Its Time for the Obese Women's Aria - or my tip of the hat to PC

I have not written anything in quite awhile, I have been holed up in my home trying to make sense of something that makes no sense.  I fervently wished I could shut out the world and just return to normal, except I no longer know what normal is.  But no one can hide forever, even trump had to come out yesterday. So I take to my keyboard and offer this humble opinion.

  I was, like many of you, either glued to the television checking election returns, or monitoring my phone or computer from work on a regular basis.  It was an anxious time.  For those of us who were glad to see November 3rd finally arrive, it is now anticlimactic.  Nothing is settled, nothing is certain, nothing has changed.  It is as if the nation is caught in a time warp, some sort of worm hole in space, where we wake each day and face the same uncertainty.

One thing that is certain, the Covid-19 virus is winning.  Everyday there is news of record-breaking new cases, and new deaths.  The daily average of new cases is averaging over 100,000.  Donald Trump was wrong about so many things, but the biggest thing he was wrong about was that the pandemic was going away, it is not going away.  He said we wouldn't talk about it after November 3rd, but it seems that is all we do talk about, that and when will he give his concession speech. 

This election, Republicans turned out in record numbers to vote, many for the first time and they voted for Republican Senators, Republican House Members, and their GOP state ticket, but they voted against the President.  Republicans of all persuasions were tired of the lies and the constant drama,  They were exhausted by the turmoil in the White House, so they joined with Democrats and Independents, and they put an end to the Trump dynasty.

I was jubilant, like so many others, and tears of joy came to my eyes, and I could feel the weight of Trump's four years of lies, racism, and bigotry being lifted from my spirit.  I got out my American flag and displayed it on my patio.  I reveled in the joy that so many people were exhibiting in the streets all across our country.  The election was still close, but it grew more certain by the hour that Biden was going to win, and in the end he did win.  

He restored the 'blue wall' across the Great Lakes, he won Arizona, Nevada, and he won Pennsylvania. Sure it would have been nice to have taken control of the Senate, but the nation showed that they still believe in certain conservative values.  And I respect that.  It means that the two parties will have to work together to get the job done,  And Joe Biden is the man who can get that done.  

Well, so much for the euphoria of the election outcome.  It is more than a week hence and still the law suits and the accusations of fraud keep coming.  Now Trump is doing what he accused Biden of doing, that is hiding in his basement (does the White House have a basement?).  He is busy tweeting though, he is still proclaiming victory, and his loyal minions are encouraging him; the mad-dog Republican Senators, the bloviated right-wing broadcasters, and the wild-eyed militia.

And as all this carries forth, the nation is still gripped in the clutches of a silent killer that is stalking the countryside.  In many states in the mid-west there are no more ICU beds and Covid-19 cases are being stacked in operating rooms.  And where is our fearless leader, the president?  He is playing golf, and avoiding the public and the press.  Meanwhile president-elect Biden is drafting a virus taskforce, and putting together his transition team.  Even as Trump has instructed the White House and the Cabinet Departments not to give any information to the Biden team.

This is beyond reason, it is unconscionable, the trump administration is risking national security for petty vengeance.  There less than 10 weeks until January 20,2021, when the new administration will be sworn in to take up the reins of government.  They, unlike the Trump administration, must hit the ground running.  The have more to deal with than any administration in recent memory; the pandemic, the faltering economy, record unemployment, racial injustice, climate crisis, medical insurance, and rebuilding America's image around the world.

So what is the hold up?  Speculation is running rampant that Trump is planning a coup of sorts.  He is planning for his second term in office, unperturbed with the results of the election.  He is firing and hiring cabinet members, and staffing the presidential office and proceeding as normal, well normal for Trump.  Perhaps it is true that he is in full denial, but if that is true, someone close to him should break it to him, instead of placating him and playing along with his delusions and silly games.  It is time for an intervention.  Or are the people closest to him in on the plot?

Everyday that this goes on the knot in my stomach gets a little tighter, and the jubilation of last Saturday is losing its glow.  We are talking about the end of our country, and I am not the only one supposing this outcome.  The foreign press is fife with article purporting the downfall of democracy in America. Perhaps that is just petty jealousy, but there is something in the fact that the world's most despotic leaders have yet to accept a Biden win.

