Author: BC

There’s the story of the guy who thought he was happily married until he began to pick up on a dishonest vibe from his wife. Despite trying to shake his suspicions, he only becomes more certain something is going on. When he confides his concerns to his best friend, his buddy laughs and promises there is no way his wife would stray. Reassured, the guy decides it’s just his imagination and vows to let it go, ashamed of himself for doubting his beloved.

However, as time goes by, try as he might, the husband just can’t shake the feeling there is deceit afoot. His wife seems evermore distant and preoccupied, nothing he can put his finger on, but disturbing nonetheless. He again confides in his friend, who again fully rejects the notion, this time admonishing him and warning obsessions like this ruin marriages. Nobody wants to be married to a jealous maniac. Get a grip on yourself, he orders.

Regardless, despite full self-loathing, the guy can’t ignore his doubts. Finally he decides to put the concerns to rest by following his wife to confirm she is true. He tells her he’s going on a business trip overnight and merely drives around the block and waits down the street. Less than an hour later she pulls out and heads into the city. Sure enough she pulls up to a hotel and gives her car to a valet who seems to know her well. The husband quickly tails her inside and his knees buckle as she embraces his best friend in the lobby. He then watches them disappear into the elevator and hustles to see what floor it stops on.

As he exits the elevator a few minutes later at the floor of their tryst, he almost immediately hears his wife’s unmistakeable lustful exclamations. He stands outside the door pondering what to do, wondering if standard hotel doors will withstand his attempts to imitate Dirty Harry. But then he sees a housekeeper down the hall and convinces her he left his key in the room. When he enters, there they are, caught in the act, nothing to the imagination.

“How could you do this to me? What about the vows we exchanged? And you… we’ve been friends since high school, you looked at me twice and lied to my face. Here you both are, screwing like rabbits! What do you have to say for yourselves?! “ The wife, stark naked, looks her husband right in the eye and declares “….I want a divorce. I won’t stay married to a man who doesn’t trust me. I can’t believe you followed me around. We’re done!” Stunned, the guy looks at his former best friend, who shrugs and matter-of-factly reminds him “I warned you she wouldn’t stand for it. Nobody but yourself to blame.”

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is who those looking desperately for a GOP Senate “moderate” not fully under Trump’s thumb pin their hopes on. They may want to look elsewhere. Coming into this week, Murkowski had voted with the President 75% of the time. Given how extreme this White House’s agenda has been, particularly its slate of judges for the federal bench, three out of four really doesn’t cut it in the profiles of courage department. Put another way, Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), presumably Murkowski’s opposite number as an outlier swimming upstream against his party’s agenda, voted against Democratic wishes 54% of the time. A real DINO vs. a phony baloney RINO.

Modern America has only been a two-party system. Sure, some independent candidacies have made their mark. In fact, the leading contender for this year’s Democratic nomination is at heart an independent. Yet and still, the vitality of our republic depends on healthy competition between the Republicans and Democrats, with a fidelity to honor and fairness, defined and enforced by the rule of law and the constitution that informs it. And make no mistake, the absence of one will kill the other and leave US democracy – the world’s ultimate stable currency – up the creek sans paddle. A rotten legislature is far more dangerous than an unleashed executive because it passes the laws meant to keep each honest. The corruption of both, in service to each other? Sayonara democracy.

Trump’s 2016 campaign was shocking in its flagrant, forget mere disregard, but outright disdain of established practices meant to promote civility and temper division, not to mention respect for the sacred electoral process. What rendered his victory as something less than an existential crisis to many was bipartisan confidence that his worst would impel at least a percentage of the GOP to hold him accountable. At the time, even with control of both chambers firmly in Republican hands, the belief even 10-15% of either GOP caucus would at least give others pondering dissent a refuge for thwarting the worst few doubted he was capable of provided essential reassurance for getting on with day-to-day routines.

Last Friday’s vote to bar witnesses from an impeachment trial with a foregone conclusion confirmed how delusional such assumptions were. Worse, caught in the bedroom, buck naked and fornicating with a despicably corrupt nation wrecker, unfaithful public servants like Murkowski want us to know it’s all our own fault. Who do Democrats think they are trying to hold Trump to account? How dare the House put Senate Republicans in such a position. Send us impeachment with no GOP support will you; who cares if he’s guilty?! Or, er… the transcript of the call…. I mean, why didn’t you wait and get Bolton to testify to you?! That’s it…. shoddy and lazy work. Doesn’t rise to impeachable anyway. So there! No witnesses!

Murkowski made a great show of both her indecision and seriousness at weighing the arguments throughout the trial, taking copious notes and asking numerous questions. Yet and still, in the end, her lame justification for denying witnesses was no different than Trumpie eunuch Rick Scott’s, just issued in more sincere tones. While Scott whined about refusing to “do the House’s job for them,” Murkowski solemnly derided “the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout…” The articles of impeachment were yet another chapter in the relentless victimization of our martyr President, according to Murkowski:

“…. I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”

It’s hard to imagine a more comprehensive and impressive presentation than House impeachment managers put forward. The difference between drunken Lindsey Graham foaming at the mouth and Murkowski’s soft sell doesn’t mean anything when the result is the same. It’s like two golfers bogeying the same hole. One drives it right down the middle, chips on in regulation, putts to within three feet but then blows the par putt. The other guy drives it in the woods, chips back out to the fairway, hits it in the bunker, blasts out and makes a 25-footer for his five. One was uglier than the other, but each carded the same score.

The sham winds down this week, but this national nightmare promises to endure. When Trump finally does get his full party-line acquittal, one thing will be certain: his facilitators will all be in that hotel room with him. Each will be just as corrupt as the others, albeit some a bit more painful to discover. The blatant shamelessness of ruin. BC

There is not another group in America who has suffered more as a singularly direct result of Trumpenomics than Wisconsin family farmers. It is as though Trump and his tariff toadies, Peter Navarro, Larry Kudlow et al., get up daily and think “how can we screw those cheeseheads today?” Every bluster, every dictat, every impulsive declaration seems to come at the expense of the very voters most responsible for the 2016 election victory Trump never tires of rehashing in excruciatingly narcissistic detail. But like an abusive spouse, this Administration has constantly damaged Wisconsin’s dairy interests abroad, even as he swears they are the darling of his arbitrary tariff regimes. The numbers don’t lie.

In 2019 Wisconsin reported 48 farm bankruptcies, tops in the nation with most all small generations-old family outfits. Cheese exports, a Wisconsin niche, were down 14 % in 2018. Data from 2019 will surely punctuate that trend. Things have become so bad the US Department of Agriculture has made $2.3 million available for no other purpose than to combat the devastating emotional toll economic failure has wrecked, literally suicide prevention.

