Study the Dust

 “Alas, it’s very hard to pass a prodemocratic measure in an antidemocratic system.” Jeet Heer, The Nation

The obstructionist GOP has done it again, this time blocking passage of significant election reforms pushed by Democrats. That these reforms are very popular with the voting public matters not at all. Nor does it matter that reforms are desperately needed to prevent a coup by a well-organized political minority. Democrats Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi vow to continue the fight, but the institutional barriers standing in their way are formidable. Where’s Biden? He didn’t throw much of his weight behind the legislation, despite telling Congress in April that American democracy is suffering an existential crisis. 

Mitch McConnell remains the most powerful and unaccountable politician in the nation. By sheer numbers, McConnell and his GOP represent fewer Americans than Democrats, but this doesn’t hinder their ability to block any legislation they dislike, which is almost everything the Democrats put forward. The GOP obstructs, period. Long gone are the days when politics was a method for mediating our differences and finding compromise. Now it’s just about amassing and wielding power. How is a two-party representative democracy supposed to work when one of the parties refuses to compromise? It can’t, which is why I think America is headed for authoritarian rule. 

Meanwhile, the western US is in the grips of a heatwave. I read more and more reports of falling water levels, at Lake Mead in Nevada which provides water to three states and parts of Mexico, and in California, where more than forty of the state’s fifty-eight counties are in severe drought; the Edward Hyatt Power Plant at Lake Oroville may be forced to shut down for the first time in a half a century. The lake is at 38 percent capacity. Farmers in southern Oregon skirmish with state and federal agencies over diminishing water supplies. We’re only at the summer solstice. The warnings climatologists have been issuing for decades are happening. Hotter and drier weather, bigger storms, massive wildfires, the consequence of human hubris and greed.  Like the California farmers and cattle ranchers and citrus growers I’ve been reading about in a brilliant book by Mark Arax called The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California, greed is baked into our society and the imperative is to get bigger, richer, more powerful. In California water and land have made or cost fortunes from the beginning. The ability of people to build massive dams, aqueducts, reservoirs, levees and canals, to divert rivers and use hydraulic power to mine for gold, irrigate some of the best farmland in the world, and allow the building of millions of homes is an awesome feat of vision, sweat, money, labor, and political influence. It’s why the State Water Project and the California Aqueduct were built: to capture water where it was abundant and transport it to where it was scarce. Tremendous public expense, huge private profits. Once that water started flowing, fortunes were made in cotton and cattle, grapes, mandarins, raisins, almonds, pistachios. Sole owners like Henry Miller and J.G. Boswell controlled hundreds of thousands of acres of land, some of it with water rights, some without. They and others ran company towns. As it always does, size matters, makes a difference in influence with bankers and politicians. Californians have always fought over water, north versus south, east versus west. Rivers were essentially stolen, bent to private use or controlled by the state or the Feds to the consternation of the locals. For decades, Central Valley farmers have dug deeper and deeper wells, in more and more places, and pumped the aquifer dry. In some places the land has sunk, the result of a falling water table. 

Our country should be having a serious conversation about climate change, but we are too self-absorbed and short-sighted to see the storm bearing down. If we cared to, we could learn a few things from the Covid pandemic, primarily that it makes sense to have adequately funded public agencies equipped and prepared to provide services when necessary. Our goal should be to reduce or alleviate human suffering, but our policies are created to protect property and the possessors of wealth. As in many places in the world, the poor pay the highest price, live the hardest lives, and die the earliest deaths. We could learn, as well, a few handy lessons from history, yet many influential people in positions of power would have us stop when the reality of who we are and what we have done grows darker, and crueler. 

We should ask ourselves if a political system as frail as ours can deliver the things millions of us will need to survive when the next disaster strikes. I’m not confident. The problem with our species is that we see ourselves as masters rather than caretakers. 

Nowhere Else to Go

“It is to be decision not by election but by assertion, made not by the mere numerical majority but by ‘we’ the patriots, the real Americans.” Fintan O’Toole, New York Review of Books

Of course Trump was acquitted by the Senate. Of course that diseased body let Trump off the hook, again. The final tally was 57-43. Seven Republicans repudiated the cult and voted to convict Trump. All seven are, or soon will be, under merciless attack from state political parties, suffering censure and condemnation for their betrayal of Dear Leader Trump. Fidelity to their oath of office, the Constitution, or their constituents is secondary. Perversely, they will be sanctioned for doing their duty. The same fate will befall the ten GOP members of the House who voted to impeach.

