three Word Refrain, Unanswered Questions, If. Fucking. Only.

Yahoo news reports today that Monica Lewinski, the subject of the Bill Clinton impeachment, responded with a tart reply.

Lewinski was“responding to a law professor's comparison of Mueller's still-confidential report on the ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government to the 1998 release of the Starr Report...On Sunday, Barr issued a four-page summary of Mueller's report, stating that Mueller did not find any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia...

“Imagine if the Starr Report had been provided only to President Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, who then read it privately and published a 4-page letter based on her private reading stating her conclusion that President Clinton committed no crimes,' Orin Kerr, a professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, tweeted Tuesday Evening'”.

“Lewinsky retweeted Kerr later that evening with a three word refrain: if.fucking.only” (1)

Ken Starr, now a professor at large teaching at Pepperdine University had made a pig's breakfast of the proceedings, and a mockery of justice. Originally called into being to probe the already exhaustively probed “Whitewater” affair—a real estate venture gone off the rails back in Arkansas as the Clinton's were on the political rise, Starr's inquiry found itself sucked down the drain of tawdry sexual scandal that not only exceeded its mandate but about which the country could have cared less. It was, after all, consensual sex among adults and who, after all, would not want to be blown by one so attractive? Nevertheless Starr treated us to all the pornographically titillating details, dragging the young intern through the mud, savaging her reputation. She has spent the rest of her life living the aftermath.

But then, to the ReSCUMlickans everything—including the most personal—are fair game as long as it serves their jaded political interest.

Yes, if only...If only Starr had exercised reasonable adult judgment. How much less painful would her life be?

But the question presents itself to the nation as a whole, because in the process of violating all sorts of norms...from reporting on and seeking criminal indictment on matters surrounding the sex life of presidents—to publishing grand jury testimony—to requiring a president sit before a camera and testify under oath—all novel inventions by Starr, the scandal has left a legacy that has paralyzed the nation. A remedy—the Special Counsel appointed by Congress and reporting to Congress—was abused and then destroyed by Ken Starr. It has been replaced by a process in which probes into presidential iniquity are conducted not by independent counsel but by the Justice Department and report not to Congress but the Attorney General. The result is that no matter what Mueller reports the political apparatchiks will have their finger prints all over the findings, destroying the credibility of the effort.

The Starr probe served to be such a fiasco that lessons learned by the “generation of swine”--that malignant generation currently clinging to the last breath of power—are not the lessons of Watergate, but the lessons of the Lewinski affair. Long before Mueller submitted his report the Democratic leadership—as has been discussed here in previous columns—found itself reluctant to even begin impeachment hearings. The reason is that when the scum did it to Clinton it backfired, Clinton's popularity only rose as a consequence.

I think that's a fair assessment if you are only considering the Stormy Daniels affair. This inquiry, like the Lewinski mess, is unrelated and tangential at best to the serious high crimes committed by the scum now occupying the Oval Office. And it has been and will continue to be treated accordingly. That tRUMP has been, in effect, named as an 'unindicted co-conspirator' in the Daniels' cover-up has been and will be met with a collective yawn by the nation at large. After all, who cares who the swine is porking?

But the press, always mesmerized by tits and ass, has pressed the case; for there is money to be made in appealing to the prurient interest. Mesmerized by silicone instead of violated innocence, our Disgustus, as his predecessor, will dance free. The difference is that instead of a playboy we are confronted with the most corrupt, mendacious and criminal cabal ever to seize power in the United States. We simply cannot move on. Serious evidence of money laundering, tax evasion, bank and insurance fraud, racketeering, obstruction of justice, violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution and campaign finance violations remain, as well as serious questions concerning the intersection of private business dealings with subsequent alterations in U.S. foreign policy. There are, simply put, too many unanswered questions.

Currently, the prevailing wisdom is to move on. Concentrate on policy, report on the outrages in every department, the corruption, the policy changes. Perhaps. But the question remains: if impeachment and removal were not intended for tRUMP, then who?

No! It is a mistake to gloss this over. To gloss this over is to render this attempt at 'justice' as fake as Stormy Daniels' tits, to most, just as mesmerizing. It is, perhaps, the ultimate diminution. The fact that the Democrats have not passed a resolution in the House charging the Committee on the Judiciary to begin hearings regarding the possible impeachment of this swine is an outrage. It has been nearly three months and we have had only one public airing—that of Michael Cohen and two of the three appearances by tRUMP's former personal attorney have been in secret sessions. This simply won't do.

