Journal of the Plague Years

October 27, 2019

     This week, we have crossed the Rubicon.  While we have never had any illusions about Trump and his cabal of corrupt toadies, this week we have seen definitively that if they can’t maintain power through subterfuge, they will take it by force.

     On Wednesday, Florida Frat Boy, Matt Gaetz led a band of miscreants to storm the SCIF where witnesses in the impeachment inquiry were being heard. The stunt was a trifecta of stupid, dangerous and violent.  It was stupid because 12 of the group who busted into the SCIF sit on one of the three committees conducting the impeachment inquiry and have ability to question witnesses and elicit information.  It was dangerous because the purpose of a SCIF (which stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) is to enable discussion and handling of classified or sensitive intelligence information in a secure environment.  Cell phones are not allowed in a SCIF because they can be hacked and turned into listening devices by any number of hostile foreign actors.  Yet several of these heedless lunkheads refused to give up their cellphones and tweeted and attempted to live stream from the SCIF.  It was violent because the sight of more than 30 men rushing into a secure facility was designed to intimidate the woman there to testify-  Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Laura Cooper, (Source: “Republican storm closed-door impeachment hearing as escalatingUkraine scandal threatens Trump,” by Toluse Olurunnipa, Josh Dawsey and Mike DeBonis, The Washington Post, 10/23/19). Continue reading “The same old playbook”

October 22, 2019

     As the walls of the impeachment inquiry close in, Trump responds by ratcheting up his chaotic and corrupt behavior.  Yesterday he railed against the “crazy” Democrats, blaming them for forcing him to rescind his decision to host the G-7 at his failing Doral Resort in Miami.  This was a rare reversal for someone whose approach to being criticized is to brazen it out. As The New York Times reported, it was Republicans, weary of defending the indefensible, angered by Trump’s inexplicable betrayal of the Kurds, who told Trump that his decision simply could not stand, (Source:  “Why Trump Dropped His Idea to Hold the G7 at His Own Hotel,” by Maggie Haberman, Eric Lipton and Katie Rogers, The New York Times, 10/20/19).

      After three years of seeing no repercussions for his blatant and unceasing corruption, of having foreign leaders book rooms at his hotel as if they were paying tributes to a Roman emperor, Trump is in all likelihood, shocked by the uproar.  Like the petulant moron that he is, Trump responded by attacking the Emoluments Clause as “phony” and making the fantastical claim that George Washington “continued to run a business while he was president and used two desks,” (Source: “Trump Dismisses ‘Phony Emoluments Clause,’ Defending Doral,” by Annie Karni, The New York Times, 10/21/19).

     Like the cornered rat that he is, Trump reacts to being belatedly held to account by upping the ante.  This morning’s unhinged tweet compared the impeachment inquiry to a “lynching,” a racist framing that equates Constitutionally mandated oversight to the terroristic murder of innocent Black people, (Source:  “Today’s Agenda: Trump Calls Impeachment Inquiry a ‘Lynching,’” by Kate Riga and Nicole Lafond, TalkingPointsMemo.com, 10/22/19). Continue reading “Taking it to the streets”

October 17, 2019

     Every time that we think it can’t get worse, Trump finds a new low.  In yesterday’s aborted meeting with Congressional leaders, Trump resorted to hurling grade school insults at The House Speaker, calling her a “third rate [or third grade] politician,” (Source:  “Inside the Derailed White House Meeting,” by Katie Rogers, The New York Times, 10/16/19).  We have become inured to the “President” directing his ignorant, bellicose rants towards anyone who criticizes him.  We are seeing, on the global stage, the consequences of giving unchecked power to an unserious, incurious, toxic narcissist.  Four year olds regularly display greater emotional maturity and impulse control than this “president” does. The fact that someone so manifestly unfit has ascended this high should be a cause for deep introspection.  It is easy enough to say that this is the result of some anonymous diehard racists who comprise 40% of the electorate being empowered by that holdover from slavery, the Electoral College. The truth is more complicated and far less flattering than that. Continue reading “The Age of Innocence”

October 13, 2019

     We have had a year’s worth of earth-shattering news in the last few days.  In the Middle East, Trump’s stunning betrayal of our Kurdish allies has had depressingly predictable results.  Civilian casualties are mounting; we have all seen the heartrending footage of the Kurdish mother cradling her dead child (trigger warning) and there are claims that Turkish backed militants were responsible for the murder yesterday of Hevrin Khalaf, the brave woman leader of the Syrian Future Party, (Source:  “Kurdish politician and ten others killed by ‘Turkish backed militia’ in Syria, SDF claims,” by Kareem Khadder, Jennifer Deaton and Sharif Paget, CNN.com, 10/13/19).  To add insult to injury, Turkish forces “launched multiple artillery rounds near a U.S. Special Operations outpost in northern Syria on Friday,” despite having known the location of U.S. troops for months, (Source:  “U.S. forces say Turkey targeted them in Syria,” by Dan Lamothe, The Washington Post, 10/12/19).  Most enraging of all is knowing that this chaos and carnage was unleashed for no more consequential reason than Trump’s avarice and ignorance.