Power rallies to itself, that’s how it works. 

After voting to acquit Trump, Mitch McConnell contorted himself in a manner Gumby would admire and declared that Trump was responsible for the Insurrection and should be held to account -- in the courts. Mitch passed the buck then pretended sanctimonious outrage, assuming everyone had already forgotten how in the days after the Insurrection he claimed there wasn’t enough time for the Senate to try Trump. We should never forget McConnell’s blatant, calculating political ploy to have it both ways. He manipulated the Senate to prevent it from holding a trial while Trump was in office -- in essence running out the clock -- then voted to acquit on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional to convict a president who has left office (false). And there he was, standing upright though he has no spine, assuring the nation that Trump is culpable for inciting a deadly mob. Mitch talks out of every orifice. Spare us the sanctimony, you miserable coward. 

If we don’t strengthen our democracy now, while there’s a chance, we will have only ourselves to blame when we find ourselves under autocratic rule. We need immediate consideration and passage of HR1 (The For the People Act) and its companion, SR1. Most state legislatures are controlled by Republicans and many are already scheming to create more obstacles to voting. Because they are a true minority party, the only way Republicans can win elections and retain power is by cheating. To survive they must gerrymander districts and erect barriers to prevent or disqualify large numbers of eligible voters from voting. They’re very adept at it. HR1 and SR1 are needed to balance the scales. 

Keep an eye on anti-democracy fuckery operations in Georgia, Florida and Texas. 

The choice seems clear: either we strengthen our democracy or prepare for permanent minority rule. It’s not certain that we will fully recover from Trump’s frontal assault on our democratic processes. My gut sense is that within a decade we will be effectively finished as a representative democracy. If elections have no legitimacy in the eyes of millions of citizens why respect their outcomes? If there’s no perceived legitimacy, there can be no peaceful transfer of power. I think, as Hunter S. Thompson might say, we are well and truly fucked, especially if Trump and his entourage pay no penalty for their words and deeds. 

And there he was, standing upright though he has no spine, assuring the nation that Trump is culpable for inciting a deadly mob. Mitch talks out of every orifice. Spare us the sanctimony, you miserable coward. 

Our atomized, poisoned media landscape is one problem I don’t think we will solve. How can we resolve differences and solve difficult social problems like racism, climate change and wealth inequality when we cannot come close to agreeing on the facts? When people don’t know what or who to believe they become easy prey for false prophets and demagogues. Being told what to think and believe is easier than thinking for oneself. My 85-year-old mother has had her mind taken over by Fox News; she’s certain that the Biden administration will force every American to get vaccinated against Covid-19. She survives on a small pension and Social Security and decries “socialism” as the worst evil. There’s no way to reason with her. 

When all is said and done it’s about raw power dressed up as the “will of the people”. What a perverse joke. According to polls, the majority of Americans favored Trump’s conviction, but once again the will of the majority was easily ignored or subverted by those elected to represent us. Cynical, craven Republicans still cower before Trump, terrified of being ostracized from the personality cult, attacked on social media, and losing their privilege and power in primary challenges when election season rolls around. The specter of the next iteration of Marjorie Taylor Greene haunts the sleep of most Republicans. 

As I’ve written before, all Joe Biden can do is use his narrow window of opportunity to slow America’s descent, but he cannot stop it. This train is chugging along a route that will soon run out of track. I’d jump off if I could, but like millions of my fellow citizens, I have nowhere else to go. 

See No Evil, Hear No Evil: GOP Bends Over for Trump

“Some cult leaders have predicted Armageddon and are at a loss when the world fails to end and just keeps plugging along through the indifferent cosmos.” Jim Harrison, The Great Leader

Raining heavily here this evening. Water spills off the overwhelmed gutters.  The backyard approaches quagmire status. It’s 50 degrees outside. My reading stacks up beside me, books and periodicals. I feel wiped out, resigned,  unsettled, and lonely. Yes, I have generally felt less anxious since Trump fled to Florida. His relative radio silence is like a gift to a weary nation. But I’ve still got to divorce myself from the political scene, stop watching, listening, and reading about politics. It’s hurting my human soul. If you swim in a cesspool, don’t be surprised when you can’t get the stink out. There’s some wisdom for you. 

