The Voice of Liberalism from Main Street, not Hollywood Boulevard
Monday, October 16, 2017
As convention calls for, we call him Mr. President. His victory in the presidential race was impressive and despite questionable performance as Chief Executive, he is due the respect his office commends.
I am talking of course about President Barack Obama. At least someone should do so.
Appointed to the Democratic National Committee's Unity Commission as one of Bernie Sanders' representatives, activist Nomiki Konst tweets "Imagine a world where fall-in-love Dems hated former Dem VP nominee @Joe Lieberman as much as they hate progressive caucus members @SenSanders."
If I were, say, 30-35 years younger, I might say "what hallucinogen are they providing at the Values Voter Summit- and how can I get some?"
At the gathering in Washington, D.C. (not "D.C."), Steve Bannon stated Bob Corker has trashed the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces while we have young men and women in harm’s way, right? He said he’s leading them on a path to World War III, that he is not stable, that people have to keep him moderated… Why some U.S. senator in a position of that authority for the first time in the history of our Republic has mocked and ridiculed a Commander-in-Chief when we have kids in the field.
On a positive note, Bannon understands Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution, in which the President is identified as commander-in-chief specifically, and solely, of the armed forces. On a negative note, he doesn't understand the First Amendment and that the nation is at virtual perpetual war, which by Bannon's standards, would bar anyone from ever criticizing the President.
As of three years ago (when this was written), the USA was involved in "extensive military incursions" not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in at least four countries: Pakisant, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria. Bannon didn't explain whether Trump's attacks on President Obama, commander-in-chief to American soldiers in those six countries and 128 others, were unpatriotic.
Bannon's remark also patronized those "kids in the field," as if those "kids" were 16 or 17 years old. Two of those "kids," as luck would have it, are closely related to former naval aviator, now Senator, John S. McCain, whose daughter Meghan tweeted "Trump slammed my dads service when both of my brothers were (and still are) currently serving. Give me a break with this."
But at least Bannon, crusading to replace the GOP establishment with the GOP alternative right, probably is not deluding himself. Beaming in from light years away, however, is former GOP Representative Michele Bachmann, of whom The Hill reports
We were in a meeting with the vice president and the president, about 25 of us. I know the vice president. I served with him in Congress, and he is a vocal, committed believer of Jesus Christ himself. And he said, ‘I want all of you to know that the president is a committed believer. He is a man of faith,'" Bachmann said quoting Pence. Bachmann went on to say that Trump is observant of God's authority over his life and presidency, which "should give us a lot of hope," said, arguing that faith "helps regulate our behavior."
Surely, the man who proclaimed "I alone can fix it," is singularly observant of God's authority over his life and presidency. Surely a man who calls himself "a total genius" and "the man that will easily go down as the greatest president in the history of the United States: Me, Donald John Trump” lives by the admonition "in humility count others more significant than yourselves."
Nonetheless, puppet Pence says "I know that the president is a committed believer," and we can believe Mike Pence because he would never, ever say or do something divisive because Donald Trump told him to do so.
Bachmann also, The Hill notes, "called Trump's election victory 'proof positive of what the Lord did.'" Of course, Barack Obama also was elected- twice- which must itself have been "proof positive of what the Lord did," even though Bachmann once maintained his "number one goal to ensure that Iran has a nuclear weapon.”
I'm tempted to suggest that Michelle Bachmann, Steve Bannon, and President Trump himself, all speakers at the Values Voters Summit, don't understand Christian values. However, that would be irrelevant because the sponsors of the event don't identify it as the "Chrisian Voters Summit." Courage, it appears, is not a value the "religious" right values.
As of 2004, Talking Points Memo explains, the Alabama state constitution required "'separate schools for white and colored children"' and allowied poll taxes, a classic scheme to disenfranchise poor black people. Set to pass, an amendment which would have eliminated the language was defeated, due in large part to the effort of Roy Moore, who claimed "this amendment is a wolf in sheep's clothing and the people of Alabama should be aware of it."
Nevertheless, the changes, as TPM concedes, were "purely symbolic," and right-wing political activism is not illegal or unethical per se. However, Chris Hayes described Tuesday another side to Alabama's GOP senatorial nominee and fierce culture warrior.
Hayes noted that Moore in 2003, then Chief Justice of the state's Supreme Court, founded the Foundation for Moral Law and named himself its President Emeritus. But now The Washington Post, Hayes stated, has found "Moore's wife Kayla, who is now president, was paid a total of $195,000 over three years through 2015." Additionally, it pointed out that Moore "once said publicly that he did not take a 'regular salary' from the small charity he founded."