I am not a conspiracy nut, or a chicken little sure that the sky is falling.  I am just a poor writer who sees things that I have never seen before, and I venture to say that no one else in this country has either.  Not since 1860, then, for the first time since its founding, the country stood on the precipice and 775,000 Americans lost their lives.  Are we there again?  I pray to god we are not.   But... 

                                                         I'm just sayin

The Evil That Men Do Live After Them...

 I can't believe it is almost here, in less than a week the election will be history, and it will be historic.  I know myself, I have never experienced anything like this in my lifetime, and many journalists are comparing it to the election of 1864, when the fate of the United States hung in the balance

That election was held during the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln wasn't expected to win re-election.  His victory was due in large part to mail-in votes - from the Union soldiers.  Sound familiar?  The fate of our nation is hanging in the balance once again, figuratively if not literally.  We are looking at a country torn asunder by a president who has spent four years fomenting discord, distrust, and outright hatred between his supporters and the rest of the country.  He has taken over a once great political party, a party that produced the likes of Lincoln, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush and he has laid it low.  

This president has used the Justice Department like his private police force, directing them to investigate his rivals.  He has cast doubt on, and tried to destroy the free press by calling them 'the enemy of the people', he is shredding our belief in the greatest institution of our democracy - the ballot box. And now he and his compatriots have packed a the Supreme Court, a once independent and equal Branch of government, to call an election in his favor, if need be.  All this is reminiscent of Idi Amin, Victor Orban, and his much admired hero, Vladimir Putin.  

It boggles the mind, the craziness of the past four years.  The sheer level of financial corruption in the Trump Family is unimaginable  in any other presidency.  The hundreds of millions of dollars paid to them by foreign diplomats, and lobbyists and political PACs in this country, by way of monies paid to his hotels and golf club memberships, to gain the favor of the oval office. Secret foreign bank accounts, backdoor deals, payoffs to porn stars, and the total disregard to the office of the presidency, to the institutions Americans have held dear  for over 250 years.

I ask myself why was the Republican Party so eager to give up the values that have been it's cornerstone since its inception; fiscal responsibility, free and open trade, conservative religious beliefs, and small government.  For what in return; huge deficits, crushing tariffs, religious authoritarianism, and a government of cronies, crooks and felons.  I long for the return of conservative patriotism, as paradoxical as it is to my social-democratic ideology, at least as it was sanely argued by the likes of Mitt Romney, and John McCain.

As incomprehensible as it may seem, there are those for whom this carnage still holds sway, perhaps it is the magnetic nature of demonic energy.  Where the majority of us are controlled by the rules and regulations of a civilized world to curb our expressions of biases and prejudices, our president holds forth without such controls.  And even though there is nothing remotely likeable about such behavior, there is something that compels some people to it.  Evil is exciting, until you are the victim, and then it is too late.

On November 3rd we will be faced with a clear choice between evil and good, and as preposterous as that sounds I know of no other way to posit this election.  Donald J. Trump is a compulsive liar who has contempt for the truth, a megalomaniac who is self-absorbed to a pathological degree, to the point of being unable to feel empathy for anyone but himself.  He has no feeling of compassion or remorse for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died because of his ineptitude.  He is the very essence of evil.  There is nothing more ignominious than his smirk and his applauding for himself as he parades across the stage, tossing favors to the crowd of sycophants below.

By contrast, the president's opponent, Joe Biden, is boringly good - just an ordinary politician - plodding his course like a good democratic politician.  He revers the institutions of government which have held this country together since it's founding.  He has know great sorrow and abundant joy, and he can relate to those who are suffering and he can laugh with those who rejoice.  He may not be the most charismatic president, but he will be a steadfast leader.  I may not agree with all his policies, but I won't be ashamed to call him my president.

