My mother said something to me once that has informed much of my political thinking in the years since. Back when Ollie North was being held up as some kind of hero. “No one wants to tell the truth more than I do” North who worked diligently on Reagan’s behalf to deceive Congress and deliver weapons into the hands of people who used them on schools and clinics. It baffled me that people could find his actions not only defensible but somehow heroic and honorable. When I opined that in my opinion he should be court-martialed and shot for treason, they looked at me as if I’d just stepped out of flying saucer and didn’t understand. …
Tag: Constitution
Unqualified
The clown car rolled into the station, the occupants decamped, and the frollicks began in earnest. Lots of shouting, foot-stamping, and low-grade denunciations from the podium of this or that.
Trump is almost universally seen by all but the most ardent supporters as unqualified for the office of the president. We keep hearing that, squeezed in between all the other verbiage being spewed about him. That in fact the only reason for some to vote for Hillary is because Trump is so thoroughly unqualified.
And yet, it would seem that most people who support him have a “Yeah? So?” reaction.
Consider: that very accusation, leveled by people despised by Trump supporters, makes him all the more appealing. …
Come Again?
The evangelical embrace of Donald Trump is, to my mind, one of the most bizarre aspects of this election cycle. The pretzel logic by which these endorsements come defies Oedipus.  If there had been any doubt before that the Christian Right (which is in substance neither) is dedicated to any program that will see the established order overturned to make room for their brand of idiocracy, this would be it.
Because the only way this makes sense is to see Trump as the prophesied Anti-christ who will bring about the Apocalypse and prepare the way for His return. Back when Bush was in the oval office, it came out that a umber of “advisors” were pushing his Middle East campaigns because it comported with their view of biblical fate. …
…and now a word from the stupid
President Obama has announced his supreme court nominee.
A couple of things. Merrick Garland is not, as claimed by the current spiel from Mitch McConnell and company, an ideologue. There is a track record of bi-partisan endorsements dating back to the 90s to so testify. No one who has ever worked with the man has ever called him an ideologue. This is not open for dispute. He is a jurist and from all the evidence a man of integrity.
Two, while they keep bringing up the Biden Rule, bear in mind the Biden Rule was a statement on what the Senate is constitutionally required to do and, further, an opinion, one which the Democratic Party has never adhered to even when it sounded like they might. …
Bang!
We’ve had a banner year of in terms of bizarre homicides. I could say that all homicide is bizarre, but somehow when it involves people who actually know each other it seems more…expected, I suppose. Tragic, shocking, but after a little thought you can see how it happened.
So-called mass shootings are another matter. These are exercises in mindless spleen-venting on the part of people who are then portrayed as mentally ill, “radicalized,” or some variation of misanthropic moron, either an ideologue or a racist or sometimes just someone who has reached the end of the apparently short string by which life was hanging. …
Mania and the Resignation of Reason
Speaker of the House John Boehner is stepping down. Old news by now, I know, but I’ve been looking at some of the responses and his own statements in the wake of the decision and while this is not a new opinion on my part I have come to the conclusion that a sizable element of the GOP, especially in the House, are simply batshit crazy. I no longer believe they have an agenda. As long as it’s not The Other Guy’s program. When they announced back in 2009 that they intended to do anything to obstruct Obama, regardless, it was annoying but easy to assume that the more rational members of their party would temper their zeal and business would get done as it should. …
Freedom and Those People Over There
It’s the Fourth of July. The national birthday party. On this day in 1776 was the official reading of the Declaration of Independence, when the Thirteen Colonies broke from Great Britain and began the process of forming a nation. In the 239 years since we as a people have engaged an ongoing and often contentious, sometimes violent conversation about the one thing we like to say distinguishes us from every other people or nation or country on the globe: Freedom.
Contentious because everyone means something different when they use that word. We do not agree on a common definition. This isn’t a deep, difficult to understand reality, we simply don’t. …