It is right and proper, as the House voted 430-0 last week to do, to make the report immediately available to the Congress. It is right and proper that the Congress—not the attorney general who was appointed for just this role—to then redact information regarding ongoing investigations and release as much as possible. It is then the responsibility of those we elected and who have taken the oath to defend and protect the constitution of this country to use the probe to begin full public hearings.

What the SCUM did with Clinton was take the report, draw up articles of impeachment and, without hearings, indict the president and put the question before the Senate. The experience drawn from the first full-blown experiment with impeachments conducted by the 'generation of swine' is that this pig's breakfast is not an acceptable outcome, and the conclusions drawn from the experience are just as erroneous.

No! We need full hearings. It was the hearings that produced John Dean. It was during an open Congressional hearing that Alexander Butterfield told the nation about the existence of the Nixon taping system. It was the hearings that fleshed out the details and it was the hearings that prepared the nation to remove the swine.

But the 'Boomers', the “Generation of Swine” learn nothing. Experience is powerless to instruct. If only they had done it right. If only now we do it right. If. Fucking. Only.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

______________

1. https://www.yahoo.com/news/monica-lewinsky-sounds-off-on-the-mueller-report-172736648.html

March 25, 2019: Whitewash, No Exoneration, Bush-Lite

“The much anticipated 'happy hour' known euphemistically as 'Mueller Time' produced not a heavy German Lager, but a Bush-Lite”

                    ----from “The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

Yes, Mueller Time—a play on the old Miller beer commercials—proved not to be a 'happy hour' for the republic, but a dud—a milquetoast response to a national emergency where the authorities demonstrated more concern for their institutional survival than with a serious inquiry into truth. It reminds me of the way the agencies circled the wagon in the aftermath of Dallas, and this exercise in transparency will be greeted with a skepticism bordering on cynicism.

What was released was a tepid four page summary by the Attorney General chosen by Disgustus for the occasion. William Barr, it will be recalled, campaigned for his appointment by writing memos expressing support of vast executive power as well as the curious argument that the president cannot commit obstruction of justice because he controls the process, an opinion not shared previously, most notably in the case of Richard Shithouse Nixon. Barr is also the one who penned the pardons issued by George H.W. Bush< on his way out the door after losing re-election to Bill Clinton, to former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Eliot Abrams, Duane Clarridge, Alan Fiers, Clair George and Robert McFarlane for their involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. (1) Note that not only has Barr re-surfaced here, but Eliot Abrams is back in the saddle committing once again mischief in Latin America.

Barr is, as Disgustus wishes, doing his job. He is doing his best to obstruct by falsely summarizing the report, suggesting that “Mr. Mueller and his team were unable to establish that anyone connected to the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government when it interfered to help Mr. Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign”. (2) This is an interesting and highly misleading parsing of words, since it narrowly defines the conclusion to conspiracy with the 'Russian Government' which could well exclude shadowing intermediaries with known connections to Putin but who do not hold 'official' governmental positions. But the idea that there was no conspiracy nor coordination is laughable on its face. How else then to explain the 180 degree about-face on the Ukraine taken at the Rescumlican National Convention? How else to explain all the Russians hanging about the convention and the inauguration? How else to explain the email sent from the Russians to Donny Jr. suggesting in September 2016 that tRUMP tell the country that if he loses he will question the legitimacy of the results and then, within days, tRUMP is out on the stump declaring just that? How else to explain Manafort passing polling information to Russian nationals known to have connection with Russian intelligence? How else to explain at least two attempts—one by Jared Kushner and the other by the mercenary Eric Prince—to establish back channels to the Kremlin presumably protected from discovery by our intelligence agencies? How else to explain tens of millions of dollars funneled through the NRA into the tRUMP's campaign as well as the RNC and several congressional campaigns. The fact is that these crimes were committed in full sight and must be accounted for.

As of this writing we don't know to what degree the investigation plumbed the depths of infamy, but we suspect that there is a lot of incriminating evidence. What is clear is that at a minimum the snot-nosed larvae is guilty of lying to Congress as is the Son-in-law and why there were no further indictments relating to obstruction of justice by members of the immediate family remains an outrage.

One suspects that from the outset the FBI thought foremost of it's institutional survival and was motivated accordingly. One is reminded here of the fiasco over the Clinton emails, telling the nation that there wasn't enough evidence to indict but chiding her for being fast and loose with state secrets. It was a formula that, in the end, satisfied no one. Here the Bureau is once again trying to parse the issue, in effect slapping the president on the wrist and telling our errant Disgustus that he is a naughty little boy for engaging—knowingly or not—with foreign adversaries to subvert the electoral processes of the country. But the every juvenile and delinquent Disgustus will lean no lessons from this, except that once again he has bluffed his way out of trouble.

