Lies, deflection and alternate facts must be called out!

I like the fact that Special Counsel Smith took the bull by the horns and filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking them to rule on former President Trump’s questionable defense that he has absolute immunity from any criminal prosecution. It aquarely places the highest Judges in the land of having to rule if anyone in the US is indeed above the law. Their decision will have an immediate impact on Trump’s desire to become the GOP presidential candidate in the 2024 election. Therefore it is imperative for the court not to delay this important legal issue and place in on their docket quickly. For some Judges it will be an opportunity to convince many citizens that they are not political hacks willing to support the leader of the Republican party and his ambition to become a dictator. Recent rulings by the Supreme Court have gone against prevailing public opinion and seemed to indicate that some Judges appeared top have loyalty to the party which appointed them rather than the Constitution. This case will give them the opportunity to show us all that they still hold the Constitution in high regard. The nation awaits their decision because it is the most important issue they will ever deal with in their lifetime. Can you imagine if they rule that a former President has total immunity and what it means going forward? A President can declare any election result as being meaniless and remain in power. He can throw in jail anyone of his opponents without due legal process. In other words, he will be acting as a second coming of Julius Ceasar. I strongly believe that it wouild spell doom for our country as we know it.

The first snow of the winter has fallen and I feel like I am seeing it for the first time. Snow lies on the branches of the trees in my backyard and on the rooftops of cars. The force of Mother Nature is on full display. Instead of rain drops snow flakes are falling. Snow evokes various feelings among us. Those caught in snow storms will curse since it uproots trees and causes traffic jams. They will claim that snow is terrible but forget that snow is white like innocence. Many others will mavel at the sight of snow since they see great beauty in it. You can love it or despise it but it is nature on full display.

The past two weeks have been a fine example of how a House majority should NOT conduct business. First a small group of anti Speaker McCarthy orchestrated his ouster which was followed by major confusion in selecting the next Speaker candidate. It became Jim Jodan’s task to convince Republicans that he would represent their conservative values. Whatever they may be. Well, he failed to gain the neccessary 217 votes from his colleagues in three rounds of voting. Now unsure about Jordan being the right GOP House standard bearer, their causcus voted for him not to continue his candidacy. As a result, the temporary Speaker adjourned the House until Monday 6:00 PM so his party could map out on how they should proceed upon their return. I really don’t see them returning quickly to work on behalf of the American people since they have broken up into several waring factions which are on each other’s throats. You have the Gaetz group willing to shut down the government, The Trump faction still denying that Biden is our President, those opposed to provide continued funding to Ukraine to fight Putin’s aggression, those still pushing the idea that Jan 6th was a tourist excursion and those seeking a consensus candidate. It will take some time for Republicans to sort that out and while they do, there will be no legislation taking place. It that truly what their constituents expcted when they voted for them?

Tonight Republican House members are meeting to narrow the field ofd House Speaker candidates. Two have announced that they are interested in the vacant position and they are Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise. Jordan is clearly an ardent Trump supporter while Scalise appears to be a fan of his. If only those two end up being candidates and one of them attains 218 votes, we will have a House Speaker who will receive his marching orders directly from Trump. We will no longer have a leadership working on behalf of all citizems but one working for a single individual. The result will be that the Republican House chaos of the last two weeks will pale in comparison to what will come. Those Republicans who are moderate and seek to do the right thing will be attacked and threatened that they will receive no support in their re-election efforts. Meanwhile Trump will use his clout to brow beat the Speaker to shut down the government by not raising the debt ceiling. Even the support og Ukraine against Russian aggression may be weakened. To be direct, the Speaker will be subservient to Trump and and will have no choice but follow his instructions. That is not the way our democracy should function.

The two intelligence failures I will always remember are the 7/11 terrorist attack in New York and yesterday’s country wide attacks in Israel. I don’t know if western intelligence agencies have become too compacent or are failing to read the big picture from fragments of information they collect. Certainly intelligence services are never short of funds. I am convinced that our CIA and Israel’s MOSSAD only need to utter the words ‘National Securitry’ and both governments provide ample funds to them. So in spite of advanced technology resources, generous head count in staffing and some human assets in place, they failed in these two critical moments. Now I expect that the blame game will be front and center in Israel just as it was here after the attack. Both attacks were meticuouslt planned and that takes time, funds and disciplined coordination. That is why it is even harder to understand how two elite intelligence services were unable to get wind of these operations. There are many terrorist groups and cells which proclaim that they seek the destruction of Israel and their biggest ally the US. Being a realist, I find it difficult to believe that they alone would be successful. Both HAMAS and Al Quada must have received support from Middle East countries. High on the suspect list would be Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq but one can’t rule out strong monetary support from sources in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. We can must never drop our guard since there are many who wish to inflict harm on Israel and the US.

After the uncermonious ouster of Speaker McCarthy two individuals have come forth with the desire to fill that vacancy. They are Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise. Both are ambitious men who are attracted to a position of power, influence and pride. They seem to forget that McCarthy’s unbrideled ambition cost him his position. In order to obtain his goal of becoming Speaker he struck a deal with eight extreme representatives that a simple majority could force him to vacate his position. Well, they ended up doing just that. Given the chaos within the Republican party I see the Speakership to be a short term assignment for anyone elected to fulfill that role. It can be said that sometimes a prize isn’t worth the cost. The effort to obtain it and energy required to maintain it is substantial. Obviously Jordan and Scalise believe that it is worth such sacrifice. But there remains the question if they are qualified to fill such important post. Jordan never passed a single bill and certainly has limited communication skills. Scalise described himself once as David Duke without baggage but quicky went on record that he has no white supremacist leanings. But we do know that both are hardlince conservatives accepted by the far right wing of the Republican party. Even Gaetz who orchestrated the McCarthy dismissal stated that either one of them would be an excellent Speaker. In my case, I am opposed to any Speaker who is the choice of the extreme right wing within the GOP.

House Republicans showed us yesterday by forcing Speaker McCarthy to vacate his office that they are unable to govern our nation. Eight of their extreme members opposed the Speaker and since he had made unwise concessions to them to gain their vote in order to win that position, he lost his position. Yes, I know that all Democrats opposed him as well but they had no reason to interfere in the internal conflicts of the GOP. The vote yesterday to vacate places all work for the people in limbo. One can’t project how long that will be since it depends on how long it will take Republicans to nominate a candidate who can be elected. We must remember that the Republicam chaos didn’t explode yesterday but was on display since they became the House majority. They condoned outrageous behavior on the part of many of their representatives, continued to support an indicted presidential candidated, failed to expel a candidate under federal criminal investigation and did nothing as eight extremists blackmailed their own majority. I consider the Republican party to have failed in maintaining normally accepted ethical standards and support of democratic principles. They have created a level of instability in our government that has reached an unbelieveable level. Everyone in our country who will be eligible to vote in 2024 must cast a vote and decide if the Republican way of governing is what they want. I believe it is not!

We all remember Trump stating that he only hires the smartest people to fill positions in his administration. But many of then were fired by him and others elected to leave on their own. The lsit of them is long and includes General Kelly, Olivia Troya, Miles Taylor, Josh Venable, Mark Esper, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Elizabeth Neumann, Chris Krebs, Bryan Ware, Valerie Boyd, Josepy Kernan, Anthony Scarmucci, John Bolton and I am sure I missed some. All of them criticized Trump for his White House chaos, rambling foreign policy and shaky response to the Covid epidemic. Their initial criticism was soft in tone but has become more outspoken recently. In addition, some politicians like Paul Ryan, Bill Cassidy, Asa Hutchinson, Larry Hogan, Chris Christie, Pompeo and Pence expressed reservations about Trump’s ability to run as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. One can argue that there was value in them speaking up but meak voices are never heard when surrounded by much background noise. They failed in being forceful in their condemnation of Trump. You could say that they were almost silent when it really mattered like the 2020 election. I consider all of them to be partially responsible for the fact that Trump is still on the political stage. If they had done the right thing and told the world how incompetent, careless, clueless, deceitful and unqualified Trump is, it may have offered a guardrail of control. I find it difficult to forgive them for their silence!

The ruling yesterday in a civil case by a New York Judge found Trump and his sons are liable for business fraud. What should have been a jury trial ended up being a bench trial because another Trump lawyer screwed up. His lawyer Hubba failed to request a jury trial and thus the Judge had the power to render his verdict from the bench. He stated that the evidence of Trump’s shady busness practices was overwhelming in scope and duration. The self proclaimed real estate wonder boy has inflated his asset evaluations for years in order to receive better deals on loans such as lower interest rates. Of course, banks are also guilty for accepting fraudulent documentation with out checking out the details. This court judgment is a legal nightmare for the Trump organization. It places the survival of his entire business empire in jeopardy.Trump lawyers will no doubt appeal the court order but the chances if it being overturned are slim to none. As in preious Trump indictments we have seen that his ardent followers don’t seem to care but I am sure that many in the Republican party see the potential of a Trump nomination for the 2024 presidential race as a huge liability with independent voters. The legal case is one of many Trump is facing and I take it that the legal noose is getting tighter by the day for Trump.

Over the weekend, Trump, also known as Mr. Bone Spurs, called General Milley, Chairman of the Joined Chiefs of Staff, a woke train wreck and implied that the General had committed acts of treason which should be punished with death. What has our nation come to when a distinguished miltary man is insulted by someone who dodged the Vietnam draft through dubious means? Not only is Trump’s allegation discusting but one that many of his cult followers will repeat just as one Congressman has already done. Again, there appears to be no push back to this insanity by the leadership of the Republican party. It seems to me that many in our nation are descending into a serious state of stupidity. This is not a new trend but has been developing over the past five years. The initial phase of this stupidity was gross ignorance of basic facts and the truth. That means that too many citizens are willing to believe lie after lie without questioning the source or doing some basic fact checking. Now I fear we have reached the most dangerous phase which I call the aggressive approach when individuals are forcing their beliefs on the general population. They have no tolerance for any idea which doesn’t match theirs. They will seek to persecute and punish those unwilling to submit to their point of view. That is classic cult member behavior manipulated and exploited by the person they see as their leader. Such personality cult is no more than a puppet theater made up of useful fools.

The Democratic base of voters must wake up to the danger of a deceiteful GOP strategy which has been implemented by their party leadership. Some of you may have noticed but, I suspect, that too many voters are missing that some Democratic candidates win local, state and federal elections and as soon as all votes are counted they announce that they are switching to the Republican party. I believe that such candidates have been bought by the GOP in heavily democratic strongholds where they had no chance of winning. The reason this new GOP ploy is so dangerous is that there is no way to stop it unless the Democrats do a better job of vetting candidates. It seems that legally not much can be done after the election results are in. Even now the Democratic party has two sitting Senators who for all purposes are Republicans pretending to be Democrats. They constantly use the threat of changing party alligiance in order to get their way. I urge all Democrats to expect the GOP to hit us with more Trojan horses as we move into next years election cycle. So be careful who you vote for.

The press performs an important function by means of mass communication in our modern world. I expect that our press coverage informs, educates. guides and even entertains me on what is happening around me on a daily basis. Good journalism still matters. It has always mattered and it must matter in the future. In the past news was gathered and presented with considerable accuracy. Unfortunately that is no longer true. News is no longer being delivered by hard hitting journalists but by television personalities more interested in ratings rather than honest fact reporting. I maintain the belief that journalism must emphasize truth telling. That being said, our few newspapers and mass media outlets should never provide time and space for politicians to pander obvious lies without any push back or fact checking. Journalism has the responsibility to protect our democracy by calling out all acts which place it in jeopardy through dangerous speech or actions. Journalism should remind us of our freedoms but stress that we the peole have the responsibility to understand the boundaries and limits it has. Our society can no longer ignore the decline of quality journalism or even worse, accept it. We must go back to the time when journalists provided information of most value to citizens and presented it in a way it was understood. In other words, let us go back to covering facts and the truth and not be sidetracked by unproven conspiracy theories and weir political deflections.

Precedent and analogy are forms of reasoning often used by lawyers and applied in the US court system. Precedent involves an earlier court decision and is linked to a case which apprears to be similar. Analogy applies to an earlier decision but is used when a new case is similar to the past one. Much is being made by Republicans accusing Hunter Biden of corruption while Democrats point to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump with the same charge. However, there is a striking difference between the individuals I named. I am not proclaiming any of them as guilty or innocent. That is up to other parties to determine. I focus on what we know. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were appointed by former president Trump to be advisers as part of his White House staff. Both seemed to lack credentials to function in that role. Kushner was even elevated to be the Envoy for Middle East peace negotiations. During Trump’s reign, Ivanka received from the Chinese government 41 trademarks for her companies. After Trump left office Jared was given 2 billion Dollars by Saudi Arabia for a supposed investment in his fund. In the case of Hunter Biden we can say that he was never a part of any administration. But we can say that he was extremely well paid for his consulting services. He too seemed to lack credentials for the work he performed. Hunter has admitted that he misused the US tax code which amounts to cheating on your taxes. My belief is that all three are hiding information which would be nice if the public knew about it. I am sure that in many corruption and tax crimes predecent and analogy have been used as a defense. But the question I have is if one can ever argue that cases are similar or the same? I feel that individuals using their connections while their father anfd father in law sits in the White House are more grivous then ones when your father isn’t in the White House. In order to be fair Democrats and Republicans should look at all three individuals for possible wrong doing.

One of the most damaging development by weapons manufacturers was the production of kits with all neccessary parts to assemble it into a weapons. These kits even apply to AR-15, AK-47 and semiautomatic Glock pistols. Such weapon was used in 2013 in the murder of 5 people and other shootings as well. Law eneforement estimates that in 2013 that about 13000 home made guns were confiscated or found at crime scenes. These home assembled weapons differ from manufacturer delivered guns in that they have no serial number on any component. This makes it almost impossible to trace them. Furthermore, they are easy to assemble by the buyer since that is 80% done when they purchase the kit. There are instruction readily found on the Internet to complete the effort. The gun control act of 1968 includes no verbiage to stop their production. That loophole was closed in 2022 when gun laws were tightened by requiring manufacturers to mark products with serial numbers and requiring sellers to obtain licenses and do background checks. Recently that provision had been challenged in federal court and a gun loving judge had blocked it. The case was bumped to SCOTUS and yesterday by a vote of 5 to 4 it was recinded. Conservative Judges Roberts and Barret sided with the liberal minority. What strikes me as insane is that 4 conservatives Judges opposed the ruling. I guess they don’t care that kit assembled guns or ghost guns as they are called are being sold in high volumes. You would think that they would be on the side of law enforcement and see that serial numbers on weapons is a common sense issue.