And so I have cast my vote already, I didn't want to take a chance of anything keeping me from that.  And I will wait next Tuesday, like the rest of America, to see who will emerge victorious.  I have faith in this country, yes, we stumbled four years ago but I have faith that we can right the wrong and once again be the beacon for the rest of the world.  The world is waiting anxiously also.  And won't it be nice to awake in the morning and not have to wonder what god-awful thing our president has said or done and tweeted about during the night.   

                                                            I'm just sayin'    

All the news That Fits...

 The New York Times slogan is, 'All the News That's Fit to Print', It is on the masthead of that great daily newspaper.  It was coined by the then owner, Adolph Ochs, in 1897.  And it was meant to imply that the New York Times was an impartial reporter of the news of the day.  Some years ago, someone, I don't recall who, changed the verbiage to, 'All the news that fits, we print', meaning to imply the Times was no longer the arbiter of good journalism but but was indeed printing trash.

This past Thursday, October 15th, the two candidates running for president in November, held simultaneous townhall meetings.  Donald Trump's meeting was on NBC and CNBC, and was one hour long, after which Trump immediately left the studio.  The meeting was confrontational and Trump was non-responsive.  He was badgered by the moderator, and was asked a few questions by the people gathered there.  For the most part it was just another stump speech.

Joe Biden's meeting was slow and easy going and he attempted to answer the questions put to him by those in the audience.  He was asked repeatedly by the moderator about his stance on 'court-packing' until he made the mistake of agreeing to release a statement on the subject before the election. This townhall meeting was on ABC and was to have lasted an hour and a half.  Mr. Biden remained in the studio for quite awhile after the time period to take questions from those who didn't get to ask them on camera.

You couldn't have asked for a more diverse hour of television.  And the ratings show that the Biden meeting was a rating success - if it were a prime-time pilot, it would have been canceled before the hour was up - but it was a success compared the the Trump show on the other two channels.  I don't think anyone learned anything new about the candidate's positions, but it did reinforce the difference in the demeanor of the two men.

The next morning I was anxious to read about those differences and a critique of the two meetings.  I was sadly disappointed.  Once again, Donald Trump sucked all the oxygen and news print out of the evening.  Oh, there was a line or two mentioning Mr. Biden's boring performance, and as he predicted, the biggest takeaway was the news about the 'court-packing promise.  The rest of the discussion was about Trump and his erratic, outlandish performance.  Nothing was said about his plans for the next four years, perhaps because he has no plans.  Once again it was more raw meat for his base.

It wasn't just the news stories about Trump, but the opinion writers also obsessed over him, and not just in the New York Times but every paper I checked, national and international.  And I checked several. It is the same as 2016, the vulgar showman gets the media coverage.  When will they learn? 

In 1947, there was a movie called The Huckster.  It starred Sidney Greenstreet and Clark Gable.  In it, Gable was a returning war veteran who was job hunting, and applied at a New York advertising firm.  He was naive, and trading on his good looks.   Greenstreet was the Chairman of the Board who was interviewing Gable at a board meeting.  Sitting at the head of a long table lined with other executives, Greenstreet gagged and spit an ugly wad onto the table.  Gable was horrified and looked away.  Greenstreet said, "What you saw was disgusting, but you will remember it!". 

He was right, I probably saw that movie in the early 50's and I remember the scene vividly.  There is no such thing as bad press! And the people who know that best are the news media.  It is estimated that Trump got two-billion dollars of free advertising in the 2016 campaign.  Trump played the media like a cheap violin.

The media hung on every outlandish stunt, every outright lie, every display of sexual predation, and rushed back to make the evening news.  They said that Trump exaggerated, prevaricated, mis-spoke.  They said he was pedantic, as though that would make it alright.  Trump told lie after lie and no one called him out. In the 1800s his behavior would have gotten him ridden out of town on a rail.  I guess back then they could tell a charlatan and a snake oil salesman for what he was.

I'm not saying that it was all the fault of the media that Trump rose to the heights that he did.  But maybe, just maybe, if he had been exposed for what he is, some of those people would have seen him as a fraud.  Perhaps they would have turned away before his siren call drove the onto the rocks.  Who knows?  Perhaps the would have selected one of the sterling candidates from the slate they were offered; Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Rick Santorum. Anyone of them would have made a better president.