Let there be no mistake about it. This is an institutional failure. It is a failure of the Congress to act responsibly by itself taking on the investigations, complete with professional investigators and prosecutors—as in the Watergate affair. It wasn't the FBI that investigated Nixon, it was the Congress. Instead the Congress palmed this off to the F.B.I., and then, with the firing of James Comey, the newly appointed Special Council. This put the agency right in the cross hairs of partisan bickering, a position from which it was busing trying to free itself in the wake of the Clinton imbroglio. It is a no-win situation for Mueller and the agency he served and reveres. What else can we expect then, but a report that, in effect, neither indicts nor exonerates? What Mueller is saying—and can only say if he wants to protect his agency from withering partisan retaliation—is “here is the evidence, you decide.” The problem is that the law establishing the probe dictates the report goes not to Congress or the people but to the Attorney General who on his own decides what evidence we will see; and so far the evidence, such as it is, is not forthcoming.

There is, no doubt, enough in this investigation to warrant thorough hearings, and continued prosecutions. The problem is political will. Last week the House voted 420-0 for the full release of the Mueller report. In the wake of the obscenity released by Barr over t he weekend, we shall see if the Congress has the courage of it's convictions.

This is the most corrupt administration in the history of this republic. It is also the most contemptuous of the law. The longer this is allowed to continue the greater the damage to the institutions and the rule of law; the weaker our country, the more fragile our international standing.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

______________________

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_George_H._W._Bush
2. Editorial, “No Collusion, No Exoneration” The New York Times. Monday, March 25, 2019 Page A22

March 13, 2019: Three Score and Ten,

This is the first such milestone that mother isn't here to convey her remembrance of that Sunday afternoon so long ago now when she struggled to deliver and I struggled to survive. At the old hospital on Washington Avenue, overlooking the Marquette river and across the place where the revered priest died those many years ago, she struggled to give birth. I was born two months premature with an undeveloped respiratory system and with some circulation problems and was immediately whisked off to an incubator. Because of the size of my head and delivery issues, mother was quickly sedated and stitched up and would spend weeks in recovery, as would I. It was a trauma we both shared and, besides being the firstborn, created a special relationship beyond what the birth order is normally accorded. I remember a decade or so ago, she sent to our residence in Athens, Georgia a card upon which she had written “I miss my first-born”. I know.

My relationship with mother was a many-layered, complex, and at times difficult. But we understood each other as perhaps no one else. I, perhaps alone, could speak truth to mother, and there were times when truth was painful. There are things your children can say to you that even your spouse cannot, and this was certainly the case here. We had been through too much together to bear false witness.

So when she divorced my father and coerced me into signing the papers of adoption and changing my last name I told her then that I would change it back when I reached the age of majority. She thought I wouldn't and when I did I reminded her of what I had told her all those years ago when I was but ten years of age. She disowned me. Told me that I was not longer her son. But I knew she couldn't divorce her children, especially me. We had struggled together, we had suffered together, we were bound together. It took a couple of years but she came around. Eventually, one April afternoon in 1987 we would find ourselves on the phone talking about it, confronting once again the pain of childhood. She would relate to me what she had been through; I to her what she and father had done to my brother and I. We both wept openly.

You see, mother was mostly facade. Under the tough, cold exterior was a frightened little girl. I had always known it, always felt it, even as a boy. Often, as a young boy, when going through the awful nightmare of the turbulence of school and home, I felt like I was the only adult in the room. To me, mom seemed lost—a frightened girl lost in a terrifying wonderland. I told her that and, for once, there was no denial. Just tears. I told her I understood and for the first time I truly did. I understood for the first time what is meant by social fabric; that some things—indeed most things—are intergenerational. We are all caught up in social dynamics that span the generations, and while one can be critical of failures to seize the opportunity to address what is wrong—the dysfunctions about us—one must understand that they are often bigger than we are. In that understanding comes forgiveness.

Two months ago I watched the worn and wrinkled vessel that carried me into this world pass into eternity. It has been three score and ten and for the first time I cannot hear her voice, only silence returns my call.

"Momma don't goooooooooooooo!

Daddy come home!

          ----John Lennon

March 8, 2019: Sounding The Depths, Boiling Point, This Cat Don't Bounce

Polling of the American electorate, regularly conducted by Quinnipiac University, paints a bleak outlook for our intrepid Disgustus. The Quinnipiac ( pronounced KWIN-uh-pe-ack) poll is considered by polling guru and prognosticator Nate Silver as one of the best, if not the best, in the country. It is not an outlier, but comes closest of any to an actual snapshot of what the country thinks and where it stands. Consider the results of a poll taken late last week and released on March 5:

By a 64 to 24 percent margin, Americans believe that tRUMP had committed crimes before he became president. Less than half of Republicans, 48 percent, say that he did not commit any crimes, but a full 33 percent or 1/3 of people who still identify themselves with his party say that he did.

