THE UNITED STATES OF OMG

Why do I let this crap bother me so much? Maybe it's because it stinks so bad? OK, here we go.

God - a christian one - is alive and well in the Trump administration. The White House Bible Study Group includes numerous members of the Trump Cabinet, including Betsy DeVoss, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and others. Donald Trump does not attend; however, he does scribble some "atta boy" comments with his black Sharpie on some of the weekly bible study papers that are sent his way (he certainly doesn't read them). 

I don't have a problem with bible study groups in general, but I am leery of one in the White House with this particular cast of characters. A BBC article about the group from 2018 is worth reading. A few choice statements from the guy in charge, Ralph Drollinger, pastor of Capitol Ministries: 

On why no women can lead the bible study group: "But there is a prohibition of female leadership in marriage, and female leadership in the church. And those are clear in scripture… it doesn't mean, in an egalitarian sense, that a woman is of lesser importance. It's just that they have different roles."

On same-sex marriage, he writes: "Homosexuality and same-sex ceremonies are illegitimate in God's eyes. His word is repetitive, perspicuous [clearly expressed], and staid on the subject."

On capitalism, he writes: "The right to personal property, also known as free enterprise or capitalism, is the governmental economic system supported by scripture. Scripture does not support communism."

And speaking of Mike Pence, as the coronavirus COVID-19 spreads across the world (reported in 45 countries as of today), our Dear Leader has put the Vice-Dear Leader, the pale zombie always seen standing motionless and emotionless behind the Dear Leader, in charge of the US response to the COVID-19 epidemic. That's right, Mike Pence, devout christian, science-denier and homophobe will protect us! All I can say is that LGBTQ folks and women should be very afraid of any epidemic response plan overseen by this jerk.

And then there's this. William Barr, U.S. Attorney General, and Betsy DeVoss, U.S. Secretary of Education, both spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters convention. As reported by the AP, Barr said that without religious morality, a country needs tyranny to control people. His speech appears to have pointed to a conclusion that secularism, and the liberal courts, are taking religion out of American lives, and this is not a good thing. (He did not say it, but there seems to be a direct line from his reasoning to his unflagging support of Donald Trump's tyranny.) 

From the AP: Barr also asserted that progressives want to use public benefits to create a permanent and dependent political constituency. "The tacit goal of this project [progressivism] is to convert all of us into 25-year-olds living in the government's basement, focusing our energies on obtaining a larger allowance rather than getting a job, and moving out and taking responsibility for ourselves."  (And BTW, what is it with the Trumpsters and people living in basements?)

Barr's speech was sponsored by Save the Persecuted Christians (really), a non-profit group. The leader of the group, Frank Gaffney, claims that the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the U.S. government so they can overthrow it and institute Islamic law. (!!!) And oh, btw, Gaffney was a foreign policy advisor to Trump. 

In her remarks, DeVoss expressed her belief that private religious schools should receive government funding like public schools and other non-religious institutions. The audience cheered when she claimed that too many children were not being allowed to express their religious faith in school. 

Mike Pompeo, first Trump's Director of the CIA and now Secretary of State, is tight with Frank Gaffney. Pompeo is a known Islamophobe who sees "radical Islamists" under every bed in America. He appears to view politics as "a never ending struggle...until the rapture." A 2017 piece by Michelle Goldberg is a quick, but a bit dated, read-up on Mike.

So here we are. Donald Trump, our Dear Leader, who has built a Cabinet of devout, really out there christian zealots who he has loosed on America and the world. The evangelicals in America mostly love the Dear Leader, in spite of his warts. Their god is alive and well and taking firm control of the government through these servants. 

Believe it or not, there are many people who are more afraid of a Democratic Socialist than they are of the Trump God Squad. Heaven help us! (That's a joke, of course.)
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TRUMP AND THE BANANA REPUBLICANS

Some people in the liberal media have starting calling the United States a Banana Republic, based on the actions of Donald J. Trump and his cronies. What exactly is a Banana Republic, I wondered, other than the store where I bought some shirts years ago? So I went to Wikipedia.