I certainly share my disappointment with every soccer fan after the US Women’s team lost to Sweden. But what I find to be utterly discusting are all the deragotory comments made against team members by Republicans who are glad they lost. These athletes represented the US and we should be proud of them. Losing a game in a penalty shootout is a fifty fifty proposition every time. Goalies step up, shooters nerves flutter and one lucky team wins. To say that Megan Rapinoe missed her penaly shot on purpose is an insult to the player and the team. All athletes compete to win being fully aware that they may lose but still enter competitions. For Republicans to state that this loss was a result of team membership make up, the fact they spoke up for for equal pay or women rights is most ridiculous and I view it as a shameful insult. It seems that Republicans from now on don’t wish our best athletes to present us on national teams but only those who share their political views. What has happened when we cheered on all Americans representing us in international competitions without asking them about their personal life or political affiliation? Let us do that again and leave politics out of sports.

Trump must be every lawyers nightmare since he never appears to follow their advise and continuous to pop of in tweets and comments which will harm him down the road in his court cases. The most damaging, in my estimation, is when he contradicted comments made by his former Vice President Pence that he was asked to refuse state certification of Biden’s 2020 election win. So we now have the two highest former executives of the previous administration contradicting each other on a point which is at the heart of Trump’s indictment; namely , did he try to overrule the will of the people. Pence also declared that he will follow all requirements of the law going forward. That means if he is subpeonaed to be a witness for the prosection he would comply. Pence would be sworn in by the court before being questioned by the prosecutor and defense counsel. I am sure that his testimony would be crucial to the case and the jury. The question now becomes if defense councel would have Trump take the stage to offer a rebuttal to what Pence tells the court. I seriously doubt that since the danger would be that Trump commits perjury or loses control of his emotions and attacks the proceedings. That is why I feel strongly that the case should be televised for the public so they can draw their own conclusions on who offers honest and believable testimony. I feel that Pence knows that he has no chance at all to become the GOP presidential candidate for the 2024 election. But being attacked by Trump and his followers for being a coward and not having done what they had hoped for, may he be honestly interested in keeping Trump from participating in the election.

Way too much is being made currently of political polls being taken by various interest groups. Anyone who believes that the results of these polls is an indication of how the 2024 election will go is a resident of Fantasy Island. The election will be influenced by news much closer to the time when citizens cast their votes. By that time the public will be fully aware of all evidence which is now being summarized in various Trump investigations. I will admit that both parties have dedicated core followers who will support their party’s candidate without question. But at most they represent one third of the base. That means the election result will depend on voter turnout, the position of Independents and the undecided electorate. Traditionally the US has a relatively low voter turn out in comparison to other democracies. I expect that in 2024 the turnout will be higher than in the past. There are too many complex issues to resolve in 2024 and the election result will set the direction on what will come after it. Is the citizenry comfortable with book banning at every level, the suppression of teaching of less than pleasant acpects of our history, the utter deterioration of behavior by politicians or outright efforts to undermine our democratic principles. Every election is important but I believe the 2024 one is the most important one I am facing and I have voted since 1964. At this time it looks like Trump may end up being the GOP candidate while President Biden has stated that he plans to run again. Given the age of both men any serious health issue would torpedo their plans. Personally I prefer younger presidential candidates with fresher ideas and an open mind to address changes. Why not increase the size of the Supreme Court? Why not have a weekened election day? My recommendation as an Old Man to future voters is not to simply cast a vote for a name but to ask yourself if that person stands for what you believe in.

The last barrier to District Attorney Willis issuing her indictment of Trump for Georgia election interference was cleared today by Fulton County Judge McBurney. He ruled against Trump and his illadvised legal challenge to have evidence dismissed in the Georgia investigation. That legal request also asked for DA Willis to be taken off the case. Well, the Judge rules emphatically that the court had no basis to interfere or halt the investigation. He even went so far as to state that District Attorney’s office followed routine communication protocol while Trump’s legal team continuously assaulted the process of the investigation and individuals conducting it. That means that soon the indictment will be made pubic and we all shall have our first glimpe of potential crimes committed by Trump.

Many have thought that this day would never come but it has. Trump admitted today that he has received a target letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith in regards to his Jan 6th investigation. As expected various Republican politicians are hard at work repeating their old song that Trump is being unfairly pursued by a weaponized Justice Department. We all know that nothing is further from the truth than that claim. At this time we don’t know what and how much evidence the Special Counsel has accumulated but my guess is that is must be substantial given the importance of this case. Of course, many of us still wonder why the GOP establishment continuous to support Trump. Do they fear him, do they fear the backlash of his cult members or have they blindly supported him for so long that they can’t see a way out anymore. In the course of the next few weeks we shall find out if we are still a nation with laws which apply to every citizen including former Presidents. I hope for the sake of our country that we remain grounded in equal justice for all with no exceptions.

A key social and economic trend since the financial meltdown of 2008 is the continued rapid increase in wealth concentration globally and in the US. Current estimates are that 1 percent in the US now own about 40 percent of total household wealth while the share of the botton 90 percent has collapsed substantially. That appears to indicate that the concentration of wealth disparity between the wealthy and the poor and middle class reached a level to present a potentially dangerous condition. History has shown us repeatedly that those with wealth seek power in order to influence government functions and elected officials. This can easily lead to the corruption of judges, politicians and actual court rulings. All along as the rich become richer they will attempt to mask those astronomical gains in wealth by relying more and more on creative offshore management firms with their recommendations on how to shield income from tax authorities. The rich have ready access to tax avoidance opportunities which may be highly controversial and in some cases even unlawful. In history there have been cases where wealth accumulation by the few was alleviated by drastic measures such as the French and Russian revolutions. I feel it makes sense to address the wealth disparity problem in a logical and peaceful way by introducing wealth distribution through our current tax structure by severely reducing or totally eliminating tax decreases of the past which strongly favored the rich.

It is utterly ridiculous that Alabama Sen Tuberville can singlehandidly hold up 253 promotions of military officers. That situation has resulted in the Marine Corp not having a leader with the retirement of Gen David Berger. Certainly Sen Tuberville’s stuborness has adversely impacted readiness and retention in our military services. How can the GOP which constantly likes to state how they support the military not bring the Seneator in line and solve this stalemate? The Senator himself declared that his opposition rests in his religious opposition to abortions and he fears that the military health coverage may be funding abortion related service of military personnel. That is an extrelemy upsetting explantion since ones religious beliefs shouldn’t impact to do what is best for our nation’s security and preparedness. I feel that Sen Tuberville has lost sight of the overall gravity of the situation and has made himself look like an out of control religious zealot. The Senator is also the person who in recent interviews has stated that White Nationalists are merely individuals who have different opinions from mainstream Americans and are no way to be considered to harbor racist views. Now I am not saying that the Senator is a White Natioalist but I am confident that based on his support of them, they believe that he is one of them!

Certainly everyone who has chosen a career as a police officer is rsponsible for our protection and safety. They provide a noble service and deserve our respect. Many of them have fallen in the line of duty and that saddens all of us. But there is a disturbinbg trend that many members of police forces now seem to show their political affiliation while in uniform. In my estimation that is wrong. They have the same rights as everyone else to be part of any political movement outside of their official police duties. However, we now continue to see many uniformed police officers clamoring to be in photo shoots with Trump. They even proudly take selfies with him. As representatives of law and order I find it worrying that they appear to side with an individual who is under indictment of hoarding secret documents while out of office and may even be involved in an attempt to negate a presidential election. It is also striking that in these group photos there is very little minority participation. We can all reach our own conclusion to what that appears to indicate. My point is that police officrs while on duty and being paid by all tax payers should refrain from showing any favoratism to any particular political party. When in uniform they mast be NEUTRAL!

The fact that cocaine was discovered on on the White House premises is a concern we all share. However, for Republicans to make wild accusations against President Biden and his family that they are cocaine consumers is ridiculous. The Secret Service is tasked with the investigation on how and when the cocaine was hidden at the White House. Certainly the building must have a huge number of cameras at every conceivable location. Review of the archived data should identify who may be responsible. One thing is for sure, no drug addict would leave behind his valuable stash of cocaine. I believe a more plausible explanation is that it was planned by someone with the intention of discrediting the President’s inner circle. Given the language thrown about by GOP leaders and their base it must be considered. In any case, I look forward to reading the report which the Secret Service will publish.

Yesterday the conservative wing of SCOTUS toppled affirmative action which has been a pillar of our social structure since the 1960’s. Affirmative action is nothing more than a set of policies intended to level the playing field for underrepresented groups based on gender, race, sexuality and creed. The benefit of it has been widespread in the workplace and public and private education. I admit I don’t know if the time is now to repeal affirmative action or in the future but I do know that the reason given by conservative judges in their justification that the Constitution is ‘COLOR BLIND” strikes me as ludicrous and intellectually weak. The Constitution was written by white man at a time when slavery was common in all states. Many of the Founding Fathers themselves were slave holders. Blacks could be sold at an owner’s whim, were not compensated for the sweat and toil of their labors and were not viewed to be at the same level as even the poorest white person. So to claim the Constitution is color blind is utter nonsense since the document in reality only acknowledges on color and that is ‘WHITE’. I find it difficult to accept that a black Judge seated on the Supreme Court who himself benefitted by climbing the affirmative action ladder voted now to destroy it. I foresee that College and University admission office personnel will be under severe stress as they attempt to address student admission equality in the future.

I don’t know who in the Kremlin came up with the idea that a group of military mercenaries made of of imprisoned criminal was a fantastic strategy. Obviously Puting authorized the Wagner group formation in the belief that they would do all the dirty work in Africa and Syria while his army retained their honor. But he totally forgot that when you chose a guy like Prigozhin to lead them, the once loyal dog may turn against you. That is exactly what happened when Prigozhin initiated his march on Moscow to prove his power status. Since Prigozhin and his mercenaries weren’t punished in any way shows the whole world that Puting is no longer a ruler in full control. Especially since there are persistent rumors floating about that General Surovikin and other military leaders were aware of Prigozhin’s plan, seemed to favor it and failed to inform Putin about it. Now General Surovikin is missing and Putin stated that he will root out all involved and they will be punished. The whole episode of the coup or protest march must be a huge embarrassment to Putin. At the same time the Russian public must be asking themselves why members of the Wagner group are permitted to join the Red Army while Prigozhin was permitted to leave for Belarus?

What I will always remember about Trump’s court appearance and behavior yesterday is his Jekyll and Hyde impersonations. In spite of his call for his loyalists to protest at his arraignment, very few showed up and those who did I would consider to be a bunch of misfits. In court Trump was silent as if he finally recognized the seriousness of the allegations against him. In other words, he was Jekyll on his good behavior. But things changed dramatically after he left the courthouse. That supposedly impromptu drop in at the cafe was really an orchestrated event. Trump was in dire need to be around a friendly crowd but I was shocked that a rabbi, a man of God and believer in the Old Testament, prayed for him given that many in Trump’s tent express strong anti-semitic views. Soon after that at his campaign stop we saw and heard him turn into Mr. Hyde. The dark side of his personality at full display. A physical and mental manifestation of an unstable personality. He repeated all of his previously mentioned grievances but none of them are real or true. Unfortunately the court didn’t levy some requirements on reasonable speech before he was released. However, he was warned by the court not to discuss the case with his co-defendant and co-conspirator his personal valet Walt Nauta. His court appearance is in two weeks and he still hasn’t engaged a lawyer to represent him. Now Trump knows fully well that Nauta is not only a witness in the document shenanigans but was a willing participant in processing them. So it will be interesting to see if Nauta continues to be a shield for Trump or will become a collaborating witness to mitigate his potential sentence. Myself I have serious doubts that there is honor among thieves!

I find it difficult to comprehend how Trump followers haven’t caught on yet to the fact that he stands for the perfect definition of a narcissist. He is only in love with himself and seems to believe that he is actually the center of the universe. Every single action he undertakes is to place himself center stage in the hope to be admired. Trump’s vanity is boundless. He had to lie that he didn’t lose the 2020 presidential election. He kept highly sensitive documents in his possession because he feels any rules pertaining to them don’t apply to him. I see Trump being caught in a mirror of self-admiration. In his mind he attempts to project that feeling to his followers by constantly repeating that he is the most loved President in US history. A narcissist likes to boast of potential achievements like stating that he is the only one who can prevent World War !!!. His followers may believe that he is the person our nation needs but I vehemently disagree with that view. To me he represents a real danger to our democracy and way of life. No President ever has tried to overthrow an elected administration by supporting a FAKE ELECTOR plot. Even those like Sen Collins who thought he will change after his impeachments must realize by now that he is who he is and will never change or modify his behavior. As I said: ‘A narcissist is like a leopard and can’t change his spots!’.

Even though I fully support the indictment of Trump for his grievous mishandling of highly sensitive national security documents, I don’t see it as a time to celebrate. Rather I view it as a time to be extremely sad that our country had such person in a position of power. Furthermore, I am overcome with emotional pain when I read that we still have Republicans supporting such person and his actions when we clearly know that they were a danger to the security of the country. Some of them even go so far as to advocate violence against their own citizens in their support of the disgraced former President. I take Trump’s statement that citizens should show up in mass next Tuesday in Miami to offer support at his arraignment as another call to arms. In my mind it is a replay of his actions which resulted in the Jan 6th, 2021 insurrection by his followers. But since the public has access to the details of the indictment I expect that there won’t be widespread protests. We are still a society based on the Rule of Law and I am convinced that the majority of us are willing to see it all play out in court. There are times when one can weep for one’s country and such time may be now!

I wasn’t surprised at all when House Republicans came out to offer a fully throated defense of Trump after his indictment was announced yesterday. But note that at the same time Republican Senators remained muted to that news. Now that the indictment details have been released to the public and we all can read how careless and unconcerned Trump was in his handling of secret documents. I can’t see how Republicans can continue to support him. The documents Trump tried to hide include highly sensitive information on US weapons, potential responses to our enemies and nuclear technology. Never before has any President ever taken such laissez faire approach to sensitive document entrusted to him. We can all speculate what his motivation was but there is no doubt that he refused to turn them over even when directed to do so. Of great concern to me is the fact that many of these sensitive documents were shown to individuals who lacked security clearances. Did they discuss them with their family, friends and colleagues? Clearly damage was done to our national security and someone must be held accountable for it even if that person is a former President of our country.

