Author: BC

I doubt one could find a more priviledged youth than growing up in Potomac, MD. In the mid-70s it was steadily maturing from farm country to part of the widening expanse of DC suburbia. Unlike today, there existed few enclaves of mansions; rather, comfortable colonials and split-levels defined its landscape. Yet and still,  there was no “bad side” of town, the most modest in income living in wholly adequate townhouses that nobody would describe as run down.

Churchill High School was near entirely white, but for a small sprinkling of internationals and an African American contingent from a historical black community called “Scotland.” Hailing from Evanston, Ill., where integration came with a good deal of stress and conflict, I was fascinated with how seamlessly my black classmates moved throughout a snow-like landscape, always sticking together, yet effortlessly picking and choosing wherever they wanted to play a role. I’m sure they had another take on it, but that’s how I saw it.

When I first moved to the area it was viscous culture shock, coming from a firmly established middle American university town to an infant outlier filled with transients assaulted me. Scotland felt much more comfortable than the Brady Bunch world the rest of Potomac seemed like. Indeed, I made every effort to meld with the Scotland kids, but alas, they afforded no outsiders membership; you could hang with them, but wholly on their terms. Again, they may argue that point, but it was as I saw and felt it.

Churchill fulfilled every stereotype of high school life, none more than its indulgence of cliques. I don’t recall groups being set apart by title, yet they fully existed nonetheless. And like most teen social structures, they really represented three different realities. There was inside looking only inside (the A list not given to abiding inferiors), there was inside looking out (the very cool yet very nice, those everybody loved), and outside looking in (those feeling the angst of exclusion.) Everyone knew where they fit then as well as they do now, after 40 years of reflection.

High school may be life’s cruelest trauma because, as long as it seems to last, as pivotal as its experience is in defining our temperaments and self-esteem, it’s events, good and bad, memorable and forgettable, pleasant and painful, always seem just ahead of us, unfolding despite us rather than with us. Time does nothing but recall opportunities we allowed ourselves to miss, or perhaps even more cruelly highlight the triumphs we somehow could never again achieve. As good as it will never get again, or as bad as you hope to never again experience, and every other thing in between…. such is the spectrum for our lives high school mercilessly creates. And always, for everybody, it begins the point of departure of life’s relentless march, its subtle yet wholly frontal assault on the hard edges of our youth. Time can’t change where you were, but it surely defines how far you’ve come, or how little progress you’ve made…. and that is more than enough.

The Class of 78’s 40th reunion is a two-event affair, the first far more exclusive than the second. I felt exactly zero compunction to attend the Homecoming football game. Why would I? I never attended a varsity game at 17; I doubt I’ll do so at 58. Yet and still, it’s wonderful to see pictures of old classmates drinking in the joy and comraderie my aloofness foolishly cheated me out of as a youth. Maturity’s wisdom is meant to force accountability on all of us. The memories high school sports provide are there for the taking; who could begrudge those who took them? Still, 40 years has done little to strengthen bonds that never really existed. Pretending they did seems a pointless distraction for those who actually participated

Part two is tonight and should prove much more popular and better attended. Drinks will come from a bar instead of a keg, but everybody gets to party, free of the distractions that seemed preeminent in 1978! Tonight we can fully appreciate the fellowship many of us scorned as youths, and enjoy the common identity of our shared circumstance during a minuscule, yet gigantic, time span 40 years ago. Who we are now surely owes to what we were becoming then.  And how we assess then is a function of what we became. That’s life folks! Simple as it is devastatingly certain.

Twenty years ago, which seems like last month, my wife had to convince me to attend my 20th reunion. When I returned home, she asked how it went. I shrugged my shoulders and responded “not bad”…  “not sure what I was afraid of.” Two decades later fatherhood, as well as the certainty our political life can no longer be innocuously compartmentalized, has redefined who I am. Twenty years ago I walked around goofily showing a picture of my new born daughter, surely producing eye rolls from savvy parents who got started years earlier. Tonight I am as hardened to the vicissitudes  of parenthood as any, but will gladly enjoy tales of grandchildren I can’t yet share. Of course, social media has fully transformed the nature of class reunions. Most will have at least some impression of me garnered from my use of such platforms, good or bad. I’m ok with that; it’s simply who I’ve become. Who I was? … Give me a break! It was 40 years ago, for God’s sake! BC

McLean Bible Church is a sprawling campus just west of Tyson’s Corner, VA. It’s main auditorium accommodates several thousand congregants, and is full most Sunday services. Recently retired Lon Solomon was the mega-Church’s pastor for several decades and is as articulate and charismatic an orator as one will find; seldom is the sermon he delivers not sufficient to make the listener ponder deeply its themes. Unlike many garish and vexatious leaders of large evangelical congregations, Pastor Solomon is humble in pursuit of his aims, content to talk about Jesus and the church’s mission to spread his word, and ever vigilant to avoid any circumstance that could compromise his duty.

Indeed, Pastor Solomon is an artist, his canvas the Bible. The weekly messages he crafted integrated scripture with real life in a way the newly introduced and lifetime follower alike could appreciate. He actually has it down to a formula. After parsing several pages of either the Old or New Testament, Solomon would ask  “our most important question.” He then led a loud unified “So What!” To which he responded with all the ways words transcribed by ancients affect us today, intersecting with basic routines. Yes, Lon Solomon is exactly the kind of godly, incorruptible man any church hopes and prays they will be lucky enough to have lead their godly pilgrimage….. He’s also a fanatic.