The country is about evenly divided, certainly within the margin of error, concerning the question of whether tRUMP has committed crimes while in office. A full 45 percent say he has, while 43 percent say he has not. This is stunning, coming on the heels of the 'Stormy Daniels' scandal where the president and his minions are accused of illegally covering up illicit sexual liaisons by paying hush-money. With more certainly to follow, including violations of emoluments clause of the Constitution, bribery, insurance and bank frauds, tax evasion, money laundering, racketeering, and outright sedition involving hostile foreign actors, the pending congressional hearings most certainly means that the the number of Americans totally convinced of his corruption will rise. The fact that already—over mere peccadilloes—half the country views him as guilty can only mean that the Constitutional crisis will soon reach a boiling point.

As it stands right now, Americans do not favor impeachment by a 59 to 39 percent margin. But Disgustus can take little comfort here. It is worth noting that nearly 40 percent—at this stage of the inquiries—do favor at least the beginning of the impeachment process. And, tRUMP should take note, by nearly the same margin 58-35 percent, Americans tell the pollsters that Congress should “do more to investigate 'Michael Cohen's claims about President Trump's unethical and illegal behavior.'” (1)

So far, according to the poll, voters by a 41-36 percent margin approve of the way the Democrats are conducting the hearings, while they disapprove the way the Republicans are conducting themselves by a whopping 51-25 percentage points. If you are a Republican, you know its been a tough week when only a quarter of your base supports your behavior and half the party faithful don't like what they see.

But what commandeered the headlines was the finding that more American voters believed Cohen than the president of the United States. More Americans believed a convicted felon and perjurer than believe the president of the United States. This despite only a narrow plurality of only 44 who said that Cohen told the truth to 36 percent telling pollsters that he did not. So less than half of those polled say Cohen told the truth but, tellingly, 50 percent say they nevertheless believe Cohen than the mere 35 percent who hold to their belief in tRUMP.

“The answers to two survey questions deliver a double-barreled gut punch to the honest question,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “'When two-thirds of voters think you have committed a crime in your past life, and almost half of voters say it's a tossup over whether you committed a crime while in the Oval Office, confidence in your overall integrity is very shaky,” Malloy added. 'Add to that, Michael Cohen, a known liar headed to the big house, has more credibility than the leader of the free world.'” (3)

It is this question of credibility that will be the undoing of our Caesar. As noted in previous posts, the president of the United States has little constitutional power. Rather, beyond his roll as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the power exerted by the chief magistrate is one of persuasion. He is, and must be, in the end, a master salesman. As his administration drones on, he is finding himself more difficult to sell, because he has twitted away his credibility beginning on his very first days in office over the nonsense surrounding crowd size at the inauguration.

Credibility, knows every mother's son, is built on a foundation of honesty. And therein, lies the Achilles heel of this great and powerful OZ. Approaching three quarters into his term, a full 55 percent of voters view his job performance negatively, compared to only 38 percent who still approve of him.

These are numbers he will find difficult to change, and the polling tells why:

• By a 65-30 percent margin voters say that “Trump is not honest. His worst grade ever on this character trait.” Moreover, “(H)e gets negative grades on other traits:
• 39-58 percent say he has good leadership skills;
• 39-58 percent that he cares about average Americans;
• 22-71 percent that he is a good role model for children. 

Trump gets mixed or negative grades for handling key issues:

• 49 percent approve his handling of the economy and 45 percent disapprove;
  Negative 38-56 percent for handling foreign policy;
• Negative 40-58 percent for handling immigration issues.(4)

When it comes to diffusing tensions on the Korean peninsula, our Caesar has done anything but instill confidence into the American people. In fact, the country narrowly disapproves of his handling of the situation by a 45-44 margin, but by a 52-42 percentage margin voters “do not have confidence in Trump to handle the situation.” While by a 54-34 percentage margin Americans approve of tRUMP's attempts to “create a close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is a good idea,” (5) they are divided 42-42 percent as to whether it has been a success. This before he returned from Hanoi empty-handed with reports that the North Koreans have begun work on restoring a missile launching site.

Things are, indeed, bleak as this maladministration careens out of control. At no time, including the run-up to the election, has our Caesar Disgustus polled above 50 percent of the electorate. He has always tread, in a word, “under water”. Comparisons have been made to other presidents and other administrations who have overcome such overall deficits and won re-election but those men had polled, at sometime in their presidencies a clear majority of respondents. More importantly, they were, on balance, trusted.