It is not like the people weren't warned, most every high-ranking Republican; John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Mitt Romney, they all called Trump out as dangerous, and bad for the country.  But the media kept him front and center, every time there was a rash of bad news, Trump brought out another preposterous antic and off the media went, chasing yet another squirrel. 

This is what it has come to.  I remember when the news was presented with gravitas, it was more important to get the story right then to get it first.  People had faith in their newspapers and media newsmen.  Now all of them are competing with the internet to see who can come up with the most disturbing story.  It is a race to the bottom, and we are the losers.

Donald Trump calls himself a 'breath of fresh air' in Washington, he says he is draining the swamp.  What I smell is the fetid odor of the cesspool that Trump has created.  I hope I am not the only one.

                                                           I'm just sayin'

 

 

  

'E' Day is Getting Closer - Are We Ready?

 The first presidential election I voted in was 1959, John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. I had watched the debates on television, in black and white.  Does that make me old, you bet it does?  I considered my vote very carefully, in my father's house there was no question who to vote for, Kennedy of course.  All my friends were certainly for Kennedy.   But the more pressure they all put on me, the more I resisted.  When I stepped inside the voting booth, I hesitated, then I pulled down the lever of my choice.

Back then, in Chicago, voting was done by mechanical means.  You stepped inside a box-like booth, and pushed a large lever, the lever closed the curtain behind you and you faced a board with many small levers.  There was a lever for a straight party ticket on the left side, and a row of levers running from left to right for each of the candidates on the ballot.  There were several rows of these levers, one for each party which had qualified candidates.  The Democratic and Republican rows were the longest, but there candidates in the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the Libertarian Party, all of whom were eligible to be on the ballot in Illinois.

To register your vote, you pushed down on the lever next to your favorite candidate's name, when you had pushed all the levers for your selections, you pulled the large lever towards you and your votes were tabulated, the levers all popped up and the curtain was drawn back.  A seemingly foolproof method of counting votes.  When the voting was over for the day, two people plus two election judges, Republican and Democrat, opened the back of the machine and wrote down the totals that were mechanically recorded.  Simple right?

But never was there a machine that could not be finagled with, and these machines were ripe for tampering with.  At the beginning of the day, the same four officials who recorded the totals at the end of the day, certified that the machine totals were all set to zero before voting began.  But mechanics break down, remember the cars of the 1950s?  Levers jam, they refuse to stay down or refuse to pop up, curtains refuse to open or close, any number of things could go wrong.  

And then there was the tabulation of all the precincts at City Hall.  Joseph Stalin famously said; "It's not the people who vote that count.  It's the people who count the votes" Chicago's mayor at that time was Richard J. Daley, and nobody could count votes like he could.  Most cities wanted to be first to announce their tally for the candidate of choice, not Mr. Daley, he always held back the vote count until the bitter end.  It was said he waited to see how many votes were needed to seal the victory and that is how many votes Chicago announced.  It was also said that it was the case in November 1959, when Chicago put John Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, into the White House.  

That was not the worst decision, not when you consider Bush v Gore.  After Kennedy was assassinated, LBJ put through the greatest piece of civil rights legislation that ever was - Kennedy was too reticent to propose it - Johnson did escalate the Viet Nam war and by the end of his first term 14,000 Americans were killed in Nam.   The war eventually broke Johnson and he refused to run again.

There have been some shaky elections in the interim.  I mentioned the 2000 debacle where the Supreme Court selected the president against the wishes of the electorate.  But never have I seen an election like this one.  In just under three weeks those people who haven't already voted with an absentee ballot or voted early, will go to their polling place and cast a ballot in the most contested election in my lifetime.  And I will be there, as I work the polls.

I have seen elections where there have been mud-slinging, - on both side.  Accusations of everything from infidelity to perversion, maleficence to out and out bribery, but never have I seen such a concerted effort to manipulate the election to the advantage of only one party.  I make no secret that Donald Trump was not my choice for president.  But when I write these reflections, I try to do it in an unperturbed manner, no unproven allegations, no rants or name calling.  But the time has come to stop the equivocating.  I can no longer say that both sides are equally guilty of electioneering. 