Last year one local cheese company executive made a doomsday prediction that, should export market conditions worsen, “I could see us getting to the point where we’re dumping our milk in the fields…. It’ll be a big ripple effect through the state.” Most agree that reckoning has arrived.

Reciprocity, the cornerstone of international trade relationships, assures that any protectionist inclinations by one partner will be met in kind by the other, toward a sector of their choosing. Moreover, markets are dynamic and don’t pause long for uncertainty; if one opportunity seems unreliable for long, other relationships will be pursued to reassert the balance. And it’s business… nothing personal. Unfortunately for them, Wisconsin’s farmers are favored pawns in Trump’s mindless attempts to bully concessions out of trade partners for interests that couldn’t be further from a failing dairyman’s dinner table.

The original North American Free Trade Agreement benefitted dairy interests, establishing new markets in Mexico and reinforcing advantages in Canada. Indeed, by 2016, when Trump was in Wisconsin calling the pact, “the worst deal ever signed,” Mexico had become the largest importer of American cheese products. Why a dairy farmer would enthusiastically vote for a candidate promising to tear up an arrangement fully benefitting his principle prospects is not near as mysterious as why he would promise to vote for the same pol after the pledge was carried out along with a plethora of other actions with similarly ruinous consequences. Yet and still, there it is.

As with everything else, White House messaging about family farm interests is fully conflicted. Trump never fails to mention at his rallies how “we love our family farmers and will always be there for them.” However, Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Purdue, the best friend corporate pork interests ever had, has been delivering an entirely different message lately. For example, last October, attending Wisconsin’s World Dairy Expo, Purdue offered blunt conclusions to those who embraced Trump in 2016:

“In America, the big get bigger and the small go out…..I don’t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.”

It’s hard to imagine a clearer declaration of Trumpian priorities. The big dogs are going to hunt and the bones they leave just might not be enough… sorry Charley.

Last week, as the President was signing his USMCA – NAFTA’s replacement, which, except for a significantly larger big-money foot print, bears an uncanny resemblance to the deal it replaced – Wisconsin’s family farmers were holding out hope milk prices would rise and export opportunities would re-emerge. Even so, most are getting up even earlier and desperately plowing tracts of their land to grow soybeans and other crops in an effort to diversify. Of course, Trump’s trade war with China has blown up those markets as well. MAGA wing and prayers don’t offer much.

Near two years ago, as the first waves of Trump’s arbitrary tariff trouble started washing up on Lake Superior’s shores, the $64,000 question was whether rural America would permit the euphoria full liberation of their cultural resentments provided to sufficiently assuage the personal ruin MAGA economic idiocy would inflict. Today, as GOP Senate conduct crystallizes that our democracy is every bit as imperiled as Wisconsin family dairy farmers, and it’s clear our future will be decided this November, the latest polling data isn’t too hopeful.

Wisconsin voters appear as split now as they were when Trump eeked out his plurality in 2016. Since we can assume urban and suburban dissenter ranks have only grown, the polling more than implies Cheese State farmers remain MAGA-fervent. Apparently, sending immigrants packing, reversing Roe v Wade, and generally sticking it to the libs is worth a lot to them…. even generations-old legacies.

Or perhaps, like the blank-eyed Senate Republicans who reflect Trumpism’s grasp on flyover country, there is now simply a dystopian surrender to the futility of fate… a collective throwing up of the hands – “what can you do? He has to know what he’s doing, right? After all, he is a billionaire. Besides, it can’t be worse than the socialism Democrats offer.” Of course, subsidy checks now being cut to fortify farmers’ allegiance are the very essence of socialism, but that apparently complicates the narrative more than this addled and besieged bloc wants to consider. So, whatever the rationalization, it’s Trump or bust. Have some milk with those cookies! BC

Growing up as a young boy my father was of the Mad Men generation; he viewed his principle duties to our family as providing us with all the fruits his labor as an attorney could bestow, and being a protector and intimate partner to my mother. Standard stuff for his peer group. Spending off hours with his first born was not a priority for him. My brother John – two years my junior – and I enjoyed my father’s attention far less often than we would have liked, except when he was doling out discipline, which comprised a measurable portion of our dad-time allowance. Years later my youngest brother Alex would benefit from my dad’s post 60s enlightenment about “quality” time and perhaps some shame he felt for ignoring John and I, but we were beggars and couldn’t afford to be choosers.

One weekend night when I was perhaps 8 or 9 years old, my mother went out with an old friend visiting from out of town. Aside from the glee of getting a ten spot to run over and pick up some KFC for our dinner, the best part of the evening to me would be sitting on the couch with my dad as he attended to his Hamms (plural) and watched television. I didn’t much care what was on, hanging with him was enough. As it happened, that night I sat down licking my grease-stained fingers just in time for the start of To Kill A Mockingbird. When I asked my father what it was about, he mentioned something about kids growing up in the south, and upon reflection, grew more enthusiastic about me watching it with him. You’ll like this, he said with sincerity before ordering me to get some napkins for my hands!

I will always remember the experience of that night’s showing. Please understand, I was just a young boy with no idea or appreciation of any subtext that movie classic offered. To me it was just a story I was riveted by. Sure, Dr. King had been shot, and I got the broad strokes of what prejudice was, but institutional racism and injustice were not things I had any ideas about. And so I sat glued to the set, overwhelming my father with questions during the way too many commercial breaks. “Billy, just watch the movie!” still rings in my ears decades later.

I was horrified when they came to lynch Tom Robinson. “He’s supposed to get a trial, right,” I beseeched my dad. And I cheered on Atticus Finch as he laid waste to the prosecution’s case, finally getting Tom’s accuser to break down and replace details of the supposed attack with nonsensical gibberish that merely confirmed she was lying. When Atticus finished his closing argument I had a new hero to go along with Ernie Banks! But nothing prepared me for the verdict; it devastated me, made no sense at all!

Whether my father embraced the moment we shared that night, appreciated the enlightenment I received, I’ll never know. Perhaps he was heartened and proud seeing me agonize about racism’s cruel realities. Maybe he was just as glad to get me off to bed so he could pop open another brew… whatever. I do know that my education about the chasm between sanitized versions of America my elementary schooling provided and our actual civic deficiencies began then and there. Somehow I had to reconcile both sides of the equation: the trial of Tom Robinson I watched with the ridiculous conclusions of the jurors who found him guilty. Tough sledding for a wee lad.