Already the party is deserting him. Votes this week on the declaration of emergency on the Southern Border have already gained the disapproval of the House, with the Republican led Senate sure to—by albeit a narrow margin—follow. The Congress has repeatedly voted to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs and is threatening and may soon do so with Saudi Arabia as well. There is growing unrest within the administration over soaring trade imbalances—now reaching a record 891 billion last year alone, along with a the federal deficit skyrocketing 77 percent over the year before. Conservatives are clinging to tRUMP but are finding that embracing this skunk is not without consequence.

This, now, is a crippled presidency. Crippled by the corruption and mendacity of a vile and corrupt creature who has squandered whatever good faith he had by twitting away his credibility. Former presidents would rise in popularity and yet go down to defeat. They could even, as the phrase goes, experience a 'dead cat' bounce, as in George H.W. Bush's soaring popularity of near 90 percent in the wake of the Gulf War. A popularity, it transpired, a mile wide and an inch thick. An approval that quickly evaporated. Our erstwhile Caesar hasn't even given us that, for this cat don't bounce. He just lays there stinking up the Executive Mansion awaiting to be buried in the dust bin of history.

In the meantime, the country reels from the stench as the Democrats form a circular firing squad.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

___________

1. See http://www.poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2603
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Ibid. 1120 voters were polled with the poll having a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points.

Trump's decision to try to create a close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is a good idea, voters say 54 - 34 percent.

Voters are divided 42 - 42 percent on whether the president's meetings with Kim Jong- Un have been a success or a failure.

From March 1 - 4, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,120 voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points, including the design effect.

The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts gold standard surveys using random digit dialing with live interviewers calling landlines and cell phones. The Quinnipiac University Poll conducts nationwide surveys and polls in more than a dozen states on national and statewide elections, as well as public policy issues.

Visit poll.qu.edu or www.facebook.com/quinnipiacpoll

March 7, 2019: Back To Oz, Cowardly Lion, Paper Tiger

“Somehow, our Caesar Disgustus always takes us back to Oz”

                             ---from The Quotations of Chairman Joe”

It's unavoidably pertinent. However one construes it, from whatever avenue one approaches it, when one confronts tRUMPworld a collage of images evoking a return to Oz dance in one's head. The wizard with his false and overblown facade, a mere manipulation of a common carnival barker. The flying monkeys doing the bidding of evil. The dark tower walled off from civilization. And, of course, the Tin Man with no heart, the straw man with no brain, and the lion with no courage.

The lion has made his appearances in this drama, most recently in the meetings with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jung-Un, where obsequious behavior became manifest embarrassment to our allies and humiliation to our nation. But it doesn't end with his fawning over every tin-horn dictator on the planet. Take his trade negotiations.

“According to multiple news organizations,” observes economist Paul Krugman, “ the U.S. and China are close to a deal that would effectively end trade hostilities. Under the reported deal, America would remove most of the tariffs it imposed last year. China, for its part, would end its retaliatory tariffs, make some changes to its investment and competition policies and direct state enterprises to buy specified amounts of U.S. agricultural and energy products.

“The Trump administration will, of course, trumpet the deal as a triumph. In reality,” concludes Krugman,.. “its much to do about nothing.” (1)

The “deal,” Krugman points out, doesn't begin to address the systematic Chinese theft of intellectual property, nor does it do much to stop the hemorrhage of dollars flowing out of the U.S. due to the trade imbalance.

“If this is the story, it will repeat what we saw on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump announced was the 'worst trade deal ever made.' In the end, what Trump negotiated...was very similar to the previous status quo. Trade experts I Know,” writes Krugman, “when not referring to it as the Village People agreement, call it 'Nafta 0.8': fundamentally the same as Nafta, but a bit worse.”(2)

So as the new deal is concluded and we likely end up with a warmed over status quo, what is the impact? According to Krugman, our intrepid Caesar has made a hash of it. Disgustus' unfailing belligerence has done lasting damage. It is Krugman's judgment that:

“The whole world now knows two things about us. First, we're not reliable—an agreement with the U.S. is really just a suggestion, because you never know when the president will invent some excuse for breaking it.” This is a lesson driven home by the scuttling of the Iran nuclear accords, despite all parties—including tRUMP's own government—reporting that Iran is in full compliance. The same can be said with his unilateral announcement that the U.S. is pulling out of Syria, although he has once again, it was reported recently, changed his mind yet again. None of this waffling is lost on the world. “Second,” continues Krugman, “we're easily rolled: the president may talk tough on trade, but in classic bully fashion, he runs away if confronted”. (3) Just like the Cowardly Lion.