The Republican Party has pulled out all the stops to win this election, and it is not just the usual gerrymandering and name calling:

*  The president has overtly called for physical altercations at polling places.

*  He has said he will not concede the election under any circumstances, calling upon groups to take up arms in his defense. 

*  The president has called upon his Justice Department to indict his opponent on false charges of treason.  

*  He has repeated lie after lie against his opponent, statements that he knows are not true.

* He has called for no deals on the stimulus funds the country desperately needs to avoid slipping further into a financial quagmire, promising voters a much larger stimulus after he is elected.

* He is forcing a vote on his judicial nominee to be seated on the Supreme Court before the election, in hopes that when he forces the election results into court, she will rule his way.  

And the Republican Party is complicit in this charade, it appears they will do anything to assure that they stay in power.  Beginning over twenty years ago the Republicans began ceasing power at the state level, and now it is paying off.  They have effectively gerrymandered voting districts and once in power have enacted stringent voter laws which are aimed at people of color and those with limited means.  Now they are tampering with the census to under-count those same people.  In addition:

* The Republican governor of Texas has limited the number of Ballot Boxes for absentee ballots, to one per county, even though some of those counties are over one hundred square miles.  

* The Republican legislatures have refused extending the date that a ballot can be considered valid past the election date, even though mail service has been deliberately slowed.  

* The GOP in California have placed 'so called' official Ballot Boxes in many areas to collect absentee ballots.  To what end?

* The Republican legislatures have refused in some states to allow the absentee ballots to even be opened before the start of voting on election day, meaning elections workers will be working well into the night.

All of this after the Supreme Court has said there is no longer a need for the Voters Rights Act to protect everyone's right to vote.  

Donald Trump said he was running to 'drain the swamp', what he didn't say was that he was replacing it with a cesspool.  VOTE, like your country depends on it, because it does!

                                                                      I'm just sayin'

We Didn't Elect Them - Why do They Have the Power?

 Article Three of the Constitution established the Supreme Court and such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain...

Section One of Article Three states that judges, both Supreme and inferior shall hold their office during good behavior, and be compensated for their service,  Section One implies that judges have tenure for life as long as they exhibit good behavior, but it does not explicitly say so.

Section Two of Article Three states that Judicial Power shall extend to all cases, in Law and Equity, arising under the Constitution, Laws and Treaties, it specifies where trials are to be held, and reinforces the right of trial by jury.  It is the section that was tested under Marbury v Madison, that established Judicial Review.  More on this later.

Section Three of Article Three defines treason: levying war against the United States and/or giving aid and comfort to those that do.

With the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to replace the deceased Ruth Bader Ginsburg, both conservatives and liberals are saying that the Supreme Court will most probably lean conservative when deciding the major issues that come before it.  The first of which is the fate of the Affordable Care Act.  Unless the results of the November presidential election supersedes it.  Future decisions to come before the court will be other contentious issues; abortion, climate change, and gun regulations, to name a few.

But the most important goal of the Republicans and a conservative court will be to further diminish the power of the executive branch of government, denying future administrations the ability to regulate such as financial markets and the environment.

No other country in the civilized world; not Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France, not even Russia or North Korea, have a court that embodies as much power as our Supreme Court.  As you saw, Article Three of the Constitution does not give the courts that kind of power, they took it themselves in Marbury v Madison in 1803, when Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that is was the province and the duty of the Judiciary to say what the law is.   That is to say that the Court took upon itself the power to legislate from the bench.  In no other country does the court have this kind of power - the courts can only advise the legislature to fix errors in a law.  And in some other countries, the legislative body can overrule the court if it feels there was judicial overreach.  And in no other country do judges serve for life.

Alexander Hamilton wrote on Judicial Supremacy after the Marbury ruling: "...nor does this conclusion by any mean suppose superiority of the judicial to the legislative power.  It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both, and where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former."  Hamilton further said he "...expressed the view that the courts hold only the power of words and not compulsion upon those two branches of government upon which the Supreme Court is itself dependent."   

