THE BURDEN OF POWER

Trump’s True Catch-22

The cost of change this time includes dead bodies in the streets of American cities. Donald Trump’s burden of power was something that he probably never imagined would be difficult, but then he just assumed running a country would be easy. Our President has an ongoing desire to entertain rather than embrace the empathy necessary in a great leader. He would call me a hater, but he would never take the time to read my thoughts. I feel sorry for him, but he should not be allowed to get in the way of our country’s safety, our prosperity and our morals.

Our younger readers might not understand the term “Catch-22.” This concept arises when trying to escape a dilemma or difficult circumstance with mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. President Trump finds himself now dealing with the mutually conflicting and dependent conditions he has created. But at the risk of blaming him for everything, we should look at the dilemmas and suggest solutions.

First, Trump married himself to the NRA and they spent more than $30 million to help him get elected. They give a lot of money to many other candidates and they are more like a political action committee than a non-profit organization. What they do is legal but causes a conflict of interest with those who have received their contributions. Trump sees their endorsement as important. He has never stood up to them. This needs to end.

Trump rose to political power by attacking immigrants. He berates them much like past tyrants who focused on minorities and ethnic groups to create dangerous conditions and harmful attitudes against them. Trump’s rhetoric has also stoked the hatred and fear of immigrants, aliens and asylum seekers. When reading the manifestos of mass shooters, we see the same phraseologies and viewpoints toward those ethnic groups and the people they’ve attacked.

In his speech to the nation and world (8-5-2019), President Trump said that he’s ready for discussion on gun laws and he touted his small legal moves such as banning the “Bump-Stock.” His words fell short, however, because they came from “Teleprompter Trump” not Candidate Trump. Can these tragedies guarantee that at his next rally he won’t double-down on previous incitements? Probably not.

Trump wants the Justice Department to make sure “domestic terrorists” receive a swift death penalty, but that’s not likely to deter most of these crazy murderers who expect to die during the carnage they reap. Killing the mass shooters will make them the kind of martyrs that ISIS fighters are to their followers. The hate websites will continue to breed this dogma of death and destruction, but what will the leadership of this country do to stop them? Can they protect our First and Second Amendment rights while making this problem go away? This is the true burden of power.

Here’s the Catch-22 in all of this. The TV talking heads express sorrow about the sweet little kids who were gunned down in El Paso, while a few miles from the attack site children of Mexico and Central America are living in chain-link detention centers lacking basic human comforts like hygiene, warmth and love. You cannot be on moral ground protecting one class of human being while dehumanizing another. Trump has already showed his true colors by doing everything he can to eliminate or bypass America’s asylum laws. In 1940, he would have turned away ships bringing Jews and other Europeans to America attempting to seek asylum from Hitler.

And now, Trump tries to apologize to the President of Mexico for those citizens who lost their lives in El Paso. His feeble attempt is most likely intended to placate their leader who said that Mexico would be seeking legal action for the deaths of their citizens on our soil. Perhaps one of Trump’s advisors warned him of a law that could be used against him.

Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence. With Trump inciting violence toward immigrants, be they legal or illegal, he is clearly in violation of Article 20. He could be brought before the World Court.

Remember the Trump rally in Florida when someone answered his question of what to do with all these people coming across the border by yelling, “Shoot them?” The President of the United States didn’t explain that would be against the law. No, he offered a joke, “That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with this stuff.” Referring to that area of Florida that borders Alabama, Trump seemed to endorse violence against people coming into America.

The Republicans playbook tells us that mass shootings are executed by mentally ill people, not the guns themselves. Video games and the internet are promoting violence, not the words of leaders who seemingly give permission to perpetrate political retribution against the “others” as defined by the President himself.

When the words are printed, you see it clearly. In his tweets, Trump used the term “invasion” more than a half of dozen times. And the manifesto of the shooter in El Paso stated, “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.” That was not Trump, those were the words of a person who killed twenty-two people in Texas.

If we are in a Catch-22 situation that is difficult to escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions, then we need smarter leaders to help us resolve them. This time, it’s not the economy stupid or the bully’s need for some payback against so-called bad deals. There are human lives at stake. I have no faith in Donald Trump, the man who took an oath to protect America and the Constitution. Neither he nor Mike Pence are equipped to disentangle this Catch-22.

Maybe we should start doing little things and see what works. Begin by banning and buying back all auto and semi-automatic weapons. Get rid of high capacity clips that give shooters advantages over the police. If someone could kill nine people in a minute in Ohio, how many others would have been murdered if the killer had just a little more time? We can’t take away every gun, but we should try to keep weapons out of the hands of unstable people. The paralysis of those in power is repulsive. Trump is only part of the problem but getting rid of him would be a great start.