Citing the specious trade dispute tRUMP has had with Canada—our most reliable and stalwart ally—Krugman makes the point that America can't be trusted. What do you make of a nation that would do that it it's best friend?

“Meanwhile,” continues Krugman, “the sudden retreat in the confrontation with China shows that we talk loud but carry a small stick. It would be one thing if the U.S. had changed course on the merits. But backing down so easily, after all the posturing, tells the world that the way to deal with America is not to bargain in good faith, but simply to threaten the president's political base, and maybe offer some payoffs, political and otherwise.” (4)

Finally, Krugman notes that the administration, by blocking appointments to the appellate body enforcing WTO trade rulings, is undermining the World Trade Organization which enforces compliance. This threatens to render moot a recent ruling in our favor over Chinese agricultural subsidies.

Every day, in every way, our Cowardly Lion is about the business of transforming the United States into a paper tiger. You don't come to a knife fight carrying a little stick.

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

Impeach and Imprison

_______________

1. Klugman, Paul. “America the Cowardly Bully” The New York Times. Tuesday, March 5, 2019. Page A26.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid

March 6, 2019: Affection Void, Moral Cretin, Empty Shell

Donald John tRUMP has no soul. A soul requires nurturing, years basking in the sunshine of affection, held in the nest of those about you. Our Caesar Disgustus had, by all accounting, no such upbringing. Indeed, by the time he reached pubescence, his father had him shuffled off to a military academy, it is said, in order to instill some discipline into the boy. Military academies, in case you aren't aware were, in our youth, places that adults put kids who just didn't fit in, who didn't adapt, didn't behave. When a kid was sent off to one of these institutions, it was seen by the greater community that his parents had thrown up their hands and given up. But let there be no misunderstanding here: these were and are institutions. I have not been understood: Donald J. tRUMP was, as a teenager, institutionalized.

Of course, the cure didn't take. It couldn't take. For what tRUMP needed was not discipline, it was unconditional love and acceptance by the people who matter most. Again, I am led back to a remark made by a college professor who once said “every infant needs to look into his mother's eyes and see his own reflection. I looked into my mother's eyes and saw confusion.” When Donald looked into his parents eyes, he more than likely saw a mixture of contempt and terror. One doesn't get love from your Sergeant, your drill instructor doesn't tuck you in at night. This is what happens when one is born into a family that has no business having children.  It almost makes one feel sorry for the hapless bastard.

“I often wonder,” wrote conservative political commentator David Brooks, who didn't love Donald Trump. I often wonder who left an affection void that he has tried to fill by winning attention, which is not the same thing. He's turned himself into a marketing strategy. As Michael Cohen said in his testimony on Wednesday, even the presidential campaign was a marketing campaign to build the Trump brand.

“In turning himself into a brand he's turned himself into a human shell, so brittle and gilded that there is no place for people close to him to attach....

“Imagine what your own life would be like if you had no love in it, if you were just using people and being used.” (1)

When love becomes transactional, everything becomes transactional. Everything becomes a commodity, where empathy and compassion have no room, where the terms of the deal are all that matters. A void is left in place of soul or, as David Brooks so adroitly put it, he's turned himself into a human shell. I would add that perhaps he has never been anything but a shell, that any emerging sense of empathy and compassion—so necessary for a well adjusted human being—were aborted in childhood. For this, his parents and extended family have much to account.

“Normal people have moral sentiments,” Observes Brooks. “Normal people are repulsed when the president of their own nation lies, cheats, practices bigotry, allegedly pays off porn star mistresses.

“Were Republican House members enthusiastic or morose as they decided to turn off their own moral circuits, when they decided to be monumentally unconcerned by the fact that their leader may be a moral cretin?

“Do they think that having anesthetized their moral sense in this case they will simply turn it on again down the road?

“This is how moral corrosion happens. Supporting Trump requires daily acts of distancing, a process that means that after a few months you are tolerant of any corruption. You are morally numb to everything” (2)

Precisely. As the latest “twitstorm” flushes the morning sewage into every living room in America, the nation must perform daily acts of ablution, as the country struggles to keep itself clean. Basic hygiene requires it. But cleansing is itself an act of distancing; and it is the only way to, at least momentarily, rid the stench from the nostrils.