Thomas Jefferson, who was president at the time Marbury was decided, also wrote on judicial review: "You seem...to consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed...Our judges are as honest as other men and no more so.  They have with others, the same passions for party, for power, and for the privilege of their corp."

However, with the Congress mired in contentious debate and unable to govern effectively; the Congress has been more than happy to cede decisions to the courts.  And while the Republicans have, for years, complained about the court legislating from the bench, now that they have the opportunity to 'pack the court' with conservatives, we hear nary a peep from them.  

It is not to say that the court has not ruled effectively; for example the courts unanimously struck down school segregation in Brown v Board of Education in 1954.  But the dubious decision of Bush v Gore - where the court did in fact pick the winner of a presidential election overruling the will of the electorate - was judicial overreach that cost the country thousands of lives and trillions of dollars in an un-necessary war, that we are still trying to extricate ourselves from.  Or in 2008 when the court, in convoluted logic, gave individuals the right to carry a gun as per the Second Amendment.  And the 2010 ruling that equated corporations to persons and opened the floodgates to unlimited monies for political campaigns.  Or when the the court said in 2013 that, as there was no longer a problem with racial injustice, the Voting Rights Act was to be considered too stringent.  It was then when Justice Ginsburg, writing in dissention to the decision wrote it was like "...throwing away the umbrella in a rain storm because you weren't getting wet."    

With the Supreme Court assuming more and more power, it is now considered an important element in the presidential campaigns, with each candidate promising to nominate a person to the court, who they feel will vote along the wishes of his constituency and not on the merit of legal principle.  Thus invalidating the neutrality of the court and making it another political branch of government,  If Ms. Barrett's appointment is approved by the Senate it will set off a political backlash.  The Democrats are vowing, if they gain control of the Senate and the presidency, that they will expand the court from nine justices to thirteen, giving them a 7 to 6 majority.   

We read that the Constitution says nothing about the size of the court, and all it takes is a bill from Congress that the president must sign and the court size will be increased.  The last time the court headcount was changed was in 1869, in 1937 FDR proposed increasing the court size, but it went nowhere with the Congress in the opposition party.  So the Democrats increase the court when they are in power, and then the Republicans increase it to fifteen when they return to power.  To what end?

It is only when we Americans come to understand that we will not be ruled by nine or thirteen or fifteen unelected, unaccountable justices sitting, aloof, in some musty courtroom who say they are the sole interpreters of the Constitution, will we break free of their tyranny.  Abraham Lincoln said at his inauguration in 1860; "If the policy of the government upon the vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by the decisions of the Supreme Court, the people have ceased to be their own rulers.'

Perhaps we should demand that the president appoint justices who will overturn Marbury v Madison,  stare decisis be hanged.  It is only then will we return to a constitutional form of government envisioned by the founders.

                                                                  I'm just sayin' 

Vote! It's the Right Thing to Do

 What have we become?  Has mass hysteria wiped every trace of common sense?  Fear mongering is coming at us from both sides of the political spectrum.  Each side blaming the other for destroying our democracy.  I have had enough, short of hiding under my covers for the duration, I am declaring my home a freedom of information zone.

Donald Trump, the master of divergence, has said he will not leave the office of the presidency if he feels the election is fraudulent, so what!  He has been saying that since before the election of 2016, sowing the seeds of doubt about the voting process.  We shrugged it off then, why are we so upset about it now?  Every columnist with even a slight liberal bent is screaming to high heaven that we are facing a constitutional crisis the likes of which has never been seen before.  At every gate to the city are a half a dozen Cassandras warning that behind them are the barbarians ready to sack the 'shinning city on the hill'.  Even the foreign press has jumped into the fray, newspapers such as the Canadian Globe and Mail, the UKs London Times, and the Australian Guardian,   have daily articles on Trumps rampages and reader polls on who will win the election.

