". . .the slow undoing of human rights. . ." (JFK Inaugural -1961)

                      

In slightly more than two months, our nation has been turned upside down by the inauguration of Donald Trump as president. Many of my friends and some family members told me back in October that Trump would be good for us.  A composite paraphrase would have sounded something like, “We’ve become complacent; we need a little shaking up. Trump is the guy to get us moving in the right direction; he’ll get rid of the bureaucrats, and ‘drain the swamp.’”   

Sadly, today, what we’re thinking is “Oh, my God, how they lie,” and what we’re feeling is incredulity . . . and fear.  He has not drained the swamp, I fear he’s filled it with billionaires whose immediate instinct is:  “what’s in it for me?”

Our congress is like a limp dish rag being flopped in the face of its constituents. Our congress people – many of them -- no longer work for the people; they care only about keeping their jobs, their life-time pensions, physical security and health care.  They don’t answer to anyone but “the Party.”  Shouldn’t our decision making processes be ruled by conscience first, then country and then party?   Apparently not today.

Today, we are faced with a president who has so many conflicts of interest, that any one of them should have been enough to disqualify him from running, much less taking office.  Why does he get by with it?  Why, because of the Congress who wants to keep him in office in order to advance their “agenda.”  

He’s flatly refused to produce his tax returns which could enlighten us as to possible illegal gains and unlawful deals.  Perhaps there is nothing illegal or nothing to hide.  But we should demand to know and should have known before the election. 

We, the tax-payers, pay for his frequent weekend stays at Mar-a-Lago. We, the tax-payers also pay for travel and security for his children’s business trips across the world.  They are spending this weekend in Aspen, along with an entourage of one-hundred or more security details and secret service people.  How nice for them. 

I repeat! We pay for it.   

Secretary Tillerson does not feel the need for the Press to accompany him on his trips abroad. He can live without the Press, he says. But can we?  

We know our election has been manipulated by a foreign power with more and more evidence indicating that it wasn't just Clinton they undermined but other challengers to Trump. If the president is complicit in this, he is a traitor.

Speaker Ryan has proven to be a spineless enabler – not just with the president, but with the congressman who recently revealed himself as incapable of non-partisanship by revealing sensitive information to the president who is under investigation by the very committee he chairs.  I speak, of course, of Congressman Devin Nunes, who has disgraced himself and has no choice but to resign. In addition, he’s cancelled a scheduled meeting on Tuesday with crucial witnesses who may have crucial evidence.  Why?  Could it be to cover for the president?

A special non-partisan committee MUST be appointed by someone other than the Speaker of the House to investigate this president, his campaign, his white house and perhaps beyond.  It must come from outside our Congress because, unfortunately, our Congress is complicit in the reign of what I believe may be an illegitimate president.

Someone has to say it!