The discussion on Morning Joe this week started with Virginia Governor Northam, his sad tale of stupidity and his pathetic behavior. But it got interesting when Joe asked Eddie Glaude if there was any space for grace in a possible forgiveness for this clown.
Glaude’s answer was spot on, not because he had the perfect answer or because he definitely felt there was a place for grace, but because he knew how to frame the problem in a simple, universal way. The problem is not that Northam is stupid or a bigot, the problem is that we live in a nation overwhelmed, even today, with an inbred, tribal affinity for bigotry and racial hatred.
Throughout the history of this country racial pejoratives have slipped easily off the tongue of almost every, angry American. We are a nation where immigration has worked magnificently, where all peoples can blend into society but where we still live with the residual damage of our tribal heritages.
And that’s why we all must strive to eliminate that tribal influence that drives us to spurn those who are different. But it’s that difference that should, in a best of all possible worlds, provide that, which is missing from our own ethnic makeup. It’s nature’s model.
It’s basic science; racial mixing produces stronger, healthier, more intelligent offspring. So it shouldn’t take anything over average intelligence to recognize the right path.
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This week at a congressional hearing the leaders of the CIA, FBI and other national security agencies testified on the state of national security and the international scene. This morning MSNBC screened a revealing bit of footage whereby Trump made statements on various national security subjects followed by the individual heads of the agencies refuting everything Trump said.
Add this to Trump’s penchant for having meetings with the Russians with no Americans in the room leaving us with only our adversaries to verify what was said.
And of course, all the American intelligence officers are Republicans appointed by Trump. It’s not like he has a bunch of Democrats out to get him.
Look, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Trump’s desire to have a working relationship with the Russians. A judiciously entered into and carefully documented relationship could be a good thing. But the secretive nature of Trump’s meetings with Putin, especially since the secrets are all being kept from our intelligence people, can only be damaging to our security. Of course Trump’s real estate dealings with the Russians right up to the day he stepped into the oval office surely don’t make his subsequent dealings with them look exactly innocent.
So why is he acting this way? Why does he accuse Iran when all his intelligence agencies tell us that Iran is doing exactly what we want them to do? Is he crazy?
Trump has decided that his all encompassing intellectual genius is more than competent to challenge any information he gets from his intelligence services. After all, he points out; look at the way they screwed up the Weapons of Mass Destruction deal in Iraq.
What he fails to point out is that the so called intelligence that led to the Iraq war was promoted, shaped and actually created, not by the intelligence agencies but by another Republican dolt and his war mongering administration. George Bush wanted a war to show his daddy how it should be done. Dick Cheney needed to create a war to please the voracious war machine that needed more contracts. Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld was in a position to make the war happen and he was pushed by John Bolton to do it.
Wait a minute, that name is familiar. Oh yeah, he’s in Trump’s bunch too. But when Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat revealed that the whole yellowcake nonsense was a farce created by the Bush administration rather than the CIA, it was his wife Valerie Plame, a working CIA agent, who took the hit when her association with that agency was traitorously revealed by Cheney’s war room.
So no Donald; sitting in your bedroom watching Fox News and listening to John Bolton argue for a war with Iran does not give you better access to international affairs than the thousands of intelligence agents working their asses off and actually risking their lives to keep this country safe. No, they’re not alwaysright but you never are. Not about anything.
So it’s time to sit down with the guys you actually appointed to run these agencies; guys who despite the moron they’re working for, have done a spectacular job, and listen to them for a change instead of just running off at the mouth.
How is it that we again have John Bolton in a GOP administration, still trying to start a war in the Middle East, still pushing a dumb, ego driven president to attack the people who are actually doing exactly what we need them to do to maintain peace?
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Roger Stone exited the courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale and raised both hands with two fingers on each extended in a victory sign. We all know how well that pose worked for Stone’s hero Richard Nixon. Tricky Dick knew enough to get out of the White House before he went to jail. Will Dumb Donald be at least that smart?
But that’s not the end of it because Stone knows where all the bodies are buried and if Trump decides to treat him the way he did Michael Cohen, he will become a sure thing for a striped suit.
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As I awaited last night’s State of the Union speech, I wondered if it would be anything like a normal State of the Union, where a president addresses what is going on in the country and what has to be fixed, or would it just be Trump raving about his wall and what bad people Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are?
The question has hit the floor: will Trump declare a national emergency to get his silly wall built? As proven in the previous two years, even the GOP doesn’t want the wall. What they do want is to placate Trump but not if it is going to cost them the next election.
The biggest problem is; if Trump declares a national emergency for a problem that’s anything but, will he be sued by the Dems and laughed out of court? But more importantly, will that give the next president, especially if he or she is a Democrat, free access to this same strategy to solve a number of problems that could be seen as real emergencies.
What happens the next time a dozen or so kids are killed in a school shooting? Surely anything to do with climate change or the environment could be drummed up to be a far more realistic emergency than Trump’s silly wall. Another school shooting would allow a Democratic president to lay waste to the 2ndAmendment, legislating for stricter registration, eliminating all automatic weapons, all special ammunition, limiting all carry permits, dictating arms safes for all gun owners and virtually wiping out all protections under the 2ndAmendment. Is that what the Right wants? Is Trump’s silly wall worth it?
That doesn’t get your motor running? Well, the state of the environment is the biggest emergency the planet has ever faced. How about an emergency executive order banning the sales and use of all coal, oil and gas products and dictating the demolition of all nuclear power plants? You think that might put a burr under the Koch brother’s britches?
What the GOP wants right now is for Trump to sit down and shut up about the wall. Most of them are fed up with the whole subject, Strangely that doesn’t include Lindsay Graham, who in the past has seemed to be one of their most reasonable members but who lately has almost completely lost it. Maybe it’s because he’s facing an election in South Carolina and is scared about being primaryed from the Right. Maybe that’s why he’s suddenly started to slavishly kiss Trump’s ass.
Graham came out this week in blubbering support of Trump, not because he’s right but because he is a Republican. By doing this Graham has put party before country and established a low point for American politicians to shoot at. Save the Republican Party, fuck the country!
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And then Trump actually showed up for the State of the Union. There were a couple of weird or uncomfortable parts like when he babbled on ad nausea about building his silly wall to keep immigrants out of the country or when he threatened congress that there would be no legislation as long as the investigations continued. Aside from those and a few other moments of Trumpian untruth it was not a horrible speech, especially when you consider who wrote it and who gave it.
Truth be known I was surprised at how well he did. Having been too long exposed to the fat liar I was expecting much worse. I mean, after all, this is a man who has no real understanding of his job, the function of a government or how the international systems work. Considering all that, it must be accepted that he did an almost superhuman job, except in areas where human understanding was needed and sorely missing.
The fact that he had the nerve and the unbelievable insensitivity to bring up the abortion laws in NY and Virginia, even as his people just announced that they have given up on reuniting hundreds of children that were ripped from their mother’s arms simply because they are too incompetent and too uncaring to get the job done, is staggering. Unfortunately it’s not surprising. It’s exactly what we expect; so any stumbling, bumbling attempt at giving a real speech comes across as a major achievement. That’s what we got, folks. That’s all there is. Let’s concentrate on changing the equation as soon as possible.