Journal of the Plague Years

January 6, 2019

     In the 72 hours since the 116th Congress was sworn in, a Google search reveals at least sixteen stories covering freshman Representative Rashida Tlaib’s declaration that the House was going to “impeach that motherf—ker,” compared to a mere three covering the much more consequential news that the Trump administration was set to overturn disparate impact regulations, (Source:  “Trump administration considers rollback of anti-discrimination rules,” by Laura Meckler and Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post, 1/3/19).  That decision, which was barely covered, has the potential to have a devastating effect on the ability to fight systemic discrimination in housing, banking and insurance.

     Meanwhile, on social media, everyone from David Axelrod to Richard Painter decried Rep. Tlaib’s use of an expletive, pearl clutching at a rate completely out of proportion to its impact or import.  The reaction suggests that this was a serious transgression, a viewpoint made all the more absurd in light of Trump’s profanity laced tirade in his meeting with legislative leaders the very next day. Continue reading “Impeach the motherf—-er!”

January 3, 2019

 

News of the horrific execution of 7-year-old Black girl, Jazmine Barnes, by an unknown and, as yet uncaptured, white assailant, has finally broken through to the national news.  As The Washington Post details, LaPorsha Washington was driving her four daughters to pick up coffee and juice when a white man in a red pickup truck pulled up next to her car and began firing at point blank range, killing Jazmine and shooting her mother in the arm.  Although the murder occurred on December 30th and a hefty reward has been offered, the gunman remains at large, (Source:  “A black 7-year-old’s slaying has Houston on edge.  The family thinks it was racially motivated.” by Eli Rosenberg, The Washington Post, 1/2/19).

A mere twenty four hours after Jazmine’s brutal murder, across the country in St. Petersburg, Florida, a 40 year old white man attacked a young Black woman working in a McDonald’s restaurant, completely without provocation.  Thanks to a bystander video, we have evidence of how the assault unfolded and can see that none of the young woman’s co-workers came to her aid until after it was clear that she could defend herself and was getting the better of her assailant, (Source:  “A man attacked a McDonald’s employee.  Video of her fighting back went viral,” by Amy Wang, The Washington Post, 1/2/19). Continue reading “The greatest threat to democracy”

January 1, 2019

     As we mark the passage of another year, we struggle to find the clarity we need to reflect on the recent past and plan for the future, thanks to the pervasive toxicity of Trump’s presence, which crowds every space and forces us into a state of heightened watchfulness.  We live in continual “fight or flight” mode, wondering precisely when Trump’s combination of uninformed impulsivity and hate-filled combativeness is going to plunge us into a crisis that we can’t readily escape.

     The truth is that an honest reckoning of 2018 gives us cause for hope and alarm in equal measure.  In 2018, Trump and his administration plumbed new depths of depravity, thoroughly unchecked by an an amoral Congressional majority too invested in  confirming rabidly right wing judges to scrutinize Trump’s blatant lawlessness. Continue reading “The only resolution we need”

December 28, 2018

     The forced inactivity of a federal government shutdown has lent an eerie cast to the customarily quiet period between Christmas and New Year’s.  That news lull was punctured in the most distressing way with the news, on Christmas Day. We learned that yet another migrant child, 8 year old Felipe Gomez Alonso, had died in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, after being shuttled among four different facilities during his six days of detention, (Source:  “‘A Breaking Point’: Second Child’s Death Prompts New Procedures for Border Agency,” by Miriam Jordan, The New York Times, 12/26/18).

    The overcrowded and chaotic conditions at the border are a direct result of the Trump administration’s policy of deliberately slowing down the processing of immigrants at the border, in a process known as ‘metering,’ which creates a bottleneck.  In addition, this administration’s insistence on imprisoning those who present themselves at the border, rather than releasing them with a later court date, results in people being held for days on end in facilities that were not intended to hold families, or any person, for an extended period of time (Source:  ibid).  These policies are literally killing children! Continue reading “This is not a game.”

December 23, 2018

    Despite unified Republican control of the federal government, we head into Christmas in the midst of our third government shutdown this year, all because Trump refuses to sign a continuing resolution to fund the government unless Congress includes a $5 billion appropriation for his racist, unnecessary, border wall.  Trump is heedless to the impact that being furloughed three days before Christmas will have on 800,000 federal workers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, (Source: “The Impact,” by Steve Mufson and Lisa Rein, The Washington Post, 12/21/18).

    Like Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, Congressional Republicans have watched in horror as the monster they created has spiraled out of control.  Not content to wreak havoc in the lives of people of color and LGBTQ people, Trump is busily doing the bidding of his Moscow overlords, much to the chagrin of his warmongering base. Continue reading “How we got here, Part 3”

December 20, 2018

 

As it becomes increasingly likely that Trump’s presidency will collapse under the weight of multiple criminal prosecutions, we can expect him to become even more reckless and destructive.  Exhibit A was yesterday’s declaration of troop withdrawal by tweet in Syria.  Contravening the Pentagon and his own purported military strategy, Trump bizarrely announced, “we have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” (@realdonaldtrump, Twitter,12/19/18. 9:29 a.m).  Trump’s move was consistent with his modus operandi — an impulsive, ill-considered betrayal of our allies that benefits Russia and plunges the region into further chaos, (Source:  “Trump Withdraws U.S. Forces from Syria, Declaring ‘We Have Won Against ISIS,’” by Mark Landler, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 12/19/18).