As a believing Christian, he should have stated he did "not take a small, regular salary." That would have been technically accurate while It turned out that Moore pulled hundreds and thousands of dollars from his 501(c)(3) public charity. The Washington Post reported that "privately, Moore had arranged to receive a salary of $180,000 a year for part-time work at the Foundation for Moral Law". (and) "he collected more than $1 million as president from 2007 to 2012....compensation that far surpasssed what the group disclosed in its public tax filings most of those years." But that's not all. The foundation also gave him health care coveraged, covered his expenses. What happened when the charity ran out of money and couldn't continue to pay more salary? Moore in 2012 was given a promissory note for back pay eventually worth $540,000. Keep that in mind when you watch Moore say things like this: "It's been very hard for my wife and myself to wither two, maybe three, months of negative ads we couldn't answer because we didn't have it."
It's unremarkable that an aspiring politician would lie about profiteering off a charity and dishonestly play the victim card while castigating his opponent for negative advertising. But what is remarkabl- and reasonably common is that said politician is no ordinary Republican who invokes religion only when convenient. He's the theocrat who, The Washington Post reported shortly after he won the Senate primary,
unlike any other Senate candidate in recent history, made his belief in the supremacy of a Christian God over the Constitution the cornerstone of his campaign. “I want to see virtue and morality returned to our country and God is the only source of our law, liberty and government,” Moore said during Thursday’s debate with incumbent Sen. Luther Strange, who was backed by President Trump and the Republican establishment. The central argument of Moore’s campaign, The Washington Post’s Michael Scherer reported, is that removing the sovereignty of a Christian God from the functions of government is an act of apostasy, an affront to the biblical savior as well as the Constitution. He even carries a pocket pamphlet that he published with a legal theory of God’s supremacy. Moore’s proud touting of his religious beliefs — which he promoted long before Trump’s rise — has not always seemed like the smartest career move. Twice, Moore was suspended from his job as the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for refusing to obey laws he felt violated his religious beliefs. Twice, his gubernatorial bids have failed.... The first suspension from the court came in 2003, when Moore disobeyed a federal judge’s order to take down a 5,200-pound statue of the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the state judicial building. Moore had campaigned on the promise that he would install the monument, and declared during his 2001 swearing-in that “God’s law will be publicly acknowledged in our court.” Maybe unsurprisingly, then, he would not budge on removing the monument. Following a lengthy legal back-and-forth that attracted national attention, the statue was removed in August 2003 on a federal court order. In November 2003, a judicial panel unanimously voted to oust Moore from office. After two failed gubernatorial bids, Moore was elected for a second six-year term as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2012. Again, he invoked the Bible during his swearing-in ceremony. “We’ve got to remember that most of what we do in court comes from some Scripture or is backed by Scripture,” Moore said after taking the oath of office. Again, the panel ousted him — this time, in 2016, permanently — after Moore reportedly urged state judges to defy the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. Moore has compared homosexuality to bestiality and called it “an inherent evil against which children must be protected.”
In a few months, Moore probably will become one of only 100 members of a very exclusive, and powerful, club. By most indications, he is a devout, God-fearing Christian which, we should not forget, is an accurate description of the "exotically devout" man who will become President of the United States if the current president is dislodged from the office he currently holds.
Dropping by for a cameo in Indianapolis, Vice-President Mike Pence nestled his hand firmly upon his heart for all cameras to see and stood for the National Anthem at Lucas Oil Stadium. He later tweeeted twice, including "I stand with @POTUS Trump. I stand with our soldiers, and I will always stand for our Flag and our National Anthem."
Sorry, sir, but there was no "all of the above" or "(a) and (c)." You have to make your choice to stand with President Trump or with our soldiers. (Credit him, though, for properly using "soldiers" rather than "troops."). If we paid attention only to the President or his puppet from Indiana, we wouldn't have heard Tuesday from The New York Times that
When a team of Green Berets in unarmored pickup trucks came under fire in Niger last week, they quickly found themselves in the middle of a nightmare battlefield scenario: outgunned, taking casualties and far from friendly support. The operation, which left four American soldiers dead and two wounded, is now under investigation, Pentagon officials said. That inquiry, senior military officials said, will likely reveal that the American troops had deployed to a hostile area without adequately assessing the risk, and lacked ready access to medical support. Battlefield commanders have called medical aid an ethical obligation. The Defense Department follows a “golden-hour standard,” in which the military seeks to whisk wounded American troops from the battlefield within an hour of being wounded to give them access to advanced care and the best chance to save their lives. But in Africa, the time frame for evacuating injured American troops is much longer, and particularly in West Africa, military officials acknowledged this week. The team of roughly a dozen Army Special Forces in Niger were on what officials said a routine reconnaissance mission, and when they were ambushed, no American helicopters came. The French military, based about 275 miles away in neighboring Burkina Faso, scrambled to help, eventually rescuing the casualties and providing attack support.
