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In late September of 85’ I was attending graduate school at George Washington University and living with four roommates in a large aged house off McArthur Blvd. in Northwest DC. All of us were 20-something students of one form or another, given to garnering women’s approval, a good buzz and higher education in about that order.

This particular afternoon’s happy hour festivities found us fully focused on the local newscast and hurricane Gloria, a monstrous Category 4 storm barreling headlong toward Ocean City, MD. Of course it took precious little imagination to surmise the damage such a landfall would wreck on what, despite the trappings of full development and community, was merely a barrier island, designed by nature to sacrifice itself under such conditions.

Reporting from Ocean City, WRC reporter IJ Hudson conveyed all manner of preparations taking place for the approaching doom, most notably a mandatory evacuation. Hudson finished his segment by telling anchor Jim Vance that he could rest assured “only the National Guard and a few crazy reporters” remained in the resort town.  “Jim, anyone with any common sense is long gone,” Hudson promised.

Slumped on the couch with my preferred Miller High Life, I snorted with knowing disdain at his pronouncement. My roomies, all hailing from outside  the Mid-Atlantic region, asked what I was incredulous about. Having more than a dozen friends, who had turned Ocean City from our summer stomping grounds to their year-round escape from reality, as fall surf eclipsed adult responsibility on their list of priorities – and most all thoroughly replete in the common sense department – I flat out guaranteed Hudson’s declaration was full of crap. My new friends,  unfamiliar with my misanthropic cadre of childhood homies, collectively doubted my veracity. After all, the wrath of God seemed only 18 hours away; staying was suicide.

I sensed financial opportunity and bet what I had in my pocket… er, $13, that I could make a call to OC and one of my boyz would answer.  Soon our disgusting, beer-soaked, resin stained excuse for a cocktail table was resplendent in crumbled bills and loose change. I ran excitedly upstairs to my drawer to get the tattered little notebook I used for phone numbers; I figured three would be the deepest I’d have to go, since businesses appeared to be closed.

We all huddled around the old rotary phone somebody had salvaged when we moved in, and I dialed one of my closest Eastern Shore associates,  whose 7-year colligiate saga at Salisbury University, 30 miles west of OC, was nearing an end. We were all around the receiver when, after several rings, an irritated voice growled hello. “Orem?!,” I asked pumping my fist and celebrating my windfall, “what are you doing?” “Trying to take a nap. What do you want?” “Nothing! Go back to sleep!”  I hung up in triumph, pocketing my score as my flabbergasted friends shook their heads. Life was very good!

Miraculously, God intervened and steered Gloria north, sparing OC and  weakening significantly before a northeast landfall. Yet and still, my buddy, Billy, whose slumber I interrupted, later recounted walking to the beach in the face of 60 plus mph winds that threatened to lift him off his feet. When I inquired what he thought 140 mph winds would have done, he shrugged and muttered something about weathermen always being wrong. Who could question such sound wisdom?

The almighty was less vigilant last year regarding Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria hit it square, meandering the length of the island with every bit of its Category 4 fury. When it was finished, 100 percent of residents were without power…think about that a minute. Virtually the whole of the island’s infrastructure was in shambles.

A year later Puerto Rico is nowhere near back to normal. Power only recently fully returned, outages still a daily occurance. Roads are in terrible shape, with many parts of the island still inaccessible. Worst of all, almost 3000 people died as a result of Maria, most from health conditions rendered critical due to the damage suffered by the island’s support network. Unavailable medications, medical devices made inoperable by months long blackouts, inaccessible critical care, lack of clean drinking water (20 percent of residents were forced to drink from “natural” sources), failed emergency response due to downed communications, relentless heat, the list goes on and on.

To hear our President, Puerto Rico’s President, tell it, the government response he led was well oiled but “under appreciated,” hobbled by an aged electrical grid and “incompetent” local leaders. The island’s residents beg to differ.

In a recent Post/Kaiser poll over 80% of Puerto Ricans expressed dissatisfaction with Trump’s handling of Maria’s aftermath. To be fair the island’s governor, Ricardo Rosselló didn’t do much better, but the discrepancy between Trump’s self-congratulations and sentiments on the ground could not be starker. In fact, 1 in 4 Puerto Rican’s are considering moving away permanently, such is their pessimism of future prospects.

When the corpse of this disasterous Presidency is picked through, presuming we are still a going concern, no disgrace will exceed Trump’s indifference to our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico. It incapsulates every rancid aspect of his soulless reproach of the job he never wanted: lazy indifference to adequate preparation, disregard for expert advice, zero fealty to facts that counter his self-serving narrative, and worst of all a pathological refusal to accept responsibility for the outcomes of his policies.

Yesterday, when he gaslit the emerging Puerto Rican death toll, labeling it a creation by Democrats to hurt him politically, the descent to the bottom was finally reached; it simply can’t be possible to go further. With Trump, it’s not just the buck doesn’t stop here, it’s who the hell says the buck ever really existed in the first place.

I have yet to hear the President call Puerto Ricans citizens of this nation. Frankly, that might be just as well for them….who really wants to admit any association with Trump anyway. Yet and still, their experience should only strengthen our bonds, as well as our determination to aid in some small measure their rebuilding efforts, which this White House has never cared a wit about. After all, aren’t we on the mainland as leaderless as they are? BC

Drive in the DC area long enough and you will discover your own special traffic hell spots , those stretches of road created to torment you more than any other. One of mine is the turn off from Canal Road near Cabin John in Maryland that you have to take when Park Police turn it into a one way stretch every week day at 2:45PM. Blocking  off access to Canal Rd toward DC forces motorists to essentially make a U turn that funnels them up to McArthur Blvd., which can then be taken toward the District.