     Those same venal qualities were behind the savage sabotage of the 30 year career of committed diplomat, Marie L. Yovanovitch.  As she laid out in a bitingly clear opening statement, she was attacked and abruptly removed from her post because she was working to stop corruption rather than enable it, (Source:  “Ukraine Envoy Says She Was Told Trump Wanted Her Out Over Lack of Trust,” by Sharon LaFraniere, Nicholas Fandos and Andrew E. Kramer, The New York Times, 10/11/19). Continue reading “The ties that bind”

October 8, 2019

      We are starting to forget what it was like to live in a country where every hour did not bring news of a new horror perpetrated by the President.  A country with a leader who soberly carried out his responsibilities, thoughtfully deliberating whether decisions were in the best interests of the American people is becoming a distant memory.

     Amnesia is powerful…and dangerous.  It causes us, not only to forget what was, but constricts our imagination, so that we don’t even remember what is possible!  We fear that the best that we can hope for is a terrible president who is not a terrible person.  How else do we explain the viral picture of Ellen DeGeneres yukking it up next to George W. Bush at a Dallas Cowboys game?  How do we explain other LGBTQ celebrities waxing nostalgic on Twitter, conveniently forgetting that Republican strategist Karl Rove secured W.’s re-election in 2004 by having referendums banning gay marriage on ballots around the country, in order to boost turnout among homophobic Fundamentalists, (Source: “Karl Rove says he didn’t engineer anti-gay marriage amendments.  He did.”, by Wayne Slater, The Dallas Morning News, 8/26/10).  Continue reading “Amnesia”

October 6, 2019

      The Ukraine scandal sparked by a courageous whistleblower is rapidly descending from tragedy to farce.  Donald Trump has now accused his dim bulb Secretary of Energy, “Dancing With The Stars” alumni, Rick Perry, of pushing him to make his ill-fated call to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, (Source:  “Scoop:  Trump pins Ukraine call on Energy Secretary Rick Perry”,by Alayna Treene, Jonathan Swan, Axios.com, 10/5/19). The “Mad King” spent Saturday rage tweeting Mitt Romney (Mitt Romney?!) for having the temerity to state the obvious— that Trump attempted to pressure Zelensky for his own selfish political ends that had nothing to do with corruption or our national security interest .

      Yet even as this dysfunctional administration is mired in chaos and backbiting, it managed to find the time on Friday to issue an executive order mandating that no immigration visas would be issued to those who could not demonstrate that they had health insurance or the financial resources to pay for medical care, (Source:  “Trump Will Deny Immigrant Visas to Those Who Can’t Pay for Health Care,” by Michael D. Shear and Miriam Jordan, The New York Times, 10/4/19).  This is particularly rich, coming from an administration that has attacked health insurance coverage for Americans with messianic zeal.  It comes on the eve of the administration’s implementation of a new interpretation of the “public charge” rule, widened to deem those who use, or at one time used, Medicaid, food stamps or housing assistance public charges.  This is a “vague and overbroad characterization,” expressly designed to target poor people of color, (Source: “Legal challenges aim to derail Trump’s ‘public charge’ rule that could limit path to citizenship for poor immigrants,” by Abigail Hauslohner, The Washington Post,  10/2/19).  These executive orders show the determination of this vile administration, even as it circles the drain, to erect ever more barriers to citizenship for people of color.  Continue reading “What it will take.”

September 30, 2019

      As more details emerge in the widening scandal of Trump’s attempt to trade arms for political favors, it has become clear that this is part of a pattern.  Emboldened by the commencement of a formal impeachment inquiry, other sources are anonymously revealing what else they have seen. We learned on Friday that Trump told the Russians that he was “unconcerned” with their election interference, because the United States did it all the time, (Source:  “Trump told Russian officials in 2017 he wasn’t concerned with Moscow’s election interference” by Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey and Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, 9/27/19).  Trump himself stated that he had tried to get Steve Schwarzman to look into his wild-eyed claim that Hunter Biden got $1.5 billion from a Chinese hedge fund, (Source:  “Trump says he raised Hunter Biden allegations with his China go-between”, by Michael Kranish, The Washington Post, 9/27/19).