We know that Republicans like to generate conspiracy theories of every conceivable kind. Here is one that they will never consider but it is in the realm of possibilities. If we consider that the unaccounted document is the US response to Iran if they took some hostile actions against us, who would have an interest in such document. The two countries which immediately come to mind would be Saudi Arabia and Russia. Saudi Arabia could use that document information to keep Iran in line. The two billion Dollar payment to Kushner’s fund can be viewed as an amount worth that information. Russia’s war in the Ukraine has begun to rely more and more on drones which are being supplied by Iran. So maybe Russia, if they acquired the document, is trading the information for weapons deliveries from Iran. This may sound far-fetched but stranger things have happened in the past.

Now that former VP Mike Pence has decided to seek the GOP nomination to be their presidential candidate in the 2024 election, he is trying to distance himself from his past role of Trump’s loyal soldier. In his Town Hall meeting yesterday he took some shots at his former boss but tried to do it in a fashion as not to alienate the Republican base. Well, Mike, you can’t have your cake and eat it too! Your most significant comment was that you believe strongly in the Constitution while Trump doesn’t. If that is indeed the case, how could you then state that you would support Trump in 2024 if he became the Republican candidate for the presidency? That proves to me that you really don’t have any adherence to sound moral principles but are willing to continue to sell your soul to the highest bidder. It is time to be honest with yourself and admit that you are nothing more than an opportunist willing to change your mind at a whim in an attempt to stay relevant. But that effort is destined to fail. Americans can see right through you and you have absolute no credibility with them.

The list of Republicans entering the 2024 presidential election campaign has swelled in recent days. Now we have Donald Trump, Doug Burger, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Asa Hutchinson, Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis and Vitek Ramaswamy vying to win over GOP leaning voters. With the exception of Christie they all have been great supporters of Trump in the past. Even now they don’t dare to launch critical attacks against Trump because they fear his base turning against them. If that is the case, why do they even bother to declare their candidacy? The only one who came out swinging and didn’t hold back his disdain for Trump and his family is Chris Christie. Personally I don’t believe that any of them really has a chance to win the 2024 general election. They are all preaching the same GOP sermon of banning books, sabotaging fair elections, limiting women’s rights, going after Social Security and Medicare and permitting religion to creep into government. I see many of them dropping out of the running down the road with only Trump and DeSantis facing each other for a shot at the Republican nomination. Of course, if Trump is indicted on some serious pending charges, he may drop out on his own. Well, hang on and take a ring side seat as they all provide us with hilarious campaign quotes.

After weeks of haggling and negotiating President Biden and Speaker McCarthy have finally come up with a tentative deal they feel the House membership will approve. A close look at what has been published indicates that the deal really has no substantial changes to the status quo and only moves the next debt discussion down the road by two years. There are some minimal changes to economic and financial policies which most likely would have been done anyways in the near future. However, during the negotiations the financial markets were rattled due to the uncertainty of reaching a deal and that is reflected in higher borrowing costs for our government. The main issue now facing the House is that both parties have factions which dislike the proposed deal and may not approve it when it comes up for a vote as early as next Wednesday. So the huge question remains: ‘What happens then?’.

Well folks, the days of highly polluted lakes, rivers, creeks and wetlands are with us again as five SCOTUS Judges voted to gut the Clean Water Act. Conservative Judges on our nation’s highest court have been trying for years to reduce the Clean Water Act but had failed to do so since 2006 but now by a 5:4 ruling they have succeeded. Their decision means that they have given companies the right to dump harmful pollutants into US waters and wetlands. It proves clearly that the current bench of the Supreme Court is willing to fully ignore long standing legislation we citizens are counting on. Their action will no doubt harm the environment and in my book they are acting almost in a criminal fashion.

Any negotiation is bound to fail when one party tries to blackmail the other into giving in to their demands. That is what I see Republicans attempting to do in the negotiations to raise the national debt limit. Their whole strategy appears to be to protect their wealthy donor base at the expense of the American public. The GOP is against repealing the lucrative tax cuts they gave the super rich during the Trump administration or closing off tax loopholes only of value to the rich. Instead they wish to severely cut social programs which benefit the vast majority of Americans. I have no issue with a discussion of tentatively raising the retirement ages for Social Security but that should be debated on its own merit and not tied to the debt crisis. The GOP demonstrates time again that their political direction goes against the beliefs of the country’s majority. They are against providing funds to battle mental illness, refuse to support our veterans, try to crush women rights, pander to religious zealots, oblige the gun lobby every which way and in heavy handed fashion make it difficult to vote. That is what Lincoln’s party has now become – OBSTRUCTIONISTS!

Nothing illustrates Republican callousness more than their loyalty to disgraced GOP Congressman George Santos. Here we have a member of the House indicted on 13 criminal counts, 7 counts of wire fraud, 3 counts of money laundering, 1 count of theft in office and 3 counts of making false statement to the house and yet every Republican House member voted against expelling him from Congress. I am aware that Democrats initiated the effort to have Santos expelled but I find it utterly amazing that not even 5 Republicans joined them in that cause. Folks, Republicans agreed that Santos crime spree should merely be addressed by the House Ethics and Morals Committee. Now that is the body under GOP control which could have done it months ago if they had the inclination to do so. The Republicans shameful vote only proves once again that they will harbor and support criminals in their midst. The GOP has become nothing more than a laughing stock in the US political arena.

After having reached a settlement agreement with Dominion which cost FOX News 787 million Dollars they will now have to deal with the Smartmatic company on the same charge of defamation. Smartmatic is suing FOX for a larger amount and will be able to use pretty much the same evidence as offered by Dominion lawyers. The important issue here is that Smartmatic lawyers have already indicated that in any resolution of the lawsuit FOX must make a public statement that they lied and and have their prime time hosts apologize on their broadcasts for doing so as well. My hope is that Smartmatic follows through with their lawsuit strategy for we, the public, are entitled to know the full truth and that includes an apology!

The FOX network paid a hefty sum to settle their defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion against them. They paid 787 million for a simple legal fact that you can’t repeat lies on air when your Owner and prominent hosts of the network are on record that they never believed them themselves. Even though I can understand Dominion settling the case given their company size, I feel that the Dominion management team should have insisted that FOX apologize in their newscasts that they willfully misled the public by attacking Dominion. But one important announcement made by the Judge was totally missed by many and that is his appointment of a Special Master to investigate if some witnesses committed perjury when questioned under oath. There is no way the Judge would have made that decision without strong suspicion that truth took a backseat to lies for some witnesses. It will be interesting to hear who they may be. In any case, Dominion will now go on to other parties they are suing while FOX will now have to content with the Smartmatic lawsuit which is very similar to the one they just settled.

No one should underestimate the importance of the Dominion lawsuit against the FOX network. The Dominion case alleges that FOX promoted lies about its technology in bolstering their false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. No doubt the 1.6 billion defamation trial will be a painful experience for FOX since high level executives and prominent hosts will be questioned under oath. FOX has always advanced far right dishonest narratives and continues to do so now. There fear appears to be that their Trump cult viewer base will drop watching them if they actually reported the facts on the election. It appears that the motive for FOX was to generate profits over truthful reporting. The only defense FOX lawyers are mounting is that the lawsuit is an attack against their First Amendment rights. That seems to be a real legal stretch since even that amendment has limits as previous lawsuits have proven. To me that lawsuit isn’t about the monetary penalty which may be levied against Fox but that a flow of unproven conspiracy theories by a news network gain traction through repetition and thus weaken democracy. Let’s hold FOX responsible now!

I don’t exactly remember the quote from Spanish philosopher Santayana but it implies that history repeats itself. Given what happened in Germany almost ninety years ago and what appears to be happening in the US now, I believe his assessment is so true. When we push the rewind button to 1935 in Germany we find Hitler and his henchmen confident that they had achieved absolute power. They had the equivalent of our Supreme Court and Attorney General willing to do at their bidding. So a rash of laws were passed which were quite shocking. The racial laws placed German born Jews into a second class citizen category. They were forced out of civil service jobs and film, theater, radio, university and orchestra positions., Euthanasia was encouraged by the regime to reduce anyone deemed to be feeble minded. Labor Unions and strikes were prohibited. Anyone the regime considered to be an undesirable was send to a labor camp. Books were banned and burned. Religion was tolerated but frowned upon if you wished to prosper in the party. Now, if you are honest with yourself, you must admit many policies Republicans favor sound like an echo of the past. They too are banning books from libraries, view immigrants as undesirables, are taking control of women’s bodies, telling us how to be Christians and restricting the ability of many native born Americans to vote in elections. We see that playing out in RED states with GOP Governors all over our nation. Forgotten are the days when American soldiers fought to defeat fascisms in Europe. We now have Americans waving Nazi Swastikas at Trump’s political rallies. It is high time that Americans wake up to the danger that the modern Republican party represents to our freedoms and our way of life!

The Republican controlled Tennessee legislature today expelled three Democrats for having participated in an anti gun protest as a result of the Nashville school shooting. Now these Democrats were duly elected, seated and now expelled because gun loving Republicans didn’t like their anti gun position. Doesn’t it sound a lot like what Trump tried to do on a larger scale by attempting to grab from President Biden his election win. Here in Tennessee they succeeded in undermining the democratic process while Trump failed. It does show us that Republicans are willing to do anything while in power. All you have to do is look at other weird rules and laws they are pushing in states they control. Eliminate child labor laws, severe penalties for getting an abortion, wholesale removal of historically correct books and protection of their gerrymandering schemes. If you ever had any doubt that Republicans are becoming fascists then open your eyes and observe what they are doing.

Many believe that it was Michael Cohen’s testimony in the NY Grand Jury decision to indict Trump. I disagree with that and name David Pecker. former publisher of the National Inquirer, as the crucial witness in this case. Pecker’s appearance in NY this past Monday was probably the final nail that the jury was looking for. You have to remember that Stormy Daniels took her sordid story for possible publication to the National Inquirer. That was shortly before the 2016 election. What she didn’t know was that Pecker was a close friend of Trump. Rather than buying her story he informed Trump that her revelations would seriously damage his campaign. That set the whole hush money scheme in motion. We won’t know what the exact charges against Trump will be until he is arraigned but they may be several. I do find it highly amusing that the witness who did Trump in is his buddy named PECKER!

There never was any talk of ‘executive privilege’ in our presidential history until Nixon came along. Republicans invented that flimsy defense to prevent Nixon from releasing incriminating evidence in his attempted Watergate cover up. Now Trump is trying to use it to keep key evidence in investigations of his shady dealing from being revealed. It is nothing more than a blatant attempt to muddy the waters and confuse the citizenry. To call it mere FOOLISH talk is inadequate since it really is DECEITFUL talk. The Constitution doesn’t directly confer executive privilege upon the Executive Branch of our government. The Supreme Court has taken the stance that executive privilege requires different considerations for different factual situations. In plain English I take that to mean that discussions between the president and his advisors on matters of national security can be covered but not if the intent is to block information in the course of a criminal investigation by Congress or the Department of Justice. The GOP must realize that Trump is facing several criminal investigations and that the executive privilege defense is mere gibberish.

Certainly the rulers of Russia and China have long envied the role the USA and NATO plays on the world stage. They feel, at least for the time being, that they must be partners and act as a counterweight to US and NATO policies. Their meeting in Moscow struck me as one of two world leaders pretending to be close friends when in reality they question each others intentions. It is no surprise that China wishes to increase its one way positive trade balance with Russia since Russia is heavily dependent on Chinese goods because of various embargos against it. However, I still believe that China will not offer Russia military aid since that will impact its trade relationships with western nations. Those remains to be a larger piece of the Chinese trade surplus. Their partnership is nothing more than one of convenience and I doubt if it will be sustained in the future. Their own national aims at the international level will eventually clash and lead to a breakup. China’s focus is in Asia and not Europe. Beijing is bothered by the US alliances with Asian Nations like Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines. Traditionally Russia and the US haven’t played a great role in Africa. That void has been filled by China with huge loans and much direct investment. But African nations must realize that there is no free lunch. All of these Chinese transactions seek to secure natural resources or access to local infrastructures like harbors. Right now Russia is stuck in Ukraine and can’t do much of anything anywhere else. But they are very good at using social networks and their own media outlets to attack democracies around the world. History has proven that ill conceived partnerships tend to fall apart. The same will happen to the Russia-China Axis.

A recent phenomenon is the explosive growth of small rural cities in many states. A striking example of this development is the town of Queen Creek in Arizona. In 1990 it had a population of only 2500 which has now grown to 68000 now and is expected to maintain this staggering growth rate for some time to come. Frequently such communities benefit from large tech companies establishing manufacturing facilities there but also because they are viewed to be safe and affordable. In the past these towns were strong Republican voting areas but that seems to be changing as they become larger. One reason maybe that those moving there are predominantly young and have more liberal philosophies about life, environment and their fellow citizens. I am sure that both political parties are aware of that trend and try to determine how to best react to it. My guess is that as these towns acquire a more urban look they will move more toward the democratic party.

The constant crying and whining by Republicans as Trump faces possible indictment for federal crimes completely and willfully ignores the Grand Jury function which is a fundamental component of our justice system. It is the Grand Jury that decides whether a person should be tried for a serious federal crime. It is up to the citizens of the Grand Jury to decide whether or not prosecution will go forward. Basically that means that all the Republican attacks against the prosecutors in Georgia and New York are nothing more than smoke screens deflecting from the fact that Trump is possibly guilty of having committed federal crimes. Everyone should just calm down and let the slow Wheels of Justice function as intended. We all will hear soon enough what decision our fellow citizens have reached who are members of these two Grand Juries. If crimes have been committed than the guilty party, former president or not, must be held accountable. After all, another bedrock of our justice system declares that no one is above the law!

I must admit that nothing Trump states should upset me given that he lies continuously, spreads conspiracy theories endlessly and incessantly displays immature behavior. However, his current uttering that every person jailed for being involved in the Jan 6th attack on the Capital must be released immediately touched a nerve. He seems to conveniently forget that the majority of the attackers had pleaded guilty in court and were sentenced accordingly. Matter of fact, many of them went on record and said that they were following his orders to march on the Capital in order to keep him in power. I can’t be the only one wondering if Trump is or has lost most of his marbles. There is no other way to explain his chaotic and irrational behavior!

Republican legislators at the federal and state levels are proposing policies which are scary and border on insanity.

For instance:

There should be no school food program because not a single person goes hungry in Minnesota.

Sale of birth control pills must be forbidden in red states.

Executions by hanging or firing squad should be implemented.

Child labor law protection should be removed and is not necessary.

Women having abortions should face murder charges.

The AR-15 assault weapon should be made the weapon of choice in the US.

Children fleeing Latin American death squads shouldn’t be sheltered hers since they are a danger to American safety.

Now I ask every sane American, don’t you find such potential legislation offensive?