In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the exportation of a limited-resource product, such as bananas or minerals. In 1901, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighbouring countries under economic exploitation by U.S. corporations, such as the United Fruit Company.^[1] Typically, a banana republic has a society of extremely stratified social classes, usually a large impoverished working class and a ruling-class plutocracy, composed of the business, political, and military elites of that society.^[2] Such a ruling-class oligarchy control the primary sector of the economy by way of the exploitation of labour;^[3] thus, the term banana republic is a pejorative descriptor for a servile dictatorship that abets and supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.^[3]

In economics, a banana republic is a country with an economy of state capitalism, by which economic model the country is operated as a private commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class. Such exploitation is enabled by collusion between the state and favored economic monopolies, in which the profit, derived from the private exploitation of public lands, is private property, while the debts incurred thereby are the financial responsibility of the public treasury. Such an imbalanced economy remains limited by the uneven economic development of town and country, and usually reduces the national currency into devalued banknotes (paper money), rendering the country ineligible for international development credit.^[4]

OK, so we are not really a Banana Republic; however, a few things in the descriptions above have a familiar ring to them. Politically, the U.S. has come more and more under the control of wealthy and corporate interests that fund political candidates and lobby government to set rules and regulations that favor them. Economically, Trump has been and will be moving the U.S. more in the direction of running the country as a “private commercial enterprise for the exclusive profit of the ruling class.” He and his Republican enablers in Congress have granted huge tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, are cutting back important regulations in order to benefit corporations, and are opening a lot of previously off-limit public lands to private extractive industries (oil, gas, coal, mining), and in the process of all this, greatly increasing the public debt.

Donald Trump is running the United States the way he has run all of his business ventures - poorly. His goal is to burnish the Trump brand, increase his and his family’s personal wealth as much as possible, reward his friends and cronies, and punish his enemies. He would love to be Dictator for Life; many of us would love to see him get something else for life. Trump has instituted a Friends and Enemies style of justice in America, rather than the Rule of Law that has prevailed since our founding. In his own words, Trump Insists that because he is President, he can do whatever he pleases, and the other branches of government - judiciary and congress - can just get over it. 

And so, although our country is not truly a Banana Republic, we have a President who sees himself as The Great Dictator of such a country, and the Republican Party has grabbed firm hold of his coat tails for the ride. 

We might not be a Banana Republic, but we certainly have a Congress of Banana Rerpublicans to deal with.

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(Note: the photo image is in the public domain. Don't look too closely or you will see that it from 2009.)

STAND UP!

I'M STANDING

AGAINST

TYRANNY.

WILL YOU?

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TRUMP

SECRET “MOON WIG” PROJECT UNCOVERED

The investigative journalists at readmyopinion have uncovered a previously secret project authorized by Donald Trump deep within the organization of NASA. Code named “Moon Wig,” the project is the real reason that Donald Trump announced, during his State of the Union address earlier this week, that Americans will return to the moon by 2024. This announcement took most Americans, including NASA officials, by surprise; however, according to readmyopinion reporters, the plan has been underway since shortly after Trump’s inauguration, and implementation will coincide with the end of Trump’s second term.

The idea behind Moon Wig is to add the Trump brand to the moon, so that it will be visible to every person on earth forever. Our reporters received a copy of the prototype drawing from an anonymous source, and we present it below for the first time in public.

According to our sources, a gigantic yellow wig made of synthetic fibers will be deployed above the north pole of the moon by a U.S. moon mission space craft. Tiny jets arranged around the perimeter of the wig will open it as it descends towards the moon surface so that it settles fully deployed on the surface of the moon. 

Multiple sections of the wig are being secretly manufactured in sweat shop factories used by the Ivanka brand within Third World countries. The sections will be clandestinely shipped to the space launch location where they will be assembled and compressed into a pre-deployment payload labeled “Be Best Science Project” that will then be loaded on the space craft.  

The total budget for the Moon Wig itself has not been revealed; however, our reporters were told that the multi-billion dollar project budget is hidden within the First Lady’s wardrobe and makeup budget. 

