Saturday, September 1, 2018

RIP, JOHN MCCAIN

For all his flaws, and he had many, I believe John McCain cared about our country. The symbolism of his requests to former presidents Barack Obama, a Democrat, and George W Bush, a Republican, to speak at his funeral seems powerful to me. He campaigned for the presidency against both men and lost. I believe at the end of his life he wished for Americans to come together, not at all an ignoble wish.

May God give comfort, consolation, and peace to all who love John.

The Big Orange Divider-in-Chief was not welcome at the funeral.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

HAVE YA MISSED ME? HAVE YA?

Have ya missed me? Have ya? I probably won't be back to regular blogging any time soon, but the daily multiplying scandals in Trump Swamp, along with the crash and burn of yet another special session of the Louisiana Legislature in the effort to pass a fucking workable budget was just too much even for quickies on Facebook.

Shame on you, GOP members of the Louisiana House. What happened in the legislature Sunday was a mockery of governance. The GOP will not participate in governing. Their only plan is to stop John Bel Edwards (D) from being elected to a second term and not raise a penny in taxes to lift Louisiana out of shithole status, at or near the top in the bad stuff and at or near the bottom in the good stuff.



Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R) in the final minutes of the session: “Yes, I am trying to run out the clock.” Disgusting. On to another special session which will cost the taxpayers $60,000 per day of money we don't have and possibly result in another crash and burn.

In the midst of the Slough of Despond, two stories lifted my spirits a bit, just a bit.

The first from the Washington Post:
The Pentagon’s investigative watchdog has initiated a probe into Navy Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson, the White House military physician who withdrew from consideration as President Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs amid allegations of improper conduct.
Dr "Candyman", the flim flam doctor who gave us the report on Trump's "excellent" state of health and made me laugh out loud is being investigated. If Trump had not nominated this incompetent to head the Dept. of Veteran Affairs, he may have been continued to conduct his shady business as usual in the White House. No second star for you, Admiral Jackson. Everyone who works in the Trump Swamp runs the risk of her/his life turning into shit.


The next story is from MSN:
President Donald Trump can be deposed in a defamation case a New York Judge ruled Tuesday.
Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice” claimed Trump kissed her and groped her while she was a contestant on the show in 2007. After Trump repeatedly denied her claims, calling her a liar, Zervos filed a defamation claim in January 2017, just days before his inauguration. Zervos was one of more than a dozen women to accuse President Trump of sexual misconduct during his campaign.
Geaux, Summer Zervos!

Ah, schadenfreude. Good to see you.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

"GET OUT" - THE MOVIE

Generally, I don't watch horror movies, because the stresses of ordinary life are enough. When I was younger and more resilient, I enjoyed the thrills and chills, but over the years, I stopped. Last week, I watched "Get Out". Either I did not know, or I had forgotten it was a horror movie, but I love that the film slipped through the filter.

Watching the oh-so-liberal white family and their white friends patronizingly check out their daughter's new black boy friend was wickedly funny. Added to the mix were two mysterious black servants, one in the kitchen, and the other on the grounds. I completely missed the clues there.

Because I don't want my post to be a spoiler for a movie I highly recommend, I won't say more. Kudos to director and writer Jordan Peele and to the actors, especially Allison Williams as the white girlfriend. The the film won the Oscar for best screenplay, but I suspect it didn't win best picture because it tells hard truths about racism, truths that many of us don't want to hear. In the fantasy America of today, nothing is ever about race.

Friday, April 27, 2018

TRUMP'S FOX & FRIENDS RANT, APRIL 26, 2018


Quotes from Donald Trump's phone rant on Fox & Friends yesterday that may have got him in trouble.

1. With Melania whose birthday was yesterday when he was asked about his gift to his wife:
Well, I better not get into that, because I may get in trouble. Maybe I didn’t get her so much.

I'll tell you what. She has done — I got her a beautiful card. You know, I'm very busy —
And then Trump proceeds to rant for 30 minutes.

2. With Special Counsel Mueller about James Comey:
He put a lot of phony stuff. For instance, I went to Russia for a day or so — a day or two because I own the Miss Universe pageant. So, I went there to watch it, because it was near Moscow. So I go to Russia — now, I did go there — everybody knows. The locks are there, the planes are there. He said I didn’t stay there a night. Of course, I stayed there. I stayed there a very short period of time, but, of course, I stayed. Well, his memo said I left immediately. I never said that. I never said I left immediately.
In his memos from his meetings with Trump, Comey wrote that Trump stated more than once that he did not stay overnight in Russia. Whom do you believe? Whom will Mueller believe? I have my problems with Comey, but I don't believe he lies. Trump, on the other hand, well you know...