Republicans have a weird way of governing by relying on policies which go against the grain of public opinion. It sure looks like the REPUBLICAN party will NOT regulate:

•Guns

•Banks

•Railroads

•Mortgages

•Food & water

•Toxic dumping

•Carbon emissions

•COVID safety rules

•Billionaire tax rates

•Campaign donations

But REPUBLICANS have a burning DESIRE to regulate:

•Dialogue on racism

•Women’s bodies

•Contraception

•History books

•Election Requirements

That is why the GOP must be called out for their hypocrisy.

I condemn all Republicans who minimize a Senator’s depression battle. Depression is a prison which surrounds you with a blanket of sadness and you can only focus on your own pain! There is no hell worse than that!

There may have been a time in the past when CPAC served the conservative interests of some Americans but given what it has become it is nothing more than a Trump endorsing cult. The whole forum has become nothing more than pseudo Trump election campaign event. Sure, Mike Pompeo and Nikki Hailey have their own presidential ambitions and were at the event but were drowned out by Trump supporters when they spoke. Gov DeSantis, Trump’s most serious challenger, deliberately skipped the event. That tells me that the GOP has split into a Trump and DeSantis faction and all other candidates might as well leave the contest now. Every speaker at the event made it crystal clear that they seek a nation which limits women’s rights, restrictive election laws, elimination of separation of church and state and continuous to ignore threats to our democracy by far right nationalists. The real question we must all ask ourselves now is if that group represents the majority of Americans or is it just an assembly of wacky weirdos who have lost their way? We must remain vigilant and never forget that many times in history people with destructive ideas have gained power in democracies. We can not permit this to happen here!

Rupert Murdoch is the owner of a media conglomerate with FOX News being the jewel in the crown. That specific media outlet has been a strong voice in the past for the Trump administration and has continued to echo his lies of 2020 election fraud accusations. But with Murdoch being deposed as part of the Dominion lawsuit against FOX news, startling facts emerged in his ‘under oath’ testimony. He admitted that the FOX commentators and he himself never believed that to be the case. Strictly speaking it was nothing more then fear of losing revenue and viewership since the FOX audience was predominantly made of of Trump supporters. Rupert even went so far as to admit that some of their leading commentators went overboard in their coverage of Trump’s false claims. Of course, his testimony immediately resulted in Trump lashing out against Murdoch in harsh terms but the damage of undercutting his election scenario has been done. Will it make a difference to the members of the Trump cult? I doubt it. Will it substantially changhe FOX news coverage? I doubt it. Concern over profits and ratings will always overshadow the truth on that network.

It should be no surprise to anyone that the investigation found no evidence of widespread election fraud as claimed by Trump and his associates now sitting in Congress. Clearly it was nothing more than a stupid attempt to mislead the American public and to cast doubt on our democratic election processes. The majority of us knew this along but unfortunately there are some still caught in this web of lies. However, the real news emerging from the investigation appears to be the fact that the grand jury believes that some witnesses lied while under oath. Some of them are high level officials still supporting Trump. Lying under oath is a criminal offense punishable with up to a ten year jail term. These individuals must be prosecuted for trying to mock our justice system. There shall be no exceptions and punishment must be swift and accordance to the law.

Since news broke of the high altitude balloon flying across the USA many opinions were shared in the media on why a balloon would be used for potential information gathering when our enemies have dozens of satellites collecting data every day. China was quick to announce that it was merely a weather balloon which had drifted of course. Our intelligence community certainly was interested in obtaining information on the balloon and its technical capabilities such as the potential to impact mobile communication in our nation. No doubt the balloon is loaded with sensors and surveillance equipment. The White House was patient and decided to act at its own pace in spite of Republican furor that it should be immediately shot down. Secretary of State Blinken did let Beijing know that the situation was serious and cancelled his scheduled trip to China. Given the estimated size of the balloon of two to three football fields, destruction of it over land could have resulted in loss of human life by debris falling to earth from the height of 60000 feet. The plan which was developed to shoot it down the minute it was over the ocean made sense and was successfully implemented today. Navy divers will have no problem raising the debris since it fell into relatively shallow waters close to the South Carolina coast. Soon we shall learn if it was a weather or spy balloon? My bet is that it was a clumsy attempt by China to spy on our cellular technology.

A few days it has come to light that former FBI Special Agent Charles McGonigal was charged with accepting money from shady characters while serving in the FBI New York office. McGonigal was in charge of counterintelligence operations and now it appears that he had possibly been a corrupt employee. The agent’s arrest is troubling since he served in NY in 2016 when FBI Director Comey released information about Hillary Clinton just two weeks before the presidential election. mation. It also begs the question if McGonigal was involved in providing input to Mueller’s report on the collusion investigation of the Trump campaign with Russians. The lingering question in my mind is how long has McGonigal been receiving foreign payments and what information or actions did he perform for that pay? For some reason media sources haven’t given this story the traction it deserves. I hope the DOJ provides the public with additional information soon.

Over the years the states of Kentucky, West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama recorded the highest number of children living in poverty, senior citizens being the poorest in the country and their education systems are some of the worst at the Elementary, Middle and High School levels. Yet, the citizens of these states continue to elect Republican politicians. Even those who continue to preach that Medicare and Social Security must be subjected to financial cuts. I find that election result repetition hard to grasp. Don’t they realize that their elected officials have done nothing to improve their standard of living. What do they have to lose in voting in some fresh blood? Maybe it will result in new ideas and approaches which can bring progress to these states.

I am sure that we all remember the outrage of Chief Justice Roberts when the draft decision on Roe v, Wade was leaked to the press. He declared that it was urgent to identify the leaker since it had the possibility of happening again. Well, the result of the formal investigation is in and the culprit hasn’t been identified. In a summary report of 20 pages it basically admits to everything terminating in dead ends. I find this difficult to believe since they interviewed 126 individuals. Surprisingly no sitting judges or their spouses were questioned. My suspicion is that the result is covering up for the fact that the leak came from conservative forces associated or even seated on the Court. Such stunning finding would be disastrous for SCOTUS since its majority consists of conservative judges who make no attempt to hide their political views and allegiances. The result of the investigation is another examples on why the overwhelming majority of Americans no longer sees SCOTUS judges as being fair and impartial.

The Republican controlled House is trying to convince us that they are governing by outlining a series of strange initiatives. They are demand a stop to the planned hiring of 87000 IRS employees over the next 10 years. They are stripping the House Ethics Committee os all enforcement capability. They are determined to form a Committee to investigate ongoing investigations. They are removing Democratic Representatives who were their critics fro committees. But don’t be fooled. All of it is nothing more than grandstanding for the ignorant. In a sense, they wish to appear to be energetically doing their job but they are expanding all their energy just running in place without moving forward. Suddenly the GOP has forgotten to focus on inflation. immigration, education and national debt control. All stated as important priorities while they were running their campaigns. But now forgotten. I can only say that they are wasting their time with what they are doing. None of their activities will improve the lives of Americans. If they continue on that path, many of them will be unemployed come the 2024 election.

The riots in Brazil’s capital Brasilia were launched by supporters for former President Bolsonaro. He can be called a mini Trump since he had observed Trump’s behavior prior, during and after his 2020 election loss and implemented the same strategies in case he lost his election last October. Even before the election Bolsonaro too implied that the election would be stolen from him. When he lost the close election he immediately declared that there must have been serious election fraud. When the Supreme Court upheld the election result, Bolsonaro refused to give a concession speech. Thus creating turmoil in the nation. We as Americans have seen that scenario play out before. Here it led to Trump followers attacking the Capital building while Bolsonaro followers attacked the Presidential Palace, Congress and the Supreme Court building in Brasilia, However, there is a stark difference how the public and authorities reacted to the coup attempts in Brazil and here. In Brazil the public immediately demanded that no amnesty be considered for the rioters and the Justice department must crack down on internal terrorism. Over 1500 rioters were quickly arrested and government officials tied to the coup were too. But here in the US arresting rioters and bringing them to justice became a drawn out process over the last two years. But most troublesome is that many election deniers were reelected and politicians tied to the coup in their own words spoken or written are yet to face serious consequences. That means that Brazil is facing the ugly truth that some wish to overthrow democracy while we in the US aren’t taking that threat seriously.

House Minority Leader Jeffries gave a speech we all who care about our country should listen to. He pleased with Republicans to work with Democrats on behalf of all Americans. But he realized that the other side will not do that at all. So he had no choice but to hold a mirror in front of them and tell them in blunt language what they should be doing but what they are refusing to do. He mentioned every important issue which Republicans oppose even though the vast majority of the public supports them. But I fear that is won’t be the wake up call it should be for them. Their ranks are filled with too many who will oppose beneficial social programs but focus on laptops, conspiracy theories and maintaining disruptive ideas which play well with their cult base. That means that we the citizens will see no meaningful legislation coming out of the House. All we shall see is cheap postering, empty promises and a lot of whining. Unfortunately, that appears to the the current GOP platform for the country.

McCarthy’s desire to become House Speaker has shown how week he will be if he manages to secure that position. In order to win over thew 20 or so far right representatives who oppose him, he has fallen on his knees and given them concession after concession which down the road will be his own undoing. The most ridiculous concession he agreed to was that any member of the House, I am sure he meant only GOP members, can force a no confidence vote of his leadership. That places him in a real bind going forward because anything he does which upsets the far right can and, most likely, will lead to a no confidence roll call. I would say that it must be difficult to lead a legislative agenda when your own party members are pointing a gun at your heart. But any candidate who still chases a position after a string of thirteen humiliating defeats isn’t one who has a backbone or the courage to say that enough is enough and I am dropping out of the race. McCarthy is suffering of a serious illness which I will call ‘unbridled ambition’. The great playwright Shakespeare considers it a disruptive force leading to mental imbalance and poor judgment. I expect that McCarthy’s term of House Speaker, if he gets it, will be brief and unsuccessful.

Republican are in the middle of a total mess trying to elect McCarthy to be the next Speaker of the House. There have been eight row calls and each time McCarthy didn’t receive the required 218 votes. A block of twenty holdouts has been the obstacle preventing McCarthy from getting the Speaker gavel. Now the vast majority of Republicans are up in arms because these twenty far right legislators refuse to budge even though many party leadership concessions have come their way. Even Trump’s call for party unity and the need to elect McCarthy has fallen on their deaf ears. They seem to realize that they appear to have much more clout than their small number deserves. We must not forget that they were hoisted into prominence by the far right media apparatus. They were hailed as fighters for democracy when they refused to accept the 2020 presidential election result. Even the dubious involvement by some of them in the Jan 6th Capital attack was never criticized. FOX News and the NY Post repeatedly made them out to be true American patriots and heroes. No wonder they feel they can do as they please since they have the support of the MAGA base. We see now that the GOP is broken and will be unable to be an effective legislative body even after they finally end up with someone in the Speaker position. Seeing this House clown show playing out into its third day, many Republican voters must now question the candidate quality of those they elected to the House. Hopefully, they will learn to make better choices in 2024.

I agree that an individual’s tax filings shouldn’t be released without a serious reason to do so. Since it became a norm for presidents to release their tax information only Trump refused to do so. Frequently he was stating that he would like to do so but that they were under an IRS audit. Now we know that his Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin had instructed the IRS Commissioner not to audit Trump’s tax returns as required by law. A sitting US President’s tax returns are to be audited every year. That wasn’t done in Trump’s case. In the past years some details of Trump’s taxes have seen the light of day. They painted a picture of heavy business losses due to over inflated assets and vitally no taxes being paid. Now that the Select Committee made his taxes public it confirms many past suspicions of carelessness in tax preparation or even deliberate cheating. The released tax information shows a span of substantial losses followed by some years of high income. But the accumulated losses wipe out much of the higher income and result in very littles taxes being paid. It is a game only the super wealthy can play if they are unscrupulous and willing to risk an IRS audit. But we know that the rich are audited at a much lower percentage than the average citizen and if an individual even has a guarantee of not being audited, you most likely can expect some dubious tax filings to occur.

Now that newly elected Representative George Santos has been exposed as a candidate who had run on a totally fraudulent resume, he has come up with the most incredible explanation that it was merely a slight embellishment of his employment and education experience. The real fact is that the whole resume is a work of fiction. representative Santos has no degree from Baruch College, never worked for the Citigroup or Goldman Sachs and his grandparents didn’t suffer religious persecution. He made it all up in order to appear a more qualified candidate than he was. Santos was quick to point out that his lies weren’t criminal offenses and that is true but what does it tell us about his character? It seems that lying is easy for him, ethical behavior is a foreign concept and the only thing of importance is to win. Even now the GOP leadership has not condemned his actions. But here is where I see the real damage having been done by his unscrupulous conduct. George Santos deceived the voters in his district. How many voted for him based on his fictitious resume? We will never know but I am sure that many did. George Santos has broken the public trust and we must never forgive him for doing so. iF he had a shred of integrity he would resign his position but I doubt that he will. Since Santos represents the Republican party, my side bar opinion is that the GOP seems to accept that you can lie on your resume, lie about your taxes, lie about election results and has thus elevated lying to be a normal way to conduct business.

I shall go out on the limb and state what I see in my crystal ball for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. I expect hat Trump, DeSantis and Pence will definitely be nominees while one or two others like Cruz or Pompeo may test the waters. The campaigns by those in the running will be a mud slinging contest like we have never ever seen before. Trump will be himself but DeSantis and Pence can’t afford to hold back and must join him in the dirty trenches. As a result, I see a serious split developing in the GOP ranks. The die hard Trump cult will not drop their idol but many who may like his policies will switch to DeSantis since he is a more polished version of Trump. Pence may end up with support of those who claim to be traditional and conservative Republicans. Now here is the shocking twist I foresee, once Trump realizes that winning the GOP candidacy is an elusive goal, he will not drop out because his hyper inflated ego won’t permit him to do that. Instead, he will announce that he is running as an Independent since the GOP lost its way and no longer willing to Make America Great Again. .That will fracture the party into, at least, two sizeable factions and give them no chance to recapture the White House in 2024. But the real consequence of what I predict is that it will make the GOP irrelevant for years to come.

Now that we see the details of all the evidence collected by the Select Committee there is no doubt that Trump and his fellow conspirators must face justice. Trump must be indicted for his role in attempting to cling to power against the wishes of the voters. The fact that the nation is divided into two political camps shouldn’t weigh in on that decision. We must always remember that we are a nation of laws and no individual shall be above the law no matter what previous government position they may have held. We must ignore the far right noise that indicting Trump will lead to massive street protests and potential violence. I myself doubt seriously that the vast majority of the public will react that way. Certainly some misguided individuals who still hold the notion that Trump won the election will protest but it will be such small group that it really won’t matter in the larger picture. The DOJ has a job to do and should focus on the law and its interpretation and not be guided by ‘what if’ considerations. I see no graceful exit ramp which should be offered to Trump. He must be prosecuted to the full extend of the law.

