The Rats Abandoning the U.S.S. Trump Accept No Responsibility

I have always believed that decent and moral people do not knowingly "get in bed" so to speak with immoral people.  Sooner or later the immorality begins to rub off on you and you become perhaps forever tainted by your decision to dismiss immorality, hate and bigotry.  This is a lesson one can witness watching the rats leaving the rudderless Trump/Pence regime who now plead that they should not be blamed for the misogyny that flows in torrents from the White House virtually daily.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the shameless hypocrisy of those resigning from or being forced out of Trump regime positions.  Do not cry for any of these individuals who knew up front that they were making a pact with evil. Here are column excerpts:

One by one they leap — or are pushed — from the foundering USS Trump, each offering a variation of the same plea: Don’t blame me.

Comes now retired Gen. John Kelly, the second of President Trump’s chiefs of staff to be discarded. Days before departing, he paused for a two-hour telephone interview with the Los Angeles Times. It was an extended exercise in self-absolution.

Don’t blame him for Trump’s border-wall obsession. . . . . Don’t blame Kelly for Trump’s fabricated “crisis” at the southern border. . . . Don’t blame him for Trump’s claims that Hispanic immigrants spread violence and drugs.

And don’t blame him for the travel ban or the family separation policies, either. Rather, he, argued, he should be judged for what Trump didn’t do: . . . . Right. And if we judge success by things that didn’t happen, we should also credit Kelly for avoiding a zombie apocalypse.

Kelly served his country honorably for decades. But there’s nothing courageous in announcing, on the way out the door, that he didn’t agree with many awful things Trump did on his watch. There was, once, a good argument that qualified people, by taking administration jobs, could temper Trump’s worst instincts. But it turned out Trump was not to be tempered.

Those who disagreed with the madness had an obligation to resign, or at least to speak out — not to wash their hands of responsibility after the fact.

Don’t blame Rex Tillerson. The ousted secretary of state recently told Bob Schieffer of CBS News he reined in Trump by saying “you can’t do it that way. It violates the law. It violates a treaty.”

Don’t blame Jim Mattis. The former defense secretary waited until resigning to publicly state his disagreements with Trump over NATO, “malign actors” such as Russia and “treating allies with respect.”

Don’t blame Reince Priebus. Trump’s first chief of staff spoke up about Trump’s chaos after he was ousted, telling author Chris Whipple: “Take everything you’ve heard and multiply it by 50.”

Also, don’t blame Omarosa Manigault Newman (she knew Trump was a racist but took a job in his White House anyway) or Michael Cohen (at his sentencing, the president’s former personal lawyer said his “blind loyalty” to Trump led him to “cover up his dirty deeds”) or Stephen K. Bannon (after he departed the White House, the former top strategist suggested Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort had engaged in “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” behavior) . . . . The self-absolution extends into the diaspora of Trump apologists. Departing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) gave a farewell speech denouncing the use of social media to “play on anger” and “on people’s fears.” Departing Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a Trump cheerleader, gave a farewell speech lamenting the loss of “comity, compromise and mutual respect.” Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah), in defeat, denounced Trump for operating with “no real relationships, just convenient transactions.”

Better late than never? Perhaps. Those taking parting shots are certainly more honorable than those who, with non-disparagement agreements, get paid to defend Trump on the airwaves. The post-employment critics also compare favorably with Mick Mulvaney, who called Trump a “terrible human being” before becoming Trump’s budget director and now acting chief of staff.

But the after-the-fact criticism seems self-serving — a way for Trump enablers to rebuild their reputations and find new jobs. Tucker Carlson, an unstinting Trump booster, used the anonymity of a German-language weekly to put on the record that he questions Trump’s competence, knowledge, self-aggrandizement and personnel choices.

Even Carlson, though, is braver than the anonymous Trump official who wrote the New York Times op-ed about efforts to sabotage Trump from within. How long before the author emerges to claim credit — and perhaps a book contract? Proposed title: Don’t blame me.