Trump may have left DC, but the Orange Menace isn’t gone -- his shadow still scares the shit out of most Republicans, and, like battered spouses and beaten dogs, they return again and again for more humiliation and degradation. I read that the Republican Party is in disarray, splitting into two factions -- one titularly represented by Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney -- and the Trump Party represented by stellar characters like Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Louie Gohmert and many others. Mitch McConnell can’t decide which way to lean at the moment; all depends on the direction of the wind. Mitch has little on his mind these days except obstructing the Democrats and regaining his Majority Leader title. This brigade of cowards makes me despair for our country. They have one and all placed loyalty to Donald Trump above their oath of office and the nation. The GOP is poised to make a public declaration that Donald Trump, and those presidents that follow him, is above the law, above the Constitution, untouchable. It’s that simple. Like Covid-19, the Trump Fever is still raging. 

Does every person who voted for Trump in November still support him? After his year of lying about the election -- if I win it’s fair, if I lose it’s rigged -- and nearly two months pressuring state-level officials to tip the election his way, even after the votes were certified, and lying about his landslide victory that never was. Still with him? After almost all Trump’s legal challenges were thrown out of the courts. And, most of all, after January 6th. Are you still on Team Trump, wearing that red cap, even after the emergence of information that some members of that mob had tactical ability, police or military training? Many were probably swept up in the mass energy of the moment and borne along, but some were there with intent. There was a level of coordination, possibly from Trump loyalists and lackeys within the government. The acting Director of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, happened to be out of the country on January 6. Doesn’t that seem odd? That the security apparatus -- local, state, federal -- was caught flatfooted when it knew in advance that violence was very likely, reeks of an inside job. An order delayed at a critical moment by one of Trump’s lackeys, a bit of information withheld. We need a serious investigation to find out how it went down and how high up the power chain it went, but I have no confidence this will happen on the necessary scale. We must move on for the good of the nation, let bygones be bygones…

Trump may be able to make his supporters feel better, but he’ll never heal their pain. What ails them is deeper, closer to the bone. 

The Democrats still haven’t learned that Mitch McConnell can be trusted no more than one would trust a coiled viper.  

It looks clear that Republican senators will not vote to convict Trump. What they saw and experienced on January 6th didn’t convince them. Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have no issue with how Trump abused the power of his office to  invalidate an election and incite a mob to invade and desecrate the US Capitol. That’s just fine with Paul and Rubio and 43 others. Nothing to see here, folks. Let’s move along. Forget the officer the mob murdered, and all those who were injured. Give them no justice. I hope history holds a harsh judgment for any elected official who had the chance to hold Donald Trump accountable for his assault on democracy, and caved. 

When did the concept of honor die in America? Is it buried at Wounded Knee, Antietam, or on the banks of the mighty Mississippi? Can it be found at the Alamo or in a field near the Potomac? Is it bobbing on the tide in New York Harbor? 

A two-party democracy with only one functioning party cannot long survive. Our democracy is reeling. I fear that within a decade, or less, it will be effectively finished. 

Kentucky On My Mind

“What is America? America is vanity again! And I daresay there’s a lot of swindling going on in America, too.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Mitch McConnel is the most powerful and most unaccountable political figure in the nation. He rules the US Senate, decides what judicial nominees to propose and confirm, how grand a corporate tax reduction to allow, which legislation moves forward and which gets shelved, and how miserly to be when it comes to relief for the common folk. It’s when the commoners are involved that Mitch turns the screws. In McConnell’s view, $600 per eligible head is more than enough relief. What man or woman can’t meet all their human needs on the princely sum of $600? 

When the government heaps tax cuts and write-offs and outright subsidies on giant American corporations, it’s called Capitalism; when the government gives anything of value, no matter how small, to the people, it’s described as Socialism. One is a virtue, the other a terrible evil. 

Mitch is openly contemptible of the American people, even those from his home state of Kentucky who reliably return him to Washington every six years. Thanks, Kentucky, for the party gift. Nobody in America tells Mitch what to do. He controls the money in his caucus, the plum committee assignments, who rises and who falls; no Republican senator can cross McConnell and survive. Mitch is the real Boss Man, far more focused and cunning than the mentally unstable Donald Trump. 

On one hand you have to admire a man with the skills to amass that kind of power, and on the other you have to question a system that puts so much power in the hands of one man. 

Covid-19 is extracting its terrible toll as America stumbles toward 2021. The infection rate and death count rises. California has been hit particularly hard. The level of suffering in this country -- thanks to the sociopathy of Donald J. Trump and a half century of economic policies that have shrunk the middle class and swelled the ranks of the poor -- is the opposite of what America imagines itself to be. Our myths of indispensability will live on, they will just not in any way resemble our reality.