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The book that tells it like it is…

Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs shows how we’ve wasted our GOLD on bad wars and corruption. While GOD is there for many people as a spiritual enrichment and the provider of glowing feelings, the truth is just praying and believing will not change our major arc. We don’t determine who gets a GUN. We aren’t sure if we have paramilitary groups ready to storm the White House or a White Castle. There is no control of weapons. The GOOFBALLS with the power constantly try to manipulate us into spending more money on bombs and tanks and wars. When all of our institutions are infected with neglect and fall in disrepair, we will only have ourselves to blame. This book is not an antidote for the left or right, it’s an accelerant to move the middle off their collective asses to go do something positive for America.

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WE HAVE THE WRONG PRESIDENT

America Must Act, Trump Must Go

America, we have a problem. For all the rhetoric and endless number of tweets, the current government in our country is not equipped to deal with the violence of mass shootings. Regrettably, there is no preventative effort on the part of the President and his minions of “yes” men and women around him.

There have been too many events of “active shooters” and “mass shootings” for us to bury our heads in the sand. As of this writing, 2019 has seen more than 250 mass shootings, with a death toll of 281 human beings. If you want to keep track of these horrible events there’s a website. It changes weekly and sometimes daily. Here’s where one can use the word “sad” and feel the true meaning.

Some experts boil it down to our higher accessibility and ownership of guns. We have 120.5 firearms per one hundred people, and the USA ranks number one in gun ownership around the world. Most believe that mass shooters suffer from some form of mental illness. Certainly, premeditated murder is the result of a sickness.

Clear minds state that a failure of government background checks due to incomplete databases and staff shortages puts guns in the wrong hands. Organizations like the NRA can say the Second Amendment is more important that protecting the lives of America citizens, but the gun problem in this country has been promoted by their actions and policies.

Certain experts point to the gap between people’s expectations for themselves and their actual achievements in life. This is where we get to the hate crimes and the driving force of getting back at OTHERS who they perceive have gained more at their expense. It’s another kind of sickness, this driving force of revenge as motive.

Some of these perpetrators have a desire for fame and notoriety, they seek their fifteen minutes of fame. The mass media coverage of the shooters and the social media sites that glorify them often downplay the victims, handing a prize to the person of hate.

Then we have an evil “copycat phenomenon,” where the acts of one person are taken by another human as a green light for further deeds of hatred. The notion of “suggesting” may be happening with Donald Trump’s rallies and his fear mongering toward people of color, immigrants and those who disagree with him. Trump’s harangues become a trigger for sick minds, but he will never admit it because he doesn’t believe there is anything wrong with using a tactic of hatred to get reelected. He would rather win than solve problems.

When Donald John Trump was sworn in as President, he said, “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” But the “carnage” is not ending, it’s getting worse. Some defend Trump’s political lack of action, but most will agree his messaging to motivate the nation away from hate and violence is scarce and weak. When he said that “there were fine people on both sides” right after a white nationalist plowed a car into peaceful counter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, injuring many and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, our 45^th President gave a license for violence and killing to the KKK, white nationalists, white supremacists and Neo-Nazis. For them, “Might is right.” After the chants of “Jews will not replace us” die down, the country still has no moral leader. Mr. President, they’ve killed Muslims, Jews, children and immigrants while you sit back, neglecting your obligation to protect our country.

Trump can repetitively chant about MS-13 and ISIS, but hundreds of people are dead on our soil from domestic terrorism. These shooters didn’t come from Syria or Mexico, they came from the white suburbs of America. They are being poisoned by Nazi, KKK and white nationalists online and the manifestos of these hateful shooters spell out their dogma in clear language. They believe that Trump supports them.

It’s too late for the Donald to undo the damage that he has rendered. He has no creditability to speak to the nation and give us fatherly advice on guns. His sons own lots of guns and he doesn’t even care about the number of weapons out there, unless they were to be used against him. Should that ever happen, we would have gun restrictions within hours. That happened in the streets of San Francisco when the Black Panthers decided to poke a hole in the Second Amendment by carrying loaded rifles in the streets. Gun laws changed dramatically then.

There are some who will claim that blaming Trump for mass shootings is unfair. Okay, that might make you happy for a few minutes but what are we going to do about the problem? Congress waited until hundreds of thousands of citizens were murdered by opioids to act against the pharmaceutical industry and their middlemen who were getting rich by death. People who write the laws of the land have never taken up arms against arms.