Solomon can best be described as a biblical hyper-purist; he believes both testaments to be “perfect” publications, that is, every word on their pages is true. After all, were one utterance to be false or misleading, how could there be faith the whole enterprise wasn’t  just a long sequence of falling dominoes? Jonah and the whale? You bet.  The world created in seven days? How else could it have happened? Stonings and what not for otherwise innocuous activities in the Old Testament? Tough love, everything to God’s purpose. While Solomon goes to great pains to validate the New Testament’s historical accuracy, often delving into archeology to confirm the steps of Jesus, he exhibits and expects  full faith toward the more sensational aspects of the Old Testament’s guidance, lest  one be tempted down the road toward heresy.

Perhaps most controversial about Lon Solomon is his ardent membership in “Jews For Jesus.” Raised Jewish with full semetic lineage, Solomon inspired the wrath of his parents when he accepted Jesus as his savior. Yet and still, that doesn’t half cover much of the disdain he receives from the greater Hebrew community for essentially labeling them unrepentant sinners, unwilling  to recognize Jesus Christ as Messiah.  Asked how he feels about such visceral emotions toward him, Solomon merely shrugs it off and asserts “I am only the messenger.” His mission is first and foremost to save souls from damnation;  he can do no less.

The race for Congress in Michigan’s 11th district is labeled a toss up. Lena Epstein, an unabashed GOP Trumpie, believes turnout will decide things. On that score she had VP Mike Pence in town Monday to motivate the base out of their recliners. With news of eleven Jewish innocents gunned down by a Nazi in Pittsburgh gripping the nation, beginning the event with a prayer for the fallen was mandatory. Bloomfield Hills  has a number of synagogues –  including the one Epstein later made clear she has assiduously attended throughout her life – led by Rabbis one could assume would have obliged to offer thoughts and prayers for the fallen if asked. Or maybe not, given who was asking. Regardless, Loren Jacobs was selected, he of the “Messianic Jewish” persuasion, that is “Jews for Jesus.”

The Trump Administration is notoriously indifferent to bad optics. Yet and still, the stunning absurdity of a “Rabbi” beseeching the heavens on behalf of Jews victimized within the sanctum of their own synagogue, even as his guiding theological tenet maintains all of the slain are headed to hell’s depths, assaults the senses.

It’s a good bet Mike Pence would be enrapt by Lon Solomon’s preaching. Certainly there is no daylight between their respective takes on Christianity, what they see as  nonnegotiable duties for furthering its mission. Perhaps most importantly, neither is overly concerned with recognizing where the line for church ends and state begins. And make no mistake…. all religions are not equal. Solomon’s oratorical gifts and insights aside, his words would have been little different from Jacobs had he been tapped in Michigan. Duty is not a flexible thing.

The worst man in America happens to be our President. The ridiculous efforts of American evangelicals to provide Trump, as secular and theologically vacant  a POTUS as has ever come down the pike, with pious bona fides has been pathetic and laughable, kabuki nonsense punctuating outrageous hypocrisy.

However, number two in line for the big seat, and arguably the second worst our nation can offer, needs no elevation from Graham and Falwell Jr. or any of the rest of born again America’s false prophets; Pence is  a true believer. Even Lon Solomon could not be more devoted, or less given to accepting other roads to eternal salvation. Unfortunately for the fallen in Pittsburgh, only one route heads to a glorious hereafter and they are too late. Both Lon Solomon and Mike Pence could not be more certain of that fate. But remember one thing before you get too upset with them…. they’re just the messengers.  BC

In the fall of 2002 I came home one evening and my wife, Susan was upset to the point of tears, which was not like her. She said there was something wrong with our two-year old, Luke and we needed to start figuring out what to do. This wasn’t the first time we had this discussion. Since the previous Thanksgiving, when on the beach in Nags Head he literally refused to stop staring out at the ocean, transfixed to the point of immobility, our concerns had been steadily increasing. Yet and still, I stubbornly maintained kids developed in vastly different ways, and despite a growing number of odd eccentricities, he was still our Luke; mislabeling a kid was a terrible disservice. Give him time, he’d find his way. I was sure of it.

Sue told me the staff of Huckleberry Cheesecake, the Rolls Royce of DC daycares, had expressed concerns to her that day when she picked Luke up. It wasn’t simply her worrying too much anymore, others saw things similar; and  they advised seeing a developmental specialist. I angrily scoffed at the notion. BS, I said, he does everything other kids do, just because he likes to play by himself more often, and enjoys some odd types of entertainment doesn’t demand a clinical diagnosis! Give him a chance I fumed! Sue calmly suggested I stop by Huckleberry next time I was downtown and observe how Luke was interacting with peers. I agreed to it, still certain the whole thing was a fishing expedition.

The next afternoon I swung by the daycare. Luke’s playroom had a large observation window where parents could sit and watch their children while chatting with staff. Ms. Colleen, a wonderful administrator, told me I had arrived just in time for the afternoon storybook presentation. I sat down and looked into the room, which offered a comfy corner book area complete with  arena seating that allowed the tots to sit in tiers and listen to one of the attendants read a story while asking questions and encouraging participation. The kids were already seated with their backs to us. I focused intently on the sandy blonde boy in the front row.

