All The Answers

It's always a delight to see how Trump's loyal Republicans, conservatives, and far Right Cult have ALL the answers, isn't it? 

The smarter Republicans and traditional conservatives are realizing their party has become a cult. Our country needs more of them. And we need them more than ever.

"We're in a strange place. It's becoming a cultish thing, isn't it?" the Tennessee Republican told reporters. "It's not a good place for any party to have a cult-like situation as it relates to a President that happens to be purportedly of the same party."- Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker

That cultish thing is now the Trump Cult. The Cult of Right-wing Authoritarian Personalities has been around and in power for decades. And his base has been waiting for him for a long time, since the Civil War even.

They don't need no stinkin' education. They don't need no stinkin' journalism. They don’t need no stinkin’ free press. They don't need no stinkin' science. And they don’t need no stinkin’ arts.

They got Hannity, Limbaugh and Doocey to do their thinking for them. They trust and believe a pathological liar like Trump, and his Government Of Putin, as they attack the FBI for investigating Russian interference in our election.

Then they call liberals commies.  Amazing, isn't it?

This is because they also get to invent their own language, to unilaterally define words.

“Death taxes”, “death panels” and “Liberal media” exist only in their fevered paranoia.  They need to mistrust and smear information sources that don’t regurgitate far Right talking points. This is exactly how a cult operates.

This Cult of Right-wing Authoritarian Personalities is a load of C.R.A.P. indeed.

Never mind they don't know the difference between communism and democratic socialism. They sure as hell don’t know what neo-liberalism is.

They think Democrats today are the same party as a hundred and fifty years ago, when conservative white racists started a war to keep their slaves.

They think the Constitution is like the Bible, full of eternal truths, instead of an amendable foundation of law, government, and civil rights. They believe that Jesus sent Trump to save America from brown people, or some evil “others”. They believe any crazy crap their authoritarian leaders tell them. If the party line changes, so do their beliefs.

They believed Trump when he said the Electoral College is unfair. Then they believed Trump when he said the Electoral College IS fair. Hint: It’s NOT fair. It is directly counter to the ideal of consent of the governed in the Declaration of Independence. (Thank the slave states for that one, too.)

The same is true of their rigged House gerrymandering, and the very Senate itself. Rural white conservatives will always have the greater proportion of representation. Consent of the governed is now a dead concept. These are the fatal flaws of our doomed experiment as a democratic republic.

Now the C.R.A.P. are so totalitarian, and so fascistic, as to believe our First Amendment’s provision for a free press has spawned the “enemy of the people”.

Remember when they howled about “state media”?  What happened to that? FOX has become their “Ministry of Truth”.

They believe “very fine people” march with Nazis. They believe Trump is honest. They are indoctrinated to believe in a system of rule by “divine Right of Wealth”.

They believe oil corporations’ paid shills and PR over climate and environmental science.

They are indoctrinated to revere wealth and the wealthy to the degree they will submit to corporations writing our laws, and polluters’ dictating environmental policies, and Wall Street swindlers self-regulating their banks. They believe people should serve the economy instead of an economy that serves the people. They are often duped Christians, literally serving mammon. Capitalism is their earthly god. They must believe in de-regulated capitalism, even when it fails.

And there’s the key word. “Believe”. It’s all they have to do. Far Right Authoritarian personalities are usually followers, sucking up the propaganda of FOX, the National Enquirer and Alex Jones.  This is the C.R.A.P. they cling to as tightly as their religion.

Because it IS a cult. It has attracted every American Nazi, white nationalist, and militia nut.

No wonder they hate journalism, science, and higher education. And it’s no wonder they hate liberals and other informed people for questioning their state media, and their incompetent and corrupt Party of Trump.

They are tearing our country apart.

And Putin couldn’t be any happier; that’s for sure.

Putin And His Puppet: A Love Story

The big meeting every sane person dreads is upon us.

I'm no psychic, but....Putin's going have an entertaining, and very rewarding, day for sure. Secrets will be spilled. After all, "No Puppet" Don likes to make a good impression with Russians, and Vlad will expect juicier stuff than their ambassador got in the exclusive (of Americans) Oval Office meeting.

First Putin will stroke the Big MAGAt's ego with praise for being a strong leader. Tit for tat stuff. 