3. With Trump and Michael Cohen lawyers who are arguing in court in the Southern District of New York that the material seized in the raid on Cohen's home, office, and hotel room is under attorney client privilege:
And I don’t know his business, but this doesn’t have to do with me. Michael is a businessman. He's got a business. He also practices law. I would say probably the big thing is his business, and they're looking at something having to do with his business. I have nothing to do with his business.
....

Well, he [Cohen] has a percentage of my overall legal work — a tiny, tiny little fraction. But, Michael would represent me and represent me on some things. He represents me — like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal he represented me.
If Trump's relationship with Cohen was mostly business, there is no attorney client privilege for much of the material caught up in the raid that has to do with Trump. No lawyer on earth is capable of stopping Trump from being his own worst enemy with his own words. Under the bus, Michael.

The statements are a gift to to the prosecutors in New York, and the second statement is a gift to Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniel's attorney. Trump said when he was previously asked by members of the press that he knew nothing of Cohen's $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels for the relationship he claims never happened.

The NY prosecutors wasted no time in including Trump's comments in the court record. For Avenatti, this was the first time Trump mentioned Stormy Daniels' name and slaps down his claim that he knew nothing about the payoff.

What made my day was the expression on the faces of the Fox & Friends hosts when Trump went into the final stage of his rant. They squirmed in dismay and finally cut him off mid-sentence with,
We could talk to you all day but it looks like you have a million things to do
Trump responded,
Well, you could have...

Saturday, March 24, 2018

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT


As I watch the young people speaking in Washington DC and the great crowds all over the country in the March For Our Lives against gun violence, I am crying. My fervent hope for the young people and for all of us is that politicians hear their passionate cries for life and freedom from fear of gun violence and do something about the goddam guns.

Politicians, break loose from the grip of the vile NRA and do your job to protect the people you were elected to serve. Many of the young people will be eligible to vote come election time in 2018, and they want an end to the gun violence. The kids want to feel safe in school. All Americans want to feel safe at movie theaters, concerts, churches, malls, and night clubs.

One young woman just said, "I learned to duck before I learned to read."

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

CHURCH, ATTENDANCE, CHRISTIANITY

Since my blog has been very much neglected, the few who still read probably don't know that I stopped attending church about two years ago. The physical struggle was just too much. Since I'd been a church-goer all my life, what surprised me was that I didn't miss church at all except for the hymns. I very much enjoyed congregational singing.

I pray at home and meet God in my house and in my heart, and that seems enough for now. I try (and often fail) to live out the heart of the Gospel, which is love, as Jesus preached in the Two Great Commandments:
Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40)
and the Golden Rule:
‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.' (Matthew 7:12)
Jesus was only ever a Jew. He was born a Jew, and he died a Jew. His teachings are rooted in the Hebrew Bible, and he never intended to found a religion. One of my touchstone verses in the Hebrew Bible is Micah 6:8:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Love, kindness, and humility are what Christianity is about, or it is nothing to me.

Monday, February 5, 2018

AT THE MOVIES IN MY HOUSE IN JANUARY 2018

A list of movies I watched recently and recommend, along with brief descriptions, is below.

"Funny Face" - rated 4 stars

Though "Funny Face", directed by Stanley Donen, was very good, I thought it would be better. What struck me as I watched again after a long time is that once again, the male lead, Fred Astaire, was nearly 30 years older than the female, Audrey Hepburn. Astaire is still amazing, but it appears Hollywood assumes female dancers of similar age can no longer dance.

"The Artist" - rated 5 stars

I watched the movie last night and loved it. The film, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, won a number of Academy Awards and other well-deserved film awards in 2012. The French romantic, feel-good, silent movie in black and white, like the olden times, even before my olden time, is a delight. In the French style, with subtle and ironic touches of humor, the film includes musical accompaniment and what I just learned are called intertitles (filmed, printed text edited into silent movies) when necessary. Since the expressions and movements of the actors reveal quite a bit, not many intertitles were necessary. Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo star in the film, with our own John Goodman in a strong supporting role.