As the story began he laughed and clapped, sometimes interrupting a bit inappropriately, others looking off before refocusing, but on balance seemed not vastly different from the other kids. I glanced at Colleen, who had a very sad, empathetic look on her face, like she wanted to hug me. I was confused, even humored by this, and exclaimed I saw nothing much out of the ordinary, and asked what I was missing. Now it was her turn to look confused. I motioned to the kid in the front row and again demanded she tell me what he was doing that had her so concerned. Mr. Carey, that isn’t Luke, she said, he’s over there, pointing to the other end of the room by the kitchen. I looked over to where she directed and there was my son, walking on his tip toes, staring vacantly at the lights in the ceiling, having a conversation with himself, wholly disinterested in the group he had abandoned.

I’ve taken a couple of bad beatings in my life, and actually been hit by a car, but nothing ever slammed me worse than the truth of that moment. From that image on my son had autism; nothing was ever the same again. Reality had pummeled me to a pulp, knocking to kingdom come every last bit of denial.  My son’s life was going to be different… that was simply a fact I could no longer spin away.

I’ve thought about that day more than a few times over the last two years or so, wondering when, or if ever, Trump supporters will experience some similar epiphany capable of  knocking them to their senses and forcing a reckoning with the truth that reasonable millions recognized long ago. What will it take? When will it happen?

Unhinged rally monologues have only seemed to increase enthusiasm. Bundist wannabes marching through Charlottesville were prevaricated. A ghastly meltdown on the world stage in Brussels was ignored. Treason in Helsinki failed to do the trick. I was sure human rights violations at our southern border would force a good many to gasp and reassess, but no, seems not. A near year-long investigation by the New York Times that chronicled the foundational  lie of Trump as a self-made man, instead of a sponge for $413 million in today’s dollars of daddy’s wealth raised not an eyebrow, failing to survive even one news cycle. Multiple bombs sent to his enemies list, the  result of his relentless stochastic terrorism, only invites “false flag” denial from his wretched core, or the false equivalence that “the left’s hate” invites what they get.  And now eleven  more innocents dead in a Pittsburgh synagogue, literally gunned down by a Nazi, who a torrent of Fox News site commenters swear is a liberal!

Trump has made the results of next Tuesday’s balloting a referendum on him. Anybody asserting anything else is as much in denial as the hordes he loves to incite. Next week we will have a better idea whether the myriad of his outrages have snapped anyone at all out of the stupor responsible for our predicament.

Thus far, nothing seems able to budge the arrow. Regardless, one thing is unfortunately certain, this Administration will not be bashful in pushing the envelope of its supporter’s tolerance for uncharted ugliness. Those of us cognizant of Trump’s moral and intellectual vacancy are left to hope that some pivotal moment will provide the body slam necessary for a relevant portion of his heretofore entranced adherents to finally blink and recognize their grevious  misjudgment. Of course as time passes and each opportunity is discarded such hopes grow increasingly dim. But really… what else is there? Don’t answer that! BC

 

In the immediate aftermath of Dylann Roof’s mass murder of nine African-Americans in a Charleston church, Rush Limbaugh was anxious. Even a cursory glimpse into Roof’s life revealed an alienated young bigot, filled with grievance and resentment toward minorities in general, blacks in particular. It was clear he was an avid consumer of right wing grievance, and the Carolinas were Rush country, a ratings refuge in his increasingly shrinking nationwide footprint.

Nothing gets the Fox/AM “personalities” touchier than any implication their repetitive toxin may have produced real world consequences, ugly violence carried out by one of their rabid consumers; the Charleston horror was no exception. Limbaugh wanted distance between himself and lone wolf Roof, immediately painting the teenager as “sick” and “disturbed,” even as he assured his audience he was not going to jump to conclusions. Indeed, right-wing terrorist events stand alone in that regard within the Fox/AM universe. Just like Trump, it’s the only time they seem at all deliberate. But early on it was clear Roof was a product of right-wing hate, fully exhibiting its many brands in photos and social media. And so the Rushster was edgy and quick to preempt any sort of speculation that he had any influence at all on the disturbed youngster.

In between attacking then President Obama for politicizing the mass killing, even though Obama had made it a point to say he was waiting for the investigation to proceed before issuing a statement, Limbaugh let his listeners provide him with cover. He couldn’t agree more with Anthony from Henderson, North Carolina, who declared “nowadays you just can’t do anything with a person with mental problems.”  Case closed. Hands washed.

A stochastic terrorist is defined as one who “publically demonizes a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable, but whose specifics are not predicted.” I admit, until very recently, I had no idea such a term existed, yet there it is. Never has one sentence so clearly described so much.

That this has become a Fox/AM Presidency is beyond dispute. Not only does our Chief Executive completely rely on Fox News and the AM talk radio universe for all of his messaging, but also fully depends on it to inform his own worldview, as well as primary advice for carrying out his duties and staffing White House and other high-level government positions. In other words, as clearly articulated by the definition above, US government is in the hands of stochastic terrorists. Hey! ….blame Webster’s!