What if a strong denouncement of hate and threat of reckoning with these hate groups by the President happened NOW? If it stopped just one person from loading a gun and killing our people, that would be something good. Trump has the power, but he doesn’t have a strong enough command of the English language to pull it off. His lame tweet after the Saturday shooting in El Paso says it all, “God be with you all!” On Sunday morning, after another shooting in Dayton, Ohio, Trump tweeted “God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio.” This is what we get from Trump. It’s obvious that he doesn’t know what to do or even what to say. He’s not the Pope, he’s the fucking President of the United States and if he doesn’t do something about the hate and violence in America, he is clearly not worthy of the presidency. He must go.

Impact of Trump on America

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GUNS, GUTS & GRAVITAS

Trump’s Vacuous Reactions

Have you noticed that when Trump responds to various things, he sometimes seems passionate and focused, while at other times he offers a rather perfunctory reaction? If you assume that the 45^th President of the United States has some thought process at work before he speaks, wouldn’t you also believe that he would try to be a respected leader with his words.

70% of everything Trump says is negative. He continually sounds more like a small-town politician rather than the leader of the free world. And because of his lack of precision when presenting his viewpoints, many people on the other side paint him with a justified brush of racism and xenophobia. They use his own words to reach their conclusions. Donald Trump is a horrible communicator. Consider the sheer volume of his statements and orders that must be explained by others in the administration. Of course, the common thread in the explanations from Trump supporters and, sadly, those in Congress is a tinge of anti-press putdown.

Hate speech and crimes in America are on the rise. In 2017, hate crimes were up by 17% (7,175 incidents): 1,679 of them were religious bias crimes, 58.1% were anti-Jewish and 18.9% were against the Islamic community. These stats are from the FBI. While some people are quick to assign blame to Trump, hatred seems to be a global trend that must be intelligently addressed. However, don’t look to Trump for leadership here; he’s not capable.

Our president is missing a gut feel for the realities of life in America. I have often believed he treats Putin well because he fears being poisoned by him. The reason he doesn’t take a strong stand against the White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis and the failing KKK is because he’s afraid they will turn against him politically. Some Neo-Nazis have already abandoned him because of his stance on Israel. Trump’s bailiwick is fear and hate, while his lack of understanding of real people could become his Waterloo.

Think of that hate cult known as the National Rifle Association. Trump fears the guys with the guns, and they manipulate his fear by motivating him to stand behind the 2^nd Amendment in fake, patronizing ways. No matter what state Trump visits for his rallies, guns are not permitted in the building. Of course not. GUNS ARE DANGEROUS and there is no way the Secret Service could protect the president if people carried guns into a rally. Despite this, Trump pushes for guns in public places like schools and churches. You know, to shot back at the bad guys.

In his response to the gunfire in Poway, California, Trump gave his obligatory comments and then said that it “might be a hate crime,” before getting a report from authorities. Why would he do that? And then he tacked on, “that’s unbelievable.” Does he mean, that a hate crime is unbelievable, or that it’s unbelievable that in 2019 it’s happening again? As is typical of this moronic man, his sentence construct gets him in trouble and misguides us.

Trump dismisses major realities like global warming and climate change without a drop of common sense. He doesn’t relate to the pain that extreme weather is causing to Americas in every state. He’s disinterested in taking a strong stance against foreign meddling in our elections because he thinks it’s good for him. He obviously doesn’t care about people, only himself.

The Trump surrogates on TV keep referencing Donald’s frustration about how the investigation into Russian interference was conducted and his belief that it shouldn’t have started in the first place. It’s appalling when semi-literate Congressional leaders paint a picture that it’s more important protect the President fragile temperament than to fortify the electorate against fraud and deception. Who are these people?

In pitching his book, Mike Lee of Utah talked about how the problem is Congress, even though he is a member of Congress. He complains bitterly about those “unelected” career government people who have done such terrible things to Trump. That’s rich. Hey, Mike, you do realize we didn’t vote for Jared Kushner, or Ivanka, or Mick Mulvaney or Betsy Devos and the rest of the low-life ideologs who are ruining America right before our very eyes. They are political appointees who should be doing their damn jobs to protect the Constitution and to help America.

Kushner says that a “few ads” on Facebook was no big deal and claimed that the Mueller Investigation did more harm to democracy than Russian interference. You lost, little boy. Perhaps your ancestors from Belarus found living under Russian rule for so long wasn’t all that bad. Well, not all that bad after getting past the imprisonments and executions.