Thing is, two lanes of traffic now has to become one line, as everyone waits to make the U turn whenever a break in the stream of Maryland bound commuters from DC affords them an opportunity. Needless to say, this immediately backs traffic up, and the line steadily grows in size. Of course the right lane, which now goes nowhere except up to the barricade blocking Canal Road remains open, tempting nefarious line cutters to continue up as far as possible before merging into the left lane waiting to turn. And it is that temptation, and the willingness of so many to accede to its invitation that has caused many a heated confrontation.

The best image to describe the situation is a line to get movie tickets. Obviously, if a person walked toward the front and just cut in without a word, the wrath of all would descend on them. But being in a steel box with wheels imbibes many with nerve and gall that otherwise wouldn’t cross their minds. Some plead ignorance, acting as if they were clueless why one lane was uninhabited for a half mile and then relying on the good graces of others, who had just waited ten minutes to make it to the front, to permit their rudeness.

Regulars take to occupying the right lane as the line moves to prevent cutters from getting past, their spot secured by other motorists in the line. This tactic often leads to ugliness, as more determined and impatient cutters honk and gesture, unconcerned that they are acting like civilized society’s lowest life form. Point is,  a situation is set up daily between 2:45 and 6:30pm that provides an opportunity for countless commuters to flaunt established order and act as nasty and anti-social as is possible.

For a month or more after 9/11 the Canal Road turn off moved much smoother, the beneficiary of national unity. People thought twice about cutting, respecting the time and estimation of their fellow citizens, and figuring a few extra minutes wasn’t worth the collective scorn of neighbors; after all, weren’t we all in this together? It was a glorious interlude of civic cooperation; without the delays of cutters, the Canal Road turn off ebbed as a delay of consequence. Like everything immediately following one of our worst national traumas, “I” became “we”… and the benefits were tangible.

I can think of worse ways to honor our fallen from that dark day every year than to make a point to earmark 24 hours of national unity and cooperation, if for no other reason than to experience its benefits. Of course such a declaration should start at the top; it’s only right that our national leader set the example for us to follow. Perhaps a tweet, and a statement, calling for a one day moratorium on division? Well, I suppose that will have to wait.

Yet and still, we should remember with hopeful pride those days immediately following the 9/11 attacks as proof we can embrace what is most important precisely at a time it is most critical to do so. Perhaps if we remind ourselves once a year we have done it before, it will revitalize our ambitions to do it again, and demand leaders who speak of division as a national liability, rather than a snake oil remedy for ignorant fears necessary to gains of various special interests.

Any parent of young children in 2001 can tell you seventeen years have passed in the snap of one’s fingers. Dawn becomes dusk and repeat…over and over. Yet and still, much destruction and impulsive folly has filled those days in the name of avenging the victims of a small cabal of mad men and their sponsors. Meanwhile, we are far more divided now than we were September 10, 2001. Perhaps another catastrophe is the only thing capable of snapping us out of our intractable tribalism. But like that diet you put off, or fitness regime, or sobriety; change happens a day at a time. September 11 is as good a date as any to start  BC

The most unique aspect of Bobby Kennedy’s run for the Presidency in 1968 was his determination to find new things to say most every campaign stop. He simply was not wired to go robot with the same messaging over and over again. He recognized the attention he was getting as an opportunity to impact the national discussion, come what may to aspirations for high office. It was more than a campaign, it was a chance to press ideas and change thinking.

With the incessant discord of Vietnam, the civil rights movement and poverty as his canvas, Kennedy mixed and matched such disparate themes as unity and patriotism with the civic obligation of protest,  love of one’s country with challenging its laws, and the greatness of America’s destiny with the price other countries were paying for its influence. The candidate seemed to sweat every paragraph, and beat himself up when he thought points were redundant.

That RFK’s quest for original thoughts and ideas on the campaign trail made him so singular probably speaks to the inertia of our politics, and the stagnation of our discourse. Certainly the principle crises of his day reflected reliance on tired tropes meant more to manipulate fear than challenge civic spirit. But, above all, and most to the point, RFK understood what the body politic most required when he told a University of Kansas audience in March of 68’ that:

….we as a people, are strong enough, we are brave enough to be told the truth of where we stand.  This country needs honesty and candor in its political life and from the President of the United States.

Those words were prescient, and responding to them with lip service and half-measures in the years since only added acuteness to the condition they addressed. Now  we suffer from the misguided belief by millions who confuse abruptness with candor, and rudeness with honesty. They believe in their champion only because of his tone, with no concern for his lack of substance. And even as his clothes fall off and the circular destructiveness of his lies are laid bare, they stick with him because twenty plus years of propaganda has convinced them there is no other option.

Barack Obama, the long sought heir to RFK’s oratory legacy, who spent eight years raising the White House bully pulpit’s game after replacing a man all out to form complete sentences, emerged from relative seclusion yesterday to become the sorely missing counterweight to Trumpist nihilism. Coming the day after one of The Donald’s ugly monologues in Montana, Obama’s words were  like the fresh clear water swirling in the bowl after a clogged toilet is finally plunged.