Tody, December 19, 2022, will be remembered since the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2020 Capital attack has concluded its investigation and voted unanimously to send a criminal referral to the Department of Justice for further action. That referral is a formal recommendation that the DOJ explore potential criminal charges against former president Trump and others. The Committee identified four areas of misconduct: 1. Obstruction of an official proceeding, 2. Conspiracy to defraud the United States, 3. Conspiracy to make false statement and 4. Incite and assist an insurrection. In my estimation the one of inciting and assisting in an insurrection is the most critical one since it was an attempt aimed at the heart of our democracy. The others mentioned in the referral are Trump lawyers John Eastman and Rudi Giuliani, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and House members Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and Andy Biggs. What is particularly damning for all of them is that they were fully aware that their actions were illegal. You can’t run around repeatedly claiming that an election was stolen without ever substantiating with with evidence. You can’t dismiss official state electors at a whim and select a slate of them you expect to do as you wish. In a country of law and order that is criminal behavior. I expect the DOJ to move quickly since the Select Committee is turning over to the department all witness testimony they recorded, mobile phone texts and emails they gathered and actual sound and video bites those individuals shared in public forums.

A huge corruption scandal has engulfed the European Parliament. Eva Kaili, one of fourteen Vice Presidents in the European Parliament, has been arrested on corruption charges. She has a degree in architecture, studied at Harvard and is a representative in the Greek Parliament. She rose quickly in Greek politics as a voice of the middle class. But if the allegations are substantiated it will show that she has become a money hungry politician willing to be bought at the right price. There have been whispers in Greece that Kaili had close contacts with Russian Oligarchs and Qatar Sheiks. She is the owner of six houses, three cars and bags of money were found at her Brussels apartment. She most likely isn’t the only example of immorality of people in power. Her arrest has resulted in a thorough investigation of other European politicians who may be involved in a plot to bring the Soccer World Cup to Qatar.

Products are considered to be items manufactured or refined to be sold to the consumer base. But now one item can be added to that list which doesn’t meet that criteria and that is bullshit. I apologize for using such common folk expression for stupid, misleading, deceptive and nonsensical speech. Now this product isn’t sold in stores but you can easily acquire it on the WEB and you don’t even have to pay for it. FOX, NEWSMAX, QAnon, Truth Social, Parler and Twitter have been peddling it in their daily operations for a long time. It must be said that I find it difficult to comprehend why bullshit has such great appeal to so many. Why are people not seeing that they are being conned, played as fools and being bombarded with one sided messaging. I have come to the conclusion that they must be in agreement with what is being peddled and therefore their sale of that dubious product will continue.

My grandsons like to tease me and call me a Relic or Fossil since I am 80 years old. But many of you much younger than I will remember many of the things which seem to disappear from our politics. One of the greatest gifts of a democracy is that we citizens can elect those who will lead us at the city, county, state and federal level. In past elections those who were registered voters went to the polls and after all the votes were counted the individual who had the majority was the winner. The loser of the election then made a concession speech, congratulated the winner and wished him well. That was done even if polls had predicted a different outcome and the the underdog had won. But look what we have now. The loser will offer no concession speech stating that he lost, will immediately imply that there must have been election fraud and go as far as to claim that the election was stolen from him. Unfortunately that behavior is practiced by losing Republican candidates as some form of strategy I fail to comprehend. I do miss the days when election results were accepted in a gracious manner. When voters paid attention to candidate credentials and experience and ethics and moral attitude had a meaning. I do wish we can overturn the current political turmoil and return to our normal voting behavior of the past!

I am not surprised that Kanye West and Nick Fuentes were invited to dine with Trump at Mar-A-Lago. Afterall, they pretty share much the same views. West is known to express his anti-sematic stance at every opportunity and Fuentes is the loudest holocaust denier in the universe. Given that Trump has a security detail his story that they just showed up is ridiculous. They never would have made it past security unless Trump wished to see them. All of Trump’s backtracking now is driven by the fact that a few Republicans have spoken out that the dinner with those guys represents poor optics for someone who is now a 2024 presidential candidate. However, many Republicans fail to criticize Trump for hosting these two far right loonies. My guess is that Trump is aware of his slipping pole numbers and invited them to shore up his base support. He didn’t expect that he was going against public opinion until it was pointed out to him. Well, the damage is done. We all clearly see that Trump is as biased as his buddies. No stream of Trump denials will ever convince me otherwise.

Historically dog whistle is a term used for coded racial messages to gain support of white voters leading up to elections. That type of political messaging was introduced in 1964 by Barry Goldwater, the GOP presidential candidate, when he began railing against federally mandated school segregation on the grounds that is was destroying state rights. Since then the Republican party has included coded racial messaging as an election strategy. Trump as a candidate in 2016 perfected dog whistle politics and made it a crucial part of his speeches and advertisements. Let us be honest and admit that whenever Trump spoke about Law and Order he was inherently saying that black and brown people overwhelmingly represented criminal elements. His comments about government social programs were nothing more than statements that minorities were lazy and unwilling to help themselves. Trump’s comments on Tough on Crime were just simple rewording of his Law and Order messages. You can also safely say that Trump’s messages that freedom of religion was being destroyed had racial undertones since religious bigotry is serving to mask racial bigotry. Therefore it should be no surprise to anyone what white nationalism was inflamed by Trump and has become a danger to national unity.

Many individuals who served in the Trump administration are finding out that its mention on their resume as they seek employment isn’t a job offer guarantee. They are encountering difficulties reestablishing their careers in the post Trump area. Much has to do with Trump’s drop in popularity driven by his constant whining about various grievances he feels he experienced. That stain of having served Trump impacts those the most who look at academia for employment opportunities. Generally the faculties and student bodies of Universities are more liberal and object to individuals who they perceive as being on the far right of the political spectrum. I must confess that I am not distressed by their misfortune since they knew the man and the way he ran his administration.

The nation’s Attorney General Garland has decided to appoint a Special Prosecutor to continue investigating Trump’s role in inciting the Capital attack and his illegal possession of classified documents. As expected. rank and file Republicans call it a witch hunt against their idol Trump. Meanwhile Democrats are divided over that decision. Some believe that it will delay potential prosecution of Trump while others feel that the person chosen for the job Jack Smith will act quickly and decisively. Smith is a former Chief Prosecutor of the special court of The Hague and has a reputation to be fearless in the pursuit of justice. Personally I like the appointment of a Special Prosecutor and I expect him to begin his investigation immediately. The DOJ has already collected much information leading up to the appointment and the Select Committee is an additional data source with their extensive witness testimonies. I feel optimistic that Trump will be held accountable for his actions. My optimism is based on the fact that Special Counsel Mueller in his investigation wasn’t given no power to prosecute Trump but Jack Smith has the right to do so. Let us all remember that the wheels of justice turn slowly but they do turn. I predict that the outcome of this Special Counsel investigation will not be to Trump’s liking!

The pitch Republicans used before the midterm election was that they were ready to take on all of the nation’s problems with inflation, immigration, gas prices, border security and crime being the focal points. However, in their first press conference called after their narrow win of House control their focus shifted to the immediate need to launch an investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Now this is the same party that had full control of the House after the 2016 election and, as I remember, Hunter’s laptop wasn’t on their priority list of things to get done. Once again, the GOP succeeded in duping the American public into believing that they cared about hard working Americans. I seriously doubt that Hunter’s laptop has critical and important information on how to combat inflation, fight crime, control immigration and secure our borders. I suspect that Republicans are merely on a revenge mission directed by former president Trump against his perceived enemies. It all strikes me as a gross political stunt to appease their right wing followers. I welcome them to tear apart the laptop, analyze all data to their hearts content as long as they provide an honest account of what they discovered. My guess is that the result will be a huge zero. I do find it incomprehensible that many citizens keep on falling for GOP swindles and trickery around each election time.

Without doubt House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been a political force in national politics. The was the first female Speaker of the House and became a dominant figure for the ages. However, let us not forget that she also has been a huge supporter of social issues important to all Americans. She has served under four Presidents and readily admits that she had great working relationships with former Presidents Bush and Obama and now President Biden. What I admire most about her is her ability to bring legislation to a floor vote only after she was absolutely convinced that she had the votes for it to pass. Now that she chose to step down as Democratic party leader she is being attacked by far right Republicans while those who served with her will grudgingly admit that she was good at her job. The real appreciation of her role as House power broker will come after she retires as the House Representative of her California district in two years.

If former VP ever thought that his townhall meeting would change peoples opinion of him, he was dead wrong. Here is an individual who wraps himself in the flag of religion and the Constitution but when history called on him to act, he failed miserably. Yes, he did certify the state electoral count as his vice presidential duties required him to do but he failed to disclose to the American public and law organizations that democracy was in danger of being usurped by the White House. Sure, he is giving us his spin that he was angry that his life and that of his family members was threatened but we know that even today he isn’t condemning election result deniers. Heck, he even campaigned for some of them. Pence in spite of his efforts to whitewash his WH complicity in the Jan 2021 event isn’t the knight in shining armor he pretends to be. I believe that he knows that Trump’s 2024 candidacy will fail and he appears to be hoping that Republican conservative forces will reach out to him as we approach 2024. Instinct tells me that Pence might as well bury his political aspirations now. Trump followers will always see him as a traitor to their cause while the public sees through his political balancing act. Pence’s political career is toast. Nothing he will try to do will resurrect it! I am glad he is done.

Trump stated that his announcement would be one of epic proportion in US history. Well, it failed miserably to live up to expectation as his followers had hoped. It was a staged event lacking energy, failed to dazzle, was not attended by GOP leaders and well known donors with deep pockets. It was a ho hum affair when you depend on the Pillow Guy Lindell and disgraced Roger Stone who Trump pardoned to be the main draw. Sure, his tent membership is singing praises today but without the support of influential individuals within the party, the Trump train will become nothing more than a wreck. Even individuals like Gaetz, Graham and Lake who today claim to be all in for him, didn’t attend the event. Heck, even his daughter Ivanka seems to be cool to the idea of him running judging form her comment that she will no longer participate in politics. If Trump thought that his announcement would lead to a clear path to his presidential candidate nomination, I believe that he is totally mistaken.. His main rival and challenger to lead the GOP, Gov DeSantis has momentum and a substantial following as well. Trump won’t be able to resist being who he is and attack the Governor in the meanest ways. The result will be that Trump fractures the party beyond repair or Republicans will get tired of his antics and move toward DeSantis. I shall have great fun as an observer watching those two slug it out. I don’t see Cruz, Pence or Haley being serious GOP challengers to Trump or DeSantis for 2024 at all.

It is expected that Trump will announce today or tomorrow that he plans to be a presidential candidate in the 2024 election. I too believe that he will since his ego forces him to do so. Trump has pushed aside the notion that he carries a heavy burden for the GOP’s poor showing in the midterm election. He fails to recognize that many in the party see Gov DeSantis as a better Republican candidate in 2024. He ignores that Murdoch who owns FOX has stated that he will no longer support Trump. He appears to listen only to those around him who echo what he wants to hear. I really don’t mind Trump making what he terms to be a historic announcement since I am convinced that his political career is over. Yes, he will hold campaign rallies and many of his MAGA crown will attend and cheer him on. But in no time Trump will find out that he is hitting the wall of reality. And for him it will be that his large super rich donor base of the past is deserting him. We all know that in our current political climate money is the lubricant which keeps campaigns going and this expected money drain will impact him drastically. So here is my prediction of what I see happening: ” Trump fears to be become a two time election loser. As his support dwindles, he will come up with some ridiculous explanation that he is dropping his campaign.’. When that day arrives, all citizens of our great country should rejoice and celebrate.

The dust hasn’t quite settled on the 2022 midterm election yet but we know for certain that the GOP predicted tsunami turned into a mere trickle. Democrats kept control of the Senate and even if Republicans gain control of the house their very slim majority means that nothing will get done in the next two years. But to me the most important result of this election was that all candidates who were election deniers that President Biden won in 2020 were soundly defeated. That tells me that our citizens saw the threat to democracy that these candidates represented. Of course, some Republicans will claim that fraud occurred in close midterm elections lost by them but that GOP pitch has lost its credibility. One must realize that the poor Republican election results have unleashed other trends within their party which may be difficult to manage going forward. Many of them are directly blaming Trump for losses since he insisted on supporting some incompetent candidates. DeSantis in Florida has emerged as a more polished Mini-Trump who will lay claim to be the party leadership. Mitch McConnell’s role as GOP power broker is most likely ending. However, I don’t see Trump giving up on trying to be relevant in politics yet. His ego will not permit him to acknowledge that his hold on the party has been diminished. He will continue to blame everyone else for mistakes he made and thus cause strife within the party. I see that potential conflict to be a great Blue party advantage as we begin looking at the 2024 election. It is also worth noting that Americans opposed GOP initiatives to restrict women rights in many states. The sad part is that we will still be a divided nation for some time. Trumptism took a hit but it won’t disappear over night. We must continue to guard our democracy, not permit a platform based on hate, ensure that our elections maintain integrity and above all, ensure that our elected officials appoint judges who aren’t political hacks.

A law suit is the right of a citizen to bring a dispute to a court of law for adjudication. The law clearly states that frivolous law suits will be thrown out of court and attorneys filing them may suffer consequences. Trump has filed many of them for no other purpose but to delay impending legal actions against him. That is exactly what he is doing now by filing a law suit against the Select Committee’s subpoena seeking his testimony in regards to his involvement in the January 2021 attack on the Capital. Now why would an innocent person refuse to appear in front of the Committee? That makes me wonder what Trump refuses to reveal under oath? I expect that this law suit will be another blow to him by being thrown out of court. Trump’s hope is that it will reach SCOTUS and the four biased GOP Judges will rule in his favor. But that won’t happen because the court now realizes that it has lost the public’s trust and only objective and fair rulings in the future may restore some of what has been lost.

The 2020 and 2022 elections have definitely confirmed that all the poll information thrown at us by the news media is faulty, wrong and doesn’t predict anything anymore. I suspect that there are many reasons for poll accuracy declines. On top of my list would be that companies collecting polling information target only a small segment of the population and only those who will echo what they wish to hear. There is no longer any unbiased polling effort but only focused propaganda in an attempt to convince voters to vote a certain way. Secondly, it is true in my case, we are all tired of advertising fatigue and have reached a point that if we don’t recognize phone number calling us, we don’t answer anymore. You can also say that the huge reduction in land lines has added to that phenomena. I never voted based on any poll information and I encourage all to do the same.