Hardly anyone talks about GUNS these days. They focus on HATE. The thousands of parents and families who have been torn to pieces by gun violence in America have never lost their focus. We will never get any effort to curtail the White Nationalists, Neo-Nazis or the KKK from Donald John Trump. He’s simply chicken-shit-scared of them. Trump will never make a grand speech or produce a plan to reduce the hate that is flaring up in America. He holds the blowtorch in his small little hand while insincerely protesting these “sad things.”

The vile and derogatory disparagement Trump spreads at his rallies, press conferences and online tweets has penetrated the mass mentality of our nation. His highly destructive attitude toward anyone who thinks differently than him is appalling and offers a back-stage pass to radical minds intending to harm.

Trump is an idiot when it comes to understanding the fragile intellects of those who follow him. He truly believes that most Americans are so stupid he can get away with anything. He dismisses the people who are trying to tell him what he is doing wrong as haters. By simply using the word, he is promoting hate. Since Trump demonstrates a belief that he’s above the law, a lunatic-coward wielding an AR-15 believes he can make a difference, too. Sadly, people die when such errant political rhetoric is acted out. Trump has blood on his hands, just like Pontius Pilate. Happy Passover.

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ONE DIMENSIONAL DONALD

Trump’s Inability to be Presidential

In today’s hyper partisan, social media fueled reality, every word, thought and prayer is overanalyzed by a mass media gone mad. And when something bad happens, anywhere in the world, people turn to their leaders for fatherly, or motherly, guidance to get them through the trauma.

Even if you are a Donald Trump supporter, you must admit that the man rarely says the right thing during a crisis. His inaction on situations he simply disagrees with may be a more critical problem, like grounding a fleet of questionable jets. Why did he wait so long? Was he weighing Boeing stock against peoples’ lives?

Trump’s inarticulate nature exposes his real lack of intelligence and leadership talent. After each of his controversial utterances, others run behind him to the TV cameras to explain away his confused meanings and, sometimes, outright lies. This is why he has never graduated to the presidential seat of decorum.

Donald Trump, like a trapped mouse in a house with a larger than life cat, is off his meds and tweeting so much he needs a time-out. The cat in this metaphor could very well be Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a woman even Steve Bannon admires for her methods against Trump. And just like the coy house cat, she will play with her prey before finally rendering it lifelessly limp at the doorstep of the American public.

But the world keeps turning and bad events get churned into our awareness. When a neo-Nazi white nationalist decided to massacre a group of praying people, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, spoke to her nation. Yes, we heard and felt her pain, but we also experienced her resolve to do something about the gun laws in her country. She clearly stated an action of resolve.

When Donald Trump was asked about whether he thought white nationalism is a spreading problem in the world, he replied, “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess. If you look what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s the case. I don’t know enough about it yet … But it’s certainly a terrible thing.”

Rather than overanalyze that response, I’d like to point out something systemic in the way Trump talks and tweets. He has a strange inability to comprehend the gravity of his words and actions. It’s as if he doesn’t realize that he’s President of the United States. And there is another disturbing tell in the Donald’s attempts.

When more than 130 people were killed in Paris in November of 2015, Trump chanted a mantra that the cure for mass shootings is guns for people on the other side so they can shot back at the bad guys. But when a white nationalist or Neo-Nazi uses a gun or car to kill people, Trump becomes a deer in the headlights. Without an empathy gene, he simply cannot show any.

Trump’s dismissive response to the threat of White Nationalism sounded like he was trying to protect those from that ilk who support him. Maybe, in his hazy way of thinking, they would protect him should something bad happen to his presidency. Those aren’t my thoughts; they are his words.

Michael Kennedy is a lawyer who represents Trump’s ex-wife. He claims Ivana Trump said that from time to time her husband would read a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he kept in a cabinet by his bed. Now I would be crazy to promote or disseminate a conspiracy theory and must ask why Ivana Trump would lie about this? It makes sense, given everything Trump says and does.

In 1990, Donald Trump was interviewed by Playboy magazine. Heed the seeds of white nationalism in his words, “I’m a strong believer in genes, that my kids can be brought up without adversity and respond well if they have the genes.” He amplified that thought during an interview with Oprah Winfrey saying that people can be successful if they have the right genes. He uses his uncle’s professorship and his father’s success in business to prove his “good genes” self-evaluation.