This problem results from no act of god and the government of the globe's wealthiest nation may have been able to prevent the loss of life. The reporters continue
“The department puts vast resources against that problem,” Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the director of the military’s Joint Staff, told reporters last week. “It is one of the primary considerations for each geographic combatant commander.” He added, “Whenever possible, we seek to achieve that goal.” But the military’s Africa Command asked lawmakers broadly for more help months before the attack in Niger, a West African nation nearly twice the size of Texas.
It shouldn't be surprising, however. In 1997, he told Howard Stern "I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world. It is a dangerous world out there – it’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier." In 2015 he stated"I always felt like I had been in the military" about his time at New York Military Academy, where his father sent his son to straighten him out.
As a candidate, he famously declared that Lieutenant Commander John S. McCain, who had spent over five years as a POW in Hanoi, refusing release until the other prisoners also were released, was "a war hero because he was captured." Less famously, he implied that military members and veterans with mental health problems" are not “strong” and “can’t handle it."
So Mr. Pence, stand with the President of the United States of America, who selected you as his running mate. Loyalty has its rewards. However, we will remind you that in so doing, you are not standing for "our soldiers," only against the First Amendment and traditional American values.
In early August, CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer wrote Many Republican legislators have been reluctant to tackle the Russia problem, while only a handful of Republicans actually voted "no" on the health care bill despite all the fireworks about the revolt of the moderate three in the Senate. A surprising number of House Republicans outside the Freedom Caucus voted in support of an extraordinarily conservative bill. As Jennifer Senior wrote in her New York Times review of Sen. Flake's new book: "But Flake has also cast most of his votes in favor of Trump's policies." Almost no Republicans have objected to the extreme measures that President Trump has been pursuing through executive action, such as rolling back regulations to curb climate change or ramping up border security. There was little pushback when the President responded to his week of crisis by supporting legislation to severely cut down on immigration and "joked" about wanting more police brutality, all of which were meant to be part of what amounted to "Don't Worry, I'm a Conservative Republican Week."
Two months later, and it's more of the same. Politico reports
House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday downplayed the ongoing feud between President Donald Trump and GOP Sen. Bob Corker, advising the two men to talk through their differences but also joking that he’s been there, too. The Wisconsin Republican, known for his no-drama approach to Trump, quipped that “I’ve had my share too” when asked about the Corker-Trump spat. Trump often hit Ryan last year for initially refusing to endorse his candidacy and then later refusing to campaign with him following Trump's “Access Hollywood” scandal.
No. President Obama was "no drama Obama." The Speaker of the House is "Donald, may I kiss your ass Ryan."
Ryan is a member of the House of Representatives, almost required by law to chide Senators. But the other chamber is bringing to itself no glory as yesterday we learned
The standoff has Senate Republicans forced to choose between a senior senator and the president of their own party. And it's exacerbating the perception of Republican dysfunction at a time that the party's agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill and a slate of outsiders is threatening primaries against GOP incumbents. The Corker-Trump tussle has been playing out for months, but it ratcheted up after Corker announced his retirement two weeks ago. Trump “needs to stop. But I wish Bob would stop too. Just stop,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in an interview Tuesday. "We’ve got so many other things that we need to be focusing on right now. We need to look ahead, not reflect on anything that’s been done or said in the past.”
Suggesting an equivalence between President Trump and Senator Corker- or between Donald Trump and almost anyone not actively associated with organized crime- is an example of moral equivalence, which conservatives of an earlier generation would decry. However, the GOP, Senator Ernst contends, should "be focusing on right now" and must "look ahead."
So here is something for Joni Ernst to focuse on now- the war the President is coaxing Kim Jong Un to begin. She can look ahead, even, to the hundreds of thousands of Korean lives which probably would be lost.
But she won't, will she? GOP senators, willing to sell their country out for tax cuts for the wealthy under the banner "tax reform," are ethically bankrupt. Bob Corker is no profile in courage, yet is beginning to look like a fortress of bravery compared to his colleagues.