There is no doubt that Gen Z voter support made Presidents Biden’s defeat of Trump possible in 2020 and they again came to the polls in record numbers in the midterm election to stop a potential RED WAVE. We define Gen Z as individuals born from 1997 to 2012. They represent racially and ethnically the most diverse group of Americans. It is estimated that their profile is 52% White, 25% Hispanic, 14% Black and 6% Asian. Gen Z is socially much more engaged than previous generations. They focus on healthcare, higher education, economic security, mental health, race equality, civic engagement and the environment. As a whole they are opposed to many GOP policies like lack of gun control legislation, restricting voting rights, opposing any kind of abortion and being told what they can read. The Democratic party must realize that Gen Z will be a powerful voting block for years to come. Thus it makes sense for the Democratic party leadership to listen to their voices. But only to listen will not be sufficient. Democratic policies must reflect solutions to some of their concerns. Republicans are now aware of the Gen Z voting power and are already suggesting ridiculous proposals like raising the voting age to 21. Just contemplate what they are suggesting. Vote at 21 but at 18 you can run obtain and run about with automatic weapons and young pregnant girls must give birth even if they were raped or in cases of incest. To me it is clear which party I will support and that means that I stand with Gen Z.

Even though Trump’s name didn’t appear on any election ballot in any state, he had endorsed a number of Republican politicians. many lost and, yes, some won. But his biggest threat to his path to be the GOP presidential candidacy Gov. De Santis won overwhelmingly in Florida. By a margin which seems to indicate that he is the current favorite of the GOP right wing and since he has stated that he is interested in making a run in 2024 for president it changes the dynamics for Trump. No matter how Trump and his MAGA crown will try to spin the results of the election it was certainly a disastrous performance for them. The RED wave didn’t materialize. Of course, the potential BLUE wave too was nonexistent. Mamy results are still undecided and the control of the House and Senate is still up in the air. The electorate did not vote for many election deniers who ran for governorships and it was a huge night for abortion rights. The great voter response on Generation Z is a positive development for Democrats in future elections. Trump must really be disappointed that his arch enemy NY AG Leticia James won her election by a landslide. It will result in continuous legal hassles for him and his family. I look forward to Trump’s announced public statement planned for later this week. Trumpism is loosing its shine but there is no way he can admit that!

I( find it difficult to comprehend how so many Republicans can so simply ignore the weird direction their party is taking. They have election deniers running for political offices in state elections, see nothing wrong with a former president hoarding classified documents in his private residence, refuse to accept that the inflation rate is international and tied to Putin’s war, don’t see the treat to democracy do to some election policy changes, and are willing to accept outbreaks of violence if election results go against them. I am willing to accept that many Republicans aren’t comfortable to vote for Democrats since we now appear to live in a country where the better candidate isn’t a lock to win anymore. But would they vote for totally unqualified candidates like Walker, Oz, Greene, Boebert or others from the extreme right. I suggest that sane Republicans just skip voting next Tuesday so they can claim later on that they had no part of the GOP destroying our nation if they should gain control!

Yesterday Trump issued a response to the Select Committee’s subpoena to provide testimony in regards to his activities on Jan 6,2020. The three page letter began with his belief that the presidential election was stolen from him and goes on to list various grievances which exist in his mind. In reading the letter I find it hard to believe that his lawyers had much input to it. What is clear is that it reflects the thoughts of a person suffering grand hallucinations and substantial self delusion. There is no way that Trump will appear before the Committee. The risk that he will inadvertently self incriminate himself, make a partial admission of guilt or even commit perjury is too great. Trump knows that much witness testimony states that he knew he had lost the election but went ahead with his plans to remain in power at all costs. His only option is to continue to muddy the waters with his list of false and erroneous allegations. However, I believe that the majority of the public is seeing through his maneuvering and has begun to tune him out!

Additional information provided today at the Select Committee hearing leave no doubt that Trump and his minions fabricated the big lie that the election was stolen and orchestrated the attack on the Capital on Jan 6, 2020. Since Republican politicians can’t deny the mountain of available evidence with virtually all having been provided by Trump insiders, they have no other choice but to attack the committee. That move won’t make the evidence disappear or make it less credible. The GOP is in a bind. They stayed tied to Trump after he left the White House, repeated lies about election fraud and maintained support for political candidates who made ill advised racial and anti- semetic comments. Even as Trump claimed today that the committee should have asked him to appear to be questioned. What a cruel joke. He had the opportunity for many moths to volunteer to be questioned by the committee, Did he do what any innocent person falsely accused would have done? NO, he only kept calling witness testimony to be a hoax and fake news. Well, we the public now have the option to believe that was presented in all the hearings and compare it to the rants and threats coming from the right. The next election is closely at hand and we must vote and vote wisely to safe our democracy.

I find it hard to believe that in Georgia it was sufficient to be a former football player and Trump buddy to win a GOP Senate primary. However, now Herschel Walker has hit a very rough patch in his campaign. More and more Georgia voters are dumbfounded by his string of erratic comments and of alleged domestic abuse. Walker may try the Trump tactic to deny, deny and deny all allegations. The fact that they are being made by his son isn’t so easy to ignore. I suspect that the tactic of denial may not work since the spotlight is squarely on him and further negative issues may emerge. Georgie voters need to remember that a great football player can become a terrible unqualified Senator. Are you willing to take that chance?

After the 2020 elections many Republicans questioned the results and that included some of their own politicians who had one. In addition to claiming voter fraud there was also the accusation that the voting equipment had been manipulated. Even now many who had won in federal and state elections remain election result deniers. Politicians who openly in their campaign ads and personal appearances state that President Biden didn’t win the election. Of course, that is a terrible stance to still maintain four years after the presidential election. It undercuts the integrity of our democratic voting process. But there is one point which must be brought out which is rarely mentioned and that is that all GOP election winners have never raised concerns about the accuracy of the equipment when it comes to their voter totals. In all of our states the elections were held on the same day, in each state it was the same state specific ballot and they were all using the same equipment. That is why it is plain nuts for election deniers to still play an old tune which they know is a lie!

Every day the GOP Senate candidate in Georgia proves to the world how unqualified he is. Herschel Walker won the Republican primary based on Trump’s recommendation even though many party insiders questioned Walker’s appeal to the full Georgia voter base. Now that Walker is out campaigning his obvious shortcomings are proven daily. All he seems to offer the voters are a string of gaffes, list of lies and discombobulating comments. He claimed to have a background in law enforcement which was immediately debunked as a lie. He rants against climate change on the basis that we already have too many trees. He opposes the Inflation Recovery Act even though it benefits the general public. Now we even know that his anti abortion stance is nothing more than catering to extreme Christian groups and he has lied and is hypocritical on that topic. I just can’t see any voter whos wishes to have an effective Senator from Georgia would even consider this deeply flawed candidate. Voters in Georgia have a choice between a Democrat without unpleasant baggage versus an unqualified Trump pick. Georgians chose wisely!

Trump when he implied that the FBI may have planted documents during their legal visit to Mar-a-Lago to reclaim government documents was playing with fire. Special master Judge Dearie saw right through Trump’s wild accusation and basically told Trump’s legal team to shut up or provide proof for that dubious claim. As a result, the legal team filed another brief in which they rely on much nonsense which was included in Judge Cannon’s ruling agreeing to insertion of a special master to review all documents. It is extremely foolhardy to present an argument based on a judge whose ruling was roundly criticized for being biased and not based on legal norms. Of course, Trump threw that false claim out as red meat for his minions who believe anything he tells them. It was a pitiful act of deflection from the the fact of the burning question on why he took classified documents to his residence to begin with. None of his lackeys justifying Trump’s behavior of treating state secrets in such careless manner has provided an insight to that question. All I can say is that what has happened to Trump is what all mothers have warned us against when we were young. Never play with fire because you may get burned. Well, Trump got burned and he well deserved it since he follows very poor legal advice provided by his corps of incompetent lawyers.

The revelations on Sixty Minutes yesterday by former Republican congressman Riggleman were disturbing and placed Trump’s former WH Chief of Staff in the center of the effort to overthrow our democracy. It sure looks like Meadows was the direct link to QAnon and white supremacists in the violent coup attempt, the fake elector plot and the attempt to seize voting machines. No wonder that Meadows asked Trump to grant him a pardon before he left office. My guess is that Riggleman touched only the surface of what I expect to hear this coming Wednesday at the Select Committee hearing. They no doubt are in possession of incriminating emails and phone records which will shed additional light on these shady dealings intended to keep Trump in power over the expressed will of the people. I especially look forward to evidence the committee has received in regards to the role many Secret Service agents had leading up and on the day of the Jan 6, 2020 insurrection. That information will dispel the notion that only a few were involved but paint a picture of a wide spread conspiracy orchestrated by a former president. I expect that after Wednesday many of the GOP House and Senate members who have denied Trump’s involvement will have to make some hard decisions. Will they continue to oppose the mountain of evidence which is being accumulated or finally break with Trump’s treasonous behavior? Of course, I fear that their collective conscience hasn’t bothered them up to now and will not in the future.

In today’s television address to the nation Putin railed against the west and ordered 300000 reservists to immediately report for active military duty. He repeated his old lies that NATO pursued an anti-Russia policy and had even threatened Russia with nuclear aggression. That is blatantly false. It is Putin who in his speech threatened western nations with his use of nuclear weapons. I take Putin’s posturing as a clear sign that he plans to continue his aggression in Ukraine. All countries supporting Ukraine’s fight for freedom and peace must continue their support of it. They can not waver or get weary of doing so. Yes, Putin’s rage will have a political and economic impact to them but any fight for freedom and liberty requires sacrifice. Countries must not get intimidated by Putin’s threats since they are a sign of his weakness. The war in Ukraine is going poorly for him and slowly the Russian public is beginning to speak up against it. Secondly Russian legislators suddenly have courage to criticise Putin’s handling of the conflict. Possibly Putin senses that his position in the Kremlin is shaky and he wishes to affirm to Russians that he still is the strongman they can count on.

The saga about the secret government documents at Mar-a-Lago continuous to make headlines. Much of it is due to Trump’s legal maneuvering which seems to be counterproductive to their client. The Trump team was overjoyed when Judge Cannon bent over backwards to rule that Trump was entitled to a Special Master to review all documents. One candidate nominated for that role was former Federal Judge Dearie. He was accepted by the DOJ and Trump’s legal advisors. Judge Dearie served 36 years on the bench and has an excellent reputation. In his capacity as Special Master the judge began asking a number of tough questions and established a rigid timeline to be followed. The one question which riled up Trump’s team was his request to be given information on the claim that the former President had declassified documents. Suddenly Trump’s lawyers refused to provide that information on the basis that they wish to keep it as a possible defense if Trump is indicted. That all means that Trump got what he wanted but now doesn’t like what he got because Judge Dearie is doing his job. It shows me that the judge is the right person for this assignment since he isn’t willing to ruin his reputation the way Judge Cannon did by showing favoritism for Trump’s case. Hail to a Judge Dearie determined to do his sworn duty and uphold the law and the Constitution.

Judge Cannon’s ruling from last Thursday proves without doubt that it is legal stupidity and a profoundly partisan expression of her strong Trump support. In a sense, you might think she is a clandestine member of Trump’s defense team. Her ruling was full of speculation and raised dubious issues that has no place in her ruling. The bottom line is that she totally went against our core judicial principle that no one is above the law by openly stating that Trump, as a former president, deserved special treatment. But that is not all, she went on to say that she questions the secret level classifications of these documents by our government agencies. Even Trump’s defense team never questioned that point. She expressed her belief that the immediate requirement to review the documents by the DOJ isn’t necessary since she sees no danger to our national security if delayed. By also stating that Special Master Dearie has until 11/30/2022 to finish his work, she is shielding the GOP from the emergence of unpleasant information which would imperil their election prospects in November. Clearly the Judge has shown bias in her rulings and thus she is unqualified to be a federal judge. It is not too much to expect a judge to be fair and disconnected from the politics of the day, she has absolutely failed in that regard. Her reputation is now stained for the rest of her judicial career.

For a long time Republican lawmakers have tried to fool voters about their true intensions about abortions. But now based on Senators Graham’s and Rubio’s comments we now know that they are pursuing a federal mandate outlawing abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Former VP Pence even went so far yesterday as to suggest that an abortion ban is more important than short term political initiatives. Other Republicans like Kari Lake and Glenn Younkin suggest extreme views that would criminalize abortions with no exceptions for rape and incest and a ban would be in effect from time of conception. The GOP rhetoric has moved from the abortion issue is settled precedent to the Supreme Court repealing Wade vs Roe and moving abortion decisions to the states to now aiming for a national ban. It is now crystal clear that they are on a full assault on women rights to make their own decisions over their bodies. Clearly their efforts must be blocked and the best way to accomplish it is by voting in November for Democratic candidates. Only your vote stands between the GOP future for women and their freedom of choice. Please have us vote in November to send the strongest possible message to the GOP that they are out of touch with the time we live in now.

Now that it appears that the secret government documents seized at Mar-a-Lago included one on sensitive nuclear technology, I wonder how that fact may have a correlation with General Flynn’s plan to sell such technology to Saudi Arabia. In early 2019 the General hatched a plan to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to that country. At that time General Flynn was the US National Security Advisor to the Trump administration. His plan seemed to have the blessing of Trump and was strongly supported by his son in law Jared Kushner. The plan became a point of contention when career national security officials pointed out that having such technology could lead to a nuclear weapons program by the Saudis. It is worth noting that there are strict regulations in place for the transfer of nuclear capabilities to another nation. The plan called for ways to by pass these regulations. Only after General Flynn was fired from his position and General McMaster became the National Security Advisor was that effort shut down. I find it very suspicious that of all the documents Trump had in his possession it included the nuclear technology stuff he was willing to transfer to Saudi Arabia. This seems to be an odd coincidence indeed but I don’t believe in coincidences with common links. It does bring up again that unanswered question what was the real reason for Trump to have these documents. They are of great value to a number of countries and Mar-a-Lago and its locked storage room wouldn’t be much of a barrier for foreign intelligence agents to breach if they became aware that these documents were there.

