A Profile in Courage

Senator Mitt Romney has just restored my faith in government, in truth and in the decency of our politicians.

Today he gave a speech only an hour or so before the Senate is to vote to acquit our president from impeachment and the removal from office which he so readily deserves. Romney appears to be the only Republican who is living up to the oath they all must take:  Conscience first, County second and Party last.  He is the only Republican who had the grace and the conscience to stray from the long vindictive arm of Mitch McConnell and therefore will invite a lot of vituperative comment and retribution from Trump. Still, in his speech, he acknowledged that; indeed, he expects it.

As we all have been reminded ad infinitum over the past couple of months, our constitution warns no one is above the law.  This president, however, is too ignorant and too arrogant to care. And with his staff of sycophants including Barr and Pompeo, he doesn’t have to. And once this acquittal takes place, this president will feel he can do anything with impunity, as the Senate which is supposed to be the check on the Executive Branch, will allow him to do whatever he wants.

JFK, may we include Mitt Romney in your pantheon of Profiles in Courage?  And may we award him the Medal of Freedom.

He deserves it. Not Rush Limbaugh.   

Our Democracy

Brett Kavanaugh is probably well qualified, academically, for the Supreme Court. 

I don't know this, but I grant him this. 

But that is not my problem with him. I did not like what I saw as he testified during the spectacle we witnessed last week.  I am a citizen of this country and I feel that I’ve been railroaded today. None of my concerns have been validated by those who represent me.  And neither have theirs.  That’s because one political party holds power in all three branches of government.

The Republicans who control our Senate, have virtually ignored every dissenting opinion in Congress in order to get this guy into a life-long post as Justice. The FBI “investigation” begun on Friday last, turned into a sham and produced no new information. This is because the White House orchestrated the parameters around which the FBI was allowed to work.

Today the Senate votes on cloture, a preliminary vote that does not mean much as far as I can tell. It is said to move the vote forward, however; in other words, the Senators will vote again tomorrow.  According to this vote today, Kavanaugh has won cloture 51 to 49 and Senators like Susan Collins of Maine, having falsely agonized over their decision now show their true stripes.  Party over conscience.  She turns out to be like all the rest and her declaration of why she will vote yes tomorrow makes it obvious.  

Kavanaugh does not appear to be a nice person, at least as he has represented himself on TV. His demeanor as many have stated after viewing him last week, is not what one would call judicial. He has an ugly temper and went on a rant about the Democrats’ revenge for his role assisting Ken Starr in the Clinton hearings. I don’t remember this, but it was this unnecessarily snarly defense that so outraged many of us who watched. 

The allegations of early drinking and sexually abusive behavior are one thing, but as bad as they sound, we cannot hold a seventeen year old accountable for bad behavior 36 years after those incidents. I believe it is, however, an indication of character, displayed with a vituperative and arrogant surliness not becoming anyone seeking public office. He is not seventeen today and he must own this.    

It is his record (and writings) on the power of the presidency that worries me most:  as I understand it, Kavanaugh believes the presidency is inviolate; ie, the person holding that office can get by with almost anything, including acts against the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, Fraud, Tax Evasion, and can, if it behooves him, even pardon himself.

Our system of “checks and balances” so lovingly set up by our patriotic forefathers, those who believed that the people we sent to Congress to represent us, would be non-partisan and work together for the good of the country, has not been working. There are no "checks" on a runaway Senate controlled by the partisan Mitch McConnell.  

The people we have in Congress, by and large, have little sense of patriotism – love and pride in our system of government.  They are there to enrich themselves and their friends and families.  They are there in order to acquire power and hold on to it – they vote in order to keep themselves in office. (Term limits, anyone?)  What happened to Conscience, Country and lastly Party?   Eh, Lindsey Graham?  

Kavanaugh is one of their kind. 

This man is not fit to sit on the Court.

And they who put him there are not fit to hold a seat in Congress. 

This president will never be impeached. Indeed, he will be pardoned. 

He will pardon himself.         