Senator Bob Corker, who passes for an eminence grise in the Republican conference of doddering, myopic racists, was reduced to tweeting his disapproval when Trump stood him up for a scheduled White House meeting.  As several commentators pointed out, when you have spent the last two years completely abdicating your Constitutional responsibility to serve as a check on presidential abuses of power, you can’t cry foul when Trump gets around to screwing up something you profess to care about. Continue reading “Open your eyes”

December 18, 2018

 

Yesterday we learned that Russian interference with our political process was longer in duration and wider in scope than we previously realized.  According to reports prepared for the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, the Russians used every available social media platform, during the 2016 election season, with a particular focus on riling up conservatives and suppressing the African American vote, (Source:  “A New Report on Russian Disinformation Shows The Operation’s Scale and Sweep,” by Craig Timberg and Tony Romm, The Washington Post, 12/17/18).

Russian “efforts to manipulate Americans grew sharply in 2014 and every year thereafter,”(ibid).  They deftly deployed Facebook, in particular, to dupe African Americans and conservatives.  Any doubt that the Russian efforts during the 2016 campaign were designed to help Trump were dispelled by the further revelation that, beginning in 2017, Russian trolls trained their sights on attacking Robert Mueller, who they clearly viewed as the gravest threat to Trump’s continued tenure in The White House, (Source:  “Russian disinformation teams targeted Mueller,” by Craig Timberg, Tony Romm and Elizabeth Dwoskin, The Washington Post, 12/17/18). Continue reading “From Russia With Love?”

December 15, 2018

     It is tough to feel the holiday spirit while drowning in a maelstrom of news of this administration’s unrelenting cruelty.  Republicans in Washington and across the country have responded to electoral losses and escalating legal jeopardy by attacking the very principle of representative democracy and doubling down on viciously racist policies, impervious to criticism and heedless of the human cost.

      Late Thursday we learned that seven year old Guatemalan refugee, Jakelin Caal died of acute dehydration on December 6th, in the United States after 8 hours in the custody of Customs and Border Patrol.  Jakelin and her father were part of a group of 161 Guatemalan refugees who presented themselves at the border in New Mexico, seeking asylum, as is their legal right. Continue reading “This is not a game”

December 11, 2018

 

Another shoe dropped yesterday when accused Russian spy, Maria Butina agreed to a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. At the same time,her boyfriend, Republican operative, Paul Erickson, received a target letter from federal prosecutors, based on their belief that Erickson was a Russian agent (Source:  “Accused Russian spy Maria Butina cooperating with federal prosecutors as part of a plea deal,” by Sara Murray and Katelyn Polantz, CNN.com, 12/11/18).

By now, we know that Butina’s efforts to infiltrate conservative political circles centered around the NRA.  To boost their bona fides with American conservatives, Butina and her handler, director of the Russian Central Bank, Aleksandr Torshin, founded the group, “Right to Bear Arms,” which is particularly ironic, given Russia’s fairly strict regulation of gun ownership, (Source:  “How Maria Butina, accused Russian spy, worked her way into top US circles,” by Jon Swaine and Lois Beckett, TheGuardian.com, 7/17/18). The Russian plan was to manipulate Americans’ gun fetish in order to influence American politics at the highest level. Continue reading “The man in the mirror”

December 9, 2018

     Friday’s trio of filings from federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and Special Counsel’s Office leave no shred of doubt that, at the very least, the Department of Justice believes that Trump is guilty of two felonies directly related to increasing his chances of being elected.  At worst, the overwhelming amount of information revealed in the last week, with its dizzying array of redacted filings and a telephone book’s worth of Russian names, leads to the inescapable conclusion that Trump, his family and his company are at the center of a vast criminal enterprise with decades’ long ties to the Russian mob, (Source: “Trump’s ties to the Russian mafia go back three decades,” by Sean Illing, Vox.com, 12/8/18).   Recent events make it crystal clear that the Trumps, and those in their orbit, have zero compunction about lying, grifting or turning a blind eye to murder ( R.I.P. Jamal Khashoggi), in order to line their pockets.

    Trump, every single person who serves in his administration, and every Republican who empowers him, is both immoral and amoral.  His criminality is so wide in scope and so breathtakingly brazen, that it is hard to come to grips with it. As a result, some mainstream journalists desperately cling to an evaporating “status quo,” attempting to shoehorn a string of traitorous felonies into a shopworn pre-existing narrative.  They lazily repeat his lies in clickbait headlines, rather than debunking them in real time, chasing the ad pennies, oblivious to the danger. Continue reading “The price of our birthright”