       Like the mob bosses targeted by federal prosecutors in the 80’s, in one week, we have strong evidence that Trump and his confederate Giuliani have committed at least three predicate felonies that would warrant his indictment under those same RICO* statutes.  We don’t know yet just how many people were involved in Trump’s corrupt enterprise, leveraging our foreign policy for Trump’s personal gain, but the resignation of Kurt Volker, special envoy to the Ukraine, one day after the release of the whistleblower’s complaint is harbinger of things to come, (Source:  “Kurt Volker, Trump’s Envoy to Ukraine, Resigns,” by Peter Baker, The New York Times, 9/27/19).

    As it increasingly becomes likely that the issue isn’t whether Trump will leave The White House, but when, we must remain vigilant and resist cheap and easy solution, just getting rid of Trump.  We can see signs emerging already. On Sunday, CNN aired gauzy promos for a piece on the five moderate Congresswomen who penned last Monday’s Op-Ed in The Washington Post calling for impeachment.  While we can certainly be glad that these five women did the right thing when  incontrovertible evidence emerged that Trump was jeopardizing national security, lauding them as “heroes” whitewashes recent history and erases the efforts of Congressmembers who risked a lot more than their seats to call for impeachment.

      Rep. Al Green,and  Rep. Maxine Waters having been calling for Trump to be impeached since early in his tenure and Rep. Rashida Tlaib called for impeachment the night she was sworn into Congress.  All of them recognized that this president’s rampant corruption and truly appalling human rights abuses constituted impeachable offenses.  In return, they received death threats and chastisement from the Speaker. 

    The urge to lionize the five self-described “badasses” at the expense of people of color plays into two converging tropes— the need to credit moderate white people for belatedly coming to a conclusion that progressives and people of color saw long before; and treating egregious abuses of power that target marginalized people as mere “political differences” that don’t merit removal from office.  It is telling that talk of impeachment only gained traction when the country’s geopolitical interests were threatened.

      While we have been watching Trump descend further into Captain Queeg-like antics, calling for Adam Schiff to be investigated for treason, the repressive machinery of this administration, working hand in glove with an anti-democratic Republican Senate majority, soldiers on. The Senate Judiciary Committee is rushing to install right-wing ideologue Steven Menashi in the Second Circuit seat once held by Thurgood Marshall.  Menashi has a track record of denigrating feminists, LGBTQ people and people of color dating back to his days as an editor at The Dartmouth Review and continuing to the current day in scholarly articles that come close to endorsing ethnonationalism.  If confirmed, Menashi will be a reliable check on any effort to enforce equal rights for women, LGBTQ people or people of color.  

    Meanwhile, in a Texas courtroom, the judge in the trial of the police officer who shot Botham Jean in cold blood in his own apartment, instructed the jury that it could consider the “Castle doctrine” which allows the use of deadly force in defense of one’s own home, (Source:  “Judge Rules Jury Can Consider Castle Doctrine in Amber Guyger Murder Trial,”dfw.cbslocal.com, 9/30/19).  Given that the officer was an intruder in Botham Jean’s home, it is yet another example of the legal system contorting itself to exculpate white people who kill Black people. 

    The chilling truth is that the impulse to erase the work of people of color, the urge to nullify our rights through the installation of retrograde judges; and the compulsion to repeatedly twist the law to allow Black lives to be extinguished with impunity all come from the same ugly place.  Even if we get Trump behind bars, until we face that fact, nothing will change.

* Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1961-68

September 26, 2019

      Since Adam Schiff revealed the existence of a DNI whistleblower complaint that was withheld from Congress, the facts have emerged at a breakneck pace.  In the 48 hours since Nancy Pelosi announced the commencement of a formal impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, the news has been overwhelming, with each day successively crazier than the last.