“. . . the slow undoing of human rights. . .” Part II (JFK Inaugural Address 1961)

This week marks a new low – even for Trump.

May we recap the last four months or so?

         

          Since Trump took office, he has:

          

          Reduced crucial cabinet departments to bare bones and appointed obvious sycophants and liars to head those departments.  (eg; Michael Flynn as Nat’l Security Adviser even though red flags were waving from every direction.) We can add Jeff Sessions, Sean Spicer, Kelly Ann Conway, Reince Priebus, and now, unfortunately -- H. R. McMaster.  

           

          Fired Sally Yates January 30 (ostensibly for disagreeing with the President’s Immigration Order, but really to shut her up for information regarding Michael Flynn).

          

          Fired Preet Bhahra (along with 40+ U.S. Attorneys) a member of Justice who was doing an investigation of Trump’s labyrinthine financial conflicts of interest.  

          

          Dismissed our Press as purveyors of “Fake News,” as "the enemy of the people" and the Courts as “so-called Judges.”    

Discontinued the White House Visitor Log (effectively hiding from the People any controversial visitors’ presence and reasons for being there).

Discontinued press reviews following important phone calls or visits with foreign dignitaries to three or four word statements.

Threatened to discontinue White House Press briefings because of the criticism of White House spokesmen.    

Deftly shifted attention from major (unflattering) news items with other (juicy) news items in an attempt to create media distraction.   

Appointed Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, neither of whom have credentials other than being family members, to Special Councel to the President.

Weekend trips to Mar-A-Lago costing the taxpayer millions of dollars.

Personal business trips by Sons and Ivanka including Secret Service paid for by taxpayers.

Fired James Comey, the one who heads up an investigation by the FBI into Trump’s possible collusion with Russia.  (The audacity of this act is almost laughable if not so serious.) 

Demeaned the FBI director (a 30 year veteran of government service) by calling him a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”   

Today, we must add the news story from the Washington Post yesterday about our president’s casual disclosure of classified information to his Russian visitors in the White House (this is one day after Director Comey’s firing) after having barred the American media from attending but graciously allowing the official Russian press (RT)  into the Oval Office.

         Some tremendously generous commentators and supporters like to say that the president is simply on a learning curve and is to be forgiven.  I would say, that my 10 year old granddaughter would have known better than to divulge that information.  Some say Trump is slightly deranged with early symptoms of senility; others think he is just dumb.  

          I think he’s led a life that began with power and money, has learned he can get his way, is lazy, fat, lacks curiosity, has no historical perspective, has an untrained mind and cannot or will not read crucial briefings.  He moves within his world of privilege without contributing.   

          He’s a taker and will take more from us than he is capable of ever giving back.  

         

          Because our forefathers were astute enough to understand the dark side of human nature, they’ve provided us with a system of government that requires checks on the presidency -- Congress, the Courts and the Press.

Under Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader, the Congress has abrogated its duty and they, as leaders, should be removed. One is not surprised at McConnell, whose partisanship within the Senate is well-known.  Ryan might have been a statesman at one time, yet today, he’s become a lap dog to the President and his minions.

Fareed Zakaria GPS, Sunday morning on CNN discussed the situation – this was before the WAPO exclusive Monday afternoon.

      "So far, it appears that the Republican Party is losing any resemblance to a traditional Western      political party, instead, simply turning into something more commonly found in the developing world, a platform to support the ego, appetites and interests of one man and his family."

      

            I agree. However, we still have the Courts and the Press – and they are doing their jobs.

But it’s going to be up to us – the citizenry; WE are now the ones in charge and we must remind Trump’s enablers that they owe their jobs to us – not him. We, the voters, can fire them unless they immediately begin the process of forming an independent committee (outside of the Congress) that will not replace the on-going investigative congressional committees, but will instead supplement their findings. 

Without the cooperation of the Congress, we, as voters, have no choice but to take back OUR house. Think 2018.       

". . .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!

Open Letter to Israel

                     

I am an American woman and U.S. citizen – a staunch supporter of Israel. 

