Save Our Republic

Last week, Chief Justice Roberts administered the oath to the Senate, duly empaneled to serve as jurors in the Impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States. It reads: “I solemnly swear or affirm, as the case that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald J. Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God.” The Senate promised the American People that in its dual role of Judg e and Jury, it will individually and collectively don the blindfold of impartiality and hold high the Scales of Justice as the Founders would have had it. NOT! The Senate’s Republican majority has already declared to all those concerned, that all charges against the President are unfounded, baseless and without merit. Republican Senators effectively hobbled the Impeachment process before its opening gavel. They swore an oath, knowing full well their intention break it before lifting their hands from a

Transparency Whenever Trump is asked a direct question about Giuliani’s activities vis-a-vis Ukraine, he sidesteps it, immediately squashing the question and redirects into a subject having little to do with the substance of the question itself. In this case, the new subject was a well-honed monologue about his love and admiration for the "Greatest NYC Mayor Ever," sounding more like an NFL coach’s glowing endorsement of his wide-receiver who had just scored the winning Super Bowl touchdown. One can only imagine what kind, and how many layers of dirt the Mayor has on the President!

Setting : The order queue inside McDonald's (drive-through line too long.) Mission : Aquire a 6 Piece Chicken Nugget Happy meal and deliver it to a really hungry Anna Sfoglia. Narrative : Waiting on the pickup queue situated to the left of the first queue. Looking around I note a scene worthy of Orwellian prose; more than a dozen people waiting to either order or to pick up, all of them laser-focused, their heads leaning forward at near exactly the same angle, on their cellphones. No verbal communication. No interaction whatever with their surroundings. No reason to look up from their device, save hearing an order number to pick up, or the mundane chant of “can I help whose next?” Rhetoric : What happened to senseless banter while standing captive on the McDonalds queue? Senseless, but nonetheless pure and simple human interaction. Focusing on the exchange of opinions, ideas, complaints, however mundane. Rant : And what the hell is a “whose?” Is it plant, animal, human? I

Trump quote: "When I took over our military, we did not have ammunition, I was told by a top general, maybe the top of them all, 'Sir, I'm sorry sir, we don't have ammunition.'” It’s unclear which “top of them all” General the President is referring to; perhaps General Motors, General Mills, General Electric, maybe General Hospital? These could conceivably be wanting for ammunition, tho ugh I struggle a bit to think of why they’d need it in the first place. The President did say “military,” did he not? Hmmm. Anyway, we all know the President; he can be narcissistic, psychotic, and sociopathic from time to time, and yes, he is a pathological liar with the bonus trait of believing many of his own lies. This is just the way he is, no big deal, and if this scares our allies abroad, so what, it’s America First in this banana republic. Come on already, the President HAS told us repeatedly, time and time again, over and over, many times over, that immediately upon h

I thought that I learned bunches of new stuff from Sapiens, Prof Harari"s blockbuster about the political, religious and economic myths that helped us manage the many challenges to its survival our species faced over its 300,000-year existence. Harari asserts that Human Rights are not endemic to our, or to any species. A complete dissection of the human body will reveal no biological evidence of "Human Rights." This is because Rights are not Human, they are imaginary constr ucts, they are myths. Human Rights are not part of the physical "us," rather, they are figments of our collective imaginations. We cannot eat them, wear them, make them wash our cars; we just have them, why? because most Americans say we do, why? because our government told us so, how? by included Human Rights as part of a larger, more inclusive myth called "Democracy." The Democracy myth was crafted, ratified and deployed by our Forefathers, then, to ensure its ongoing effecti

You don't stop the little kid from whining about not being able to play with the big kid by giving the little kid bigger bats, because if you do, you'll end up having to impeach the leader of the free world and spend the better part of the next decade cleaning up the mess he left behind. We don't need the Electoral College because we have the Senate. Each state gets two Senators, which means that residents of any given State get proportionately higher Senate representa tion relative to all more populous States. Sounds ass-backward to me, but hey, I don't make the rules. Ironic as it may seem, the U.S.A, the world's bastion of Democratic processes and principles, there exists an indirect and non-linear relationship amongst the State's between population and representation. Think about it, the smaller a State's population, the greater the per capita Senate voting power of a vote cast in that State, a paradigm that is most clearly demonstrated in WY (pop.

I’m hoping that Trump supporters do so out of ignorance about who he is and what he represents, rather than out of alignment with his persona. A heretofore benign group of xenophobic, racist, and misogynists has revealed itself. It numbers over 30M voting Americans. It began its slow rise from dormancy on the day Donald Trump took the oath to the office of President of the United States. Its expansion was fueled by campaign-style, fiction-based rhetoric that defined  Trump as the sole mender of the “carnage” created by his predecessors. They now present unconditional loyalty to a man who demeans our Country’s institutions while coddling malevolent dictators. This brand of loyalty, combined with dictatorial aspirations of he to which loyalty is paid, presents a clear and present threat to both our Democracy and to the tenants of our Constitution which limit presidential powers. This group endorses, even inspirits, Trump’s flagrant disregard for the truth, Democracy, human decency,

CNN recently published several editorials touting the real possibility of Trump’s re-election should the economy remain strong into Q3 2020. They site “research” which suggests that Taft, Hoover, Ford, Carter and Bush 41 all failed to win second terms because each was dealt the misfortune of having to campaign during periods of economic downturn, namely The Great Depression, usurious interest rates, a full-blown, granddaddy Recession, and throw in a Nixon pardon for good measure. Really, how much “research” is required to reach the conclusion that it ain’t easy to unseat a sitting President who enjoys a strong economy? Too many Americans vote their wallets over their principles. But consider: (1) Andrew Johnson, who, in 1865, succeeded an assassinated Abe Lincoln, was Impeached in The House but escaped conviction in the Senate by a single vote, couldn’t run for a second term having lost his Party’s Nomination to Horatio Seymour in 1868. Johnson’s Impeachment Legacy cut him at th

Trump again embarrassed himself and his Country, this time at a NATO Summit press conference with Emmanuel Macron. In response to a reporter’s question about the apparent change in the scope of US involvement in the ongoing fight against ISIS in Syria, Turkey, and Iran, Trump asserted, as he has so many times before, that there is no longer an “ongoing fight” because ISIS no longer exists. He went on and on and on, (as he has been known to do) noting that what remained in the region was boarder conflict that was up to the Kurds to work out with Assad and Erdogan. He then boasted that the more than 1,000 ISIS fighters captured by joint US/ Kurdish forces in Syria and Turkey, were “under lock and key” in detention camps located throughout Northern Syria and that US troops previously deployed in the region were repurposed to the oil fields to “protect the oil” from ISIS (which no longer exists) insurgents. Then, in what history will note as a quintessential Sarah Palin foot-in-mouth mo

Iran plays chess, not checkers. If Iran decided to go to war with the US, it would not go at it alone.   General Soleimani spent 15 years building robust alliances with  key Shia players throughout the Middle East.  In Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, Turkey, and Algeria, Shia Islamic sect. Then there are Syria, Yemen, Gaza (Hamas), and Lebanon (Hezbollah,) where Shiite numbers are smaller, but no less enthusiastic in the quest to oust the “The Great Satan.” President Trump  campaigned on the promise to end US involvement in what he called “never-ending wars."   He recalled US troops based in southern Syria, a force deployed to help our Kurdish allies establish a Democratic homeland while ignoring the devastation his decision would rain upon our Ally. His decision to provoke a war with Iran by taking out its top General was a clear reversal of this policy.  Why? Consider this:  taking out Soleimani would provoke the Ayatollah  to mobilize this netw