Unlike his successor, Obama understands words should be thought through before spoken, cheapened if repeated too often. Shifting gears from abstractions he has hinted with in some previous public appearances to direct references, the former President took aim and did not mince words, attacking Trumpism in all its forms. How “hard can it be” to give Nazis what for, Obama wondered. And making sure “3000 Americans don’t die in a hurricane” seems the minimum a functioning government should attend to, said Obama, referring to Puert Rico’s misery (it bears noting that Trump seems unable to refer to the island’s residents as “Americans”… shameful.)

Like RFK’s quest for moral redemption 50 years ago, the Obama brand exists off the menu of partisan red meat, but after a long absence, it tasted pretty good. Yet and still, a former President declaring his replacement is not conducting himself in a normal manner and ushering in “dangerous times” has to be a wake up call for anybody still intent on ignoring the burning fire. Punctuating these dark days, the ever hopeful 44th POTUS made no promises, and created few soaring images. Two months hence we “have a chance” to “restore some semblance of sanity to our politics.” Obama telling it like it is…candor, if you will.

The principle threat of a Trump Presidency, aside from the obvious existential danger created by hourly incompetence, was always the drastic reduction of standards associated with the White House, notably the demeaning of the office’s platform to inform public discussion. Of course, Trump has delivered in spades on that concern. The promise of two full months of his clinical narcissism, while surely enhancing “sane” messaging by Democrats also portends a level of division this nation hasn’t seen since RFK’s tragic primary bid.

Simpleton that I am, the “two camps” approach to making sense of things has always appealed to me. That is, for example, there are those who love the ocean and those who seek out the mountains, those given to math and sciences or those preferring history and literature, romantics vs. realists, etc. Now it’s as simple as candidates with  a respect and at least the desire to articulate a vision, or the emerging clones of Trumpian nihilism , condemning any effort at thoughtful speaking as progressive hijinx, snowflake obfuscation meant to deceive and enhance the fortunes of “them”.

How ironic that RFK’s accurate diagnosis of our intrinsic appetite for truth was repackaged as a relentless multimedia narrative that succeeded in convincing millions to cheer on a pathological liar. But November beckons, and yesterday the man many more millions embrace as a living embodiment of promises RFK declared we were capable of keeping 50 years ago,  appears ready to try his best to counter the slogging pestilence created by demons Kennedy also assured us we surely harbored. The stakes couldn’t be higher. BC

Perhaps if one of Barack Obama’s inner circle, while considering options to confront Mitch McConnel’s rash, unprecedented and ultimately successful scuttling of Merrick Garland’s SCOTUS appointment, had painted a scenario two years hence of Tea Party vulcan Mike Lee preening his constitutional law bona fides while lobbing soft balls to Donald Trump’s idea of a SCOTUS pivotal vote, 44 may have gone all in for any means available against the Majority Leader’s outrageous gambit.  I suppose nobody did, so he didn’t, and today Lee and Kavanaugh were making love during the Utah Senator’s designated half hour.

The Kavanaugh hearings are a farce. And of course nobody in the GOP, including so-called sensible moderates like Collins or Murkowski, cares a wit. Yesterday,  Corey Booker implored Chairman Grassley to take the long view and understand “what goes around comes around” and this precedent will surely bite the Republicans when the shoe is someday on the other foot. Grassley and the other committee GOP members managed to keep straight faces. Whatever is in the more than 100K pages of correspondence documenting Brett Kavanaugh’s time in the W Bush White House –  and judging by how rattled the nominee became when Pat Leahy pressed him on stolen emails from that period, there may be some fire there  –  nothing is going to be provided in a timely fashion and will have zero affect on this rubber stamp ritual.

Precedents mean nothing to the GOP because they presuppose a certain preeminence of truth, which no longer motivates the Republican rank and file in the slightest. Moreover, assuming the GOP cares about the future is a fool’s errand… they don’t. Like Trump, Republicans live for today and only for today, locked into perpetual survival mode, addicted gamblers at the racetrack living race to race. Securing the country’s future is not good nihilist politics; it’s for snowflakes. Better to burn out than fade away.

Fox/AM, fully responsible for GOP disdain toward anything past today’s news cycle, and relentlessly engaged in spinning the deleterious results of such myopia, is ever ready to pretend McConnell never refused to consider the SCOTUS nominee of a President in good standing should the Democrats ever get audacious enough to follow suit. As in every hour of each day since the network’s inception, an army of storytellers will gaslight yesterday’s truths in support of today’s lies without thought, an autonomic nervous system of deceit…. and the base won’t blink, in fact they’ll demand it.  “Who is this Garland guy they’re talking about?… never heard of him!”

In the fight for the soul of American governance, the Democrats are like a kid with parents horrified by violence taking on a bully with a dad screaming “that’s my boy!”  They don’t bring a knife to a gunfight; they bring a spatula.

After Tsar Nicholas was deposed in 1917, the Kerensky government, concerned Russia’s infant democratic experiment may suffer, decided not to arrest a Bolshevik troublemaker named Lenin. That good deed did not go unpunished.

Of course Brett Kavanaugh could insist that papers from his W years be made available, rightly confident they probably wouldn’t change a vote and his stature would benefit. Instead he used weasel words when questioned on the subject. “Not my place to get involved…a matter between the legislative and executive branches to decide.” As piss poor as it was illuminating.