"Loving" - rated 5 stars

The movie, directed by Jeff Nichols, tells the tender, moving story of the long, painful period in the lives of Mildred and Richard Loving, played by Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga, an interracial couple who married in Washington DC, but could not, by law, be married in their home State of Virginia. After living in DC for a while, the Lovings moved back to Virginia but lived in constant fear of arrest. Mildred decided to write a letter to Attorney General RFK about their plight, and he referred them to the ACLU. When the two were arrested, the ACLU defended them and took their case to the Supreme Court. The rest is history in Loving V. Virginia, the ruling that overturned miscegenation laws in the entire country.

"Room" - rated 5 stars

"Room", directed by Lenny Abrahamson, is the story of a young woman who was abducted and held in a shed for 7 years during which time she is sexually abused and gives birth to a boy she calls Jack. After 5 years, she begins to plot their escape. The film was difficult to watch, so much so that I had to stop and take a break, but I recommend it highly. "Moonlight" was the same, but I have the film in my queue to watch again. I'll do the same with "Room". Brie Larson stars as the mother, and she is excellent in the role, but the truly amazing performance is the boy's, with Jacob Tremblay as Jack.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

DID TRUMP SAY "SHITHOLE COUNTRIES" OR "SHITHOUSE COUNTRIES"? DOES IT MATTER?

Senators Perdue and Cotton
As you may or may not know, Sen Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) at first stated they "do not recall" Trump using the term "shithole countries" during the bipartisan immigration meeting in the White House. After recovering their memories, the two senators disputed the leaked information by stating that Trump said "shithouse countries" rather than "shithole countries".

After the first leak about Trump's comments, Sen Richard Durbin (D-IL), who was not the original leaker, stated that Trump did indeed use the term "shithole countries", and Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC) confirmed Durbin's account.
Sen Richard Durbin

Why Cotton and Perdue continue to choose to split the hair between "shithole" and "shithouse" to deny what Trump said is a mystery to me. Do the senators believe the term "shithouse countries" is acceptable? Their denials are ludicrous. Anyone with a functional brain knows the two are lying.

The shell of the State Department that remains under Rex Tillerson and the Trump maladministration is left to deal with the wreckage of the blowback as US ambassadors and diplomats around the world are summoned to explain Trump's comments.

That's not to mention that Trump, who brags often about his love and support of the military, made reckless comments that endanger members of the US military who serve in the "shithole countries".

The latest tweet from Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News:
For what its worth, here's new spin from source very close to WH: When Trump said "shit house" countries (not "shit hole") at immigration meeting, he was actually thinking about real estate.
You can't make this shit up. I detect a ring of truth in the latest spin, at least the real estate part, because making money from real estate is never far from Trump's mind.

UPDATE: It gets worse according to the Washington Post. Read it all for an insider view of how Chief of Staff John Kelly operates. He's not the man who will save America from Trump.
But some White House officials, including conservative adviser Stephen Miller, feared that Graham and Durbin would try to trick Trump into signing a bill that was damaging to him and would hurt him with his political base. As word trickled out Thursday morning on Capitol Hill that Durbin and Graham were heading over to the White House, legislative affairs director Marc Short began to make calls to lawmakers and shared many of Miller’s concerns.

Soon, Goodlatte, one of the more conservative House members on immigration, was headed to the White House. Trump also called House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and asked him to come, McCarthy said. Sens. David Perdue (R-Ga.) and Cotton were also invited to rush over.

Monday, January 15, 2018

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR - "REMAINING AWAKE THROUGH A REVOLUTION"

Icon of MLK by Tobias Haller

From Martin Luther King's speech at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, four days before he was assassinated nearly a half century ago. Reposted from eight years ago.
ON WAR:

Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.

ON RACISM:
The hour has come for everybody, for all institutions of the public sector and the private sector to work to get rid of racism. And now if we are to do it we must honestly admit certain things and get rid of certain myths that have constantly been disseminated all over our nation.


One is the myth of time. It is the notion that only time can solve the problem of racial injustice. And there are those who often sincerely say to the Negro and his allies in the white community, "Why don’t you slow up? Stop pushing things so fast. Only time can solve the problem. And if you will just be nice and patient and continue to pray, in a hundred or two hundred years the problem will work itself out."