In his manifesto, the New Zealand terrorist who killed 50 human beings asks himself, “Are you a supporter of Donald Trump?” and then answers, “As a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure. As a policy maker and leader? Dear god no.” And if you have the stomach to read his vomit, you will see that his justification for the killing of Muslims is this dogma that says replacement of non-Europeans is the duty of the white nationalist. He clearly believes people having white genes are better than those with brown genes, because their blood is not clean. He even uses an inept warning to his “special” race that they “may find their very own genes being bred out of existence.”

The Prime Minister of New Zealand received his diatribe minutes before the massacre took place. This was a political act of terror intended to create a civil war in America. And Donald J. Trump never used the word “terrorist,” why?

The media rightfully attacked our idiot-in-chief and his response sounded much like his comments after Charlottesville. He tweeted more than 50 times, his fingers complaining and farting. He called out Fox News for suspending Tucker Carlson and Jeanne Pirro, demanding that his state TV reinstate them. And in a kind of demonic trance, he once again disrespected John McCain. Trump’s tweets are psychological tics, a disorder he cannot control.

If he was a convicted murderer, Trump’s tweets could be used to demonstrate insanity. But he’s a “stable genius” who with every tweet disproves his whole “successful gene” theory. He’s the bastard son of Iago, the most devastating of Shakespeare’s characters. He destroys several people’s lives in the play Othello, including two deaths through the manipulation of everyone around him. Yes, read it, Donald Trump is Iago. The worst lesson from the play is that even though Othello attacks Iago, the villain is still alive at the end of the play. Remember, impeachment isn’t death, it’s justice. And what America and the world needs right now, is justice.

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TRUMP’S ANTIFA PROBLEM

It’s Easy to Be a Critic

Donald Trump is trying to win an intellectual war outside of the White House, while the real war is raging in his brain. As I have written on these pages in the past, the political spectrum is like a giant clock, where the moderate middle sits at 12 o’clock and the radical left and the radical right faceoff at 6 o’clock.

What the Donald doesn’t understand is that he is creating an opposite force by revving up the Alt-Right. He has been eating a diet of analysis from the false prophets over at Fox News about “his base.” Trump creates his self-worth based on what he owns, not what he thinks. He is so deeply sucked into the rapture of cult of personality that he no longer sees his role as being President of America. Instead, he has become the leader of a gang, his base, the owner of the base.

Long before Trump decided to be president, there was a force out there with an agenda, disruption by anarchy. The history of this broad definition of people who protested, organized and acted out against the established norm can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome. Teddy Roosevelt became President because of the actions of one anarchist. Look it up.

The situation today is a far greater problem for this so-called President because he truly doesn’t know what to do. His instincts, and guidance from Jeff Sessions, will probably lead to action precisely opposite of sound reasoning. This could hasten a culture war between factions and only muddy the political waters in Congress.

The comments Donald J. Trump made after the Charlottesville tragedy were a failed attempt to be intellectual and accurate. His communication skills were simply not up to the task. He created a strong Alt-Right with his comments and nurtured a favored nation status for hate groups, such as the KKK, Neo-Nazis and White Nationalists. Worse, he didn’t realize that he’s stirring the far-left anarchist pot, as well.

One might make a joke that the KKK has taken off their silly robes and masks, while the left has created ISIS-like costumes and masks to cover their identities. I suppose they truly believe in this deep state theory and fear that if they are seen, they will be captured and persecuted by the power lords in the government. And they will be.

Inside the Trump bunker, Homeland Security and the FBI have decided that these people are “domestic terrorists,” spreading the fear that anti-fascist groups and neo-Nazis are bracing for an all-out war. In fact, they have launched an investigation into the left but don’t take the far-right all that seriously. Both Homeland and Justice clearly believe there is something less dangerous about people who hate Jews, blacks and immigrants than those who want to break windows in buildings where rich people in power are making the real money in America.

By acknowledging and, in a sense, promoting the “alt-left,” Trump has once again exposed himself as Sean Hannity’s puppet, more than Putin’s plaything. Whatever Sean vomits on his Fox News show, Trump adds to presidential platform within 24-hours. We can only hope that when Fox finally fires Hannity, they will hire someone smarter for that time slot who our great Orange Leader will mimic.

With his “…on many sides” mistake, Trump has set up his critics. He tried to be the President of all protesters, but he created an equality scenario that proposes anyone who protests is automatically wrong. He was trying to point out that there were anarchists at the rally in Charlottesville, but failed to understand what made him president in the first place; people hear only some of the words.