From the looks of things so far, Kavanaugh is Gorsuch 2.0 right on down the line. Frankly, and this may seem unduly harsh, but that makes it no less true… Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are Stephen Miller, but they got picked when choosing sides for basketball. Not a whole lot of daylight.

Stare decisis, shmare podices…at the end of the day we know exactly where they stand. They’re more dynamic Samuel Alitos. Clarence Thomas with overblown senses of entitlement. In other words,  like the man who they owe their comfy lifetime positions to, precedent doesn’t mean squat.  Their opinions will simply justify their predispositions at the expense of this country’s downtrodden, and proponents of safe and sensible anything.

Listening to Lee and Kavanaugh wax intellectual about the Federalist Papers, aside from making one not hungry for a good long while, unintentionally struck the right tone for the whole sorry charade. A group of white men so cynical and obtuse toward the institutions they find themselves in control of, they figure  pretending to abide essential standards and safeguards is more than enough, and all the serfs now at their heel are entitled to. Elections do have consequences. Sometimes they are disastrous…. and without precedent. BC

I had just been freed from having to work the dreaded lunch shift waiting tables at a Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant and was entering my favorite dive two doors down, where my roommate was the bartender. My plan was to spend the afternoon with her, drinking away what I would now not earn, but I knew something was wrong as soon as I walked in. The lunch hour crowd was glued to the TV set over the bar; I had just missed it, but was in time for the immediate aftermath. The space shuttle Challenger appeared heading off as normal when suddenly it disintegrated into gnarled trails of smoke.

It was stunning, literally. Nobody was able to react, instead everyone just stared at the set. Several more replays only added to the pall; nobody had any words. And then a woman burst into tears, asking aloud how such a thing could happen. Challenger, only minutes before part of a process that had become so routine it was no longer even covered live on the major networks, became a paralyzing disaster. In the blink of an eye, a crew gone, our space omnipotence in tatters. Real time national tragedy.

On January 18, 1986 President Ronald Reagan underwent yet another surgery to remove polyps from his colon. There was no denying that, after taking a  bullet and later suffering colon cancer, Reagan was beginning to look at least like every one of his 75 years. While his popularity remained high, there was a feeling the White House was on auto pilot. It would eventually come to light Oliver North was selling tow missiles to Iran as ransom for captive Americans and funneling the money to evade the Boland Amendment, which prohibited US financial support of insurgents seeking the overthrow of the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. History would report Reagan was anything but in charge of his foreign policy team in January of 86’.

Yet and still,  ten days after an  intrusive medical procedure, there he was addressing the nation, assuaging its grief, beguiling us from the unimaginable with straightforward words of basic decency.  Whatever opinion one had of President Reagan, at that moment, during that address, it felt obscene to do anything other than accept his condolences for a nation in mourning, his leadership of a country stunned and unmoored by such an unexpected turn of events. In short, the Gipper was earning his paycheck, performing a significant function of the job we twice elected him to do.

It is more testament to the awesome power of the Presidency than the individual’s unique prose or cadence that quotes from such occasions are revered by history. Yet and still, when Reagan finished by reciting a poem, avering the crew had “slipped the surly bonds of Earth…to touch the face of God.” He achieved some measure of greatness that no scandal or mismanagement could deface.

Flashing forward to last week, such recollections only amplify our current shame and abasement. The send off for John McCain at the National Cathedral was appropriate to his accomplishments as a fixture in the US Senate and perhaps the nation’s most famous war hero. Virtually the entire array of our living leadership, past and present, Republican and Democrat, was invited to the poignant ceremony.

That McCain wanted both of the men who stymied his quest for the White House to offer eulogies, speaks to a humility that is part and parcel of the job they denied him. And, of course, the crowd’s bipartisan composition punctuated what he understood to be the essence of democratic governance.

The whole affair was a wonderful display of the best of our aspirations. While soprano Renee Fleming caressed the mourners with her version of “Danny Boy”, one could be forgiven for forgetting, at least for the moment, our national plight, who was right then lumbering around one of his golf courses, tweeting nastiness in between mulligans… persona non grata.

Explaining to students a hundred years hence why a sitting POTUS was overtly shunned from such an important national event will be a challenge, no pun intended. For now we are left with the ugly truth, as awful as it is inane… we elected one of our very worst to the nation’s highest office. How else to explain such a surreal image? A sitting President effectively banned from  a gathering of the entirety of living US governance.

Just being disagreeable doesn’t warrant such exclusion; you have to be despicable. Mere dishonesty would never justify so grievous a snub; you have to be a liar, a slanderer of people’s good names. Certainly being politically partisan would not beckon such  leperous exile on a sitting President; he would have to be dangerously divisive, ever concerned only with his personal ambitions, an hourly enemy of national unity.