Then Vlad will remind him who their real enemies are; liberals, the free press, Democrats, democracy, NATO, etc. The usual scapegoats for authoritarians.

Putin will likely pander to Trump's racism by praising him for abusing and traumatizing brown mothers and children. Vlad will note with delight the birther lies and frequent blame leveled at Obama, and then share a big laugh at how the Black guy's policies are being reversed. 

Then they'll have a nice back slapping, two-minute hate just for Hillary. 

Putin will congratulate and thank our president for inviting him to hack Democrats and help defeat Hillary. He'll urge his American Government Of Putin into more discrediting, obstruction and harassment for the FBI.  Then they will proceed to solemnly agree there was no interference in the election.

Afterwards, Putin will advise Trump to offer more appeasement to Kim Jong Un, because it makes fools of the press and critics.  More trade war tariffs against allies will be urged as well. THAT'll teach that nasty woman and those weak Democrats a lesson!

Putin will then praise the Big MAGAt for all his big winning ideas.

As the Big MAGAt goes out the door, Putin will casually mention the hotel room video, and offer his condolences for such a small penis. Vlad will encourage our president, though. "A good way to compensate is by making people you hate suffer", adding, "Nothing feels better than hurting people, correct, my little puppet?"

The Big MAGAt will thank his mentor, and head home with freshly renewed resentment, anger, and hate for all Americans who support that unfair and totally rigged witch hunt.

New National Anthem

Usually, I don’t like national anthems.

Although “O, Canada” is sounding better than ever.

In general, they sound like marches and martial music.

Although I’ll always stand for, or sit and listen to, Jimi’ s version of the ”Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock.

As I’ve been lately harping about the failed state of our nation, and even named it the Failed States of America, I feel it incumbent upon me to at least suggest a new national anthem.  On second thought, perhaps MAGAtLAND would be a more appropriate new name for the Failed States of America.

Let's face it. Both the old name and old anthem are as antiquated as the Constitution, democracy, the rule of law, and decency itself.

I offer this new anthem in the spirit of Putin, who ordered the new Russian national anthem to be a revised version of the anthem under Stalin. Very patriotic.

In the same spirit, I also offer all glory and credit for our new anthem to Putin's Puppet President.

This should suffice to represent our country, for at least the duration of the Big MAGAt’s incompetent, corrupt, and criminal rule.

With apologies to Joseph Hayden’s and Germany’s “Deutschlandlied”, I hear a striking similarity to the melody line heard in "Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles".

MAGAtLAND My MAGAtLAND

"Russia if you're listening..

No puppet no puppet

You're the puppet

It's all a Hoax, Fake news

Enemy of the people

The single greatest Witch Hunt

In American history

Totally controlled by Russia

Putin is fine. He's fine

We're all fine

Da! Da! Da!

Putin is fine. He's fine

We're all fine"

FSA! FSA! FSA!

In case anyone missed this. 

Here we are. Putin has a president in our White House, and Wall Street and the Kochs now own the Supreme Court. 

"We should not burden a sitting president with civil suits, criminal investigations or criminal prosecutions."

The bottom line: By word, wink and nod, Trump got his loyalty oath, a promise of immunity, and the power to pardon himself from Kavanaugh. 

Corruption is the norm, and the rule of law is replaced by rule of man.

The nation once known as the United States of America has become the Failed States of America. 

This is how democracy dies, and consent of the governed is crushed. More indicators of a failed state:

The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman tweeted: "In the age of minority rule, a Supreme Court justice appointed by a president who got fewer votes is confirmed by a party in the Senate that got fewer votes, to validate policies opposed by most Americans:"

Norm Ornstein responded: "I want to repeat a statistic I use in every talk: by 2040 or so, 70 percent of Americans will live in 15 states. Meaning 30 percent will choose 70 senators. And the 30% will be older, whiter, more rural, more male than the 70 percent. Unsettling to say the least."

European Council President Donald Tusk warns, "Dear America, appreciate your allies, after all you don't have all that many."

Spirit of '76 And Consent Of The Governed

(Fellow patriots. We're all familiar with the fife and drums version of "Yankee Doodle", as portrayed in the "Spirit of '76" painting, right? Please put that on repeat in your mind's ear while you read this.)