The legal case against Trump by the DOJ of his improper handling of classified government documents and wrongful possession as a private citizen was challenged by his lawyers in court. They requested that a Special Master be appointed to review all documents identified by the DOJ as being in the secret category. This important case with national security implications was given to Judge Aileen Cannon. She made the controversial ruling granting Trump the right to review the documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago. Judge Cannon is a low profile judge with limited legal experience given her young age. Subsequent to her ruling many legal experts and scholars, including Trump’s own former AG Barr. stated that it isn’t based on law or any legal theory but appears to be strictly politically motivated. Her intent appears to be to assure Trump enablers that she will do everything she can to shield Trump from prosecution. Given that the DOJ has filed a court order challenging her ruling, she now has another opportunity to serve the American people in an unbiased way and let the case proceed on the prosecutors terms. We can’t be cavalier or sugar coat Trump’s actions since they do represent a risk to our national security.

It is a well known fact that politicians are known for adjusting previously held positions but the flip flops being done by members of the Republican party are absolutely amazing. We all remember that they overwhelmingly joined Trump in claiming that the 2020 election was stolen due to serious election fraud. A claim which lacked evidence and was thrown out many times in various court challenges. Remember as well how they gloated when the SCOTUS judge majority reversed the 50 year old Roe vs Wade decision. They were all for anti abortion legislation and thus against women rights. And when it came to the Infrastructure bill which has major benefits to every American in every state none of them voted for it. Many of them had also endorsed the actions of the Proud Boys in the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the Capital and even called them patriots. But suddenly all of them running in the midterm election as candidates for House and Senate seats recognized that their past comments go against the winds of public opinion. So they in unison decided that political expediency called for a shift in their positions. They are all now very busy scrubbing their election Internet sites of all information reflecting their past positions. However, I am convinced that the majority of Americans see right through their deception. They really haven’t changed their positions at all, they are merely pretending to have done so. They are hoping that we fall for their new posturing ploy and display of false virtue. Right now they are playing the same game in regard to Trump’s theft of secret government documents. They are all yelling that is an overreach by the DOJ and FBI while ignoring the fact that no former president has the right to keep these documents at his private residence. I am convinced as more information becomes available and we will learn indeed that some of these documents refer to nuclear technology and human resources on the ground, they will again resort to their flip flop game. But, we as citizens, must remember that their changing positions are really an indication of questionable moral standards and lack of commitment to their beliefs.

Mostly Republican legislators remained silent or offered illogical reasons for Trump to have kept secret government documents at his Mar a Lago residence. But suddenly a GOP voice is speaking out which can’t be ignored. That is the voice of former Trump AG Barr. We know that when Barr was in office he used all his cunning to twist the law in Trump’s favor and thus was his legal henchman. Barr’s recent interviews in which he states that there was no reason of any kind for Trump to have such important documents at his residence indicates the seriousness of that offense. Many intelligence officers have chimed in that having these documents in a poorly secured facility exposed the nation to potential harm by our enemies. Barr went even further by outright stating that Trump’s actions may meet the bar to be considered crimes. We must also remember that it isn’t only the data in these documents which is of great use to foreign parties but the methods in which the data was acquired by us. Was it collected by human resources on the ground who painstakingly passed it on to us. Obviously foreign intelligence services are now tightening their security protocols and are most likely hunting for potential subjects. But even if the data wasn’t provided by human resources it provides key intelligence to our enemies. They will fully scrutinize the protective shield covering their secret documents to determine if we intercepted critical transmissions or what other means we had at our disposal to gain their secret information. Trump being in possession of high level intelligence documents isn’t a cavalier offense to be minimized. We must know who were all the individuals who had contact with them as they made their way from the White House to Mar a Lago? Who did Trump show them to since he had a history of bragging about many things which should not have been mentioned in private and public meetings? Trump’s behavior in regards to secret documents wasn’t just plain carelessness but potential serious risk exposure of intelligence assets.

I shall not rehash what led to the legal search of former president Trump’s residence in Florida but stay on the fact that 11 top secret government documents were recovered by the FBI. At least one was at the top classification level of TS/SCI. Since the list of recovered items was made public by the Justice Department Republicans have tried several tactics to explain away the reality that such documents should never have left government facilities. Their first and broadly publicized ludicrous explanation was that the FBI agents executing the search had planted documents to embarrass Trump. Now that is so absurd that it requires no further words. The second explanation was that Trump had issued a verbal command that all documents leaving the White House are to be considered declassified. That would be totally ignoring the formal process which exists to declassify top secret papers. Then came the inconceivable spin that in the chaotic Trump exit from the White House some classified documents were erroneously placed in moving boxes and thus ended up in Florida. All top secret documents are clearly marked and dated and such mistake is implausible. Then came to the whopper that all these documents were misclassified and of no importance. Now that is so unrealistic that you question the mental health of the person who brought it up. My opinion is that these top secret documents were at Mar-a-Lago by design and not because of some moving mix up. Then of course we have to ask ourselves what was the purpose of having them there? Having such important documents in a private residence is certainly a risk since they could get lost or stolen and thus endanger national security. Only Trump knows what he had planned to do with these very high level documents. But now that they are in the possession of the FBI I expect that forensic document experts will have a field day analyzing them for finger prints.

Trump’s removal of government documents after he left office has exploded into a national crisis. The approved search of his residence wasn’t announced by the Justice department but Trump himself announced it to the public. The National Archive administration had raised the issue that Trump was in possession of government documents which should not be in his residence. They recovered most of them but later it was determined that for some unknown reason Trump was still holding on to some. Subsequent efforts to recover them failed because Trump and his staff dragged out their return. Given the sensitivity of some of the documents the government had no choice but to act decisively to force their recovery. Even though Trump was in possession of the search warrant his legal staff initially denied having a copy and also claimed that they could not oversee the search in progress. Only after the DOJ stated that they would make the warrant public, did the Trump lawyer acknowledge that they were given the warrant and that Trump watched the search remotely. While all of this was playing out, Trump followers were making threats against the FBI and the Judge who signed off on the search order. That is showing total disrespect to our laws and the people whose job it is to enforce them. In addition, now that it has been confirmed that Trump was in possession of top secret documents after having left office a long time ago, Republicans are trying to spin this security failure as merely a careless action and refuse to see the potential danger it represented. There is no written proof that Trump ever removed the clearance level on them and even if he done so, it would require on heck of an explanation. I won’t guess on Trump’s motivation to keep the documents but his action is far beyond being careless and negligent but borders on disregard for national security.

Looking at the way Trump’s cadre of loyal politicians and his base supporters have reacted to all negative news about him makes me say that they are all morally bankrupt. In every case they dismiss facts, refuse to to act rationally but always divert into painting Trump as a victim. That pattern has been repeated time and time again. How can we forget that the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen gained foothold among the GOP in spite of overwhelming proof that there was no fraud. The implication that the election was stolen from Trump was to cast him as a victim. In other words, don’t look at certified state election results and court cases Trump lost but only believe what he tells us. Then came the Capital attack investigation with its witness testimony which led to definite White House involvement in the insurrection. here again we heard the chorus saying that Trump was being slandered, that all these Republican witnesses were lying and that Democrats were out to get Trump. So again he was a victim. Now we had an authorized search of Trump’s residence approved by the DOJ, FBI and Federal Judge but Trump supporters are calling it a raid and siege against an innocent man. So again they are playing the victim card. The only narrative the bankrupt GOP spins is that Trump is always a victim, nothing is his fault and he would be a solid candidate in the 2024 presidential election. But we must recognize that the victim rhetoric has developed a strong undertone which now advocates violence against those opposed to that line of thinking. It isn’t uncommon now that individuals who speak out against Trump receive death threats against family members and themselves. But even that is now being surpassed in venom with the threat of civil war if Trump should face serious repercussions for his possession of secret government documents as a private citizen. In my book you can only sink to such low level of rhetoric if you lost your moral compass. I don’t know what it means for the future of our country but I can only hope that the majority of us remain vigilant and resist efforts to obliterate law and order.

Trump and his followers are once again proving that all their talk of believing in law and order is a sham. They are all up in arms because a federal search warrant was executed at Trump’s residence in Florida. They conveniently forget that to obtain such warrant it required Christopher Wray, long time Republican, a Trump appointee to sign off on it, as well as a Federal District Court Judge, also a Trump appointee and long time Republican, and the AG of the USA. Such search warrant is explicit in specifying why it is being executed, what part of the premise may be searched and what information can be removed. In addition, Trump and his lawyer would receive a copy of the warrant. That has been a standing legal process and it makes the dominant GOP complaint ‘that if they can do that to a former President, they can do it to all of us’ a ridiculous comment. Democratic countries like Israel, France and South Korea have investigated Prime Ministers and President for illegal activities. So we shouldn’t shy away from doing the same. Trump was wrong when he took 15 boxes of documents from the White House to his Florida home after leaving the presidency. It was reported that many of the documents were labeled top secret and vital to maintain national security. When the National Archives Administration became aware of Trump’s action it requested return of all documents. That was done but it appeared that there was a gap between what was taken and what was returned. All efforts to resolve the issue were stymied by Trump and his representatives. That is most likely what resulted in the search warrant being issued. My suspicion is that a critical document which may ne missing is the transcript of the one on one meeting between Trump and Putin in Helsinki. The only other people in the room were the US and Russian translators and nothing was ever shared with the public about that conversation. I am also surprised that Republican politicians are badgering the DOJ and FBI to release warrant information which, by the way, is against their policy when they can easily ask Trump to make that information available.

Even though far right personality Alex Jones has been found guilty of spearing messages of hate in court, I don’t expect to see any change in far right messaging. The reason in my view is that it is an extremely profitable business to be in. The judgment of close to fifty million Dollars levied against Jones pales in comparison of the estimated 140 to 250 plus million he has made over the years in peddling his disinformation, lies and conspiracy theories. Jones isn’t the only far right media darling in the lucrative hate spreading business. All we have to do is to look at FOX news and their revenue stream which comes exclusively from advertisement income from some of America’s best known companies. That network is home of some of the most dishonest commentators on the planet. Their daily programs have no other purpose but to divide Americans by pandering and supporting bogus election fraud claims, undermining women rights, catering to implied racism and implying that immigration will unleash a crime epidemic in our nation. I believe that their own employees find it difficult to believe many things stated in their broadcasts but their pay must be so great that their moral compass, if they have one, has been demagnetized. Yes, it is indeed unfortunate that a business model based on spreading hate is a money making endeavor in our country. It saddens me to know that spreading hate makes so much money that it overrides ethics and moral responsibility.

Alex Jones, Chief Conspiracy Theorist, has either self destructed or was blown up by his lawyers when they passed their client’s phone to the Sandy Hook parents legal team. The phone supposedly contains two years of call logs and emails. That wealth of data is expected to proof that Jones perjured himself in previous court appearances and may even link him directly to being involved in the Jan 6, 2021 insurrection. In today’s court proceeding Alex Jones tried to do damage control by conceding that the Sandy Hook attack was a real event. I expect it does little to improve his defense. He knows that when he is found guilty it will result in massive financial penalties which will put his Info War empire out of business. But we can’t ignore the potentially larger side issue of his emails since his communications with Trump loyalists and possibly Trump himself may expose their planning of the Capital attack. And of course, their actual actions or inactions as the attack was taking place. The idiom ‘your goose is cooked’ is appropriate to describe the situation Alex Jones finds himself in. He is now cornered and about to face serious trouble. What we don’t know right now is if he is willing to go down by himself or rat out some of his contacts. No doubt we will learn more of the email contents in days and weeks to come.

The Kansas election yesterday proved convincingly that the majority of Americans oppose the SCOTUS ruling of overturning Roe v. Wade. The Republican controlled Kansas state legislature had placed a referendum on the primary ballot to outlaw abortion procedures in that state. Other GOP controlled states are considering implementing similar restrictive measures. The citizens have responded to that referendum at the ballot box. Almost twice as many people voted yesterday as in the 2018 mid term election. That sends a clear and strong message that defenders of women rights will massively turn out in the November election since for them it is an energizing issue and they will be heard. I am not surprised at the Kansas voter volume or the defeat of the abortion referendum. Republicans were convinced that their anti-abortion message was a winning political strategy for them. They failed to recognize that the majority of Americans, especially women, see it as nothing more than a devious ploy to restrict a woman’s right to make choices over her own body.

Every day it becomes clearer what the MAGA crowd wants the US to become. I fear that their aim is to change our traditional democracy into some form of extended minority rule based on Christian theocracy. Basically it would be a state in which the white establishment would hold power and elections would be manipulated to keep that them in power. All along such administration would hold unrealistic and offensive beliefs of no gun controls of any kind, elimination of most regulatory legislation and a severe curtailment of women’s rights. Those who believe that this will never happen here seem to forget that millions of Americans support these oppressive GOP plans. Some of them believe that they follow this incoherent ideology because they are true patriots but in reality they are misinformed and ignorant of the threat to our nation. Many others live in fear created by poisonous social media outlets that their way of life is going to be taken from them by liberal forces. As a group they have muted into herd mentality filled with rage and sociopathic behavior. We must not close our eyes to this MAGA scheme and turn out in record numbers for the November elections in order to put an end to their perverted movement.

I know that many Democrats are dismayed that media outlets and some polls seem to indicate that the mid term elections may turn out poorly for them. I believe that all that election talk this early is nothing more than meaningless speculation. Remember that we weren’t going to win a Senate seat in Georgie but picked up two. Democrats must have confidence in the American public. All the witness testimony given under oath being presented by the Select Committee isn’t being ignored by Independents and many Republicans. In addition, I am convinced that we haven’t heard all of it since daily more witnesses are stepping forward to be heard. So my advice to all on the left side of the aisle is not to commiserate but be firm in the belief that justice will be levied against those with devious plans for our democracy. Once they are all exposed and that will number many in the ranks of the GOP, I am confident that it will dampen their mid term election prospects considerably!

I have resided in the United States since my arrival in January of 1956. After becoming a US citizen I viewed myself as one of many. But recently some Republican politicians have begun using the expression that we are Christian Nationalists. Now that I take to be a very confusing term. In our nation everyone has the right to practice the religion of their choice and it isn’t 100% Christianity. So it is a bit unsettling that many Republicans now view to be called a Christian Nationalist as the ultimate compliment for a citizen. Therefore I am wondering what their view and definition of Jesus is in their minds. Given many of the political views of Republicans their Jesus might be a gun totting white man embracing wild conspiracy theories that his race is facing extinction. Or would he be one who restricts women rights and opposes any form of immigration? Or one who would lack compassion and insist that a little girl who is pregnant due to rape or incest has to give birth to that child? I don’t believe so. Matter of fact, such beliefs swim against current public opinion. One can even say that much of what they say is blasphemous from the true lessons in the bible. My recommendation is that we call ourselves Americans and those who have served the country in an exceptional manner patriots.