America’s tenure at the top of the world power structure is coming to an end, it’s only a matter of time. The bills for dominance are hefty, it takes trillions of dollars to maintain nearly 800 foreign military outposts, some small, but others massive. 

From George W. Bush to Donald Trump, from the War on Terror to the War on America, that’s what we’ve witnessed in the first two decades of this century. Remember the ideas of Dr. King: violence abroad always comes home. The nation has been at war with some adversary, in some foreign territory, since my daughter was born more than nineteen years ago. These endless conflicts take place beyond the awareness of most Americans. This country squandered its future in armed conflicts abroad, spending trillions of dollars that might have improved the health and welfare and economic security of millions of American citizens. The problem was, and is, our corrupt and thoroughly gamed political system, dominated by two parties who haven’t advanced new ideas in decades. 

As Hunter S. Thompson might say, 2020 has been a King Hell bad year. Bad in every direction. The wealthy, and the lucky, have fared pretty well. I count myself and my small family among the lucky. We have only been inconvenienced, we haven’t suffered privation. My wife had a bout of kidney stones, tripped down two stairs and messed up her ankles, then suffered third degree burns on her right arm when she spilled a pot of boiling water. All that happened in the space of a few months. My daughter tested positive for Covid-19, but thankfully never displayed any symptoms. There were plenty of presents under our Christmas tree. The worst thing to happen to me personally had nothing to do with Covid. I was the victim of a simple property crime in the early morning hours of December 27 when a thief, or thieves, jimmied the door to our laundry room, which is down below our apartment, off the carport, and swiped my Diamondback Insight bicycle. For years I’ve stored the bike down there, hanging from the ceiling, secured to a three inch vertical pipe with a thin steel cable. This thief carried bolt cutters and made easy work of my cable. My Transit saddle bag was on the bike, with my good North Face gloves and small tire pump inside. Gone. Nothing else was touched.  No trace left except the severed cable on the ground. 

It will cost some good money to equip myself with another commuter bike, new saddlebags, lights, gloves, and the best quality lock I can find, before I can resume my 9-minute commute to work. Until then, I’ll walk. What a luxury to live so close to where I toil from 8 to 5. It’s an easy walk, along the perimeter of the high school, past the baseball stadium, then down Canon Perdido to Garden. Another block and a half and I’m there.

It could be worse. 

Happy New Year to all those around the world who from time to time read this obscure blog. 

Injustice Nation

 

“For five decades, the Court has, with striking regularity, sided with the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, in virtually every area of the law.” Adam Cohen, Supreme Ineqiality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle For A More Unjust America

Dispirited. Another week of soul fatigue. The fuckery goes on as the election nears. Suppression tactics in full swing. It’s not subtle. Strip large urban areas of ballot drop-off boxes. Reduce the number of polling places so voters have to endure long lines and hours of waiting to exercise their right to vote. If the powerful wanted people to vote in large numbers, they would make it easy to do so. Instead they (state level Republican legislatures and secretaries of state) make it hard for as many people as they can. Aided and abetted by the Supreme Court’s gutting of the voting rights act, they create formidable barriers. According to Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project, Florida excels at election fuckery, which explains, in part, why so many of the leeches that squirm their way to the top of the GOP hierarchy hail from Florida. Rick Scott. Ron Desantis. Marco Rubio. The list goes on. Right-wingers and the State of Florida have had a long love affair.

Ever since Robert Bork spoke his mind too freely, the confirmation process has been like bad Kabuki theater. The whole shebang is a farce, and most of the time the hearings are dull, ponderous, long on posturing opportunities for senators, and devoid of substance. 

Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed as the newest Supreme Court Justice and will park her uptight, reactionary butt in RBG’s old chair. The Democrats can’t stop this confirmation train, not even with dynamite. It’s a done deal. The Court will soon have six Catholics. Think of that. When John F. Kennedy ran for Senate in the mid 1950’s, and then president a few years later, his Catholic faith was a big deal, a campaign “issue” because it made WASPS uneasy. Today’s WASPS have nothing to fear because this Catholic-laden court will protect their class interests. Amy Coney Barrett hails from some weird Catholic sect in South Bend, Indiana, and reminds me of someone who has been indoctrinated. The first time I saw her photograph I thought she could be a character from Westworld. Like a robot, she was programmed to evade, to duck and dodge, to bob and weave, and refuse to take a position on the simplest matters of law, like whether or not the Constitution allows the president to change the date of a national election.  Ever since Robert Bork spoke his mind too freely, the confirmation process has been like bad Kabuki theater. The whole shebang is a farce, and most of the time the hearings are dull, ponderous, long on posturing opportunities for senators, and devoid of substance. 