Of course all but his wretched core know this noxious criteria fits our pariah-in-chief to a tee. What will be hard for future generations to understand, presuming we survive Trumpism and posterity does not become propaganda, is why so many who knew better tolerated such a hazardous departure from all established precedent. How is it possible to go in one election from a man invited to give a eulogy at the funeral of a foe he vanquished, to a sitting President from his own party told in no uncertain terms he was not welcome to attend the same service? Who could possibly abide such a situation? You got me on that one. BC

 

On January 15, 1942, The US Senate Committee investigating waste in the US war effort, and headed by an increasingly recognizable Democratic Senator from Missouri named Harry Truman, released its first report cataloging stunning fraud and mismanagement of preparations by the Armed Forces to enter WWII. It would be the first of 50 reports by the very thorough committee, reflecting the testimony of 1798 witnesses. Incredibly, each version required unanimous consent by the group to be made public. When asked how a committee composed  of both Republicans and Democrats, many with polar opposite policy inclinations, could reach such consensus, GOP Senator   Owen Brewster declared it was a cinch when “the facts were known.”

It’s difficult to imagine any question today, up to and including “does the sun rise in the east,” where our hapless, bickering, fully parochial pols could come to such consistent agreement. Oh, yea, Senate pay raises… maybe. Anyway, point is, looking back on how the Truman Committee identified and remedied epidemic graft in the country’s war effort, one is surely wistful for lawmakers with even a fraction of the earnestness toward addressing challenges other than their re-election or weekly fund raising efforts.

Trumpism is the consummation of two Obama terms worth of  the Fox/AM viewpoint that governance is responsible for “taking our country away from us.” So it’s no surprise that the Capitol’s halls are filled with men and women more concerned with nihilist optics than anything substantive. Yet and still, government auto pilot can only do so much and, after all, the GOP is in charge of everything right now.

The fact that the posers outnumber the doers within the Republican House caucus means the Democrats are actually responsible for any legislation with tangible affects on making the trains run on time. And the doers will only become more scarce after November because, by and large, they come from more contested districts and face stiffer Democratic challenges.  Louie Gohmert enjoys the  job security only a district of the walking dead can provide.

In the Senate, the GOP, even with an ever so slight majority, appears far more  able to reach consensus and impose its will when it wants to, as the confirmation deliberations on the Kavanaugh nomination Tuesday will aptly demonstrate. That Democrats find themselves in the position of having to convince folks back home of their legislative good faith speaks to the ineptitude of their leadership to competently present basic facts most could agree on.

Correct me if I’m wrong, Chuck Schumer, but did the GOP refuse to even consider the Supreme Court nominee of a POTUS in good standing nearly a year before his term ended? Is that not a fact? A truth? Like water is wet, or sugar is sweet? Yet here the Dems. are, worried about being perceived obstructionist – even though Trump has described them in no other way since…always – if things don’t move apace. The pressure for hasty hearings comes even though but a modest slice of the judge’s papers and past positions have been provided for consideration.

I doubt it’s reckless obstructionism to have concerns about a lifetime appointment for somebody with more than 20 years of participation in shakey constitutional areas such as torture (Abu Gharib), special counsel inconsistency (all in for Whitewater and all out for Mueller), and, as a W Bush White House counsel, promotion of pro-life litmus tests for judicial nominees.

So prolific was Kavanaugh’s pre-appointment career that Sen. Durbin (D-Ill) recently compared him to Forrest Gump, omnipresent throughout every event, or scandal, since the early 90s. Kavanaugh seems, observes Durbin, to “show up at every scene of the crime.”

Viewed within this context,  the White House’s efforts to withhold 146,000 pages of Kavanaugh-related data takes on a sinister tone. Coupled with McConnell’s rush to get hearings over with, one is hard pressed to think anything but the worst. Yet the most pressing priority coming out of the Minority Leader’s office appears to be making sure everyone knows his people will give Kavanaugh a fair shake.  This for a nominee Schumer himself stated couldn’t be more divisive … back in 2006 when W appointed Kavanaugh to a federal circuit court judgeship!

Just like in 1942 when a future POTUS saved thousands of American boys’ lives by uncovering countless flaws, oversights and plain corruption in the production of US weaponry, the facts are available for lawmakers to consider regarding this pivotal SCOTUS nominee. Sadly,  tragically, and fully consistent with its guiding light for governance so far this century, the GOP views facts as inimical to its aims. And just as depressingly, the Democratic leadership, apparently still flummoxed by a desire to attract voters they feel the Party let down in 2016, seems able to live with that. Truman, referring to his committee’s accomplishments years later, would simply assert “we followed where the facts led us.”  I suppose after Kavanaugh is sworn in, Schumer may bemoan “we gave up where the trail of evidence ended.” BC

 

A blind and deaf man can tell you a large chunk of white America feels a decreasing obligation to regulate legal authority, particularly its application to minorities. Whether it’s unarmed black men shot by police, undocumented immigrants rounded up in raids proliferating around the country, or bus passengers being asked if they are citizens, there now exists a decided lack of empathy for those charging various law enforcement agencies with abuse.

Yesterday the Washington Post reported the State Department was denying passports to US citizens born decades ago near the southern border in Texas. Apparently at the behest of the White House, State is calling into question the validity of birth certificates because a couple of midwives and doctors may have vouched on several occasions – again, decades ago – for couples who had children on the other side of the border but wanted them recognized as US citizens. To read and hear, not just Fox/AM universe opinions on the matter, but those of neighbors and even old friends, forces one to reckon with the realization that millions, not only have slight concern for the plight of Hispanics being targeted in the nastiest, most vindictive ways right now, but applaud the targeting.