Listening to Adam Schiff and company dutifully carry out the thankless work of presenting, not only an airtight case for impeachment against Donald Trump this week, but the historical landscape for assessing how unprecedented his actions were, memories of my first viewing of the Hollywood classic came rushing back. Just as Gregory Peck brought life to my still nascent sense of justice more than 50 years earlier, Schiff’s steadfast recitation of the facts reinforces a clear understanding of right and wrong, validating how overtly corrupt Trump and his toadies have acted throughout this entire affair. It’s all there for anyone to see and hear; there is nothing to the imagination. To deny its specifics is to embrace the essence of corruption they embody.

A nine-year old boy, unsullied by the relentlessly false counter narrative Fox/AM continuously recites, and the full GOP Senate caucus shamelessly embraces, would come to the same emphatic conclusions I reached after Atticus’ closing argument 50 years ago. A naïf not yet coarsened by MAGA’s relentless gaslighting of truth would surely be shocked by the case Schiff’s team has laid out, appalled a President could pursue such a scheme, and then disdainfully refuse to cooperate in the subsequent investigation of his malfeasance. Surely, as I was a half century ago, the youngster would be rapt by Schiff’s final entreaty to the Senate that:

“Here right matters. … If right doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter how good the Constitution is…..It doesn’t matter how brilliant the Framers were. It doesn’t matter how good or bad our advocacy in this trial is. It doesn’t matter how well-written the oath of impartiality is. If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost.”

In his innocence the kid could be certain of the verdict jurors would reach. After all, they’re Senators who swore an oath, right? They’d have to be criminals engaged in a blatant cover up to sit through such an hours-long litany and let the scoundrel off the hook.

Sadly, we adults, like my father decades past, can only look with knowing resignation at a child’s reasonable naïveté, aware of the incomprehensible disappointment coming his way. After all, we know this GOP all too well. Rand Paul would have thrown spit balls Schiff’s way if not limited by decorum. Marsha Blackburn openly flaunted the rules and left the chamber to grant an interview for MAGA consumption. Later, she tweeted scurrilous libel against Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient, whose high crime to Trumpie sycophants consisted of following the law and obeying a Congressional subpoena. The talk track none will veer from is they’ve heard nothing new, even as every single one votes not to allow additional witnesses and documentation. Circular obstruction.

Whatever passions and outrage Schiff could incite from those watching the proceedings on television, a decisive bloc of jurors are merely bored and indifferent, like children at church. After all, as most made clear before the trial began., their minds are made up. House manager Hakeem Jefferies was spot on today when he said with a hint of resignation in his voice, if we can’t hold Trump accountable for this sorry episode, “God help us all.” Tragically, his plea fell on way too many deaf ears. Tom Robinson wouldn’t have stood a chance with this bunch. BC

In 1956 Hungarians reached their limit with being a Soviet satellite and took to the streets. As grass roots as it could be, the uprising morphed into an armed struggle for independence the puppet government seemed ill-equipped to quell. Each day of conflict appeared to enhance the movement’s prospects as armed clashes got the better of government reinforcements, many who seemed conflicted about repressing their own people. The Kremlin was not happy with developments.

But Nikita Khrushchev had an ace in the hole on the ground, an otherwise invisible diplomat leading Russia’s embassy named Yuri Andropov. Repelled by what he saw as scurrilous mobs challenging the communist ecosystem, Andropov got to work transmitting intelligence and analysis back to Moscow. His reports calibrated the opposition’s strength and weaknesses, paving the way for Soviet military intervention. With a coolness and moral indifference that would become his calling card, Andropov directed the violent destruction of Hungarian independence.

His bones made under fire, Andropov returned to Moscow a couple years later and in 1967 was tapped by Leonid Brezhnev to head up the KGB. It’s not hyperbolic to say his near two decades there would and continues to steer history. Throughout Andropov’s tenure he masterminded both the ruthless efficiency of the KGB’s domestic and Eastern Bloc apparatus, which made dissidents disappear every bit as seamlessly as his predecessors, while overseeing an arsenal of foreign agents pivotal to destabilization agendas abroad.

Ironically, while fully committed to totalitarian relativity of truth, Andropov was a well educated and secure man who insisted on frank honesty from subordinates, formulating policy and procedures in line with facts, no matter how inconvenient. A paradox to be sure. Yet and still, nothing contradicts the notion Andropov was every bit as guided in his world view as Lenin himself that capitalists were vapid and weak, there to be steamrolled by history’s inevitability.

Flash forward to the fall of 1982 and University of New Hampshire’s outstanding political science department. It was an exciting time to be a senior poly sci major at UNH. After all, the campus was beginning to see the first visits by Democratic presidential primary candidates looking to unseat Reagan. Moreover, for a US-Soviet studies geek like me, the Cold War was perhaps at its peak, with Arms Control center stage, the no nukes movement roiling Europe. But what really had my attention that semester was Soviet succession.

Brezhnev was desperately ill and for only the fourth time in the history of Soviet power a change at the top of the politburo was imminent. My mentor at UNH was a Soviet studies professor named Thomas Trout. A dashing former naval intelligence officer, Trout’s lectures were the most well attended in the department, if not the entire school. As charismatic as he was handsome, Trout meticulously organized his presentations to both explain the mechanics of Soviet decision making and provide an interesting narrative for how its policies impacted current events.

By my senior year I was a Trout protege, flattered by the extra time he often granted me to discuss unfolding events. As to Brezhnev’s replacement, Professor Trout was adamant the successful candidate would be a “generalist,” a politician instead of a government bureaucrat. As in America, pressing the flesh and networking influence, a vast outreach amongst the nomenklatura was necessary to win a game of thrones few really understood.

Of course most all I knew of the Soviet system I had learned from Professor Trout, and I wasn’t inclined to doubt his inclinations. Yet and still, I had a tough time eliminating Yuri Andropov from the mix in my handicapping. It seemed to me common sense dictated that within a totalitarian security state control of the secrets meant you knew everyone’s weaknesses and how best to exploit them. And as George Kennan observed, the cutthroat nature of Soviet politics would make American mob bosses blush. Stalin was not a politician; he was a henchman. So why not Andropov?

Sadly, I wasn’t confident enough in my own instincts to follow through on my hunch. As Brezhnev gasped closer to death, I convinced myself some mayor of Leningrad had the “generalist” profile and enough Central Committee connections to grab the ring. The final exam of my Soviet Policy class contained a bonus question to pick Brezhnev’s successor, with the promise of personal public props from Professor Trout for any winners the next semester. Nobody had Andropov and I learned an early lesson about the propriety of swimming upstream against convenient conventional propositions.