Brooks' observation about creeping tolerance and growing numbness is telling and bitter. Look about, in nearly every department of government there brews a scandal in plain sight. The Veterans Administration being run by a trifecta of cronies out of the complex at Mar-a-Lago; the witches brew bubbling at the Environmental Protection Agency where coal, asbestos and mercury are once again in the ascendance; where regulations are being shredded in the name of profit. Ergo: the interior department. And let's not forget the plundering of the public purse in the prison system, our schools, our health care system. We haven't even begun to plumb the depths of scandal swirling about the heads of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, or Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. The corruption swirling in this cesspool has become so overwhelming that it dwarfs all previous experience. It is impossible to keep up with it all, the stench paralyses the senses. A major political party has already lost its sensibility, and the rest of the nation may soon follow. What was previously abhorrent becomes normalized and thereby legitimized.

When Cohen told the nation about the man behind the curtain, the Republicans only attacked the veracity of the witness. But, as Gail Collins recently observed:

“Almost everybody who knows Donald Trump appears to be going to prison for lying. Or is awaiting sentencing for lying. Or is facing charges of lying.” (3)

Lies embellishing and supporting this façade; lies that are the hot air that inflate the balloon that is this shell; lies that form the hard surface of this empty shell. A shell filled with nothing but the noxious gas of mendacity; a shell nothing can be allowed to penetrate; a shell to which nothing can attach.

When Cohen told the nation about the man behind the curtain, no one on the committee rose to defend our Caesar Disgustus. You can't defend an empty head, an empty heart, an empty shell.

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

Impeach and Imprison

______________

1. Brooks, David. “Morality and Michael Cohen” The New York Times. Friday, March 1, 2019. Page A23.
2. Ibid.
3. Collins, Gail. “Trump's a Guy Who's Tough To Defend” The New York Times. Thursday, February 28, 2019. Page A27

March 5, 2019: Turd In The Fan, Rodino As Our Guide, Where Shithouse Nixon Would Not Go

“As the House takes up congressional hearings, they will find a turd in the fan”

                  ----from The Quotations of Chairman Joe

Yesterday, congressman Jerrold Nadler of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and occupying the very seat upon which sat Peter Rodino all those years ago, announced a dragnet has been cast in an effort to drag from the depths all things tRUMP.

By some counts, there are currently 17 separate investigations, in various jurisdictions, by law enforcement agencies looking into the cesspool holding tRUMP's many nefarious operations. Investigations ranging from sedition with Russia, to real estate transactions, bank fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, racketeering, even into his inauguration as reports surface surrounding foreign interests seeking favor. Nothing tRUMP touches is not thereby soiled.

Nadler is quite right: Congress cannot wait for reports from the Mueller or the Southern District of New York, the people's business requires action. Moreover, if anything is to be done by way of removing this national embarrassment, groundwork is going to have to laid. It would be a mistake to repeat the Republican example of using the Special Prosecutor's report to launch, with no hearings, an impeachment. The country, not exposed to the full extent of the villainy, will balk. No, we all must understand that the Republicans always make a hash of things, it's in their constitution. Therefore, the experience must not be a guide and must not be repeated. Ergo: tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, impeachments. The Democrats have a much better example: their own. The man now sitting in the seat of Peter Rodino must use Rodino as our guide. We know how to do this, let's get on with it.

Nadler is not raring to impeach, noted The New York Times (1) in today's editorial. Indeed, Nadler has said as much on MSNBC and other interviews. But we must, he said, “begin building the public record.” Precisely.

Disgustus has reacted to both the probe itself and it's scope by attempting to dismiss it claiming the Democrats suffer from, among other ailments, “Collusion Delusion”. Here our erstwhile maximum leader imagines himself another Mohamed Ali. “But his core message is the same:” notes the Times, “the president is perfectly content to burn down the nation to save his own hide.” (2) And that, my friends, is somewhere even Richard Shithouse Nixon would not go.

Michael Cohen, wrapping up his testimony last week before the House Oversight Committee, warned that our Caesar Disgustus will not go quietly. You can depend upon it. And that's why these hearings are not only important, they are imperative. All truth is discovered alone. Each of us must, individually, reckon our Caesar's claims with the facts. Each of us, consulting our own conscience and judgment, must weigh the evidence and balance the testimonies. This is a process, a process that takes time.

Let the process begin, we all know—in our collective soul—where it will lead. let the shit fly.

The fate of the republic depends upon it.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

________

1. Editorial. “Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind” The New York Times. Tuesday, March 5, 2019: Page A26
2. Ibid

March 4, 2019: What We've Lost, Once Had Leadership, Compare and Contrast

“And you read your Emily Dickenson

And I, my Robert Frost

And we note our place

with book markers

that measure what we've lost”

                ----Paul Simon “The Dangling Conversation”

We live in a world fragmented; each in his own fun house; each compartmentalized; each consulting his own talisman. We each have our own news sources, each genuflect before our own gods; each marching to our own drum. Society has become individualized, atomized, fragmented; in a word, anti-social.