      Yesterday’s release of the “transcript” of the infamous call between Trump and Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelensky was damning, particularly in light of the fact that Trump had been so convinced it was exculpatory that he had tweeted his expectation that Democrats would apologize “after seeing what was said on the call with the Ukrainian President,”(Source:  “‘Do Us A Favor’: The Forty Eight Hours That Sealed Trump’s Impeachment,” by Susan Glasser, The New Yorker, 9/25/19).  In addition to blatantly responding to Zelensky’s request for Javelin anti-tank missiles with a request that Zelensky investigate Biden, Trump volunteered the cooperation of both his personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, and U.S. Attorney General, Bill Barr, (Source:  “Trump pressed Ukraine’s leader to probe Biden,” by Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky, Carol D. Leonnig and Shane Harris, The Washington Post, 9/25/19). Continue reading “Perilous times”

September 18, 2019

      “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.”  One year later, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s phrase is ringing in our ears, as we relive  the traumatic confirmation process that installed an intemperate liar (and likely sexual assaulter) on the Supreme Court.

      Courtesy of a botched book rollout by New York Times writers, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, we learned on Saturday that Dr. Ford and Kavanaugh’s second accuser, Yale classmate Debbie Ramirez, had given the FBI the names of 50 people who could corroborate their stories, but the FBI only interviewed nine, (Source:  “New reporting details how FBI limited investigation of Kavanaugh allegations,” by Jackie Calmes, The Los Angeles Times, 9/16/19).  The extent of the sham was hammered home by the news of a third credible accusation that Kavanaugh had drunkenly exposed himself to another classmate. His classmate, Max Stier, claimed to have witnessed the incident and contacted Senate Judiciary Committee Member, Chris Coons, who sent a letter detailing the allegation to FBI Director, Chris Wray, to no avail, (Source:  ibid).

       We are left to grapple with the distressing fact that, as Amanda Marcotte wrote, Republicans knew that the accusations against Kavanaugh were credible, they just didn’t care.  Worse still, as everyone from The New York Times, in its deleted tweet, describing Kavanaugh’s sexual misconduct as “harmless fun,” to Ted Cruz’s smirking appearance on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” made clear, far too many people think that sexual assaults, particularly those perpetrated by privileged white men, are a joke, (Source:  “How Brett Kavanaugh Got The Last Laugh,” by Megan Garber, TheAtlantic.com, 9/17/19).

      We are awash in men who find humor, not only in mocking the marginalized; but in making a mockery of the very values that used to bind us as a nation:  respect for the truth and reverence for the principle that no person is above the law.  How else are we to view the startling sight of Sean Spicer in neon lime green Flamenco shirt, as if laughable fashion choices are adequate penance for his role as propagandist for an inveterate liar and would-be autocrat?  What are we to make of Cory Lewandowski’s pugnacious performance in yesterday’s Congressional hearings, where he refused to answer questions that were not already covered in the Mueller Report?   The episode played more like a scene from “Rhinoceros,” than a sober minded search for the truth, (Source:  “Lewandowski mocks Democrats, talks over lawmakers, promotes possible Senate bid,” by Rachael Bade, Colby Itkowitz and John Wagner, The Washington Post, 9/17/19).

       The amoral bullies running this country substitute cruel pranks for policy.  Every decision is motivated, less by an effort to achieve some discernible goal, than by how much anger and anguish it will provoke among progressives, or anyone moderately left of center.  Consider Trump’s announcement that his administration was rescinding the Clean Air Act waiver that allows California to set more stringent emission standards than the EPA. Trump revoked California’s waiver despite the fact that four major automakers asked him not to do so, (Source:  “The Fight Over California’s Emissions Rules Just Got Real,” by Aarian Marshall, Wired.com, 9/18/19).  In short, Trump’s rollback of the nearly 50 year old rule is a vindictive middle finger to the 57% of Americans (and 84% of Democrats and Democratically leaning independents), who are alarmed about climate change, (Source:  “U.S. concern about climate change is rising, but mainly among Democrats,” by Brian Kennedy and Meg Hefferon, Pew Research Center, 8/28/19).  Trump, a real-life Biff Tannen, was elected by a group of people desperate to get in on the joke.  Look around you. Ain’t a damn thing funny.

#VoteSaveAmerica

#FairFight2020

September 13, 2019

      A whittled down field of ten candidates took the stage at last night’s Democratic debate and featured the three frontrunners sharing the stage for the first time.  For the most part, the candidates refrained from attacking each other, preferring to split hairs over the arcana of Bernie’s Medicare for All bill and whether various candidates’ Medicare option would leave people uncovered.  Kamala Harris helpfully interjected that Democratic quibbling missed the point — Trump and the Republicans are busily trying to strip healthcare from everyone. Continue reading “What it takes to be President”