The same holds true for unpunished police brutality toward African-Americans. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve read or heard “why don’t they just cooperate,” in the aftermath of a harrowing video,  I’d be on easy street. And if you added a buck kicker  for every “my kid wouldn’t be in that situation” response to the question of what if that were your son, there would be a Big Man Racing stable of thoroughbreds. That so many feel actual hatred for pro athletes simply taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest a fully documented national disgrace, clarifies a divide only possible when complete refusal to consider another’s position exists, which by the way gets inches from Webster’s definition of racism.

Walking in another man’s shoes appears an endangered attitude in both coastal suburbs and flyover expanses alike.  Empathy seems a Trump era casualty, particularly toward those identified within six degrees of separation from, say, MS13…or Black Lives Matter, or the villain du jour, Antifa. It has been said the best protection of individual freedom is a vibrant community. But if the death of community is the utter inability of one part to place itself in the other’s situation, then American liberty is surely on life support.

We are a nation governed by the rule of law. Therefore, legal authority means primacy to impact the freedom of others. The fact that one with the law’s power ultimately has to justify exerting it means little in real time to those under the boot. Understanding one’s rights provides little solace when being tased and beaten… “stop resisting,” particularly when no money exists to pursue justice.  One doesn’t have to be a pampered snowflake to suffer a good long while from mental trauma after such an ordeal. The ability to seek redress – compensation – for suffering such a wrong is what is supposed to supply the brakes on abuses by law enforcers.  Far easier said than done, especially when the POTUS is cheerleading excesses.

Democracies can’t survive citizenries unconcerned with protecting themselves from abuses of power. It’s that simple. Dictatorship 101. When law enforcement, and the military, wherever deployed, feel unrestrained by guidelines for personal behavior and the protection of populations they come into close quarters with, nobody is safe because now absolute power exists. In that equation  only good graces and better natures assure a fair shake.

Dictators always divide and conquer. They never rise with a promise they will keep everybody down. Certain groups are isolated for persecution, labeled as threats to the welfare of other constituencies, who embrace the selective repression as required for their security. Fear is the best motivator; nothing else is usually required. And most important to the tyrant is not the enthusiasm of those who support crackdowns; it’s the silent acquiescence of the rest that emboldens atrocity.

Most important to understand about personal freedom’s vulnerability is that it can be attacked in so many different ways, by endlessly different means. Hitler had the SS, Stalin the NKVD. The Shah had SAVAK, and the Ayatollah, the Revolutionary Guard. And now Trump is grooming ICE for his particular dirty work. Pick your poison; the common denominator is the authority to act, and the elimination of strictures on how and to whom it may be applied.

Where we are is a function of how much we care, and who we care about. I have a close Jewish friend, who is all in with Trump. He posted on FB the other day about a wonderful PBS documentary on the special stories of Jewish GIs in WWII, the emotions of their cause and the horrors they witnessed. My friend honored his father, a bombardier as one of that special group.

I responded by observing the obvious disconnect he exhibits between recognizing the horrors of despotism 70 years ago and being oblivious to all its burgeoning incarnations today. After the standard gaslighting of my concerns, he scolded me for trivializing the holocaust by comparing the inanities of family separation, or refusals to condemn “blood and soil” parades, with the deaths of six million.

My friend’s cluelessness is why the subject deserves fervent attention. History’s lessons are there to teach and provide for solutions… or to be ignored. And the results of yesteryears’ grievous mistakes can be avoided if the locksteps of the past are recognized… or, of course, disaster can be repeated. Our choice, our consequences. BC

 

Anyone paying attention as John McCain conceded the 2008 Presidential election to Barack Obama was struck by the chasm between the candidate and his supporters. The Senator’s words were eloquent and conciliatory, awash in higher purpose. The people had spoken, said McCain, and it was nothing but patriotic to acknowledge what the numbers made clear. The fact that a black man had ascended to the highest office was grasped graciously; the moment in history not escaping him. Black America had every reason to be proud and the new President could count on his full support in the day’s ahead, promised McCain. It was the perfect speech, delivered with the graceful conviction of a man more interested in the well being of his nation than humoring his own disappointment… And it went over like a lead balloon.

The crowd was all out to even humor their candidate. Every sentence was met with a chorus of “nooos”, and outright boos when Obama’s name was mentioned. Nobody was in the mood to be conciliatory, the apocalypse was nigh. Had Sarah Palin, fidgeting a few feet away, looking like she had swallowed a very bitter pill, grabbed the mic from her running mate and screamed the election was rigged and she conceded nothing, the room would have exploded in rapturous resentment.

Good guys don’t just finish last, they lose to uppity troublemakers like Obama. This was not a group looking to widen any tents, next time they’d get a guy or gal (few cared Palin couldn’t pass a 5th grade current events quiz) not afraid to throw punches and get a little dirty. Right then and there, as an American Hero accepted defeat like – a hero – the Republican Party base made clear the low road was exactly where they wanted to travel henceforth. The demonization of John McCain had begun.

Not a day went by during Obama’s first term that Fox/AM didn’t vilify traitors to the “conservative” cause. Like white civil rights volunteers of the 60s, who Jim Crow bottom feeders denounced as enemies of their own people, Rush never met a moderate Republican he didn’t want to abase; RINOs were scum, and needed to be purged.