I felt the weight of the times today. It was 95 degrees outside in the middle of October, in a year when 4 million acres of California has been torched by wildfires and the long term weather forecast points at a mild, dry winter for a swath of the country. The drought will worsen, the risk of devastating wildfires will increase; the cycle is as vicious as it is obvious, but don’t bother trying to convince the US Supreme Court; after all, climate change is a contentious public issue. Fuck. I have this sinking feeling that the next several years will be grim for millions of people. My family isn’t impervious to these riptides, and I find myself worrying about the future.  Even if we manage to push Biden and Harris across the line next month, the road will be rough. It’s going to take a concerted effort to powerwash Trump’s shit stains from every federal agency. Even if Democrats flip the Senate -- which is absolutely necessary if we are to have any hope -- the GOP, though weakened by it’s romance with Trumpism, will still do everything possible to thwart Biden and Harris. We can’t fool ourselves. A Biden victory will not restore the nation to the state it was in when Trump took the reins. The shit we’re in is much deeper; Trump has done a number on America. Trump bent the nation over and sodomized it. 

To stop backsliding into the abyss, the Democrats must win the Senate and the White House and hold both long enough to appoint justices who are not products of the Federalist Society.  If the country is to make any progress on the thicket of intertwined problems staring us down -- from climate change and health care as a right, to racial and economic justice, gun control, campaign finance reform and mass incarceration, mass surveillance and militarism -- we must have more democracy, not less, but thanks to Mitch McConnell and the reactionary Federalist Society, that’s a ways off. The Nixon Court has become the Trump Court. Fire in the hole, America. 

Power must be one hell of a high, better than opium. 

Mitch's Fever Dream

 

“Free black people were forbidden to carry firearms, testify against a white person, or raise a hand against one even in self-defense.” Isabel Wilkerson, Caste

When I heard the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away, I knew that Mitch McConnell would immediately start the wheels in motion to get another Federalist Society-approved judge on the Supreme Court. McConnell is about one thing and one only: power. He could care less if people call him a hypocrite, partisan, immoral, unethical, or Trump’s lackey -- none of it matters as long as McConnell can pack the federal courts with enough ideologues to sustain minority rule for the next generation. That’s McConnell’s fever dream, and he’s very close to making it a reality. Every gain won by Women and minorities, gays and lesbians and transgender folks, every protection for the environment, voting rights, gun control, the Affordable Care Act, all, and more, will be in peril if McConnell succeeds. At this point, I see no way to stop him.  

American conservatives have been gunning to overturn Roe vs. Wade for decades. A small minority of people, most of them white men, will decide what a woman can do with her body for years to come. This small minority will make that decision for white women and black women, Asian women and Latinx women, rich and poor, rural and urban, devout and agnostic, my own daughter included. This small minority believes it has the right to exercise control over female reproductive power.

From the beginning, American democracy has been more myth than reality, a structure designed to be ruled by a white minority, an elite. Non-whites, led and schooled by the intrepid example and courage of African-Americans, particularly women, immigrant workers of both sexes, labor unions, struggled mightily for decades to gain room to stand and grow. They made some gains, but have spent the past forty years on a losing streak. The world changed. The economy changed. The compact between workers and employers, between banks and borrowers, between Made in America and Made in Cheaptown, Wherever, was deliberately severed. 

Every gain won by Women and minorities, gays and lesbians and transgender folks, every protection for the environment, voting rights, gun control, the Affordable Care Act, all, and more, will be in peril if McConnell succeeds. At this point, I see no way to stop him.  

The American Dream died years ago; we live in the American nightmare. 

But maybe the biggest change, the scariest change for white people -- especially white men -- is demographic change; the day when white people will be a numerical minority in this land is coming as inexorably as the death of Roe vs. Wade is coming. I think this demographic reality is what drives Mitch McConnell. A minority that controls the economy, banks, the courts, elections, and key levers of government, including the national security apparatus, can rule a majority. McConnell aims to lock minority rule in place.

Locking minority rule down tight is also why the Commerce Department is trying to monkeywrench the US census. Don’t like the direction the count is moving? Lop a month off the data collection deadline. Undercount the undesirables. 