Our President’s disdain for the toil of governance has left him with a lot of time on his hands. Trapped within the White House gates, and wholly disinterested in performing the job he never wanted, Trump has gone stir crazy since his inauguration. With only so much golf to be played, a ridiculous number of rounds even he can recognize as bad optics, what to do?  Such is the dilemma of a lazy imposter hopelessly over his head, desperately seeking relevance. Rallies to the rescue! Trump rallies have provided him something to do he actually likes, while getting him away from the White House, where all agree he can only destabilize the planet. Even the Trump-branded GOP leadership embraces the benefits of firing up the base for mid-terms. Grievance and resentment gets nihilists out of their recliners!

Yet and still, to watch a Trump rally is to witness the very essence of stochastic terrorism. The press are literally kept in a pen and continually referred to as “evil” and “enemies of the state,” pointed to and continually maligned as Trump’s wretched core jeers and boos lustily. His defeated opponent is regularly denounced, instigating a Pavlovian chant of “lock her up.”  Desperate Central American migrants are continuously decried as the scum of the Earth, rapists and criminals invading our sovereignty. Kneeling black football players are denounced as traitorous rabble. Democrats are existential threats to the country, with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer bent on destruction. On and on… Low IQ Maxine Waters… Lying Pochahantas Elizabeth Warren.

If that isn’t public demonization it’s impossible to imagine what is. Of course, anyone with even a passing familiarity with Fox’s prime time line up, or tired AM talk radio routines, knows the President’s attacks are merely part and parcel of what’s on offer every day, all day, year after year. His is simply the bully pulpit, the ultimate platform.

Now bombs are being mailed to anyone and everyone on Trump’s enemies list; the “statistically probable act” has happened. To hear Trump and his creators tell it, the victims have nobody but themselves to blame. Like Rush with Dylann Roof and every other Fox/AM inspired Travis Bickel, whose hateful dulusions are elevated to shining acts of patriotism, there is nothing to see here; the most we’ll plead to is being part of a wider problem the other side is even more guilty in creating.  It takes two to tango! Start being “fair” and things will resolve themselves.

The dangerous and uncharted territory this Administration has taken our nation gets sketchier and less stable by the day. Trump and his Fox/AM facilitators have created a powder keg they appear fully willing to detonate. This week’s events seem merely an early salvo of a nihilist horde unfazed by the lasting damage it can inflict on the country demagogues have convinced them needs saving. One thing is certain, whatever Trump whines to his wretched core, whatever Rush hisses to his faithful, we have a name for them now….. Stochastic terrorists. Look it up!  BC

When you think about it US democracy is just an honor system. The whole exercise is based on the assumption, tradition, practice, habit – whatever, that the results of nationwide tabulations, monitored state by state, will be accepted by all parties and fully observed. I suppose of all the “miracles” of the American experiment, this peaceful turnover of tangible power is the most amazing. But what if one side refuses to abide the results because they are beholden  to a narrative their base imbibes that equates broad electoral defeat, and accompanying loss of power, with national catastrophe? What then? We may soon find out.

The GOP approaches these midterm elections with the same trepidation Democrats felt in 2010. Despite a booming economy, their President, who has been wildly successful placing his brand on the party’s national profile, limps  into November with personal approval ratings stuck in the mid-40s, a figure that has in the past assured a mid-term trouncing. The most polarizing politician in American history, Trump has limited GOP strategy for maintaining control of both chambers on the Hill to one option… turn out the base and hope the plethora of voter suppression schemes flyover legislatures have introduced bear adequate disenfranchisement necessary to carry just enough shaky incumbents over the finish line. Not exactly juggernaut aspirations.

On Election Day 2016 I came home, after experiencing not a moment’s wait to vote, and told my wife we were in trouble. Low turnout is the Republicans’ best friend, always has been. Apathy amplifies the voices of the elderly white, blue collar, male GOP base, which now has morphed into Trump’s wretched core. The inclinations of a majority of today’s America are at odds with views that Fox/AM narrows and makes more exclusive and intolerant by the day. It is simple math: The more citizens vote, the better Democratic prospects become.

Latest polling implies historic levels of enthusiasm across US demographics to vote this election cycle, a large chunk of it motivated by disdain for the President; that can’t be good for the GOP. But Republicans understand the implications of the latest data and have been overt in efforts to make it as hard as possible for certain blocs of voters to participate, literally tossing out ballots in some cases. The cold fact that the GOP views new voters as inimical to their fortunes translates into a narrative, relentlessly hyped by Fox/AM, that equates voter registration efforts with fraud, most often with “illegals” front and center, but also targeting black get-out-the-vote efforts for the type of scrutiny typical of suppression protocols.

The Brennan Center for Justice catalogs every legal challenge to state laws and technical amendments designed to disenfranchise voters. Not surprisingly, the lion’s share have been filed in southern states, where nothing like what is currently happening has been seen since the 60’s,. Georgia exemplifies how brash suppression efforts have become, as Stacey Abrams, a black Democrat running for Governor, looks to motivate the 31% African-American share of the state’s population.

The national GOP leadership have kept straight faces while Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate, has kept his day job as Secretary of State, responsible for actually overseeing the election’s legitimacy. This is the same Brian Kemp who boasted in a campaign ad, he was prepared to drive his own truck throughout the state and round up “illegals”. Meanwhile, just to tilt the playing field, Kemp has pursued an “exact match” policy which requires voter registration information to mirror to the hyphen data in state computers or the application is thrown out. As many as 50K voters stand to lose their status, more than two-thirds African-American.