I have a suggestion which some might find draconian, but could be practical. Let’s pass a rule for protesters requiring them to wear the uniform of the group they support. You know, like armies wear uniforms. Now, I can hear my libertarian friends screaming and yelling, “That’s just another government over-reach!”

The national guard were fooled by a group of Alt-Right para-military-types who were decked out in full camo with weapons similar to army issue. The guardsmen even asked their commander, “Are they with us?” That is extremely dangerous.

So, yeah, the Neo-Nazis should be in brown shirts with arm bands. I am sure they have seen pictures of that look. And the KKK, sorry boys, but let’s get the white robes back; we need to know who you are. In addition to carrying flags, uniforms will more precisely indicate who’s who. The irony clicking out of my keyboard right now is hurting my head.

Trump has a problem with the far-right, he has a problem with the far-left and he is disliked by 61% of regular citizens in this great country. We all know he wants to be loved, but when he gives too much love to the other kids the normal members of the family become resentful.

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ECLIPSE OF THE ORANGE SUN

Trump Goes Dark and Dim

As the moon moves in front of the sun, the president is feeling the heat of his own party. Many loyal red-blooded Americans can’t understand why Trump will not condemn Neo-Nazis, White Nationalists and the KKK. He seems to have the same problem with Russia. Is Trump really a typical American?

The debate about confederate memorabilia around these lands was started by those who want to clear the air. When a young boy looks up at a big statue of a soldier, he automatically thinks that person must have been a hero. The meaning of the word confederate is a person who works with others, especially in something secret or illegal. A confederate is an accomplice, while a hero is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. You know, like a war hero.

The statues exist to celebrate the values behind the war by the KKK in the 1920s, not something that would have been appropriate right after the Civil War. Imagine if someone suggested we put up statues for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were convicted spies. The people we are protecting under the guise of history and culture were traitors to the United States of America.

The only reason all those “great” Confederate leaders weren’t executed is because the people who signed the peace treaty wanted to heal America. Let’s put it in perspective. If ten of our current generals commanded a division of US forces to attack America, those officers would be charged with treason. If convicted, they would be executed. Surely, we wouldn’t build a statue to honor the guy who killed our soldiers at Fort Hood. No, of course not. Ironically, Fort Hood was named after Confederate General John Bell Hood.

After the civil war ended in 1865, the clear and calm minds in the US government decided to get beyond, as it’s called in the south, “our recent unpleasantness” rather than pouring salt in the wound. Today, we are tearing off the bandage. For what? It might not seem important to President Trump, but 620,000 people died in our Civil War, so it’s a little more than an argument over moonshine.

We aren’t going to spend tons of money today to remove the carvings from Stone Mountain in Georgia and Mount Rushmore is not going to be altered, but no one can defend Robert E. Lee by carrying a Nazi flag. That makes no sense. When you carry a Nazi flag, you are saying you believe that Jews should be killed. Really? Where is our great orange leader’s defense of the First Amendment? Oh, he probably hasn’t read that lately, if ever.

The Alt-right can carry the “stars and bars” (Confederate flag) and parade around claiming that they are defending white people from the diversification of America, but that would make them foolish, or as Steve Bannon declared, “A collection of clowns.”

I may sound a little “Yankee” here, but when I see the stars and bars flag on a truck, I think, “There goes another redneck.” And what makes a redneck bad? Nothing really, but behind the flag is, at least, a small symbol of racism. It instills fear in some African-Americans and presents a distorted view of the war between the states. The U.S. flag doesn’t instill fear, it instills pride. Big difference.

Abraham Lincoln freed more than three million people from the chains of slavery. Trump cannot change history. The Civil War was fought over SLAVERY. You cannot purify the southern cause of the war by leaving the statues up.

We rightfully celebrate Lincoln, but we should also remember he was assassinated by someone who thought the same way as many of those people marching in our streets to protect those statues today. Is that Donald Trump and the Alt-right want to be associated with? An assassin?

The radical right might be saying, hey, I don’t want to kill anyone, I just want this beautiful statue to remain in my park because I want to protect my “history and culture.” But what you are truly saying is you want to celebrate Southern trader soldiers to protect “white” peoples culture.

Yes, it was more than “recent unpleasantness.” This bigotry elected Donald Trump and we see it at work as he attempts to exploit the terrible events in Charlottesville, Virginia to his advantage. Hopefully my grandchildren won’t have to march in the streets to get Donald Trump statues torn down. We don’t see that many Richard Nixon statues, do we?

Not all people who live in the southern states carry ethnic hate, but Donald Trump fails to understand that his language carries weight and hurts people’s feelings. He has no soul or empathy with matters of political correctness or human suffering. He has just equated himself with the KKK and Neo-Nazis, does he realize that?