When it comes to race, I’m not sure McConnell can stand in the Racist Hall of Fame with Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Theodore Bilbo, Bob Jones, and Bull Connor. Maybe he can. What I am willing to wager is that McConnell holds fast to the belief that white people are inherently superior to black and brown people and deserve to rule. McConnell’s racism might be as deep-seated as Trump’s, but better disciplined. I bet bourbon is flowing in the Hall tonight as Strom and George and Theodore and Bob and Bull toast the outcome of the grand jury investigation of Breonna Taylor’s murder at the hands of police, in her own home, her own bed. No murder charges were returned. People waited many months for justice to be served, marched, chanted, rallied on social media, posted signs, but as has happened in other places at other times, Breonna Taylor is dead and no one will be held to account. 

Trump may hope the situation in Louisville spins out of control so he and William Barr can send the shock troops in to restore law and order, protect property, and keep the rabble in their subordinate place. Trump will dig the optics as they say, betting that scenes of police brutality will burnish his image as a tough guy, and frighten white people sufficiently to peel some support from Joe Biden.  

I steer clear of polls, prognostications, and predictions. Turnout is all that matters. It must be overwhelming for us to have any chance of dislodging Trump. He’s already pissed in the pool, called the outcome into doubt, instilled the idea in his rabid base that the election is only free and fair if he wins. The Electoral College may tip the balance in Trump’s favor, again, and there’s the possibility of the outcome being decided by the Supreme Court. The will of the people may be ignored again, unless the turnout is historic. If young people cast ballots instead of sitting on the sidelines, we have a chance. If African-American men turn out strong, we have a chance. If Latinx voters go for Biden in big numbers, we have a 50-50 chance. 

Why is justice so hard to come by for some? Why in America do we so often punish the victims? 

Back in 1997, the late Molly Ivins wrote, “There is so much anger out here. It is taking so many bizarre forms. And most of the media can’t even see it: Economic apartheid keeps the bottom half of society well hidden from the top half.” 

Oh, Ms. Molly, if you could see us now. 

The Isolation Diaries No. 18

“The calm that is called the calm before the storm, but is in reality the foundation of a human life, waiting there for us between the steps of our march to our mortality, when we are compelled to pause and not act but be.” Moshin Hamid, Exit West

The journalist I.F. Stone famously said, “All governments lie.”

Here’s a case in point, from the head of the United States government, Donald J. Trump, talking about the Coronavirus on January 22, 2020: “We have it totally under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

We cannot forget how badly Trump and his hodgepodge administration handled the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump fought reality for nearly six weeks, and that wasted time has undoubtedly led to death for many people. Trump was warned multiple times, as recent detailed reporting in the New York Times documents, and by multiple agencies within his own government that Covid-19 posed an imminent threat to the health and safety of the US population. 

Trump put his reelection bid ahead of the welfare of the American people. He failed in his sworn duty -- not that he ever meant to uphold his oath of office. He heads a failed administration, marked by chaos, confusion, vacant positions, and a revolving door of personnel. No wonder he can’t do anything right. Trump’s China ban was a joke, full of loopholes that allowed more than 40,000 people to enter the US -- after the ban went into effect.

Six critical weeks lost. Six. Critical. Weeks. 

MAGA-of-the-wrong-kind: the US leads the world in Covid-19 cases and fatalities. And no doubt we still lag behind when it comes to testing on a per capita basis. Tired of winning yet? Tired of the endless lies and self-promotion? Tired of the incompetence? Tired of the grift? 

Trump over-promises and under-delivers; he always has, always will, because he’s a ridiculous excuse for a human being who has neither the capacity to learn or evolve. Don’t forget what he said on February 26, 2020:

“And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

I wonder if Mitch McConnell refers to the Coronavirus as the Chinese virus in front of his wife, Elaine Chao? 

Today we bought 30 rolls of TP at Costco. Hats off to the workers at the Goleta store for the way they have adapted to social distancing; they quickly developed practices that get people in and out with minimal contact. I expected a long wait to get in, but this proved untrue. We walked right in and one of the first things we came across was a giant rectangular stack of toilet paper. Corona Gold. The only item they didn’t have in stock was hand soap. 

I start reading The Plague by Albert Camus. 

