Category: Trump effect

July 29, 2018

Revulsion is the only fitting response. Friday, Pro Publica broke the story of the unchecked abuse of immigrant children that has been widespread in the shelters housing them. The most horrifying detail concerned a six year old girl who was sexually abused and then forced to sign a “contract” that imposed an obligation on her to stay away from her abuser! Lisa Fortuna, a child psychiatrist, described the shelters overburdened by a surge of children caused by Trump’s inhumane “zero tolerance” thusly, “If you’re a predator, it’s a gold mine,” (Source: “Immigrant Youth Shelters: ‘If You’re a Predator, It’s a Gold Mine,’” by Michael Grabel and Topher Sanders, ProPublica.org, 7/27/18). We shouldn’t think this is an isolated incident, given that Propublica examined five years of police logs for 70% of the shelters for immigrant minors operated by the Department of Health and Human Services (ibid). Continue reading “Don’t make the same mistake twice”

July 26, 2018

 

Yesterday, Representatives Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, of the oxymoronically named  Freedom Caucus, introduced a resolution seeking to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, (Source: “House conservatives introduce resolution calling for the impeachment of Rod Rosenstein,” by Felicia Sonmez, Mike DeBonis and Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post, 7/25/18).  Rosenstein’s alleged offense – failure to kowtow to Republican conservatives’ demands for access to all evidence gathered to date in the Russia probe,is hardly evidence of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” cited as the grounds for impeachment in Article II, Section 4 of our Constitution. The resolution is nothing more than a ham-handed and transparent attempt by a dimwitted duo to derail an investigation that is closing in on exposing the scope of the complicity of Trump and certain Republican officials in Russian efforts to subvert our democracy.  If they have any shred of decency, Republican leaders in Congress will bury this resolution and refuse to dignify it with a hearing.  We shouldn’t hold our breath. Continue reading “The Rule of Law”

July 24, 2018

 

We awaken every day with an escalating sense of grim foreboding, literally not knowing what fresh dangers await.  In a scant 18 months, Trump has re-made this country, subjecting us all to a disorienting instability where we can take nothing for granted.  We now live in a country where decades’ long safeguards, customs, ethics and principles can evaporate in an instant, while no one with any power lifts a finger to stop or utters a word of rebuke.

Witness, for example, Trump’s reckless Twitter threats to Iranian President Rouhani.  On Sunday, Trump sent an  unhinged fusillade over the internet, tweeting in all caps like some deranged suspense movie villain.  Although the tweet was endlessly mocked on Twitter as an obvious gambit to change the subject from the mounting evidence of Republican complicity with Russia, for Iranian and Iranian-American people, the tweet is no laughing matter.  Trump may be a cornered rat, but he’s a cornered rat with the nuclear launch codes. Continue reading “Fighting for our lives”

July 22, 2018

The dizzying chaos of the past week’s news cycle has been breathtaking. We have watched aghast as Trump doubled down on his pathetic performance in Helsinki by inviting Putin to come to Washington in September. Simultaneously, we learned that the NRA, and those Republicans it supports, were willing pawns in Russia’s plot to subvert American sovereignty, easily seduced by piles of cash and a nubile grad student with a fake gun fetish.

The revelation Friday that Michael Cohen had at least one (and probably several) incriminating tapes of conversations with Trump was a welcome distraction from the depressing realization that one of our two major parties is chock full of traitors. The truth is, though, that we have no control over when or if the content of Michael Cohen’s tapes will be revealed and the effect it will have on Trump’s fate, if any. Continue reading “Read every page”

July 19, 2018

 

The rot is obvious now.  After the events of the last week, anyone with a pulse knows that from Trump down to the lowliest precinct captain, the Republican Party is nothing more than a collection of corrupt, sleazy racists happy to sell our sovereignty out to Russia.  We have known for more than a year that the Russians actively interfered in our electoral process in 2016 and we know that, in the estimation of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats,  they are continuing to do so.  As spelled out in the Special Counsel’s 11 count indictment last Friday, Russian interference went beyond misleading social media ads and theft of DNC e-mails, and extended to theft of voter files and attempts to breach state level voting infrastructure.

Republicans in Congress have refused to lift a finger to safeguard our election systems because they too, were beneficiaries of Russian cyberattacks.  Although Trump was shown definitive evidence that Putin and the Russian government were behind the attacks two weeks before the Inauguration, he has consistently lied and said that Russia was not behind them (Source:  “From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message:  Putin Interfered,” by David E. Sanger and Matthew Rosenberg, The New York Times, 7/18/18). Continue reading “What is at stake”

July 17, 2018

 

Prior to assuming office, every President takes the following oath:  “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  Every single day, for the last 18 months, Trump has violated that oath. He has had a slapdash, self-aggrandizing approach to the job — a far cry from the faithful execution of it; privileging self-enrichment above all else.  Trump has aggressively undermined laws such as the Affordable Care Act and tolerated criminal negligence in FEMA’s hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico.  On the foreign policy front, Trump has been the essence of faithless, repeatedly destroying longstanding alliances like NATO and attacking close allies like the United Kingdom and Canada. Continue reading “High crimes and misdemeanors”

July 14, 2018

After the events of the past week, it is clear that our government has disintegrated into a three ring circus peopled by malevolent, demented clowns hellbent on destroying our vaunted system of three co-equal branches of government designed to prevent abuses of power by any one branch.Trump’s behavior comes as no surprise, given a personality that is a toxic cocktail of impulsivity, bellicosity and Lilliputian intellect. He spent the week incinerating our 73 year old NATO alliances with one outrageous statement after another. First, he made the claim that Germany was in thrall to Russia based on its reliance on it for their natural gas supply. He went on to berate our allies for falling short of defense spending targets. Trump’s behavior was so over the top that even Chief of Staff Kelly couldn’t hide his dyspeptic reaction. Continue reading “It is only a matter of time”

July 10, 2018

One can smile and smile and be a villain. Bear that in mind as you consider the nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U. S. Supreme Court. As soon as his nomination was announced, pundits could be heard praising his “performance,” devoting airtime to how relaxed and at ease Kavanaugh appeared during his remarks. Much is being made of Kavanaugh’s two degrees from Yale and his dozen years on the D.C. Circuit, arguably the most influential appellate court in the country. It is proof of how conditioned we have become to Trump’s practice of appointing incompetent ideologues, that we are relieved when a nominee is conventionally qualified. Continue reading “Do not go gentle into that good night”

July 7, 2018

On Thursday, the steady drumbeat of stories of Scott Pruitt’s epic corruption finally forced the EPA head to resign. Over the last several months, there have been news stories on an almost daily basis, which detailed Pruitt’s narcissism, vindictiveness, avarice and dishonesty. Our glee over Pruitt’s downfall, however, must be tempered by the knowledge that his replacement, former coal lobbyist, Andrew Wheeler, will pursue the same environment-destroying policies, but with a veneer of professionalism. Continue reading “How to stop ethnic cleansing”

July 4, 2018

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it….” (Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776). Continue reading “Declaration of Independence”