If you treated people with respect, you would see that your confederate flag-waving is a little wink-wink for the White Nationalists. If you want to protect your heritage and culture, erect a statue of a large pig on a spit with a bowl of grits and leave racist politics out of it. And if you are making grits, would you please add cheese? I prefer a little color in mine.

Did not have a permit?

Trump Rewrites His Own History

You know that feeling you have after a night of some Olympic-level drinking, when you want to stay in bed but realize that you have to get up and start the day? Your head is pounding and your stomach wants food. The room is moving and your hands are shaking and deep down inside you say to yourself, I will never do this again, but the feeling you get from Donald Trump’s words is like a reoccurring hangover.

At a previously planned veteran’s action press conference (8-12-2017), President Trump read a short statement about the tragedy and chaos that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. He took no questions and simply left the room after. This drew a tremendously negative response by both Republicans and Democrats. The press and cable news shows had a field day with the omission of any naming of the parties involved, while using the throwaway line, “… on many sides, on many sides.”

Donald J. Trump waited until Monday afternoon to set the record straight in what has been mockingly referred to as a “hostage video,” where the great Orange Leader finally called out the Neo-Nazis, White Nationalists and KKK by name. That should have, could have, would have been it. However, Trump decided to hold another press conference about, well, we all seem to have forgotten what it was supposed to cover. Once again, our fearless leader took the reporters’ bait and swam right into the deep, dark waters of racism.

He was angry and defiant in a non-presidential way. He lashed out at reporters and swatted away their questions with “Excuse me, Excuse me.” He tripled-down on his assessment that both sides were to blame and even asserted that the Nazis and KKK were legally protesting because they had a permit, as if that was an excuse for murder.

He claimed that on Friday night the Alt-right group was quietly protesting the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in the local park. In fact, they were carrying tiki torches and chanting extremely racist, Nazi, fascist, anti-Semitic phrases while marching through the streets of Charlottesville. They called the press following the entourage, “Faggots.”

Trump’s lack of awareness of the true events that took place on Friday night, and his misrepresentation of what happened the next day, was so breathtakingly hurtful, we can only wish someone in the White House will tell him how wrong he was. But they won’t. General Kelly may be able to command the troops, but he cannot put lipstick on this pig at the luau.

On Saturday, the protests turned into a riot, which included a White Nationalist Nazi cultist driving his car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters. His terrorist action killed a human being and seriously injured 19 others. While Donald Trump was fumbling, bumbling and trying to win an argument instead of showing true leadership, he added false logic claiming that there was lots of blame to go around.

He rebuked the reporters, claiming they were not reporting the whole story and that he knows more than anyone else about what happened. He pronounced that there are always two sides to every story and proceeded to coddle the Neo-Nazis and KKK by selling them as nice people. “Well, some of them were nice.”

It reminded me of an old friend who was complaining about someone using the words, “That guy’s a Nazi, and not even a good Nazi.” Now, if the President is really saying that people carrying German Swastikas, guns, clubs and torches were there to protect Robert E. Lee from supposed “alt-left” pre-planned violence, then we need a new President.

The idea that one needs a permit to protest is anti-American. Anyone in the United States has the right to peacefully assemble and air their grievances. A notion that any group, no matter who they hate, stands on higher ground because of a permit granting them access to public property is naively marred and diabolically destructive. It’s not the “permit,” stupid, it’s the racism.

While a mother is grieving the loss of her daughter, the President of the United States was on national TV attempting to give evil groups a little love to lower their culpability. He is guilty of obstruction of logic and aiding and abetting the enemy of Democracy.

The Donald thinks he can rewrite history by confusing people, by asking the absurd question of which statues are next to be torn down, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson? As Trump points out, they were slave owners. We know they held slaves, but they weren’t the traitors who left the Union to preserve slavery.

One of the things I can never understand about Donald Trump is the dichotomy of his push to always win, but showing admiration for people who lose. The Germans lost both World Wars and the Southern Confederate army lost the Civil War. Why do losers always admire losers?

Trump’s blatant whispers demonstrate his lack of moral compass. I once heard a southerner say, “I know Hitler was bad, but he did a lot of great things for Germany.” Really? He killed about six million Jews and nine million others. No one precisely knows the number of lives lost. As my father recalled, by the time the war was over, most of Germany was in ruin. What good did Hitler do for anyone?