Yuri Andropov survived just 15 months as Soviet Party Secretary before his own failing health caught up with him. However, his influence on history would far outweigh his brief tenure at the helm of the Soviet State. A young intelligence officer would embrace Andropov as a hero, and utilize the sources and methods institutionalized by the KGB before the USSR’s fall to facilitate his own rise to power and lead what was left through the slog necessary to restore past greatness. Whatever degree western democratic sensibilities pervaded post-Soviet Russia, whatever optimism existed that pluralism could effectively replace authoritarian rule and usher in a new era of regional and global power, Vladimir Putin was never on board.

In June of 2004, on what would have been his 90th birthday, a bust of Yuri Andropov was unveiled in his hometown of Petrozavodsk. That same day a ceremony was led by Vladimir Putin himself to commemorate his hero. Old school state power was what Andropov brought to mind, and Putin was not bashful in praising it. For younger Russian progressives it was yet another ominous sign of democracy slipping away,

Meanwhile, about the same time in the US, Trump Casinos and Hotels was $1.8 billion dollars in debt and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After going through near half a billion dollars of his father’s wealth, Trump had virtually no prospects left in America, not a bank or lender would allow him into their lobby. As one biographer put it: he was going down like the Titanic when suddenly help arrived just for him…. Russians. The synergy of ruin. BC

America’s system of government has sustained itself since the nation’s birth through institutions representing three separate branches of authority the OG founders deemed critical to maintaining a sovereign democratic state. The sovereign part has been aided immensely by the geography we have been blessed with, oceans are formidable military obstacles. The democratic part has been more challenging, but it’s the diligent development of our basic institutions that has always carried the day through rough patches.

Equally important to the institutions themselves are the norms established for the way they interact among each other. The fine line between competition and cooperation, ally and adversary has defined how both domestic and foreign policy is imparted. It’s not too much to assert that critical balance is the gist of our political ecosystem; if it’s distorted, or worse destroyed, all bets are off and America is in big trouble.

That the Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war is a no-brainer; after all, war is expensive and lawmakers hold the power of the purse. Far more fuzzy is the conduct of foreign policy, and what level of oversight, what degree of interference Congress is allowed to exert on White House actions abroad. These questions didn’t become particularly pressing until the 20th century when technological progress and American capabilities conspired to tempt us toward a more active international role. Things came to a head as FDR recognized the national interests at stake in Europe’s war against Hitler and moved to provide Britain with military hardware for the effort. Congressional isolationists, still attuned to the boys lost in WWI, and determined to keep us out of another conflagration, moved with purpose to challenge Roosevelt’s authority. The Supreme Court issued the final word.

In 1936, ruling on Curtiss Wright Export Corporation’s challenge to a prohibition of arms sales pertaining to earlier hostilities between Bolivia and Paraguay, the Supreme Court issued a watershed decision on White House powers over foreign policy. The language of the 8-1 majority was unambiguous:

“While the Constitution does not explicitly say that all ability to conduct foreign policy is vested in the President, it is nonetheless given implicitly and by the fact that the executive, by its very nature, is empowered to conduct foreign affairs in a way that Congress cannot and should not.”

The President, declared the Court, is the “sole organ” of US policy abroad, and entitled to plenty of leeway when conducting relations with foreign powers. The immediate impact of the ruling was to enable FDR to provide the British Navy with hardware through a “lend-lease” arrangement. The lasting implications were it established legal precedent for an emerging internationalist US posture that WWII and the subsequent Cold War would solidify.

From “police actions” such as Korea and Vietnam to by-the-book Iraq I and post-9/11 carte blanche, the seesaw has tilted from one side to the other and back again. Yet and still, it’s always been about checks and balances in action, with individuals acting together on behalf of the institutions they are a part of. Isolationists and internationalists, hawks and doves, have been represented in both parties. And while partisanship is supposed to end “at the water’s edge,” America has learned the hard way, time and again, that a White House afforded too much leash is prone to destructive hubris, “breaking” nations they then own with consequences that addle US interests well into the future. Thoughtful lawmakers throughout the last 75 years have understood sometimes Republican and Democrat are required to unite for no other reason than supporting the vibrancy of the legislative branch they both work for. Checks and balances.

Donald Trump has no interest in the institutional power of the Presidency he can articulate past whiney tweets and rally gibberish. His pathological narcissism and abject intellectual laziness assure only minute to minute rabid impulses jockey to be a part of an infantile attention span. Nonetheless, Trump views anything other than strident sycophancy within the GOP he now expects to pay him hourly homage as apostasy. MAGA is patriotism, and whatever he decides to do is what’s best for “us” in the continual war against “them,” who are everyone else but us. As Trump would rage at a rally in Toledo after he killed Soleimani, only “we” don’t love terrorists. The farcical briefing his national security team provided US Senators on Thursday about the Soleimani assassination mirrored this attitude.

Those expecting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to uphold his chamber’s virtue and prerogative, after the White House ordered what most observers deemed an act of war without so much as a syllable of consultation, got a heaping helping of lamb. Turns out the guardian of the realm’s most pressing concern, posed to the MAGA braintrust with his usual docility, was whether Senate debate about war powers may hurt troop morale! Ascendent Trumpster Defense Secretary Mark Esper made clear it was follow or betray your country, this is no time for seditious democratic outbursts. It’s been taxing enough having to make up stories to uppity allies, we have to justify things to you? You’re cruising for a tweeting!

Pressed by incredulous Democrats when, if ever, the Administration planned to consider seeking congressional authorization, Secretary of State cum Dr. Strangelove Mike Pompeo declared he would not entertain hypotheticals. Chris Coons of Delaware repeatedly pressed the issue, asserting there was nothing hypothetical about war resulting from targeting Iran’s top military official for assassination. He got nowhere. Pompeo has become very good at saying nothing constructive over and over, his nervous smirk a sure tell he is lying yet again. Small wonder he is now Trump’s Iago of the month. This President simply doesn’t trust anyone honest. No worries about that with Pompeo.

The real shocker from the briefing is apparently the GOP libertarians do have a limit to their ideological expediency of Trump outrages, as both Mike Lee and Rand Paul decided their brand could not survive coddling the President on this one. You can’t cheer on abandoning Kurds to slaughter one month because “it’s none of our business,” and then support mindless escalation toward open ended regional war the next …. er, can you? Mitt Romney can and did, pronouncing himself satisfied with “the largely effective presentation.” Susan Collins of Maine was coy as she hinted a cabal might exist to explore war powers. Fat chance. Believe that when you see it! The myth of Collins as some GOP boat rocker was laid bare long ago. She is as reliable an aye as any Trumpie.

