The shootings down in Washington, mainly because they involved a bunch of congressmen, have become a center of controversy. A similar workplace shooting in California barely made the news. Why? Well, we seem to have gotten used to people in this country solving their problems with guns. This blog finds it more than ironic that the congressional victims are the very men who are keeping guns in the hands of people who should not even be allowed to own slingshots.
But that’s not the only thing wrong with the reactions to this shooting. Yes, it’s horrible. It always is when nuts resort to shooting people just to work out their own mental deficiencies, but this writer found it bizarre that the most prolific reaction has been that we must come together because we are all on the same side in some pending war of aggression against a foreign enemy. That is pure unadulterated hypocrisy. The nut case who shot these politicians seems to have been a Trump hater and driven to punish the self-rewarding policies of the men he shot but he was wrong in his choice of solutions. But even if that solution was wrong, it dos not make the problem false.
The problem is very real. It’s driven by men who have ignored their franchise in exchange for self-reward. When one third of the voters in this country chose to vote for Trump, even though he was obviously not Presidential material, many pundits excused them on the basis that Washington hadn’t been working for them and they wanted change, any change. So now we have a President and a ruling party that, have accomplished nothing and are driven by greed and encouraged by bribery to pass legislation that is contrary to the interests of the vast majority of the citizens to whom he must answer. So when a single unhinged individual, in reaction to this behavior, takes misguided justice into his own hands, the common reaction is that the rest of us, in recognizing and revealing the failures of these self-serving congressmen are creating an atmosphere of hate that allows such vicious acts to flourish. This is known as fallacious logic.
The logical progression here is very simple. We have a mad President, so unhinged that at the ballgame that followed this incident he calls for calm and cooperation between all parties and only a few hours later is Tweeting about crooked Hillary and raving like a lunatic about events that happened before he was even in office. There are many, who because of the shootings, would have the media ignore this unacceptable behavior. But not to identify Trump, as the raving egomaniac that he is or the GOP as the pathetic lackeys that they are, would make those ignoring said faults as guilty as the perpetrators for the dangers to which they are exposing the country.
It would not be a unifying gesture but the depths of hypocrisy not to identify the vile traitors of the Republican Party who for years have been lying to their loyal constituents, promising them anything to get their vote and more often than not, delivering just the opposite in order to satisfy the bribes from their rich patrons.
Trump and the Right have so disgraced themselves, so betrayed their voters, that it is no longer possible not to identify them in the most demeaning terms. To do otherwise would be to portray them in a false light. I find it amusing that those calling the loudest for civility in future discussions are those who have most abandoned civility, especially in the forms of truth and loyalty. It would surely be wonderful if we could bring civility back to our political discourse but to do so it is necessary for the President and the Republican Party to stop lying, abandon greedy, self-serving paths and take up the cudgel of public service for which they were elected to office.
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A while back we saw the murder of a black student visiting the University of Maryland campus by a white man who has been seen to support white supremacist groups. Then, hours later two men were killed on a Portland train when they tried to defend two Muslim women from a racist attacking therm.
As this white viewer looks across our country and sees a continuing narrative of hate crimes against minorities and even more against those of the Muslim faith, I am forced to come to the conclusion that all the enlightened thinking of the last couple of decades has been wasted. Led by a racist President who is supported by bigots of all persuasions, our country is now accepting the worst sorts of behavior from racists and bigots all across the land. These kinds of hate crimes didn’t start with Donald Trump’s ascendency to the Presidency. They actually began to increase with the election of Barak Obama but at least during the Obama administration some attempt was made to slow if not stop them. The rise of White Supremacist (Read Nazi) militant groups across the country is truly disturbing and if this alt-right movement isn’t stopped it will become a cancer that will destroy our nation much the same way Adolph Hitler and his Nazi minions destroyed Germany starting in 1930.
But it seems that it isn’t just the Right that has a grip on this type of behavior. This week a nut jib shooting at GOP legislators practicing for a ballgame proved that the Left could be just as crazy as the Right. In either case it must be stopped.
So where does a country look to control this disease? Normally to the White House, from which, leadership should flow. Not in this country at this time! Trump’s racist White House and his super-racist appointments, led by the confederate mouse, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions to the post of Attorney General send a message that is the exact opposite of the one we need. Sessions has stated openly that he has no interest in pursuing these white racist organizations. Rather he pulls resources from law enforcement that should be used in tracking them down. Trump bombastically attacks foreign-based terrorism, while the rest of the world understands that most terrorism while sometimes foreign induced is, most often, homegrown.
Trump isn’t going to change his mind. He isn’t intellectually advanced enough to make any kind of logic-based judgment or to see any point that doesn’t benefit him directly. As long as he is in the White House this decaying situation will continue to exist and the Nazi militias will continue to increase in numbers and influence as will the occasional Left leaning nut. The only way for those of good intentions to attack this problem is to take all power from our deluded President. The investigations now underway may or more probably may not result in impeachment. There is an outside chance this could still happen but it won’t be soon. Therefore we must point all our resources toward the 2018 elections where we have a chance to wrest both houses of congress from the GOP. Only if we have both houses of congress can we stop Trump from allowing this racist threat to advance and destroy our country. That will also give us a shot at real impeachment hearings.
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Jared Kushner’s involvement in the Russian investigation has come front and center. It has many ramifications but it also brings to the surface lingering questions about shakeups in the administration. Just about every name associated with the White House has been mentioned as a target but the reality is that nothing will change as long as Trump is President. I watched two shows about this, this weekend and no pundit on either show even mentioned the reality of the situation. The problem at the White House is not the aides but the President. Nothing will change as long as Trump sits in the oval office
Many had hoped that the presidency would change Trump, but he has proven he is who he is and he will not change. How do you change a 71 year-old man whose ego tells him that he is never wrong? He sees no reason to change just as he sees nothing wrong with blatant lying. Truth does not exist in Tumpworld, only Donald’s reality. If he says that black is white you better believe that is what he sees. Reality does not affect his view of the world. Neither does the good of the nation. There is only one good in Trump’s mind, that of Donald Trump, and in the end that is what may bring him down rather than the Russian matter.
Trump as opposed to every other man who has served in the Presidency has never divested himself of his personal business ties. His arrogance is such that he never considered it. He feels that he is above mundane little niceties that normally are part of the presidency. Because he always puts his own desires ahead of anythingelse he doesn’t see what a toxic bomb his personal business enterprises can be and he just doesn’t understand that they are sitting there, waiting to explode. This lack of recognition may come from pure greed or more probably lack of intellectual curiosity. Like a hungry dog he sees what he thinks he wants and jumps to devour it without regard for what it actually is. Making governmental judgments based on what is good for his personal financial involvements is the false vision that will poison his presidency. Trump’s pandering to dictators like the Philippine’s Duterte and Turkey’s Erdagon, simply because he has hotels in both venues and he needs to protect them is a dirty bomb looking to explode.
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With all the stupid, infantile, idiotic appointments that Donald Trump has made to his cabinet, two men stand aside, miles aside. They are John Kelly, Homeland Secretary and James Mattis, Secretary of Defense. It’s hard to believe that among all the garbage that Trump has stuffed into his pathetic cabinet he managed to get these two pros to agree to try and keep him from destroying the country. I watched them both on the tube this weekend and both showed why it’s a miracle that Trump even considered them. They are professional, dignified, knowledgeable and in control of their craft and they stand head and shoulders above their fellow cabinet members in every measurable context.