What a wasted Presidency, and we are only eight months in. If you voted for Trump, you bear part of the blame. If you want to do something good for our country, start to demand that he be removed from office. It’s time to tear down that fake president and write him out of history. Let’s end this national hateful hangover.

“…From many sides, from many sides.”

The Confusion from the Commander-in-Chief

During the campaign at one of Donald J. Trump strident rallies he said, “Anyone who cannot name our enemy, is not fit to lead this country.” All the things he has said have come back to bite him. And now we witness the President revealed once again. He has this problem when he talks. He can’t seem to say bad things about Putin or about Alt-right, Neo-Nazi and White Nationalists. Why? Whose team is this man on?

Indeed, Donald Trump is a President the likes of which no one has ever seen. And now we’ve had two major events that really bring a burning feeling to the surface of our citizens. Possible war with North Korea and a domestic threat from hate groups in our homeland streets. Commenting on both incidents, the President used the wrong words.

We always want to believe the President of the United States has some moral core that drives his speech and his actions. Honest, direct communication not only creates trust, but also gives Americans a sense of grounding. But what we have here is a man who obsesses on things about himself and how they make him look.

Trump surrounds himself with people like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and Michael Anton, who all carry heavy-dark-dogmas on their backs. How can Donald Trump be objective on race and equality, when he is being counter-programmed by people who see disruption as getting things done?

You can google the names above and read their backgrounds and the things they have said and become familiar with the riffraff the Donald decided to help him with this messaging. They are controlling this President 100 times more than Dick Cheney’s influence on George W. Bush. They are literally writing the words Teleprompter Trump reads.

General McMaster on Meet the Press (8-13-2017) said that the President doesn’t draw a red line. While the phrases “Fire and Fury, like the world has never seen” and announcing that we are “Locked and Loaded” were used to demonstrate the President’s possible retaliation on a country, Trump has yet to develop and disclose a plan. The only reason he doesn’t use the term “red line” is because Obama used that terminology. Whatever Obama did, Trump must do the opposite. Why?

There was a biblical quality in what our great Orange Leader said in his threats toward North Korea, but there are other good book references standing by if Trump runs out of rhetoric. There’s “death and destruction” and, even stronger, “Wrath, wailing, and woe,” or maybe Trump can use this one, “we will wreck and lay waste all your cities and poison the earth, the water, and the air.” But this assumes that the Donald has ever read the bible.

Of course, he hasn’t gone far enough yet. He still has “All the generations to come will be born crippled and twisted, and the living will envy the dead.” He should think about talking to the young North Korea dictator and come up with some Win-Win deal. Say, isn’t this President the guy who said he wrote The Art of the Deal?

Back at home, the deaths last weekend in Charlottesville, VA made the whole world watch and wait for the President to voice our position. What we got wasn’t our voice, but a rather strange grouping of words. He used his speech to distance himself from criticism of the hate groups. I yelled at the TV, “You son-of-a-bitch!” We were waiting for a President to step up and what we got was a fall guy for the white guys. Then he peppered his speech with the words “law and order” code for police brutality in the Black community. Next, not missing a beat, the Donald jumped to selling what a great job he is doing as President. Really?

Trump’s comments were designed to make sure the President didn’t anger the far Alt-Right, neo-Nazis and White Nationalists. However, the use of the words, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides,” angered many Democrats and some Republicans.

Being hyper-analytical here, when the President said, “strongest possible terms,” without using strong definitive terms he wasn’t being specific. If fact, the far-right neo-Nazis front took the President’s words as an endorsement of sorts.

That brings me to a question that I must ask, “If you are protesting hate, why are you awarded an equal amount of hate?” If I dislike someone’s views and I think my responsibility as the caretaker of common sense and American Democracy is to raise my voice against the hate, why do you label me a hater?

People who think Hitler was cool, are sick. People who believe that being white gives one an advantage to rule are bigoted small-minded terrorists. If you are someone who carries the myth of white supremacy to the point you join a group like the KKK, you are far out of the mainstream and endorsing the sins of others, you know, lynching, church burnings, murdering and, now, running your car into a crowd.

The visual of the torches in Charlottesville on Friday night was the final straw for many people. It was too close to the pain and hate of the past. The stars and bars, swastikas, weapons, military garb and weapons crossed a line, a deep red, white and blue line.

Trump is the wrong President for the United States. History will show how destructive he was for America. It’s time for us to fix the present situation. If I could condemn, in the strongest possible terms, what Trump is doing to my beloved country, I would simply say, “He’s the worst President, the likes of which no one has ever seen.” We need to hit the reset button.