It becomes increasingly clear that the decision to kill Soleimani was made more as a function of Trump’s wild-eyed pre-occupation with impeachment than any US national interest. Seems the President wanted to quench GOP chickenhawks’ taste for Persian blood in order to secure more robust cooperation from them as jurors at his trial. Of course, he needn’t have worried, when it comes to fulfilling their roles as guardians of the Constitution and the institution they pledged to loyally serve in order to protect it, Republicans have clocked out. Now they merely parrot the rants of a mob and loyally serve its seditious champion. The cowardly abdication of duty added to the stew of ruin. BC

One of the most counterintuitive absurdities of Donald Trump’s political ascent is his personal popularity with many in the military. After all, it was previously an article of faith that those who relied on the privilege of wealth to avoid service during Vietnam were at the very least not entitled to anything more than grudging cordiality, even as Commander in Chief.

Bill Clinton certainly suffered through such estrangement during his eight years. Ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” didn’t help matters, but a substantial bloc of veterans already detested him, presumably because he took advantage of a Rhodes Scholarship instead of entering the draft or enlisting. Even W Bush suffered some aloofness due to the correct perception his father used connections to keep him stateside in the Air National Guard when he should have been overseas. “Chicken hawk” is a title vets have used in bipartisan fashion, reflecting the lack of credibility those who avoided service in Vietnam deserve to the eyes of those who did not.

That Trump, he of the multiple “bone spurs” diagnoses, who once told Howard Stern avoiding VD was his “personal Vietnam,” could enjoy the adulation of the Rolling Thunder crowd, current rank and file, and retired naval officers alike, seems to clarify their perceptions are guided by more odious biases previously deemed less important to their thinking, like race and homage to authority, or even embrace of debunked conspiracy theories. More than 50 years after she went to Hanoi, Jane Fonda would still be burnt in effigy, but Trump phony baloney draft deferments are easily forgotten. Go figure.

Regardless, both acting and retired service members are about to have their loyalty to Trump tested by his impulsive order to assassinate Iran’s most revered military leader. Make no mistake, Trump has placed our people serving abroad in mortal danger, particularly those in Iraq. Nobody believes Iran’s vow for revenge is the sort of empty bluster our President defines himself with; there is plenty of substantial tat coming our way, at a place and time we have no means to control.

From that faithful day “shock and awe” was unleashed on Saddam, Iran has been predominant in the Middle East. Its natural adversary fully obliterated, it has been able to focus on what it’s done best since the Mullahs took over, expanding control over a vast network of operatives with only one ultimate aim for one master. The success of that effort is about to be exhibited, American casualties likely the tragic result.

In Gaza, Hamas may operate as representative of Palestinian aspirations, but it is largely financed by Iran, who will surely now expect some of that tab be paid with services only desperate radicals are able to provide. Syria is an Iranian puppet state; that is, Assad does nothing without Tehran’s approval. Ditto Lebanon, where Hezbollah plays a dominant role and stages operations employed to enhance Iran’s reach throughout the region. Whatever Iran requires from either, they will get with at least the indifference of, if not cooperation by host governments. It’s not at all hyperbolic to say our now vastly outnumbered forces within Iraq are encircled by thousands of players mobilizing as we speak to do exactly as they are told.

The most significant aspect of the siege carried out last week by Iran-backed militia at the US Embassy in Iraq was the refusal of Iraqi security forces to intervene in any way. This portends nothing good for our people on the ground there. After more than 15 years of occupation, the army we dissolved remains unable to either guarantee its government’s well being or inspire trust about whose side they are on. Now, when we’ll need them most, anything is possible, nothing and nobody can be counted on. The announcement over the weekend that US personnel has suspended training of Iraqi soldiers clarifies a bunker mentality now exists.

Apparently, like most Presidential decision making these days, the move to kill Soleimani was purely impulsive, made out of frustration while watching television prior to yet another round of golf. What could go wrong? Pentagon brass were stunned, apparently the option had only earlier been presented as the most extreme of a range of possibilities, meant solely to bracket the presentation and encourage Trump toward moderation. It didn’t work. Why they thought it would and didn’t push back more when it didn’t is for another day, a crisis is now at hand. Which of his advisors were all in for targeting Iran’s equivalent of our CIA Director and Secretary of Defense for assassination? Why, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of course, our chief diplomat! Think about that.

The big winner is ISIS, who Iran was instrumental in containing. It’s the second gift Trump has recently given the world’s cruelest group of fanatics, coming on the heels of his similarly thoughtless move to abandon the Kurds, allowing Turkey free reign to replenish ISIS elements that were on the brink of destruction. Now they get another reprieve with both Americans and Iranians focused fully on each other. A couple months ago Trump declared betraying the Kurds was part and parcel of tough love decisions required to keep his promise of ending ceaseless war in the Middle East. Now he has rendered US forces in Iraq sitting ducks, awaiting the worst, even as 3500 hundred more troops are rushed to the region. In less time than is required to get his weave ready for the public, “bring our boys home” has morphed into a very open ended situation.

The wretched core, which now includes the full Republican Party, is predictably deflecting geo-political inconvenience, instead repeating ad nauseam what a terrorist Soleimani was, and how much American blood he was responsible for. But what about where killing him leaves us, and more importantly our troops and personnel abroad, our allies, not to mention global stability? “Let’s just hope Iran does the right thing,” sneered Pompeo.

Meanwhile, the POTUS has made clear via tweet that war crimes are on the table, with a variety of “cultural” sites included in a target package he will choose from should Iran keep its promise to avenge Soleimani. That such strikes would violate international law is beyond doubt:

Protocol I of the Geneva Convention prohibits the targeting of “historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples,” while also prohibiting making such sites the “object of reprisals.”

No matter. Last night Trump tripled down on his threat, snarling the US is obligated only to behave as low as it’s opponent:

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites. It doesn’t work that way.”

Asked repeatedly if they support Trump’s rabid disregard of civilized norms, Republican Hill eunuchs ignored the question in favor of inane repetition of Pompeo’s “hope” that Iran doesn’t escalate things. Of course Fox/AM personalities competed to agree most with their champion, no doubt sure he was watching as they supplicated. In addition to reason, logic and democratic values, the wretched core will not be bound by moral decency, that’s for the liberal traitors Trumpie social media threads now assure us anything less than full support of the President confirms.

The river of lies and daily outrages Trumpism requires to feed its relentless totalitarian torrent now approaches an ocean of chaos and needless destruction Middle East War promises. Eisenhower said it best when he observed only those who have actually seen the mindless brutality of war can fully appreciate its wanton stupidity. Perhaps now our future rests with those who are personally affiliated with Ike’s wisdom. One thing is certain, if men who have experienced battle can embrace Trump as a leader worth dying for, the future is bleak indeed. The march to ruin, at the double step! BC

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) has its roots all the way back to Article 1, section 8 of the Constitution, which grants Congress the power to regulate the military. The UCMJ’s current specifics were authorized by Harry Truman in 1950, adopted in no small measure as a reaction to the many atrocities of WWII brought to light at Nuremberg, particularly the question of when subordinates must refuse to obey orders at odds with human decency.