Alabama actually passed a voter ID law that allows election officials to vouch for voters without appropriate credentials, essentially granting poll managers arbitrary powers to pick and choose who has to obey the law. In Kansas, Chris Kobach, the head of Trump’s Voter Fairness Commission, tasked with proving his fantasy that millions of immigrants voted for Hillary, is locked in a tight race for Governor, and, like Kemp, is the Secretary of State in charge of electoral credibility. Kobach earlier wasted plenty of taxpayer funds uncovering a grand total of nine cases of state voting irregularities, most addled seniors who forgot they had voted already. The list goes on, and it is exclusively Republican. Democrats want more voters, the GOP doesn’t… that simple.

But what if, despite the Republican’s best efforts, a blue wave does crest this November? What if a perfect storm of unprecedented Democratic turnout and a higher degree of Trump repudiation within the GOP combine to deliver Democrats control of both chambers? Who says Trump and his co-conspirators will do the right thing? Anybody simply assuming they will hasn’t followed Trump very closely, or his congressional abettors.

Before he got the terrible news he actually won, Trump was fully prepared to declare 2016’s election a fraud. And while he has been playing the game at his rallies lately, sporadic references to the “rigged system” are not unusual. Just yesterday he tweeted urgently that government monitors were poised and ready to catch election cheats for full punishment. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman warned confidently that the Trumpist GOP is more than capable of rejecting results they don’t like and throwing the country, and the world, into crisis.

What lends the extraordinary possibility credence is how easy Trump can ignite events and start the dominoes tumbling. A tweetstorm here, a reckless statement there.  Some calls to Nunes and company in the House, a collective refusal of vanquished Trumpie candidates to concede while echoing his rubbish. McConnell and company in the Senate refusing to outright refute it and calling for an investigation “out of an abundance of caution” for the integrity of the system. Fox/AM going 24/7 with all of its “personalities” pushing the lies. Really very easy to start the fire and fan the flames until it takes on a life of its own.

What has always made a Trump Presidency particularly dangerous is the fact he doesn’t care. Not only doesn’t he care, he is attracted to creating chaos for the attention it gets him or the distraction it provides. The idea the world depends on the stability of US elections as the foundation of global order is fully lost on him. What he is utterly unconcerned about beginning will quickly move beyond his ability to control, and all bets will be off. As ugly as Trump’s self-proclaimed “winning” has been since he took office, his losing could be a whole lot worse. Careful what you wish for.  BC

 

One would have to do much thinking and scour far and wide to find a National Security Advisor better suited to the visceral inclinations of our President than John R Bolton. This Administration came to power with an institutional insecurity firmly in place from day one, so it was no surprise that experienced GOP hands – at least those willing to sign on with a nihilist – would be excluded  in favor of those with “it is my greatest honor” on the tip of their tongues, at the ready to be said often…and with Pencelike feeling.

Yet and still,  after Michael Flynn was forced to resign weeks after Inauguration Day, hiring criteria for a replacement was adjusted away from Ailes central casting, even if it meant square pegs for round holes and hoping for the best. Looking back it now seems clear excluding  Bolton was a concession to this sensibility.

The Apprentice was one of those shows that, although initially entertaining, got old quickly as the novelty of watching snakes in a bucket devour each other at the behest of the Jabba the Hutt they all sought favor from wore off. Of course what was inane entertainment in prime time is similarly dysfunctional as a deliberative paradigm for US policy. That no brainer was on display this week in the White House as the President presided over a death match between his Chief-of-Staff and National Security Advisor.

Trump being Trump, a crisis feel permeates the West Wing as the optics of a “human caravan” heading north from Honduras makes L’ Enfant Terrible feel more insecure than usual. The Thursday meeting of principles charged with whitening America got ugly when Homeland Security Chief, Kirstjen Nielson touted Mexico’s appeal for help from the United Nations Refugee Agency in processing asylum claims from the several-thousand and growing throng of refugees. Bolton, who, despite his historically inappropriate appointment as UN Ambassador under W, detests everything about the organization, deeming it an existential threat to US sovereignty, expressed incredulity that Nielson could be so weak, using ugly adjectives Trump surely appreciated.

Kelly, who has been Nielson’s patron from day one, hand picking her to succeed him when he was elevated to the West Wing, gallantly called out Bolton for the nasty bully he is and it was on. Trump, who never met a woman he didn’t want to demean, or a fight he didn’t love watching, shares his NSA’s disdain for all things multilateral and predictably sided with Bolton and his Iago of a sidekick Stephen Miller, further infuriating Kelly, who stormed out of the White House afterward, swearing for the 1345th time he was done. While Sarah Sanders, less relevant with each passing news cycle, declared the combatants had patched things up, rumors of Kelly’s imminent departure are rife and intensifying… Nielson would almost certainly leave with him.

Where does that leave the issue Trump swears will deliver both chambers on the Hill early next month? Exactly in the place it’s been… squarely at odds with the law and the Constitution, as well as human decency.  Anyone remotely experienced with the menu of challenges at our southern border understands the vagaries are many, but stemming migration from the south requires at its roots addressing systemic issues on the ground that encourage people to flee in the first place. This is as true now as it was in the early 80s, when civil wars and government atrocities throughout the region began the quagmire.