Once, a half-century ago, we had leadership. We had men that would consult our better angels; men with vision; men who offered hope and optimism; men who brought us together. In the height of the Cold War, for instance, we had a President of the United States who would remind the nation that not only must the country think of the common interests we share as Americans, but what we have in common with all of humanity as well. In a speech given a few months before his death, President Kennedy reminded us and the world that the interests that must bring us together are far more compelling than those that drive us apart.

“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.”

    ----President John F. Kennedy in a speech at American University, June 10, 1963.

These are words that are as relevant today as they were on that bright sunny day when he delivered them. Perhaps, as we approach ecological catastrophe, they are more relevant now than they were then.

What is striking is that words spoken more than half-century ago still inspire. The songwriter Gordon Sumner, known to the world as Sting, recorded a song two decades after Kennedy delivered his speech commenting on the cold war with the old Soviet Union, in which he sang:

“There is no monopoly of common sense

on either side of the political fence.

We share the same biology, regardless of ideology

Believe me when I say to you

I hope the Russians love their children too”

         ----Sting “Russians”

We once had political leaders who were not only inspired by poets; but leaders who inspired poets in turn.

In the aftermath of last weekend's rambling two-hour speech at the annual conservative circus known as the CPAC conference, a speech filled with self-pity, dystopia and fear, ask yourself wherein lies the inspiration? Compare and contrast, if you will; take measure, if you dare, of what we've lost.

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

Impeach and Imprison.

____________________

Notes: For the full speech at American University see: http://www.humanity.org/voices/commencements/john.f.kennedy-american-university-speech-1963

The lyrics for the song “Russians” can be found at: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sting/russians.html.

The lyrics for the song “Dangling Conversation can be found at: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/simongarfunkel/danglingconversation.html.

March 3, 2019: Savaging The Schools, Educated and Informed, Paying Attention

A friend of mine, Deb Del Zoppo, posted this on Facebook.  As a resident of Michigan she is appalled by what Betsy DeVos is proposing to due to our public schools. Here is what she had to say:

The school voucher system proposed by Education secretary Betsy DeVos does not mean you can choose any school you want your kid to go to. It means the public education program will be dismantled. Pay close attention when voting during the midterm elections!

If your child has an IEP (individual education plan for students with special needs), kiss it goodbye.

If you have a job in special-education, if you're a special education teacher, physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, a para, a teacher's aid, or an ESL (English as a second language) teacher, you'll go first.

House Bill 610 makes some large changes. Inform yourselves. This bill will effectively start the school voucher system to be used by children ages 5-17 and starts the defunding process of public schools. The bill will eliminate the Elementary and Education Act of 1965, which is the nation's educational law that provides equal opportunity in education. ESSA is a big comprehensive program that covers programs for struggling learners, advanced and gifted kids in AP classes, ESL classes, classes for minorities such as Native Americans, Rural Education, Education for the Homeless, School Safety (Gun-Free schools), Monitoring and Compliance, and Federal Accountability Programs.

The Bill also abolishes the Nutritional Act of 2012 (No Hungry Kids Act) which provides nutritional standards in school breakfast and lunch.

The bill has no wording whatsoever protecting Special Needs kids, no mention of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), and FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education). Some things ESSA does for Children with Disabilities:

-Ensures access to the general education curriculum.
-Ensures access to accommodations on assessments.
-Ensures concepts of Universal Design for Learning.
-Includes provisions that require local education agencies to provide evidence-based interventions in schools with    consistently underperforming subgroups.
-Requires states in Title I plans to address how they will improve conditions for learning including reducing incidents of bullying and harassment in schools, overuse of discipline practices and reduce the use of aversive behavioral interventions (such as restraints and seclusion).
Please call your representative and ask him/her to vote NO on House Bill 610 (HR 610).

Thomas Jefferson and the other founders of this republic knew the importance, in a republic, of an educated and informed electorate.  For these reasons Adams wrote into the Massachusetts constitution--which is still in effect--that the state must support education, and must be the underpinning of Harvard and other universities.  For these reasons Jefferson prided himself most for his role in establishing the University of Virginia.  For these reasons the founders gave us the First Amendment's Press Freedoms.  This administration is working day and night to erode and, finally, destroy the safeguards of these institutions.

Thank you, Deb, for your enlightened post.  You've done your homework, now we must do ours.

"An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh. 

Impeach and Imprison.