Is it because the Republican Senators are so in lock-step behind Trump that they have put politics and party before country?  Is it because Trump has rid the government agencies of long serving people of honor and replaced them with sycophants?  Is it because he has an Attorney General who acts as his personal lawyer and hatchet man?  Is it because he will have packed the Supreme Court with his hand selected jurists?   Or is it something else?

Those who take Trump as a fool, do so at their peril, a fool he is not.  He was schooled to believe that he can do anything he thinks he can do; "The Power of Positive Thinking".  And if anyone still doubts that saying, they should look to Trump as a prime example.  Trump drives ahead, bumbling and stumbling, going forward by sheer will power.  It doesn't matter how many times he fails - five bankruptcies - no problem, look at the successes.  He trades on the name Trump, first his father's reputation and eventually his own.  He has defrauded banks of millions, banks who would rather write off the multi-million-dollar bad debts then admit to their stupidity in trusting him.  He steps in after the work is done and puts his name on the finished project, claiming supremacy.  He is more bluster than brains, more show than substance.

But he does know how to work a crowd.  He knows that once he gets a few people moving in one direction, more will follow and many more after that.  It doesn't take much to start a stampede.  One person in the crowd chanting 'lock her up', soon becomes a crescendo that shakes the walls.  There is a thin line between love and hate, they are two side of the same coin.  The chant of 'lock her up" morphs into 'vote him out'.

His faithful believe that the Corona Virus is a Democratic hoax, they believe Trump when he says masks are for sissies and he mocks his opponent for wearing them.  He flouts convention when he holds political rallies against advice from medical experts.  But he stays well above his maskless devotees.  Those closest to him are carefully screened, no sense tempting fate.  But those crowds move as one.  Trump knows that if he tells them to go to the polls and vote they will.  If he say mail-in ballots are bad they will eschews them for in person voting.

Trump also know that if he can rile up those who are against him by telling them their vote will not count, there will be enough people who believe that.  And if he can get enough journalists and reporters to repeat the message over and over, more people will forgo voting, believing their vote will not count.  I have heard from friends who are worried that their ballot will somehow not be counted.  They are afraid to vote in person and afraid to vote absentee.  That's how you work the crowd folks.  

L. Frank Baum wrote of the man behind the curtain who pushed and pulled the levers that influenced our lives.  Today it is a children's story much like Alice through the looking glass.  That was also a commentary on the politics of the day.  A queen who screams' Off with their heads' and who uses courtiers as play things to amuse herself.  Who will write the fairytale of Donald Trump?

Many of the columnists in the foreign press are claiming that Americas best days are behind her.  They say we have given up our supremacy  to China.  That nothing lasts forever and we are doomed.  One can look at the other great political experiments that have failed, Greece, Rome, and Great Britain.  All, at one time ruled the majority of the civilized world.  The saying went that the sun never set on the British Empire.  Britain is now confined to a tiny island in the north Atlantic, its influence made even smaller because of Brexit. 

Fortunes come and go, but I don't think it is Americas time to go yet.  We have been tried before, and we have come through to the other side stronger, if not more united. Donald Trump is still just one man, a very small man; his ideology is pervasive but erring.  Everyday more and more people are seeing him for what he is, and they are turning away from the philosophy of hatred and division.  I have to believe that the law will prevail, that our constitution will stand, and that our democracy is greater when men of good conscience go out and vote.  All that is needed for evil to flourish, is for good men to do nothing. You can do the one thing that will defeat this threat to our nation; VOTE!

                                                                        I'm just sayin'     

They Are Coming for You Next

 It seems that everyday there is another crisis to be faced and for a lot of people, they have to face it alone.   It may seem overwhelming, exhausting, confusing, and depressing all at the same time.   We are fighting a virus that has killed over 200,000 Americans. And those that do recover, they may face serious health problems down the road.  The economy is in a deep recession and it may be years for it comes back to where it was in January of 2020.  The stock market rises and falls on whims that baffle ordinary Americans.  And any money that people do have, will earn a whopping .02% if they give it to the bank.