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U.S. SPACE FORCE AND STARFLEET COMMAND LOGOS

Donald Trump announced the formation of a new branch of the United States military, the United States Space Force. A minor controversy arose when Trump tweeted the logo, or insignia, of the new Space Force because it bears similarities to the insignia of Starfleet Command from the T.V. And movie series Star Trek. OK, it seems funny, and that maybe Trump, once again, is a dufus and plagiarist.

Well, I’ll tend to give him a pass on this one. It turns out that there was already a branch of the U.S. Air Force called the Air Force Space Command, formed in 1982 (look it up on Wikipedia). And the logo for the Air Force Space Command was similar to the Starfleet Command logo. All three of these are shown below.

In the military authorization bill signed by Trump in December, 2019, the Air Force Space Command was elevated to a new sixth branch of the military, the U.S. Space Force, that will be responsible for space warfare.  And the Air Force Space Command logo was updated.

Engage!

                      

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DIVERSITY?

OK, I'm getting right to the point; I've heard and read many commentaries about the lack of diversity among the Democratic candidates for president on stage at the last so-called debate. "They're all white!"

The 6 candidates on the stage were: Amy Klobuchar (woman), Elizabeth Warren (woman), Bernie Sanders (Jew; democratic socialist), Joe Biden (white man), Pete Buttigieg (gay white man), and Tom Steyer (white man (his father was Jewish)). So that's 2 women, one Jew, one gay man, and 2 white men. I call that diversity!

And if there had been 7 candidates on stage, the 7th would have been Andrew Yang (Asian-American).

Yes, the African-American and Latinx-American candidates have dropped out of the race, but they dropped out of the race. Did they drop out because the Democratic Party system is racist? This could be a factor; however, we can't forget that Barak Obama won the nomination in 2008.

As an old, pale-skinned, Jewish, atheist man (that's 5 strikes against me), maybe I'm a bit sensitive concerning identity politics. On the other hand, maybe - as usual - we on the left can't seem to get our collective poop together in one tent.

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IMPEACHMENT: DONALD J. TRUMP

It's all over except the shouting. It was over before it started. Here's my take - today:

The Republicans in the Senate voted not to call witnesses or documents. Senator Lamar Alexander stated, and a number of Republican Senators agreed, that the House Committees proved their case, Trump did what they said he did, and therefore it is not necessary to call witnesses or subpoena documents; however, it is not at the level of an impeachable offense. Furthermore, because it is so close to an election, the voters should decide.

This view is actually understandable within a certain context, and it cuts through - intentionally, I think - the fog of BS and lies presented by the Trump legal team. I can understand, again within a certain context, why removing Trump from office now would create a very dangerous situation in this country, and widen the divide between political camps. The danger, however, is that Trump decides that a not-guilty verdict in the Senate means that he can continue to do whatever he wants, the law be damned. And, in fact, he has already decided this, and preaches it every time he opens his pie hole!

There is, in my mind, another step the Senate needs to take; one that can be supported by the more moderate - or less fearful - Senators. As part of the not-guilty verdict, the Senate needs to attach the most severe rebuke of Donald Trump allowed in the Senate rules.  Make it clear that the Senate agrees with the House on the Articles of Impeachment - Trump did what he was accused of doing, that these actions were wrong, that Trump should never again try to bribe a foreign country for his personal gain or obstruct the actions of Congress. It can be a very simple and clear message: "Mr. President, you did things that a president should not do, we want you to understand that you should never do these things again, and we did not remove you from office because of the very severe impact that would have during an election year." Or something like that.

We all need to keep in mind that this isn't over. Additional evidence will come out, in books (John Bolton's, for example), interviews (Lev Parnas, for example) and other means. The House Intelligence and perhaps Oversight Committees will continue to investigate, and will certainly uncover and make public much more damning evidence about the Trump Gang conspiracy (conspiracies). It will become more evident that many high-level players were involved in the Ukraine "drug deal" and other underhanded activities; people like Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and others will be exposed. As it has been said, the truth always comes out, eventually. And the more we, the public, find out about these nefarious characters, the worse it will be for a Trump re-election.

I left phone messages for our two Senators today, asking them to work hard to get the Senate to issue the most severe rebuke of Trump it can along with the not-guilty verdict. I'm not hopeful that this will happen, not one bit actually, but it's worth making noise about.

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