There is an answer to that myth. It is that time is neutral. It can be used wither constructively or destructively. And I am sorry to say this morning that I am absolutely convinced that the forces of ill will in our nation, the extreme rightists of our nation—the people on the wrong side—have used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time."

ON POVERTY:

There is another thing closely related to racism that I would like to mention as another challenge. We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad. I’ve seen it in Latin America; I’ve seen it in Africa; I’ve seen this poverty in Asia. 
....

Not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you that in our own nation there are about forty million people who are poverty-stricken. I have seen them here and there. I have seen them in the ghettos of the North; I have seen them in the rural areas of the South; I have seen them in Appalachia. I have just been in the process of touring many areas of our country and I must confess that in some situations I have literally found myself crying.
....

And this can happen to America, the richest nation in the world—and nothing’s wrong with that—this is America’s opportunity to help bridge the gulf between the haves and the have-nots. The question is whether America will do it. There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.


In a few weeks some of us are coming to Washington to see if the will is still alive or if it is alive in this nation. We are coming to Washington in a Poor People’s Campaign. Yes, we are going to bring the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. We are going to bring those who have known long years of hurt and neglect. We are going to bring those who have come to feel that life is a long and desolate corridor with no exit signs. We are going to bring children and adults and old people, people who have never seen a doctor or a dentist in their lives.
....

Let me close by saying that we have difficult days ahead in the struggle for justice and peace, but I will not yield to a politic of despair. I’m going to maintain hope as we come to Washington in this campaign. The cards are stacked against us. This time we will really confront a Goliath. God grant that we will be that David of truth set out against the Goliath of injustice, the Goliath of neglect, the Goliath of refusing to deal with the problems, and go on with the determination to make America the truly great America that it is called to be.
Amen.

Icon by Tobias Haller.

Text of the speech from Stanford University.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

GLENN SIMPSON, CHRISTOPHER STEELE, AND THE SHAMEFUL GOP EFFORT TO PROTECT UNFIT-FOR-OFFICE TRUMP

Glenn Simpson
For the last couple of days, with interruptions to attend to the tasks of ordinary life, I've been reading the 312 pages of Glenn Simpson's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Simpson, a former reporter, most recently for The Wall Street Journal (2009), is one of the founders of Fusion GPS, which has been much in the news lately. I found the testimony gripping and Simpson to be a cooperative and honest witness.

I doubt I'll enjoy reading Michael Woolff's Fire and Fury as much as Simpson's testimony, but we'll see. I ordered the book only after Trump's lawyers sent the "cease and desist" publication order to Wolff and his publisher because I felt I ought to support free speech against prior restraint.

Christopher Steele
No wonder Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), both members of the Judiciary Committee, Grassley as chair, didn't want the transcript released. It destroys their narrative about Simpson's testimony that led them to refer Christopher Steele, the author of the famous dossier (really a collection of memos) alleging ties between President Trump and Russia, for a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.

Can you believe it? Of course, you can. No good deed goes unpunished in the shameful GOP effort to protect the man-child president who has shown himself unfit for office from the day of his inauguration.

From the Washington Post:
Fusion in 2015 began investigating Trump under a contract with the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website financially supported by GOP megadonor Paul Singer. That assignment ended once Trump was on track to win the nomination. But in April 2016, Fusion was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to keep funding the research.
Fusion GPS was first hired by Republicans and then transitioned to work for the Clinton campaign when Trump became the GOP nominee. During the course of his work, Simpson hired Steele, whom he had known and trusted for years since his work as a reporter, as a source of information. Steele is a British citizen and former MI6 intelligence agent, a Russian expert who has provided credible and reliable intelligence to US intelligence agencies and to Simpson for years.

Both men became alarmed at the information they discovered about Trump and the people who worked in his campaign. Steele felt conscience-bound to report his findings about people in the Trump campaign with Russian connections to the FBI. By warning the FBI , Steele, a British citizen, demonstrated more care and concern for the safety and security of America than sitting US senators Grassley or Graham.

Sen Diane Feinstein
Sen Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is my current hero in the Senate for her decision to release the transcripts because of the characterization of Simpson as an uncooperative witness, which is a lie, and because of lies about his testimony.

Here's the link to further information about Christopher Steele in the Washington Post.

To read the entire transcript of Simpson's testimony, click here.