I’ve admired the Israeli people for years -- long after I got over my teenage infatuation with Ari ben Canaan (Exodus, 1958).  For years, I fervently believed in the courage and fearlessness of the early underground, Haganah (IDF), the inherent romantic ideal of the Sabra and the immensely sensible structure of the Kibbutzim.  

Your people brought forth a veritable garden from the dry and rocky Negev Desert.  You elected the miraculously astute Golda Meir as your Prime Minister long before most countries would take their women seriously as political leaders.  And, you allowed your women to fight.  This is a country to be proud of, I remember thinking – you were resourceful, brainy and courageous.

But then, you elected Benjamin Netanyahu as your Prime Minister and I began to doubt.  Netanyahu appears to have no desire for the peace process.  I believe that he hates the Arabs and thinks the only thing they understand is force; to wit, the long-standing wars and the continued illegal settlements. He is pompous, he is arrogant; he is a destroyer, not a builder.  

I have come to despise his muscle-flexing and his interminable fear-mongering over Iran.

And now, after his duplicitous behavior in concert with our Speaker of the House of Representatives, I believe he is not only careless, by his reckless interference in our political system, but is a danger to our country as well as yours.

Bradley Burston in a recent piece in Ha’aretz, says of your prime minister  “. . . he has poisoned his country. Israel is broken and battered and weak with fear... His legacy is decay."

If you re-elect Benjamin Netanyahu, he and his bellicose defense minister, Avignor Lieberman could take us ALL to war with Iran, as we Americans will never be far from our greatest ally -- you. However, I do not want more war and I do not believe that the majority of your people want war. 

And that is why I feel I must speak to you.  I do not wish to interfere in the internal politics of Israel – I speak only because your decision has a direct bearing on my life and the lives of my children.

Please do not allow Benjamin Netanyahu and his war-mongering party this opportunity. Please remind me and the rest of the world that Israel is made of sterner stuff.  Show us the gutsy, courageous and dynamic people you have always been.    

Make the change!      

Should Donald Trump Run for President

When the Eagle Flies with the Condor: A Novel of the Sixties

No, he should not.

Donald Trump is the epitome of what is wrong with the country.  Not the fact that he is a successful entrepreneur and has learned how to make billions from the real estate market -- that's good.  I mean that in spite of his success, he shows a lack of responsibility and yes, gratitude to the country that allowed him to rise to the top. His rant about Obama and his U. S. citizenship shows either an abominable lack of knowledge of the issues or no concern for the real problems facing our nation.  He is a salesman and a showman, true, but his vile attacks, his dearth of respect and decorum and the needless dredging up of the "birther" question demonstrates his extraordinary ability to deflect attention from the serious conversation we need to have.

With the money and fame he's acquired over the years, his responsibility should be to BUILD, not DESTROY. He should be giving back to the nation that allows him to make such outlandish accusations. Instead, he is destroying faith and support in the presidency that we so desperately need right now by demeaning everything Obama says. Donald Trump, and others who are able to buy an election, are likely to be in the race for their own advancement and egos.  Why do we have to put up with the kind of rhetoric that only the wealthy can afford to dish out?  Where are our real patriots?

In Congress? I don't think so. Instead, we find that our congress people are largely there by acquiescing to the lobbyists year after year, lobbyist who pay them money to vote according to their agendas. Since they don't want to lose their seats, they go along with it and as a result of their conspiracy with the corporations, they remain year after year perpetuating the myth that they are representing the people. By throwing roadblocks on the pathway to unity and a cohesive method of governing, Congress continually restricts progress by creating stalemate, indecision and ineffectiveness of the system to which they have sworn an oath to uphold. We need fewer candidates like this, not more.

I consider Trump to be a clown, but more than that, I think he represents a dangerous trend--one of tearing down instead of building up. Go back to your tv show, Mr. Trump since that is where all showmen of your ilk belong. Stay out of the conversation of adults. You are exactly what we DON'T want in our candidates -- a lot of vacant, vindictive slander, loud meaningless bluster, but like poor Charlie Sheen, ultimately full of bull pucky.