While protective of individual rights and concerned about the means of safeguarding them, the USMJ draws clear lines for prosecuting crimes and abuses by US service personnel, regardless of branch or rank. The system it establishes deals with the very fine line between the key importance of respect for the chain of command and protection of “whistleblowers” holding officers to account for misdeeds. It’s not at all easy, but the code’s provisions offer firm guidelines and processes for establishing such balance.

Like so many institutions our nation requires to make the rule of law work, military justice is dependent on honor and good faith, presumably imparted to personnel from the first day they enlist, or, for officers, throughout their matriculation at the service academies. And this requisite permeates the process all the way to the very top, right to the White House. As Commander-in-Chief, the President possesses broad powers to intervene and alter military justice if he pleases. The ability to pardon, in particular, essentially permits him veto power of decisions rendered by military courts, ultimate authority as it were.

Of course, were such power to be used recklessly and arbitrarily, or worse, for political objectives, the entire system would be jeopardized from top to bottom. A couple of centuries of best practices could unravel quickly under such circumstances, the principle victims our soldiers in the field, no longer able to trust the foundations of their training because they can no longer believe in the chain of command.

The list of anecdotes about the casual and arbitrary violence by Special Warfare Operator Chief Eddie Gallagher is long and shocking. That the accusations come from his own men, several visibly anguished by what their conscience was forcing them to do, enhances their credibility, even if the actual charges he faced in court pertained only to his mistreatment of one teenage ISIS captive.

Stories of randomly shooting into crowds and windows, at women and unarmed pedestrians, witness intimidation and threatening whistleblowers describe an amoral predator. What comes to mind while reviewing the Gallagher file is, not only an American asset gone bad, but one that may have never been good, a Navy Seal who should have been red flagged from the start, identified as the conscienceless outlier his misdeeds in the field would later confirm. When descriptors such as “maniac” and “pure evil” are being employed to describe one with license to kill, everybody is in danger.

No matter. After an investigation and trial that acquitted him of murder once a fellow Seal with full immunity copped to the stabbing of a teenage ISIS fighter he was in the docket for, but fully clarified how dangerous Gallagher was to anyone within rifle range, the POTUS decided he had found yet another MAGA martyr to political correctness. Like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who bragged about how many Hispanics he could round up and force to endure the elements, and Scooter Libby, who endangered the lives of intelligence personnel for politics, Gallagher was another cause celebre from the bowels of Fox/AM. But this time Trump’s impulsive idiocy has inflicted incalculable damage that will reverberate into the indefinite future. To spare Gallagher from being drummed out of the Navy Seals, his trident repossessed, a fate all of his superiors agreed he richly deserved after posing with an ear-to-ear grin for a picture with the body of a teenager, Trump was willing to dismiss his Secretary of the Navy, and lay waste to the UCMJ.

For little more than some props from Fox and Friends, and fresh gibberish for his rally monologues to the wretched core, Trump has unsteadied the basis for honorable conduct by US military personnel in the field. After all, if a worst-case scenario like Eddie Gallagher is protected in full, indeed declared a hero and invited to Mar-A-Lago for cocktails, why would any soldier put his ass on the line to report misconduct, no matter how grievous the atrocity? And what bad apple would give a second thought to the consequences of a command he may be ignoring, or whatever ethical line he may be crossing. For God’s sake, the POTUS personally has his back! Best practices don’t stand a chance when the worst of us has the power to be despicable without thought or accountability… just a tweet.

Looking back on 2019, a year that encompassed some of the ugliest behavior of our nation’s worst Presidency, the Gallagher pardon may be the nadir. In various ways it clarifies how truly awful Trump and his base are, how destructive their abysmal sensibilities can be. The reality we suffer is as grotesque as it is inane: Presidential decision making has been relegated to the visceral impulses of just another Fox/AM consumer with remote in hand and way too much “executive time” to employ it.

The MAGA narrative behind the pardons of Gallagher and other US soldiers held to account for documented war crimes, ignores international law in favor of the ready-made excuses the barbaric acts of American enemies always provide. That is: our virtuous past now entitles us to be judged by the lowest common denominator enemies like ISIS embody. Instead of being appalled by an American sniper taking potshots at women in burkas, the ready response is simply “they do much worse and more!” A thought to ponder for 2020: the right of Iraqi or Afghani citizens to walk down their street without being shot for kicks by a maniac with a Navy Seal trident means less to our President than whatever wretched core acclimation he can gain for obstructing justice on his behalf. The banality of ruin. BC

More people than usual were flying out of Portland Jetport on a weekday, and access to iPhone recharging stations was at a premium. Worse, the unit I was sitting next to was DOA, the blue power light extinguished. Of course, that didn’t stop me from cluelessly prodding around until a helpful fellow traveler pointed the problem out to me. When I asked her if I could appear any lamer, she assured me it was a common issue that most, including herself, responded to no differently than I had. I thanked her for the fib to make me feel better and started surveying the gate area for unaccompanied blue lights. A silver haired witness to my inadequacy generously offered me the seat next to him, which boasted a true blue energy source.

His name was Steve and he hailed from near Augusta, born and bred in the vacation state. Mainers are noted for their pleasant stoicism, and my new friend was no exception. I did most of the talking, but he was jovial and responded to my inquiries with what can best be termed enthusiastic brevity.

The grandfather of five, he was a cable company construction supervisor on his way to Syracuse for training. His employer had played a dirty trick on him and necessitated he first fly south to Philadelphia to then connect at 9:30 pm to eventually arrive in Syracuse near midnight. I cringed at the thought and offered my heartfelt sympathies.

Throughout our conversation I was struck by how, despite certainly not talking my ear off, Steve answered questions thoroughly, while making sure to never stray past the subject matter he was discussing, there were no tangents to his line of thought, no unnecessary anecdotes. He was pleased to answer any inquiry, and willing to rejoin with an invitation for me to address the topic as well, but we stayed on whatever point was at hand. That I found his method of discourse comfortable, even admirable, perhaps speaks to a certain self-loathing toward my own tendency to tell stories and wander fairly aimlessly during discourse. I don’t know. Point is, he was a very easy guy to be around… and to like.

I have no doubt, were I lucky enough to count Steve my neighbor, he would dutifully have my back, and would appreciate but certainly not feel entitled to me having his. Good communities start with the Steves of this world, and countries are merely the sum total of their communities. So, from what I know of Steve, he is an asset to America, necessary to our fundamental prosperity, a root of our foundation, Rockwellian salt of the earth.