The Rule of Law is DOA

“The buck certainly doesn’t stop at his desk. Major League Baseball coaches face more retribution from the league’s commissioner for decoding their opponent’s signs than Trump will most likely face from the US Senate. It becomes clearer with each passing day that Trump has no problem with living in a swamp, as long as it’s his swamp.” Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch

The odds of witnesses being allowed to testify in Trump’s impeachment “trial” -- and who has ever seen a trial without witnesses or without the accused presenting one iota of exonerating evidence? -- are slim. True to his word, Mitch McConnell has twisted arms and growled threats to keep his caucus firmly in line behind Donald J. Trump. If no witnesses are allowed, we might as well pronounce the Rule of Law in America DOA. Thereafter, the batshit reasoning of Alan Dershowitz will become reality. 

This is the low point of my life as a citizen of the United States of America. I knew the impeachment trial in the Senate would be a farce. It’s astonishing to think that in a little more than three years, Donald J. Trump has shredded our most cherished institutions, and placed himself above the reach of law. According to Dershowitz’s bizarre logic, Trump can shoot Bernie Sanders dead and claim he acted in the service of his reelection, which is of course in the interests of the American people, meaning he will face no consequence whatsoever. Down in hell, Richard Nixon, who said it’s not against the law when the president does it, is smiling at finally being vindicated.  

The moral courage of the entire GOP would barely fill a thimble. How in the hell has Trump turned the GOP into a cult so quickly? Even Mitt Romney, who is independently wealthy and has nothing to fear from Trump, bows in subservience. Did these people never learn the simple playground lesson about bullies? You don’t retreat before a bully, you get in his face and expose him for the coward that he is. 

Profiles in cowardice, profiles in hypocrisy, profiles in sycophancy. This is every last man and woman in the GOP today. 

Donald J. Trump has dodged, ducked, and avoided accountability his entire life. The privileged little white boy, born with a silver spoon in his ass, always plays the victim, even as he stiffs contractors, cheats on his tax returns, lies about his wealth, and boasts about grabbing women by their private parts. The businessman who couldn’t make money in the casino business. The serial adulterer loved by Christian Nationalists. The racist adored by white supremacists. The ally of tyrants. The con man. 

Once Trump is acquitted there’s no return to the halcyon days of pedestrian political corruption. The system of checks and balances has been gamed. Get ready for full bore kleptocracy because there is nothing that can stop Trump. He may only be king of America’s rotting carcass, but he’s still king. 

The artist Patti Smith put it well in her memoir, Year of the Monkey: “A true darkening of days. All of the resources that could be used to scrape away lead from the walls of crumbling schools, to shelter the homeless, or to clean a foul river. Instead one candidate desperately shovels money down a pit, and the other builds empty edifices in his own name, another kind of immoral waste.” 

The All-American Circus

“Any plan for the future, therefore, which seeks to calm troubled waters will have to sweep barriers away, rather than pour oil over turbulent tides.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Are you ready for the circus? Chief Justice John Roberts may be presiding, but Mitch McConnell is the ringmaster, and crooked Mitch -- despite swearing an oath and signing his name in a book -- has already made it very clear that he’s not interested in impartiality, evidence, testimony from witnesses or any other standard aspect of a “trial.” Trump added a pair of odious legal personalities to his defense team, Ken Starr, of Clinton Impeachment fame, and Alan Dershowitz, pal and defender of Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased pedophile. Perfect casting. Slimeball on slimeball. 

America, we are in for a farce of the highest order. 

Trump’s made-for-TV-lawyers will cook up a big batch of nonsense for his defense. How else to defend a man whose conduct is indefensible, against whom the evidence is clear and overwhelming? A man who operates the White House as a criminal organization? Starr and Dershowitz  and other members of Trump’s Dream Team will likely attempt to turn the entire proceeding on its head. They want spectacle, a cross between The Apprentice and a WWE main event. They’ll paint the Democrats as Trump’s malign persecutors, a bunch of Javerts intent on hounding Trump out of office. They’ll portray Trump as the victim of a gross injustice. They’ll say it’s all Hunter Biden’s fault, and repeat the bogus claim that Trump did nothing wrong in trying to extort Ukraine for his own political gain. 

Keeping tabs on Trump’s transgressions is dizzying. It started on Day 1, the minute Trump placed his small white hand on the Bible and swore to protect, preserve and defend the Constitution. That was the foundational lie. Ever since, Trump has made a mockery of the presidency, doing everything he can to debase, weaken, and eviscerate the Constitution. He’s had plenty of assistance from Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, a rabid pack of see no evil, hear no evil, speak gobs of gibberish Kool Aid guzzlers. Day after day they rush to Trump’s defense and try with all their might to justify King Donald’s idiocy and cruelty. They steadfastly ignore all the investigations and lawsuits the Trump regime has spawned, content to wallow in the sewage flowing beneath Trump’s throne. 