Like many of our fans, we believe that everyone should stand for the National Anthem. It is an important moment in our game. We must honor the flag and our country, and our fans expect that of us We also care deeply about or players and respect their opinions and concerns about criticial social issues. We need to move past this controversy, and we want to do that together with our players. Building on many decisions with clubs and players, we have worked to develop a plan that we will review with you at next week's League meeting.
One Twitterer responded "All black ppl asked is for the cops not to kill us & if they did, that they be held accountable. That's it. And America descended into chaos.
Pushy, pushy. You can't get more arrogant than expecting someone to be held accountable for shooting and killing someone else. Or so it's apparently believed by the Vice President of the United States, who plays Charlie McCarthy to the President's Edgar Bergen.
Mike Pence, you may have noticed, is the stuntman who carried out his plan to fly from Las Vegas to Indianapolis to stay a few minutes at Lucas Oil Stadium, pausing briefly to put his hand over his heart, then flew to Los Angeles for a fundraiser for Republicans, including Putin ally Dana Rohrabacher.While costing the taxpayers several hundred thousand dollars for air fare, security, and related expenses, Pence issued two tweets:
While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, I don't think it's too much to ask NFL players to respect the Flag and our National Anthem. I stand with @POTUS Trump. I stand with our soldiers, and I will always stand for our Flag and our National Anthem.
So much for the concepts of free speech, honoring soldiers by kneeling, and addressing issues of police and criminal justice reform. Now less than nine months after Donald Trump began his presidency by attacking "American carnage," pro football players are the ones, he and his puppet tell us, who hate America. Getting lectured by Trump (or even Pence) about patriotism is akin to being lectured by Richard Dawkins on the power of religious faith.
After Colin Kaepernick sparked the controversy (exacerbated by President Trump) by sitting on the bench during the Anthem, former NFL player and Green Beret Nate Boyer contacted Kaepernick and
We sorta came to a middle ground where he would take a knee alongside his teammates. Soldiers take a knee in front of a fallen brother’s grave, you know, to show respect. When we’re on a patrol, you know, and we go into a security halt, we take a knee, and we pull security.
Quiet dignity, however, died on December 8 and its life has been scorned and derided by Trump-Pence. Journalist Ta-Neheisi Coates, who has written extensively and prolifically about racism and discrimination, entitled his recent book "We Were Eight Years In Power." But if- and that's a huge if- there was a significant eight-year break in the power of white supremacy, it has come roaring back with the leadership of Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
On Sunday morning, Tennessee Republican Bob Corker tweeted "It's a shame White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning."
On "Fox and Friends," Conway blasted the Senator's tweet as "incredibly irresponsible" which "adds to the insulting that the mainstream media and the president's detractors ... to their ability and their cover to speak about the president of the United States ... in ways that no president should be talked about."
You do realize what you're saying, don't you, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick Conway?
That same president has derided "cryin' Chuck, " "crazy Mika," "psycho Joe (Scarborough)," and "very WEAK" Jeff Sessions. Before taking office, he ridiculed a major opponent as "little Marco" for an allegedly small penis, and an American POW and US Senator as "not a hero" because he "was captured" before he was given a room to be tortured at the Hanoi Hilton. (There are many more examples.)
House Freedom Caucus chairman Meadows tweeted "it's easy to be bold when you're not coming back," tacitly acknowledging that he (as well as virtually every other Republican) is holding his fire because he's afraid of a primary challenge from the right or of a temper tantrum from the President.
You do realize what you're saying, don't you, Mark Meadows?
Corker had been prompted by a Sunday morning tweet from Trump in which the President falsely accused the Senator of having "begged" him for an endorsement and falsely (and bizarrely) of having been "largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal!" In remarks he made to the New York Times published Sunday night, Corker maintained Trump "would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation" and "every single day at the White House, it's a situation of trying to contain him." He behaves "like he's doing 'The Apprentice' or something," the Senator maintained.
Although he has been a fairly consistent vote for Trump's extremist agenda, in speaking truth to power, Corker has done what few Republican members of Congress have done. It can be awfully lonely, even if not running for re-election, to be out on the limb, here other Republicans can cut it off.
On Monday night, Steve Bannon argued on Fox News "if Bob Corker has any honor... he should resign," a clear sign the Senator should stick it out until his term ends, and encourage his colleagues to join him in admitting the emperor has no clothes. It's not up to him now to be the voice crying out in the wilderness, but for other Republicans to show some backbone they lack.