In the USA today, (Not the paper) we celebrate the Fourth of July. But what do we really celebrate? For years it wasn't celebrated at all in the South. Today for some, it's nothing more than a day off work. Others may even celebrate freedom, if they’re lucky enough to have it. 

We know millions of Americans were not set free on that day in July 242 years ago. They had a long wait.

Our nation, the United States of America, was born that Fourth of July in 1776, through the words of the Declaration of Independence. From our nation’s infancy we rebelled against the abuse of power and unaccountable rule by monarchy. We rebelled against “a long train of abuses and usurpations” including:

“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.”

It’s as if King George III thought he was Donald Trump!

Our cause, our mission and our duty are the same as then. NO kings! Rule of law, not rule of man.

Yes, as Ben Franklin warned, look at what has happened to our “republic, if you can keep it”.

The republic was flawed from the beginning, and the Founders knew it. Women couldn’t vote. Only male property owners had that right. Slavery was not only tolerated, it was expanding. The Electoral College was forced onto presidential elections by slave states. The Founders understood that our Constitution would need to be open for amendment for a more perfect union.

Little could they foresee how those flaws, even after some critically needed civil rights and voting rights amendments, would infect our republic.

The triumph of the Party of Trump is the most pronounced and dangerous symptom of a diseased republic. The Party of Lincoln, the one led by a man appealing to “the better angels of our nature”, is extinct. The Party of Trump has become the home of resentment, blame, anger, false accusations, racism, cruelty, hate, and division, all sown by far Right politicians and their media. (Not to mention Putin’s thumb on their side of the scale.)

The Electoral College, the legalized corruption of campaign finance, the gerrymandering of House districts, and the Senate itself represent serious flaws in democracy and a structural bias against majority representation.

In case the fact still eludes some people, let me say it clearly.

What we have in the United States is not a democracy. When a minority seizes power over a majority, it also not a representative republic, founded on the consent of the governed. It is a corruption of the Founders’ dream, and for most Americans, a failed state.

This is what we have now. Consent of the governed has been replaced by the rule of an increasingly unaccountable minority.

First let’s get this straight. The Right needs to know this: The majority is NOT on their side. Although they are not losing morally or socially, there is a reason moderates and Left are losing politically.

The reason is clear.

Moderates and the Left are losing politically only because democracy is losing.

First there is an imbalance in money and power. Through the legalized bribery endorsed by the Supreme Court in cases like Citizens United v. FEC and McDonnell v. United States , Wall Street and other corporate elites have more Republicans than Democrats in their pockets, corrupting public service into their private service. (Tax cuts for the rich, healthcare cuts for the poor.)

Second is the significant over-representation of conservative rural and suburban whites, aided of course by gerrymandering racial minorities out of their due proportion of representation. And there’s the Senate giving equal power to rural White Wyoming and Iowa as New York and California.

Then there's the electoral college...

No wonder this so called representative republic is diseased almost to its death.

If, or when, democracy is restored and the majority regain their fairly proportioned representation, the Left and moderates will be winning politically, morally, and socially again.

As Martin Luther King Jr. understood, "“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. And it takes centuries, even in the “Land of the Free”.

In direct contradiction of the Founders’ ideal of “consent of the governed”, the very reason for the revolution, we have a system of government that allows the government to be unrepresentative of the popular vote. 

In 2012, House Democrats won about 1 million more votes nationwide than Republicans, but that wasn't big enough to put them anywhere near retaking the chamber. Democracy lost.

In 2016 Trump LOST the popular vote but won the election while crying it was “rigged” against him. Democracy lost again.

Democrats also got more votes for the U.S. Senate than Republicans, and yet Republicans maintained their Senate majority. Democracy lost again.

To be a modern American conservative is to reject and obstruct democracy. Just as they rejected and obstructed the Constitutional duty of the Black president to appoint a Supreme Court justice, they rejected and obstructed the majority's legitimacy and moral right to representation in state power,. They oppose the concept of consent of the governed and support a tyranny of the minority. And again, they are NOT the majority.

But we already know that. So let’s remind them of this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

The majority of Americans need to exercise the “Right of the People to alter or to abolish it”. Not by the hateful violent means of the Right’s “Second Amendment remedies”, but by voting.

Complacency, apathy, resignation, ignorance and cynicism need to be resisted and overcome as much as the Party of Trump itself. The deck is stacked against democracy, against the consent of the governed, against we the people.