While McConnell holds down the fort in the Senate, Trump continues his War on Reality, braying about his “perfect” phone call with the Ukranian president, Hillary Clinton’s emails, how much money he’s helped America’s banks accumulate; railing against low-flow showerheads and toilets and energy efficient household appliances. Trump claims to have no idea who Lev Parnas is, even though numerous photographs of Trump and Parnas have surfaced. His supporters lap the make-believe up like a kitten with a bowl of thick cream. Trump speaks their language, reinforces their biases and prejudices and complete lack of understanding of how a democratic republic works. He feeds and justifies their sense of grievance and alienation at the hand of the Libs. 

The Circus is here. The cast is ready. The Kool Aid is chilling and the popcorn is popping. Sit back, relax, enjoy the All-American show. 

Well & Truly

“First of all, I think it’s been totally consistent. But here’s what’s been consistent: We killed Soleimani, the number one terrorist in the world by every account, bad person, killed a lot of Americans, killed a lot of people.” Donald J. Trump

Another day in America, another nonsensical statement from King Donald I. Unhinged is the new normal in the nation’s capital. At the rate we’re going, it won’t be long before we see fistfights on the floor of Congress, as was common in the 19th century. Perhaps this isn’t a bad thing. I’d pay good money to see someone knock Mitch McConnell over the head with a walking stick. The man from Kentucky is a toad, and deserves a serious ass-kicking, as do most of the spineless members of the GOP’s Trump Cult.  

I was unaware that Qasem Soleimani was the No. 1 terrorist in the world. I thought that title belonged to Bibi Netanyahu. 

You have to admire the ingenuity of the US when it comes to naming unpleasant acts like assassination, torture and kidnapping. Targeted killing and enhanced interrogation techniques and extraordinary rendition sound more sophisticated. Upstanding nations like the US and Israel and Saudi Arabia would never engage in barbaric conduct like assassination, torture and kidnapping....

Believe that and you may as well believe every one of the more than 15,000 false and misleading statements that have tumbled from Trump’s mouth over the last four years. 

Call me naive, but I was astounded by the US response to the Iraqi parliament’s recent vote to expel all US military forces from the country. The State Department had the gall to make the preposterous claim that the US is a force for good in the Middle East. Try selling that line in Syria or Libya or Yemen. And then the US went full mob boss and told the Iraqi government that all its money held in US banks would be frozen if US forces were expelled. I was under the impression that Iraq was a sovereign nation rather than a US colony. Obviously, I was wrong. I forgot that the US never leaves. 75 years after World War II, US forces remain in Germany and Japan and Italy and Korea, ostensibly for the protection of these nations. Sure. And climate change is a hoax cooked up by the Chinese.  

I’ve never been to Iraq and have never met an Iraqi, but I started imagining a boy who was ten years old when the US launched shock and awe in 2003. To that point, his life revolved around his Baghdad neighborhood, his school, his family, and playing football with his friends. Then the US attacks. Cruise missiles and laser-guided munitions rain down, the ground shakes and fires burn across the city. He must remain indoors, away from the windows. His mother cries softly, his father curses Saddam, curses the US, curses his fate for being born in this country. The boy’s father wishes he could take his family to Canada or Sweden, someplace where it’s safe to venture outside and the electricity remains on. The father lived through US economic sanctions. He knows deprivation firsthand; he knows death, having lost a brother in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980’s. Saddam Hussein was a butcher, but at least under the regime food was plentiful and life had a semblance of normalcy and predictably. It was possible then to hope his son would have an easier life. What could he hope for now? The boy is terrified all the time, afraid to leave the house. 

Americans are conditioned to ignore the suffering of others. American lives matter more, have more value, so what if we kill half a million Iraqis? Or thousands of Afghans? American violence is always justified, cloaked in righteousness, for are we not the world’s champion of freedom and democracy? We’re the good guys. The red, white and blue avengers.  

Right. If only the historical record backed our rhetoric, but it doesn’t, not by a long shot. Haiti, Panama, Grenada, Guatemala, Argentina, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, the list of countries we’ve invaded or meddled in is very long and very bloody. Under the Trump regime we have achieved full rogue nation status. Trump broke the closet door and now we openly, brazenly, enthusiastically, side with tyrants, dictators and zealots. 

In the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson, “We are well and truly fucked.”