Particularly garish within the well of bankrupt Trumpism/GOP notions is the implication desperately poor and fearful Central Americans are whimsically heading to the US for opportunity, or more detestable, government programs they can take advantage of, Horatio Algers in sandals or welfare reinas, pick your poison.  Trump’s MAGAite disdain for economic, political and humanitarian initiatives designed to improve the lot of those otherwise forced to escape hellish conditions is as unsurprising as his call to deploy more US military manpower to join National Guard divisions already proving fully ineffectual to a task they have no business pursuing. Moreover, his renewed musing about the benefits of family separation makes clear the moral abyss is just where he wants his wretched core-infused GOP to be. The tragic fact his base loves occupying that space, and millions more may be inclined to hold their noses and err on the side of Buzz Windrip in order to feel safer about a few thousand poor and desperate people seeking what we used to sell as a primary part of our greatness, reflects a constituency tailor-made for the foreign policy John Bolton is glad to provide.

When Bolton’s predecessor H.R. McMaster was ousted after a brief and stormy tenure, the storyline emerged he was too volatile and clashed with colleagues like Mattis and Kelly. However, a deeper look reveals McMaster’s devotion to presenting the President complete pictures on questions at hand was really his undoing; Trump simply loathed being confused by too many options, and came to distrust such presentations as devious means for pursuing “weak” approaches by rendering more complex issues he preferred far simpler.

There is nothing more Trumpian than dumbing things down. Since Bolton generally skips anything with nuance and proceeds directly to confrontation and ultimatums, he is now the Donald’s pet, with accompanying access. It’s doubtful Kelly will tolerate the situation much longer. When he leaves, and Nielson follows, there will be no West Wing gate keeper, and DHS, already without a deputy director, will have no leadership whatsoever. That leaves immigration policy fully in the hands of Bolton, Miller and, to a lesser extent, Pompeo. Expect the worst. BC

There is no magic moment when democracies seize up and become their darker alter egos.  Death usually comes from a thousand cuts – a lie here, an arrest there, maybe bogus legislation that codifies the nullification of civil protections. It’s left to future historians to perform the autopsy and better pinpoint when freedom died.

Historians in the 22nd century, if Earth is still a going concern, may settle on this week’s duplicitous shuttle diplomacy mission of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia and Turkey as a point-of-no-return moment when our now suddenly faltering republic spit out the bit.  Wretchedly impotent and sinisterly cooperative, America’s chief diplomat was more about smiling photo ops than demanding answers as to how a prominent journalist, employed by a US flagship newspaper, ended up hacked to bits after entering the Saudi Embassy in Turkey.

If anybody actually believed Pompeo was dispatched for any other reason than the optics necessary to satisfy our President’s empty promises to seek justice,  his embarrassing deference to both of his hosts surely disappointed. Of course, Trump answers only to his wretched core, and their concern about the fate of Jamal Khashoggi and whether it should lead to sanctions against his killers can be measured with an official MAGA golf tee.

Authoritarian regimes are distinguished by their predictability. Understand where the money leads, or how the strong man or junta benefits, and one can be certain on where the government will come down on any question at hand. As Trumpism lurches along, US policy grows more obvious by the day. Our President affords no surprises when confronting the world we used to lead. Figure  out the ugliest, most self-serving direction, and it’s a certainty he’s already heading that way, feints and flat out lies aside.

Trump feels far more affinity for reactionary tyrants than thoughtful democrats because they think like he does. By his warped calculus, taking the trouble and ordering Pompeo to go fetch was actually a concession, anything more would be outright weakness. Expect increasingly full-throated protestations of Saudi innocence as the evidence becomes more damning and the Hill more demanding. Regardless, generations of American good faith as a patron of the free press, and an advocate  of courageous reporters willing to risk all to uncover truth or criticize tyranny, is evaporating. Forget a wink and a nod, this is shooting somebody on Fifth Avenue.

Audio leaked by Turkey paints a gruesome indictment of the Saudi Government. Agents apparently dispatched by Riyadh laid in wait for the Washington Post reporter and literally dismembered him. It’s hard to imagine any crime more at odds with the values we have been selling, at least until January, 2017. Even if Trump did come out with some rote statement denouncing the murder, who’d take him seriously?  But that hypothetical seems less and less likely in the wake of Pompeo’s love fest. Trump appears prepared to pull a Putin and wait for things to blow over. Does anybody really believe the GOP won’t let him get away with that? Nobody wants to become a part of the nihilist-in-chief’s MAGA rally monologues… better to simply let dismembered journalists lie.

The President says he won’t deploy the FBI to investigate because, after all, Khashoggi was only a “resident”, forget the fact that his now fatherless children are citizens, an inconvenient technicality nefarious West Wing Iagos like Stephen Miller are surely looking to abolish.  Truth is at odds with everything Trump. The Saudis feted him early on, making clear they would play ball under any rules he decided so long as their seat was near the head of the table. The Administration has been a partner in their merciless campaign in Yemen, and emerging rock star autocrat MBS is said to be Jared Kushner’s bestest Muslim buddy. Any expectation Trump will hold Riyadh to account is fantasy. Again, it’s all just become so predictable.

There is a lot of bipartisan noise for sanctions that sting against Saudi Arabia like canceled weapons agreements, and meaningful economic and political pain. Pompeo’s stupid pet tricks make clear Trump will be having none of it, come what may.