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has been Trump’s major propaganda outlet. They never hesitated to repeat his lies that the election was stolen and downplayed the seriousness of the Jan 6, 2021 insurrection. Now suddenly there was a serious and unexpected change in their coverage of Trump. Two newspapers under Murdoch control (the Wall Street Journal and New York Post) published articles that Trump was unworthy of being this nation’s President again and that he lacked the moral character strength required in a time of crisis. You can only take these statements as a repudiation of Trump. At he same time the FOX news Sunday television show had Liz Cheney, a member of the Select Committee and long time Republican House member, a well known Trump critic as a guest. The interviewer questioned her with all the standard GOP talking points in an attempt to discredit the work of the Committee. To my surprise he didn’t interrupt her as she outlined point by point that these scripted PowerPoint comments were nothing more than tries to deflect from witness testimonies given under oath by Republicans close to the White House. l believe that it signals That Rupert Murdoch doesn’t view Trump to be a viable candidate in the 2024 presidential election and he has given orders to his news outlets to slowly disengage from full blown Trump support. Murdoch knows it will anger Trump’s clan base but he must feel that they will not give up on FOX television coverage. I look forward to seeing what will come next in their news coverage .

Justice has finally caught up with arrogant and cocky Steve Bannon who was mocking the subpoena process for a long time. He tried to avoid the long arm of the law with dubious legal claims and maneuvers but they all failed. Yesterday he was found guilty by a jury of contempt charges and will face a judge on 8/21/2022 to be sentenced. He was found guilt on two counts. One for not providing requested documents to the Select Committee and secondly for not responding to their subpoena on time. But what I find disturbing that even after he left the court house as a guilty person, he still continued to spread his lies to Trump’s tent base. That fact should be sufficient for the judge not to sentence him to the minimum of a month jail time for each offense but punish him with the maximum of a year for each. And the saga of Steve Bannon should be a severe warning to others who have been subpoenaed by the Committee that it may be better for them to cooperate and avoid a jury trial.

We must remember as citizens that in the time of challenges and problems not a single one of us is alone. I am confident that the Biden administration will not leave anyone behind. Not a single person and not any company. We as a nation have the strength, resources and will to over come all obstacles. We have done it in the past while facing greater issues than now. That will be true for this year and subsequent ones. We will do what needs to be done and do it as long as it needs to be done!

The American public has always held the US Secret Service in high esteem. But the revelation, by their own admission, that some of their personnel erased text messages from Jan 5 and Jan 6, 2021 is very disturbing and does raise the question on how could this possibly have happened. The explanation from management that at the start of that year they began the process of replacing staff phones to improve communications and security and that it may be to cause is ludicrous. Certainly a notification went out to all employees on that effort and it would have definitely highlighted the need to back up all data. What makes this situation most suspect is that the text deletions were only for the two days under scrutiny because of the Capital attack. We can’t overlook the important fact that the Department of Homeland Security inspector had requested them as apart of the Select Committee investigation. It stretches credibility to believe that the text deletions were simple human errors. I have no doubt that they were deliberate actions taken by some agents to obscure their complicity in the sad events of those two days. The public is entitled to know the names of the agents involved, the chances of text recovery and a clearer and more credible explanation from the Secret Service leadership. In the absence of that, public trust in that important organization will be greatly diminished.

On October 30.2020 Steve Bannon told a cadre of Trump loyalist of a detailed plan on how Trump should act on election night. He stated that there was an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that Republicans vote more in person while Democrats rely more on mail in voting. That meant that early returns after all states had completed voting would show that Trump was leading. Therefore Bannon suggested that Trump should just declare that he won the election at that early stage even though the outcome really wasn’t known at that time. And if in subsequent hours the tide turned against Trump then the accuracy of democratic mail in votes in large cities should be labeled as suspicious. Trump followed the devious ploy as outlined by Bannon. As time passed and became evident that Biden would be the winner, Trump increased his rhetoric that there must have been election fraud. Bannon had predicted that there would be a ‘firestorm’ on Jan 6 and the possibility was real that the election outcome would be decided by the House. Fortunately for our nation the electoral count totals as submitted for the 50 states was ratified by VP Pence. But all the political maneuvering by Trump’s inner circle indicates that they were willing to leave no stone unturned in their attempt to remain in power.

Mr. Epps is a longtime Republican who went to Washington DC to support Trump on Jan 6, 2021. There are video clips of him urging people to march to the Capital. However, through a complicated chain of events this man became an enemy of the far right. Some conservative media outlets claimed without proof that Mr. Epps was in reality and FBI informer responsible for the Capital attack. That claim received oxygen by FOX News host Tucker Carlson and subsequently Sen Ted Cruz from Texas. Even Trump at one of his political rallies mentioned Mr. Epps in a negative light. That resulted in Mr. Epps receiving multiple death threats from Trump loyalist. Their suspicion of Mr. Epps was based on the fact that he hadn’t been arrested by the FBI. It is true that the FBI was in possession of his video clips and did view him as a person of interest for a brief period. But because the FBI couldn’t find any evidence of him assaulting Capital police officers or being in the building, they dropped their investigation of him. In addition, the Select Committee did call on Mr. Epps to appear as a witness which he did. He was under oath and stated that he never worked for the FBI or any other organization as an informer or agitator. These false accusations by Trump enablers have ruined Mr. Epps livelihood because he was forced to sell his Arizona ranch which specialized in theme weddings. He is now considering taking legal action against the individuals who defamed him.

The number of Republican politicians who have now declared an interest in becoming the GOP presidential candidate in the 2024 election is growing. The list right now covers Rick Scott, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, Kari Lake, Ron DeSantis and Niki Haley. They remain aware that Trump still controls a large segment of the GOP base but must feel that the Select Committee hearings are hurting him with middle of the road Republicans. That is why this group feels that there is an opening for them to challenge Trump in primaries if he decides to run. I am convinced that Trump’s career as a politician is over. Sure, he can keep on traveling to host his clown show to adoring tent devotees and sell autographed pictures of himself via the Internet but that is about it. As far as chances go for a member of that group to win the election in 2024 I am convinced that none of them would emerge winners on the national stage. Mike Pence has gone against Trump on his elector scheme and the base will never forgive him for that. Rick Scott and Ted Cruz wish to cut Social Security and Medicare and that won’t fly even with Republicans. Mike Pompeo is reaching to to Evangelicals but that is insufficient to carry him over the top. Kari Lake and Josh Hawley are fakes and most Republicans don’t take them serious. That leaves Ron DeSantis, Tom Cotton and Niki Haley. Here I believe that DeSantis has the edge with Republican voters but it will all hedge on how thing go for him in Florida. I believe that Democrats can defeat anyone in that group if they field a dynamic young candidate with a good understanding of the democratic base but also the American public.

If I were a Republican I would be concerned about many things being said and done by their party’s leadership. Their Senators now openly push for reductions in Social Security and Medicare which would adversely impact millions of Americans. Mostly the poorest of the poor. Now on Wednesday Senate Minority Leader McConnel ordered GOP Senators to torpedo the proposed Congress legislation to improve US competitiveness with China in the semiconductor chip market. McConnel’s issue is that Democrats are linking the lowering of drug prices to that legislation via the process of reconciliation. We know very well that even drugs manufactured in the US are priced much higher here than in Canada. Republicans must ask themselves if their party is really willing in serving in the best interest of the public? I believe that providing 52 billion to US chip manufacturers and lowering drug prices for patients are in the interests of the nation. There is no doubt that the gun lobby and their dark money is responsible for Republican politicians inaction on gun legislation. Now it appears that the Big Pharma industry has the same hold on them with the same tactic of unlimited money donations to the GOP. Is it that the GOP is ruled strictly by the interests of big business and has forgotten on how to serve us citizens?

Last year about 100000 deaths were attributed to drug overdoes predominantly through the use of highly addictive fentanyl. It is generally brought into the US by Mexican drug cartels. We must realize that the opioid epidemic is not a new phenomenon but actually started in the 1990s. As early as in 1937 synthetic opioids were produced with the first being methadone and it was followed in 1960 with fentanyl. Then in the 1990s Purdue Pharma developed Oxycontin which supposedly was a less addictive formula. These products are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine like effects. That development coincided with the medical establishment identifying pain management as a priority. Regrettably, the greed of pharmaceutical companies coupled with Doctors overprescribing Oxycontin to patients had a devastating impact which is still being felt today. The production of Oxycontin soared and thus did profits of the manufacturers. For instance, in 2006 Purdue Pharma manufactured 130 million opioid pills while a relatively unknown St. Louis firm named Mallinckrodt produced 3.6 billion. By 2011, at the height of the opioid epidemic, a number of US companies aggressively began to advertise their products and in many cases they were targeting the poor and lesser educated Americans. In a 6 year span drug companies send 780 million prescription pain pills to West Virginia. That almost comes to 430 pills for every man, woman and child in that state. The Drug Enforcement Agency which has authority of policing the drug industry grew concerned and decided to restrict the reckless distribution of opioids. But the drug companies weren’t ready to give up on the goose which was laying golden eggs and launched a campaign to undermine the DEA effectiveness. They began to hire officials from the DEA at salaries far beyond of what they were being paid as government employees. They engaged powerful and well connected lobbyists and friendly lawmakers to weaken proposed DEA regulations. Their power only diminished when lawsuits brought against these companies ended up with jurors finding them guilty of neglect and other infractions. Purdue Pharma alone paid 6 billion to settle a lawsuit for its role in the opioid crisis. In total it is estimated that 40 billion were paid in settlements by the companies which were the dominant players in the distribution of Oxycontin. However, not a single company executive of these companies ever went to prison. But we know that an individual caught selling them on a street corner would most likely serve a long prison stretch. That is why I trace our current drug problem to the time we permitted our drug companies to create the opioid crisis to begin with.

After setting foot on American soil as a thirteen year old in 1956 I began my journey of becoming an American. Slowly I began to realize that the United States was really a tapestry of cultures, races, values and customs. It was a quilt of many colors embroidered with values we all hold dear. The fabric had hues of white, black, brown, red, yellow, green, blue, gray, maroon and lilac and they stood for the races of Americans and the colors in the flags of countries our immigrants had left. The embroidery highlighted unity, equality, education, progress, science, patriotism, bravery, morality, freedom, humanitarianism and democracy. Now looking at that tapestry sixty-six years later I see that much remains the same but some things are changing. We are no longer as united as we should be since partisanship has gained an upper hand. Our tolerance of others was never perfect but on the right track has suddenly taken a step back. We felt that people had their own moral compass but that it fell within a national expectation. Now we have citizens who feel obliged to counsel us on what that should be. As a nation we were always at the forefront of scientific achievements in technology and medicine but now many question the value of reasonable and common sense medical treatments. As citizens we valued our freedom and voted for candidates of our choice knowing that a vote cast was meaningful. Now we see voting rule changes which appear to create difficulties to do so. I feel that in the past we all had about the same definition of patriotisms but now one political party claims only its membership is while the other is not. We grew up believing that our nation was the beacon of democracy and a model for the rest of the world. But now we know that its existence is fragile and can easily be placed at risk by unscrupulous politicians seeking to hold on to power even after the citizens have spoken. I am a realist and know that the expression ‘the good old days’ isn’t true for everything but when it comes to the fabric of our nation I wish we would look at it the way we used to!

These five Supreme Court Judges Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett and Alito made it clear on their gun and abortion rulings that their reasoning isn’t principled but partisan, not legal by political. Their decisions appeal to a minority of the US population. It is a group which stresses Christian beliefs but conveniently ignores that we are a multi religion nation. We have Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Unitarians to name a few. In past years there has ben a surge of people who state that they are unaffiliated when it comes to religion. Given the anti-abortion stance of these Judges one can safely assume that they will seek to undermine anti-gay, anti-birth control nd same sex marriage legislation in the future. All of that points to a further grievous erosion of individual privacy. These Judges have taken us back to 1973 with their anti-abortion stance. Therefore it isn’t surprising that they have created a national crisis since many states are controlled by GOP legislatures. They are rushing to pass laws closing abortion clinics and focusing on punishment for prospective patients. This tyranny by the minority is a potential reign of terror against women!

The SCOTUS vote today to overturn Roe vs Wade which provided nationwide right to abortion is more proof that the majority of judges on its bench are political hacks who ignore the will of the majority of the public. They are liars since they even go against what they stated in their confirmation testimonies and interviews with Senators. Who can forget Judges Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanough stating that they respected and supported long standing precedents important to the nation. Their fellow Judge Thomas went so far as to write a separate opinion in which he states his objection to contraceptives and same sex marriages. They all represent an extreme ideology being pushed by a fundamentalist minority. Our country deserves great judges like Ed Warren, Abe Fortas and Ruth Ginsberg. They knew the Constitution and even better, they knew to interpret it laced with common sense. Now we have a group of judges who believe that permitting easier access to guns makes safer and that women shall have no choice over their bodies. I feel like I am trapped in a time machine which only takes you back in time. I wouldn’t be surprised if this group of wacky judges is contemplating removal of voting rights for women and and the reinstatement of slavery!

Now that the scope of Trump’s attempts to remain in power is coming into focus, we are also learning which House members, state officials and lawyers were his co-conspirators. Their whining and crying now that they have been unmasked must be ignored and condemned since most of them had sworn an oath to the Constitution and to protect the US. The fact that so many of them were seeking presidential pardons is a clear indication that they knew that their FAKE ELECTOR scheme was a criminal act to be punished if their participation became known. Here we have dishonest House members Mo Brooks, Marjorie Greene, Scott Perry, Louie Gohmert, Andy Biggs and Matt Gaetz on record pleading for pardons. House member Jim Jordan too inquired if he should obtain one. They were all asking for ‘preemptive pardons’ for roles in the Jan 6 insurrection. Matt Gaetz even went so far as to ask for a blanket pardon which he felt would shield him for all crimes he may have committed in his life. He must really have a guilty conscience. But we must not lose sight of the fact that all their devious efforts were directed and approved by Trump. He was the mastermind willing to implement a treasonous scheme to override the will of the people who had chosen someone else to be the next President of our nation.

The most frightening development to me right now are the Republican far right groups and their calls for potential violence in our nation if they feel their voices aren’t being heard. The mix of their gun culture and threats of violence can’t be ignored by Americans. How can the average citizen stand idly by when GOP politicians express thoughts of gunning for their opponents, volunteer militia group members go on record that they plan to intimidate voters in upcoming elections and witnesses of the Select Committee are being threatened and even attacked in their homes. Who ever thought that we would see such behavior being normalized by a party but unfortunately that is where we are? The Grand Old Party has lost its way and their patriotic membership must finally recognize that. When I appeal to patriots I don’t refer to those assault weapon carrying fools but those who truly love our country and wish that everyone in it prospers and lives peacefully.