This Holiday Season, our third under the Trump Administration, may in fact be the most appropriate opportunity of the year to consider Steve and I and how the awful divisiveness of MAGA encroaches on the community development most agree goes hand in hand with our well being as a nation.
I never asked Steve about his politics, and wouldn’t be surprised wherever he came down. Which is to say I’ve been repeatedly disappointed by otherwise wonderful people I’ve known for years who are now unapologetic members of the wretched core, just as I know plenty of unpleasant sorts I’d just as soon avoid who have not a shred of patience for Trump. However, that is not at all to equate the two groups, which way too many still seem prone to do, contributing to our ingestion of ruinous toxicity.

The space between a rock and a hard place America now occupies consists of two precepts all of us took for granted growing up. Until 2016 we never had any compelling reason to challenge either one of them because each serviced the other. The demeanor of our Presidents never strayed from parameters they entered office determined to respect and left unchallenged. As a result, we had the luxury of assuming, Democrat or Republican, they would function in the background of our life routines, and, more importantly, respect the system that enabled their ascendency or terminated their service. Moreover, they would faithfully champion one common theme, paramount to our existence as a country: national unity. Together, these bedrocks established acceptable norms for civility and behavior, protecting relationships from political passions. No more.

As America confronts its version of the classic symptom authoritarian populism presents, a steady erosion of democratic society, Trump’s wretched core are no longer the primary issue. They’ve become a constant variable. They have elected and emboldened a destructive nihilist, and will embrace his worst, which could certainly descend to historically malevolent depths, but there is no longer any mystery to them or their misguided inclinations.

The open unanswered question now is how the rest of America tolerates them amongst us because, sadly, that has become synonymous with whether MAGA prospers further or is contained and eventually dies out. Totalitarian movements can’t survive dormancy. They can’t live through the collective disdain required to drive them from power, regroup, and then again hit the ground running. Trump out of the White House will look and sound very different, and without the Presidency’s bully pulpit and resources, even with 24/7 Fox/AM participation, he will become page A4 rather than the headline. Relevancy will become much harder work, and we all know Trump is a very lazy man, his own worst enemy.

Our ability to accept Trumpism as anything other than an ugly aberration is everything, the metric of our future. The most significant measure is whether we continue to categorize politics, doggedly refusing to permit this Presidency’s cauldron of degradation to boil over and co-mingle with community relations. No matter how many times it’s been said, it bears repeating, this isn’t Romney, or W, or even Nixon, and it’s a GOP the country has never before experienced, an enterprise with nothing in the way of constructive governance on its day timer. The ever growing list of former Republican Party stalwarts now as opposed to MAGA as any “liberal” certifies this reality.

When the Senate majority leader breathlessly reassures a Sean Hannity of his predisposition to, not only acquit an impeached President, but fully map out the entire process of his trial with him, there exists a massive chasm between the historical norms that are supposed to inform his job performance and absurd new expectations he believes his primary constituency intends to hold him to.
It’s our everyday give and take with that bloc that will define us moving forward. They don’t exist in a vacuum. They aren’t cordoned off and neatly showed for their worst. Many are Steves, whose plethora of good qualities are right now consumed by the existential crisis they believe is saving their country. Of course, it would be a far more pleasant task to talk about grandkids and the New England Patriots. Yet and still, it’s the grandchildren who are at the heart of this matter and deserve more than pleasantries. Confronting ruin. BC

History rewards substance, not pomp. It’s always useful, when considering insults hurled at a particular public person, to remember Lincoln was burned in effigy on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Profiles in courage are just that, popularity doesn’t enter into the picture. Had Lyndon Johnson not pushed through landmark civil rights and anti-poverty legislation, deeds that rendered him synonymous with treachery in his native south, his legacy would have been a big bunch of nothing. Instead of a legislative giant, LBJ would have become the guy who wasted Camelot’s promise and merely mired us in the pointless quagmire of Vietnam.

Wednesday’s orgy of oratory on the House floor was indeed for the ages, and will become more than just a footnote for historians to assess. Nothing could more effectively clarify the crossroads we have reached than the polarization on display throughout a debate with a foregone conclusion, a drama with an ending the audience knew was coming. But predictability can still shock the senses, and the GOP specializes in both lately.

The hyenas of an emerging American totalitarianism dutifully lined up in service to their Scar. Throughout the day they most resembled a collection of rappers, squaring off to prove who could use their allotted minute most creatively. Of course that is a profound diss to the Ice Cubes of this world, who have more imagination than the lot of the Republican House caucus combined. But on they carried forth, hour after hour, with nastiness to spare, directed over and over at the same usual suspects.

Nobody was reviled more this week than Adam Schiff of California, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Throughout the historic histrionics he was attacked with everything from calls for his indictment to scurrilous innuendos about his agenda. Trumpism only takes the low road, but Schiff’s attackers traveled by way of gutters all day long. Incredibly, much of the hideous invective was screeched while Schiff was present, taking his shift steering the debate. And his stoicism in response – a chuckle here, a clever rejoinder there – reinforced the understated professionalism he has embodied through the sorry saga of Trump’s overt corruption. Courageous and unflappable are the best adjectives available.

A common fantasy most indulge is the hypothetical of how we would act in a crisis, when the chips are down and peril comes calling. However, it’s doubtful being constantly signaled out by an unhinged POTUS with millions of acolytes ready and willing to absorb his hatred of the villainy he has assigned you finds its way into many such scenarios. Welcome to “Shifty Schiff’s” world.

That the main of House Republicans parrot Trump’s disgraceful personal libel against a colleague both disqualifies them as anything other than the clear and present dangers to governance they’ve become, and accentuates the debt of gratitude we owe Schiff…. come what may. The lines now drawn could not be clearer, nor the stakes higher. Flinching is not an option as one of America’s major political parties unites around sedition, in full service to a corrupt traitor. It’s a time where diligent fortitude equates with heroism, and that’s exactly what Schiff is delivering.

An ironic sidebar to Schiff’s stewardship of the impeachment investigation process is that, since his election to the House in 2001, he has been exactly the bipartisan-seeking, get-a-deal-done compromiser progressives would be looking to primary. On everything from authorizing the Iraq invasion (he admitted it was a bad mistake) to approving military budgets to supporting Saudi Arabia’s initial foray into Yemen, Schiff has been in line with across-the-aisle sensibilities. In fact, before Trump was elected, the issue Schiff may have been most ardent about was reducing the helicopter noise bedeviling many of his local constituents, a continent away from DC. Now he is MAGA enemy #1.