Of course the Fox/AM definition of moderate applied to anyone uncomfortable with Obama as a Kenyan, or Cass Sunstein as a secret agent of totalitarianism. Once the Tea Party was consumed by Ailes and company, Fox/AM personalities were increasingly relied on to determine just who was “us” and, more importantly, who was “them”. John McCain ever so gradually moved fully out of favor, “maverick” becoming a derisive term on Hannity and The Factor. Website commenters grew emboldened, and personal. “Songbird McCain” started making the rounds as stories suggesting his stay at the Hanoi Hilton was far more comfortable than the myth created by NBC et al. began to proliferate.

When Romney was trounced after Dick Morris, who had become an every night guest on the Fox prime time trioka, promised a landslide, the narrative went fully off the rails. The game had to be rigged; how else to explain a second Obama term? The crisis was existential, liberal “progress” had stolen “our” country. It was no longer enough to vote against the Obama agenda, rhetoric must be unhinged, candidates for 2016 had two options…nasty and nastier; truth was optional at best, ends justified any means. The GOP core had gone rotten and anyone looking to lead them better put grievance and resentment before all else or, as Jeb Bush quickly learned, his $100 million war chest proved worthless, their campaigns would be over quicker than Bill O’Reilly could settle a harassment claim.

The rest is sorrowful history, which has us now in uncharted waters, reeling daily from a head-to-toe Fox/AM creation. It’s easy to wave off the indignities coming from the White House as John McCain prepares to lay in state at the Capitol. Trump’s infantilism is now normalized, expected, really. One can readily imagine L’Enfant Terrible screaming to nobody in particular he wants that f***in flag back to full staff! And his silent treatment toward granting the nemesis his clinical narcissism and insecurity alone created standard Presidential courtesy is merely a repeat of previous tantrums he’s thrown, most notably with Germany’s Merkel, who fully uncovered his unworthiness for office.

Yet and still, it’s a bad mistake to simply stop at Trump  in these situations because the behavior is so much more than a sad reflection of his own frailties. In fact, dissing McCain right down the line is a no brainer freebie he gets to throw to his wretched core, who always demand the worst. They are the client his survival depends on, and kicking a dead man for easy points has no real downside.

By Trump’s warped calculus, had he acted like any other POTUS, that is, with dignity and respect, what would it have achieved? The fake news would still be calling for his head, and the news cycle would ignore him. Remember, any news is good news. Moreover, Trump’s base now hates McCain, probably more than anyone but HRC and Obama. Ten years of hourly attacks will do that.

People say this is Trump’s GOP, it’s not. It’s Fox/AM’s laboratory. Trump merely panders to its sedition better than their wildest dreams could have conjured. But worse for all of us than Trump is a legacy, embodied by the GOP roster, that codifies his sociopathic spasms as standard operating procedure for governance, fully in service to a base of despicables, who spit on an American hero’s dead body for giggles.

In Arizona, Trumpie Kelli Ward, soundly beaten by McCain in his final primary race, is running her campaign to replace retiring Jeff Flake by the emerging nihilist playbook, right down to disgusting personal abasement. Her opponent, Congresswoman Martha McSally, is trying to tip toe the line, giving full lip service to building the wall, and scapegoating anyone brown, but maintaining a modicum of respect in her personal comportment. Ward was abominable during McCain’s final days, actually implying he announced his decision to stop treatment with hurting her candidacy in mind. McSally put out a glowing tribute to McCain, and has afforded him the respect he earned. McSally was comfortably ahead of Ward several weeks ago. McCain’s passing is all that has changed since then. Trump will be tweeting an effusive endorsement for Ward any hour. Where the numbers go will provide a barometer to measure the extent of our ruination. BC

There is no more important responsibility of a sitting POTUS than to determine US priorities on national security matters. Since repeatedly consistent judicial precedent has firmly established the Executive Branch  as the “sole organ” of American foreign policy, this duty comes as close as anything to being axiomatic to the Presidency; the public expects it…demands it.

History is filled with examples of aggressive, often contrarian Presidential leadership of the country proving critical to our readiness when the moment of truth arrived. FDR’s steadfast campaign against a powerful isolationist constituency leading up to Pearl Harbor stands out as exhibit A, but many other less famous but important cases can be cited. JFK pledged a man on the moon; LBJ brought Democrats kicking and screaming into the Civil Rights era, which would go far in bolstering US moral righteousness in global affairs; Carter refused to let Camp David fail; and Reagan stood firm against a worldwide No Nuke movement. Indeed, establishing such priorities and employing the weight of the Oval Office to pursue them defines Presidential leadership.

Today’s complex and increasingly disparate world makes possible any number of nasty calamities, but none seems more imminent than foreign cyber attacks against our infrastructure. It doesn’t take an IT engineer to appreciate both the vulnerabilities of our defenses or the determination of our foes. Election systems, power grids, communication networks, financial data, personal records… the list of soft targets goes on and on. One would assume the White House would be all hands on deck to confront what can be reasonably called a red alert situation. One would be wrong!

Far from sounding the alarm, the White House ranges from poo pooing such concerns, to accusing others who express them of ulterior partisan motives meant to harm the Republic. Trump has expressed complete confidence in the word of Putin, while attacking his intelligence agencies as partisan and unreliable. It appears any leadership in enhancing our cyber defenses is going to have to come from further down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Unfortunately, Republicans on the Hill seem as reticent as the President, denying resources and pointing to other priorities… like softening financial regulations on banks responsible for the crisis of a decade ago, and discrediting an investigation unearthing new outrages daily.