“What have you done for me lately” has always been our President’s mantra; his memory is minuscule and gratitude is a concept he is incapable of embracing. Now the world stands ready to turn his frailties right back on us. Who we are right now, how ugly we’ve become in just less than two years is eclipsing generations of steadfast international leadership and at least the presumption of being an honest broker and voice for shared democratic values. Our brand is being destroyed at a breathtaking pace, replaced by scorn and disdain previously reserved for the regimes whose crimes we now enthusiastically help cover up. Ruinous! BC

 

The DR has commented extensively on the inclination by millions of Americans to view Trump’s election and subsequent demeanor as no more or less than his predecessors. This mindset relegates all of the various fires this President starts and pours gasoline on as simply his unique skill set, and accuses those who call out Trump as a wholly abnormal and even existential threat to the national interest of divisive, even seditious partisan hysterics.

As the mid-term national elections approach it has become clear the GOP will rely heavily on this outlook, with words like “mob“ and “arsonists” being bandied about in ads and debates against Democrats. The notion that, despite a historically strong economy, unhinged sufferers of “Trump derangement syndrome” respect no bounds in their obsession to bring down a duly elected POTUS, appears to be what the GOP will hang  it’s hopes on to maintain majorities in both chambers. Nothing to see here, ignore the man behind the curtain.  They are simply anarchical haters bent on avenging Hillary’s defeat. Sour grapes on steroids!

One of the breathtaking tendencies of Trump’s GOP, buoyed hourly by Fox /AM, are full-throated declarations that established facts are actually controversial debates, or even worse, myths cultivated by a partisan media. Nowhere is this more on display than with Climate Change. It’s a certainty that, were  one to ask 1000 people whether or not the sun rises in the east, 60 respondents would aver our star actually comes up in the west, roughly the same percentage of scientists who doubt man-made Climate Change, but more than enough for the Fox-fueled Republican base to grab ahold of.

Mad Hurricane Michael was super charged within 18 hours by a simmering Gulf of Mexico, the DC area experienced  a record number of 80 degree days this year, historic wildfires are destroying swaths of western America, and record flooding is literally ending towns, but US policies now aim to kill previously established ways to address the crisis, labeling already inadequate initiatives job killing regulations any reasonable flat earther should want killed. Concern for preventing Waterworld is for the mob, common sense nihilists know it’s all a scam, which will be clearly confirmed with the next big snowstorm or cold spell.

Much of this denial, of course, caters to the overt corruption of monstrous dark money donors. However, it’s also option A when you desire a wretched core of support keep their eyes on the fear and grievance ball necessary to imbibe the divisions your political survival has always depended on. Diminishing thickness of polar ice masses doesn’t stand a chance against jailing Hillary or abasing Pocahontas.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports the world has 12 years to limit carbon emissions enough to prevent a point-of-no-return temperature rise which will seal our children’s fate, creating a weather purgatory that will reshape coasts everywhere, while dooming entire regions to drought and famine, spreading disease and general human misery on a dystopian scale. Needless to say, such a world will not exactly be fertile soil for freedom and democracy. Fox/AM, when it has mentioned the report, has been inanely derisive,  merely lumping it with other aspects of the mob’s agenda, which is to say efforts to diminish Trump’s emerging status quo against constructive governance. Yet in the scheme of all things Trump, climate change denial rates less than a blink of the news cycle’s eye, such is the seemingly limitless spread of MAGA outrages competing for our attention.

Asked  about the IPCC report, Trump dismissed it as part of an “agenda”. Boasting about how he courageously isolated the US from the rest of the globe by withdrawing from the Paris Accords has become a “promise kept” item routinely cited in Trump rally monologues. From Hugh Hewitt to Mark Levin, Mitch McConnell to GOP Governors of states decimated by hurricanes and wildfires alike, Republicans view disdain for established climate science as synonymous with profiles in courage, a stand against environmental kooks, mob members in good standing.

Of course, Mother Nature is nonpartisan, and does not tolerate being snubbed. Indeed, she has been demonstrating how tough life can become if her requirements are not met. It’s hard to see how any responsible public servant can ignore their duty to do all possible to lessen the wrath we have suffered through recently. Yet the entire GOP is doing just that. Worse, it attacks any sort of activism on the issue as radical impulses, part and parcel of the mob mentality opponents of Trumpie candidates nationwide share and promise to impose on MAGAites everywhere should they prevail in November.  The clock is ticking, but America is consumed with many other fronts, not the least of all its survival as a democratic concern. Mobs are easily distracted that way.

 

 

Election Night, 2016 at Kanye West’s Estate:

“Yo yo, Kanye! What up!”

”Oh, look who it is, my so called agent in charge of keeping me rich. You’re faltering dawg… sales are flat and KW is becoming about yesterday! I’m not happy. They’re starting to call me Mr. Kardashian! “

”Listen, I feel  you, and am here on a mission to put you on top for now and the vicinity! Hear me out!”

”Hear you out?! Brother I need results. I’m tripping! What have you got to say?! Should I take notes! You’re just going to make my ears hurt!”

”Word, KW. I’ve seen your future and it’s all white… which is to say green!”

”Man, get the f**k outta here. What kind of gibberish is that. Sweetheart, find me my Rolodex, I’m looking for a new agent!”

”No, for real. This is golden. Here it is…. we go after the senior cracker market! Aged 50 and up!”

“What! You’ve got to be kidding me!  Why would fossilized white people want anything to do with my brand. Go take another shot of jet fuel and leave me alone!”