And if this isn't enough, the Supreme Court lost a loved and respected member, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  With her death, it makes three vacancies during the Trump administration. Well not quite, the first vacancy was a holdover from President Obama that the Senate refused to bring forward for a vote.  But not this time.  With 44 days until the Presidential election, Mitch McConnel vows to bring any Trump nominee to the floor for a vote.

As bad as this all seems, there is a growing menace, much worse than any of these problems that we are facing.  And it is called Q Anon.

Q showed it's ugly face for the first time on October 28, 2017.  An anonymous caller to an alternative radio station claimed to be working covertly to inform the public of President Trump's battle with the 'deep state'.

Q said the world is in danger from a group of pedophiles who are bent on world domination using child sacrifice.  He went on to say young children are being kidnapped, murdered, their blood is drunk, and their flesh is cannibalized as a way to preserve the youth of the ultra-left.  There is cabal of Hollywood moguls, Jewish bankers, and antifas bent on turning America into a socialistic society that will teach your children to hate you for your 'whiteness'.

Q offers wish fulfillment that at any moment Trump will liberate people from debt and unemployment.  Hate bankers and immigrants? Trump will revamp the banking system and ban all asylum seekers.  Trump is fighting a conspiracy against him and his believers fomented by George Soros. Q is sowing distrust in liberal democracies and putting forth the belief that liberals are Satanists planning the 'New World Order". 

Q has been spreading its ugly indoctrination across the world.  And the world is ripe for this type of cult promotion, eerily similar to the rise of the Nazi party; mass unemployment, a plague, not unlike the Spanish flu of the 20s, and people who are seeking a savior who will deliver them from society's disorder.  The difference between the the 1920s and today - the internet, and the speed with which such doctrine can spread across the globe.

The lockdown has exacerbated the growth of Q Anon, membership increased 120% in March alone, and Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all have experienced an increase in volume of Q conversations during the lockdown.  Converts spent hours augmenting their beliefs and expanding their grievances in concert with other who feel the world is spinning out of their control.

People who fall into Q and other conspiracy thinking are those who have deep insecurities about their place in the world, and in society.  They lack understanding of science, history, and politics.  they have  difficulty with 'critical thinking' instead lean toward 'magical thinking', such as Evangelical beliefs and other 'new-age' spirituality. How fast can the vulnerable be sucked in?  Experts say five days into believing, and buying into the mania, a week at most.

The top five countries espousing Q Anon are; the United States, the UK, Canada , and Australia.  Q is growing, driven by Trump's retweets, and the failure of the United States government to renounce it.  President Trump says he doesn't know much about it but - "they like me very much" and "I heard...these are people who love our country". This is just the acknowledgement that Q Anon needs to keep expanding its reach and spewing its poisonous rhetoric.

In 2019, the FBI labeled Q Anon a domestic terrorist group.  In fact, Q Anon is a cult, a cult by definition is:  1) A small group of persons with beliefs regarded by others as strange and sinister and       2) Misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person, i.e. Trump.

Q Anon is an opportunist ideology,.  Extremist ideologies are often dismissed until they take power as did the Nazis, the communists, and Isis did.  There have been hundreds of such cults though out the years but most do not achieve the prominence of Q Anon.  They come and go in just a few months when exposed to the light of reason.  The difference with Q is the acceptance by the Republican Party and its leader, Donald Trump.  In the 2020 election there are fifteen congressional candidates on the Republican ballot who support the Q Anon theory.  And many have garnered Trump's support. 

The well known cult expert, Steven Hassan has said: "Donald trump fits the stereotypical profile of all destructive cults.  These traits include malignant narcissism. Trump can easily be compared to Jim Jones, Sun Myung Moon and other cult leaders."  However Trump is worse than any religious cult leader, because political cults are far more destructive.  And what makes him doubly dangerous is he knows there is no one left in the Republican party who will stand up against him.  Those who did, were forced out - to our shame.

The Republicans have one more chance to wrest control of their party from this megalomaniac.  They can stand up now, it is not too late, they can tell Trump and his evil cabal that they have had enough.  There once was a man who brought down a Republican who terrorized the party when he asked, "Sir, have you no sense of decency?"

                                                                        I'm just sayin'