So that leaves the private sector, who presumably understands cyber calamity is very bad for business, to fill the void. The biggies, like Facebook, Microsoft and Google are all spending time and capital to identify and resolve online vulnerabilities. All are incredulous that a fully documented Russian campaign in 2016, underpinned by Mueller indictments of 12 Russians, is not being addressed by the government, even as fresh evidence mounts of similar efforts ramping up for November.

Meeting in San Francisco to pool industry insights and modeling, with government representatives absent, Silicon Valley agreed on the clear and present danger, and appears willing to act on its own. “Our government just doesn’t have a coordinated plan,” declared Alex Stanos, former chief security officer at Facebook. If that’s the pot calling the kettle black, nobody cares because all agree the situation is dire. And the players are finally beginning to play. “Bot” accounts are being targeted and removed on Twitter and Facebook. Meanwhile, Microsoft has detected hacking efforts targeting think tanks and politicians. Utilities are being warned of breaches that could compromise the nation’s power grid; new security protocols are being formulated.

Yet and still, without a more unified agenda across government agencies, it’s hard to see how preparations won’t suffer. And that kind of effort simply can’t happen without focused and determined White House leadership. Nothing is “more important than having the commander in chief, the chief executive of the United States, clearly verbally assert the threats and challenges,” said Obama official, Evelyn Farkas.

Of course Trump’s calling card is his refusal to focus. And he’s made clear time and again his inability to view any concern about foreign cyber attacks as distinct from support for Mueller’s “witch hunt”. In fact, based on his public positions, the President appears to accept foreign intrusions as merely reciprocical pay back for similar US efforts, simply par for the course within the international state of nature.

One of the worst things about this Administration is the now uniform wariness of top officials to make public statements on important issues for fear of being contradicted by a President uninformed about his own policies and unconcerned about publicly slighting his own people. This appears to be responsible for the muddled message on cyber security. So we are leaderless on perhaps the most pressing national security challenge facing the country.

Whether it’s insidious promotion of our divisions, or incipient inattention to our basic security, the President is a human Jenga toppler. When we’re laying awake in the dark, without air conditioning, wondering how long the latest blackout will last, and trying not to panic about growing disorder, it will be small comfort knowing exactly who to blame. Unsustainable. BC

One doesn’t have to be a lawyer to figure a 47-page indictment means business. And when most of those pages detail infractions down to the penny… that’s trouble. Whether Duncan Hunter Jr. (R-CA) is keeping it real and wondering if Italy and fine dining was worth the trouble, or shrugging his shoulders like the reinventor-of-scandal-in-Chief he idolizes and asking what’s the biggie, he better start dancing fast because this case looks tight as a snare drum.

Republican taste for hypocrisy is so well established it should be a permanent plank in the Party’s bylaws. Whether it’s wrinkled scolds  with a sudden taste for 22 year olds, shrill homophobes with  boyfriends in the shadows, or “drain the swamp” posers like Hunter Jr. using campaign funds like a home equity line, the GOP has long been much heavier on talk than walk when it comes to honesty and governance.

It really doesn’t get much swampier than the Duncan Hunter Jr. profile. Groomed to take over his father’s Congressional seat, Hunter Jr. came into office at age 32 in 2008. Early on his wife was paid as a campaign staff member, $117,000 between 2010-17’. Hunter corruption was a full family affair. He had barely been sworn in following re-election when campaign coffers began paying for concert tickets, sports bar tabs, beach trips and even dental bills. Eventually lavish trips to Italy and Hawaii were earmarked “official” business supporters should feel fortunate to underwrite. What a hands on Representative we have!

Apparently, Hunter Jr’s. campaign treasurer was sufficiently alarmed by the spending to voice serious concerns to the Congressman, who poo pooed “repeated inquiries” as “silly” and a sign of disloyalty by “trying to create a paper trail on me.” Gee, that sure sounds familiar. Of course Hunter was first in line on Capital Hill to embrace the Trump candidacy,  the same day as Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), recently charged with insider trading…great minds bilk alike!

Fact is there is more than enough evidence of GOP disdain for all things ethical and on the level when it comes to its membership, that simply questioning their political spines in supporting Trump outrages doesn’t cut it. Rather, a more accurate view may be a Trump Presidency seen from the beginning as open season for graft, a welcome surprise from the expected Clinton era, which promised far  more robust scrutiny.

Instead of asking why the GOP has “tolerated” Trump, perhaps we need to work under the premise they count on him and his cesspool to abet their anything goes shenanigans. Trump “deep state” tropes need not be applicable only to his wretchedness; instead it’s a new set of chapters in the GOP handbook, an emerging tutorial for maintaining viability when caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

Doubtless Hunter Jr. will lean heavily on a political victimization narrative as his career implodes. Perhaps his alamo will be begging the guy he called “the greatest President of my generation” for a pardon. Why not? As for those of us not immersed in slime, it may be a good idea to start considering  the worst of the Grand Old Party to be the main, and stop expecting more from a criminal enterprise.

How should this play in November? Maybe every GOP candidate needs to be reminded daily of their crooked pedigree, and forced to publicly own or renounce it. Let there be no room for dithering. If they embrace their Party, trounce them at the polls. If they exhibit some integrity, well, that’s exactly what will save their Party… everyone’s the better for it. Either way we have only ourselves to blame for the cost of allowing squatters from a den of thieves free rides this fall. BC