”No, KW, for real. Here’s what you do…become Trump’s best black buddy. Come out and tell everybody he’s your President. Prop him right. That orange, peltheaded beast will be our ticket.”

”Oh, so you want me to become  Trump’s token black celebrity?! Where’s my gun?! Do I look like Omarosa?!”

“Lover, this is all business! 100%! What do you care what the world thinks? Never did before. It’s all about getting paid. That fool may even invite you to the White House for a meeting! You’ll be the only game in town! And believe me, those zombies that worship him, you tell them what they want to hear, act as crazy as he is… out comes the plastic! Elmer Gantry time. You’ll be giving 15 minute speeches at 100 K per!”

”Damn, you may be making sense after all. But I don’t relish betraying my people. That shit is sacred!”

”Since when does fleecing white bigots make you a race traitor? Folks will understand. It’s all about the money! Take em for all they’re worth. It’s business, Sonny. It’s nothing personal! Show that blabbermouth blimp some love and I’ll get the wheelbarrow for all the cash!”

So I make the Donald my new pal, call him my President and whatever, wear that hat etc., and Appalachia will follow; is that what you’re saying?”

”Exactly right! You tell those corpses what they want to hear and suddenly you’re Jefferson. Senator Ted Cruz….need I say more. It’s all there KW, ours for the taking. Tabula rasa, baby! Blank checks, fully endorsed by our new POTUS. MAGA money!”

”You know, I must admit this is starting to come together! Some heads will explode! But those flyover $millions are attractive. Damn! Did I say you’re a genius?! Come here!!! Honey, could you bring in a bottle of Dom? We need to celebrate. To our new President, Donald ATM.“ BC

 

 

Watching members of the wretched core interviewed on their world outlooks  as they stand patiently in line for a Trump rally is always good for a laugh…or cry. Of course, by now it’s a fairly meaningless exercise since their thinking doesn’t evolve, so what you knew about Trumpie sensibilities three months ago will be what you understand today. Yet and still, millions of nihilists, immersed in a cult of personality devoted to dismantling US government, and democratic institutions, shouldn’t be ignored.

If you went up and down the line in Erie, PA Wednesday  asking anyone and everyone what their feelings on the Khashoggi  matter were, It is a certainty you’d face an unbroken wall of blank stares. Preferred news sources of Trump loyalists have been slow on the uptake regarding the Saudi journalist’s disappearance, so there is near zero chance rally goers know Khashoggi from an Italian hoagie. Yet and still, this story has legs and details will leech into Youngstown soon enough; Trumpie reactions then will of course reflect the White House take, and that will be enlightening, and probably depressing.

Jamal Khashoggi  is a Saudi journalist employed by the Washington Post, and a US resident. A conscientious critic of the Saudi Royal Family, Khashoggi  long believed, with very good reason, returning to his homeland was not a good idea if he fancied staying above ground. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, his now accepted moniker throughout the world diplomatic community,  the Trump Administration’s go to influencer in the region, recently made clear Khashoggi’s fears were warranted. Despite the journalist’s  praise for recent dictates loosening the regime’s very repressive Wahabi Sunni inclinations, such as allowing women to drive, MBS has labeled Khashoggi a proponent of two Royal Family adversaries, the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar. Indeed, when Khashoggi  disappeared last week after entering the Saudi Embassy in Turkey, all fingers pointed toward Riyadh.

The incident continues a disturbing pattern of authoritarian governments targeting journalists who run afoul of acceptable talktracks. The Saudi government joins Russia, Myanmar, Turkey, Syria and others  who face credible accusations of intimidation and even murder of reporters deemed subversive by ruling parties. In the past the US response has been consistent and straightforward: going after the press is unacceptable behavior, equivalent to the worst human rights transgressions and always a top US priority to address and stop. But that was then and Trump is now.

The silence from the White House, even as it is becoming increasingly clear Khashoggi  was killed by a Saudi team in Turkey, has been deafening. Jared Kushner, known to be close to MBS, has been reportedly pushing the Crown Prince for some explanation on the matter. The official White House position is facts are being gathered and a position will be forthcoming. Capital Hill is way ahead of them, promising a bipartisan push for sanctions against Riyadh once firm conclusions are drawn.

Of course the whole affair places Trump in a pickle, as he incites his rally attendees to spew venom at the press he literally keeps penned up. “These are some of the most evil people you’ve ever seen,” hisses the leader of the free world now three times a week. “They are the enemy of our country.” How do you denounce a regime for basically doing what you wish you could get away with? Who would actually take serious any condemnations on the subject from this Administration?

The fact that Khashoggi  works for the “dishonest” Washington Post adds yet another absurdity to the spectacle. The image of Trump stiltedly reading a statement condemning a regime he has fawned over since day one, on behalf of a man working for a paper he ceaselessly slanders, speaks directly to the grievous injuries our moral authority has suffered in less than just two years.

Fact is there is nothing this President can say regarding freedom of the press that anyone in the world would take seriously. Think about that. In October of 2016, if a journalist came under attack in a foreign country, the US President would be expected to make a forceful statement rendered fully credible by his office’s full respect and protection of our press. Nothing else can suffice. Without it we are simply hypocrites to be ignored or disdained. Now, two years later, that is exactly what we are.  The only difference between Trump and MBS is one can carry out what the other wishes he could but can’t… at least right now. Give it time. BC