Indeed, it’s hard to find a better example of the times making a man than the case of Adam Schiff. And what he has lacked in flash, Schiff has made up for with relentless focus on gathering and presenting the facts, the oversight function. While his opposite number, Devin Nunes, has from day one competed to be Trump’s champion Capitol Hill bootlicker, sparing no effort to breathe life into outlandish and fully debunked conspiracy theories, Schiff has been about timelines produced from sworn testimony. While Nunes has his own cot over at Fox News, Schiff has dutifully made the media rounds, calmly tolerating insidious false equivalence while keeping America apprised of the facts, first in regard to the Mueller investigation and then the Ukrainian scandal. At no time has he entertained what wasn’t already there or made himself the story. In other words, he has been a solid professional exactly when that’s been needed most.

When old Sam Irvin was getting the goods on Richard Nixon he had to deal with a lot of different pressures and stresses. One thing he never had to be concerned about was the POTUS calling him “a deranged person… a very sick man, who lies” and should be indicted. Not a day now passes that Trump doesn’t incessantly insult Schiff and hiss to his wretched core their most visceral hatred toward him is appropriate. If it bothers Schiff he doesn’t let on about it, remaining his usual unflappable self, keeping his eye on the ball he is most responsible for pushing forward.

Whatever Trumpism still has in store for the US, whatever dangerous indignities it still may inflict, he has at least been stained by the impeachment his behavior fully warranted. That corruption was meticulously cataloged and presented for consideration largely due to the efforts of one man. Wednesday evening, as Schiff yielded himself the remaining six minutes of his time to make a final Democratic statement about why impeaching Donald Trump was the only option the rule of law and the Constitution allowed those obliged to satisfy their oath of office, he was interrupted by cowardly representatives of a mob no longer concerned with such requisites of democracy. At that moment it was easy to appreciate this is only the beginning of what will be the gravest crisis America has faced. Yet and still, it was also a fully appropriate time to feel grateful hope and good faith are still served by people like Adam Schiff. Nothing is more important right now. BC

Back in 2010, as the House and Senate were marking up what would become the final version of Obamacare, America got a clear view of its future. In both chambers the process defined anyone’s idea of hell, far worse than watching paint dry because paint doesn’t act like an overindulged six-year old from start to finish.

Over and over, hours into days, GOP lawmakers offered one poison pill amendment after another, each with no chance of being adopted by the majority. But it wasn’t enough to simply put the amendment up – coupled with a speech for Sean Hannity and the base back home – for rejection; Republicans would then demand a hideously tedious roll call vote. Nihilist kabuki became part and parcel of every step in the slog toward national healthcare; it was literally a battle of who could disagree more.

Central to the GOP narrative was Obamacare’s reliance on an individual mandate (IM) which would levy a tax, or fine depending on point of view, on individuals refusing to obtain health insurance. It hardly mattered the individual mandate was actually Nixonian in its origins, and found its first national sponsor in 1989 when the Heritage Foundation put it out as an alternative to the Clinton Administration’s doomed push for a single-payer system.

Nor did it matter the modest obligation was simpatico with conservative sensibilities toward ballooning costs associated with extended care for that percentage of “free riders” selfish enough to refuse purchasing coverage come what may. Roger Ailes and Mitch McConnell, both publicly committed to making Obama’s a one-term Presidency, had their main talking point and they would run with it. Fox/AM went to work, attacking the udders of our increasingly shrill argument culture with the aim of milking it for every last drop. The war on Obamacare would fully reflect just how unhinged messaging could become within the vortex of Glenn Beck and GOP show horses from gerrymandered districts, terrain capable of prompting only primary threats from the right.

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, despite his stature and seniority, made it clear from the start GOP stalwarts would follow rather than lead on the issue. Although he favored the individual mandate when it was an alternative to single-payer, Hatch did his best Patrick Henry, declaring “…the difference between regulating and requiring is liberty.” From O’Reilly to Rush, Levin to Malkin, the Fox/AM brigade became ceaseless in trying to one up each other as to the calamity the IM portended.

Steadily the IM went from the poster child of liberal dependence on unnecessary regulation to a certain harbinger of totalitarianism. A $695 annual penalty, levied on those with the means to purchase health insurance, but stubbornly ignorant enough to refuse to do so, became a GOP synonym for end times. Instead of free riding deadbeats prepared to cost the system thousands if misfortune came their way, those refusing to take advantage of insurance they previously could not access were proud patriots, modern day tea tax rebels. By November they would have their own “grass roots” movement that would make Democrats pay dearly for their unconscionable efforts to insure more Americans.

By the time Obama signed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law in March of 2010, 39 blue dog House Democrats were already preparing talk tracks about why they joined every Republican and voted against Obamacare. The Tea Party wave that November spared few of them. And what of the GOP? After their first taste of just how easy it was to throw all semblance of truth and decorum to the curb, simply making stuff up as they went, Republican back benchers were euphoric. Unlike moderates who valued governance and felt the need for several showers, the nihilists knew a winner when they saw one. Why had they waited so long?!

Near ten years later the GOP strategy and behavior for executing it are one and the same, the product of an epiphany the battle against national health insurance provided. The crux of the matter, which they were just comprehending back in 2010, is straightforward as it is depraved: that the national interest pales in the shadow of power, and the sky’s the limit when visceral white grievance melds with a multi billion dollar, multi-platform messaging system. The only difference now is there exists not a one in the GOP caucus of either chamber who loses a moment’s sleep over such standard procedure requirements.

What was a Faustian bargain with grievous moral and ethical consequences for members to consider back in 2010, is now a central part of the Republican autonomic nervous system, as natural as breathing. Those lawmakers with moral reservations about the Pandora’s Box they helped to open back when they warned constituents about “death panels” are long gone, replaced by a political class liberation of its contents enabled and nourished. That spawn has been on full display recently in a House Longworth Building hearing room.

The Republican Party has devolved apace as one might have expected it to after its hysterics during the Obamacare debate. That a majority of Americans now have a favorable view of the program, and thousands owe their lives to its inception, hasn’t stopped the GOP from tossing all manner of pasta against the wall in an effort to kill it. Yet and still, once they succeeded in ending the IM along with the passage of a massive tax giveaway to big business and the upper brackets, the appetite for false and reckless rhetoric about Obamacare diminished. Now it’s ceaselessly employed to protect Donald Trump’s rabid political survival.

Back in 2010 Republicans discovered the political advantages of ignoring established signposts of shamelessness. Now, as a united authoritarian party with no daylight between their leadership and the rank and file, the GOP has upped the ante and are enthused to disregard established taboos about sedition while protecting Trump. GOP nihilists now peg impeachment as an existential threat to their wretched core supporters, who need precious little persuading, but will still get it 24/7 for good measure, just as they did a decade ago. Same sorry game, but much higher stakes. A contest we can’t afford to lose against opponents who cheat to win. BC