It's time for real Americans to take our country back from minority rule, from the tyranny of usurpers, and from the enemies of democracy. Since the system IS rigged by structural bias in favor or the Right, it will take more than a mere majority, but a landslide, to win back the consent of the governed.

The choice is now between democracy through a revolution of conscience and consciousness, or of an autocratic far Right tyranny by the minority of economic royalists and their American aristocracy. Their regime is dedicated to the suppression of democracy. And they don’t need to dupe a majority into voting for them. They have the blind loyalty of the FOX(R) and Trump cult.

And remember, if we want a democratic representative republic, if we want to restore the consent of the governed, it is imperative we go out and vote. It is imperative we convey the will of the people to our politicians and it is imperative they be held accountable.

It is imperative we be active as American citizens for the cause of democracy, and self rule, and the consent of the governed. We need to exercise our "Right of the People to alter or to abolish any Form of Government that becomes destructive of these ends". If enough of us do so, the extremists of the far Right  and Party of Trump will be defeated, and even the Democrats dancing on corporate strings will have to listen to We the People again.

Feel the Spirit of '76! Happy Independence Day! 

Now, EARN IT!

Good Fox News

Neighbors of mine.

The KINDERGULAG: State Sponsored Child Abuse

Who believes this con, anyway?

Kirstjen Nielsen says, "We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period. Don’t believe the press.”

I’ll tell you who believes that nasty woman shortly, but first a question.

How do authoritarian sociopaths create future sociopaths and criminals?

Traumatize children by taking them from their parents and locking them in cages.

Mission accomplished, you cold-blooded fascist Trumpists. This cannot turn out well. Not that they give a damn.

Decent and humane people everywhere are condemning this unnecessary cruelty by the US government. It is cruelty by choice. Cruelty is in season. We’re not even talking about immigration restrictions, requirements, numbers, bans, or any policy save one. This grotesque zero tolerance rule Trump and Sessions initiated. This is about basic decency and human rights.

Many decent Republicans are appalled.

I stand with them.

Who do you stand with?

Have you noticed how the far Right reacts when journalists, liberals, moderates, and those less authoritarian, and saner Republicans condemn the Trump/Sessions zero tolerance policy?  

We’ve seen the blizzards of resentments, the victim card playing, accusations, and deflections. (See Dave Dubya’s Authoritarian Tactics and Rules of Discourse.)

They react wildly of course, and actually accuse critics of wanting “open borders for rapists and gangsters”.

“Open borders”. What does that even mean? Not once have they defined what “open borders is”.  But they just know that’s what we want. THAT they can define. They’re so dim-witted by authoritarian blindness they see stupid liberals who don’t want ANY border security.

Then they suggest the false choice between human rights or secure borders. Do they realize illegal immigration is waaaaay down? No, but they all seem more agitated than ever before. What changed? Authoritarian leadership has taken over.

And this takes us back to who believes Kirstjen Nielsen.

Falling in line with these authoritarians is what separates the pro-torture people from the rest of us. This is where the authoritarian personality emerges. How about we waterboard  those kids if they get out of line? After all , they’re just a bunch of young gangsters anyway. Right?

We’ve heard them insist their parents knew what was going to happen. (Right, they got all their news from cable in the back of the truck on their way up here)

Cold.

In contrast, even Melania offers a warmer heart.

“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform," according to a statement from her spokeswoman. "She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart."

Instead her husband is the most hateful and heartless president in history.

Every convicted child molester in prison, every gang member in prison, every rapist in prison, and every murderer in prison has more rights than those parents and children. Yes, THEY can get visitors.

Zero tolerance won’t allow even that Basic. Human. Decency.

This should be about Justice. It is not. It is injustice. It is cruel punishment for innocent victims; many seeking asylum.

“I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.” – Laura Bush

I stand with Laura Bush.

I ask again. Who do you stand with?

Sorry if my question seems too difficult for some of you. You’ll find they are easier to answer when you examine your conscience, and stop wildly reacting as if I’m suggesting “Open Borders for Rapists and Gang Members”.

The emotional strain and trauma for CHILDREN needlessly taken from their parents arms and ruthlessly imprisoned is State Sponsored Child Abuse.

This is exactly how these kids and parents see Trump America.

And it ain’t great.

It is State Sponsored Child Abuse.