The Moral Collapse of the Republican Party

I left the Republican Party years ago as it was being infiltrated by Christofascists and the party began to trend towards the embrace of thinly veiled racists. Things have only gotten worse in the intervening years and self-prostitution, lying and hypocrisy are now prerequisites to GOP membership.  The irony is - if one doesn't regularly follow "family values" Christian groups - that these traits have intensified as the Christofascists have solidified their hold on the GOP base.   Oh, yes, there is still much bloviating about the party being the party of traditional morality and true patriotism.  Sadly, those claims have as much veracity as the drivel and bombast coming from the lips of Der Trumpeter who fact checking confirms lies roughly 80% of the time.  The result is that today's GOP poses a threat to America's national security.  A column in the New York Times looks at the moral decay of the GOP.  Here are excerpts:

The story so far: A foreign dictator intervened on behalf of a U.S. presidential candidate — and that candidate won. Close associates of the new president were in contact with the dictator’s espionage officials during the campaign, and his national security adviser was forced out over improper calls to that country’s ambassador — but not until the press reported it; the president learned about his actions weeks earlier, but took no action.

Meanwhile, the president seems oddly solicitous of the dictator’s interests, and rumors swirl about his personal financial connections to the country in question. Is there anything to those rumors? Nobody knows, in part because the president refuses to release his tax returns.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong here, and it’s all perfectly innocent. But if it’s not innocent, it’s very bad indeed. So what do Republicans in Congress, who have the power to investigate the situation, believe should be done?

Nothing.

Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, says that Michael Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador were “entirely appropriate.”

Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, angrily dismissed calls for a select committee to investigate contacts during the campaign: “There is absolutely not going to be one.”

Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the House oversight committee — who hounded Hillary Clinton endlessly over Benghazi — declared that the “situation has taken care of itself.”
Just the other day Republicans were hot in pursuit of potential scandal, and posed as ultrapatriots. Now they’re indifferent to actual subversion and the real possibility that we are being governed by people who take their cues from Moscow. Why?

[Y]ou can’t understand the mess we’re in without appreciating not just the potential corruption of the president, but the unmistakable corruption of his party — a party so intent on cutting taxes for the wealthy, deregulating banks and polluters and dismantling social programs that accepting foreign subversion is, apparently, a small price to pay.

[W]hile the potential scandal here is far worse than Watergate — Richard Nixon was sinister and scary, but nobody imagined that he might be taking instructions from a foreign power — it’s very hard to imagine today’s Republicans standing up for the Constitution the way their predecessors did.

So how does this crisis end?

It’s not a constitutional crisis — yet. But Donald Trump is facing a clear crisis of legitimacy. His popular-vote-losing win was already suspect given the F.B.I.’s last-minute intervention on his behalf. Now we know that even as the F.B.I. was creating the false appearance of scandal around his opponent, it was sitting on evidence suggesting alarmingly close relations between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia. And nothing he has done since the inauguration allays fears that he is in effect a Putin puppet.

Again, a thorough, nonpartisan, unrestricted investigation could conceivably clear the air. But Republicans in Congress, who have the power to make such an investigation happen, are dead set against it.

The thing is, this nightmare could be ended by a handful of Republican legislators willing to make common cause with Democrats to demand the truth. And maybe there are enough people of conscience left in the G.O.P.

But there probably aren’t. And that’s a problem that’s even scarier than the Trump-Putin axis.

The Death of The American Republic

Much as I feared would be the case, the members of the Electoral College flushed the intent of the Founding Fathers down the toilet today and certified the election of Donald Trump to the presidency - a man manifestly unfit for the office and precisely what the Founders sought to protect the American Republic against.  Thus, America has embarked on a road similar to that of the Roman Republic when it voted Octavian, a/k/a August Caesar the title "Imperator" following the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium. the road of Italy in 1922 when Benito Mussolini was elected Prime Minister, and Germany in 1933 when Hitler was made chancellor of Germany after winning much less than a majority of electoral support.  While Augustus maintained the trappings of the Roman Republic, such did not occur in Italy or Germany in the 20th Century.   In reality, all three republics died.  So too, I am afraid will be the case with America in 2017.  The disasters of the past might still be avoided if Americans wake up and open their eyes.  Unfortunately, I am not betting on that happening.  Thus, the question becomes whether to stay and fight or emigrate.  The following are highlights from my December, 2017, VEER Magazine column which expresses my feelings:

Each morning since November 9, 2016, I find myself waking up and realizing that the electoral win of Donald Trump is not some bad dream or nightmare from which I soon will awaken.  Rather it is in fact a frightening reality, especially for LGBT Americans and minorities.  American democracy has seemingly committed suicide - although death will be a while in coming as the poison unleashed by Donald Trump and his more extreme supporters slowly spreads through society and our political structure.  Now,  we have seen the KKK having celebratory marches and Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups jubilantly announcing their plans to target and harass gays and minorities.  Meanwhile, other than a brief "stop it" remark during a 60 Minutes interview, one hears not one word from their anointed Führer in condemnation of such hate, bigotry and threats of violence.  Things that heretofore were deemed reprehensible have now been normalized by Trump, the once reputable Republican Party and a largely hapless and irresponsible media.
 There are moments when I feel as if we are reliving the early minutes of the 1971 movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis or the 1978 mini-series, Holocaust. As in those works, where initially normalcy seemed to continue until creeping changes began to unleash a nightmare, the media and Trump voters want to convince themselves that something horrible and dangerous is not really happening.  Worse yet, they are in denial that they played a part in allowing it to happen.  But it is happening.  Denial does not make it untrue.  Nor do statements and hollow assurances by one's supposed "friends" who voted for Trump - all of whom, of course are white heterosexual Christians - that they don't agree with the anti-LBGT rhetoric bring any comfort or safety.
 If one is apprehensive about the future, look no farther than Donald Trump's cabinet nominations to date.  This cavalcade of extremists demonstrates that much more is in store for America than mere overheated campaign rhetoric.  Without exception, every single one of Trump's Cabinet appointees has a documented history of being hostile to LGBT rights and in some cases civil rights in general.  That's right, every single one of them.   Here's a brief rundown of some of Trump's nominees: Jeff Sessions, Attorney General nominee:  Sessions supported a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage; voted against adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the definition of hate crimes; voted against repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy; and is co-sponsoring the First Amendment Defense Act, which would let individuals and businesses, including government-funded organizations, ignore non-discrimination laws and ordinances that conflict with their religious beliefs.
  Mike Pompeo, Central Intelligence Agency director nominee: While serving in congress, Pompeo voted to protect anti-same-sex marriage opinions as free speech and also supported a bill saying a state’s definition of marriage should supersede the federal one.
 Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education nominee:  Other than Sessions, DeVos is among the most frightening nominees. DeVos and family members have devoted hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to anti-gay hate groups Focus on the Family Family Research Council and reportedly donated thousands to efforts to block the legalization of same-sex marriage in states like Florida, Michigan, and California.  In addition, DeVos is a rabid supporter of debunked "ex-gay" conversion therapy, opposes safe schools programs (that include things like anti-bullying policies), and sees the schools as a vehicle to forward the Christofascist. agenda.
 Tom Price, Secretary Health and Human Services nominee:  As Tom Price voted against prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation, voted in favor of defining marriage in the Constitution as between one man and one woman, and could take away protections specifically for transgender Americans. Price is in favor of dismantling the Affordable Care Act, which bans sex discrimination — including discrimination against trans people — in health care.  Price has also opposes protections for transgender students in public schools.
 Reince Priebus, White House Chief of Staff nominee:  As chairman of the Republican Party, Priebus spearheaded one of the most anti-LGBT platforms in Republican Party history. Among other things, it calls for the repeal of same-sex marriage, gives states the right to choose which bathroom transgender people use, and defends businesses who deny service to LGBT Americans based on their religious beliefs.
 Mike Flynn, White House National Security Adviser nominee:  Retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn has a “history of animus toward LGBT people.” Most recently Flynn, went on a tirade against “political correctness” in response to the Obama administration’s decision to allow transgender soldiers to serve openly in the military.
 Equally disturbing are signals reportedly being leaked by Trump himself and/or his minions to the opponents of LGBT rights in Congress.  Just recently GOP Representative Steve Russell, who had sought to insert a sweeping anti-gay "religious freedom amendment in to the recently passed federal defense-spending bill, boasted that Trump and his administration had given him “very good assurances” that it will be addressing the issue of "religious freedom" and the manufactured myth that Christians are being subjected to persecution here in America.   On a similar note, indications are that Trump will start reversing LGBTQ rights initiatives upon taking office, including scrapping President Obama’s 2014 executive order that barred LGBT discrimination by federal contractors or further elaborating George W. Bush’s 2002 executive order that protects religious rights of social service groups such as foster care and adoption agencies receive state and/or federal taxpayer derived funds.
 Despite these frightening signs, Trump supporting "friends" continually assure me "that there is nothing to worry about."  I am not alone in my fears.  Mother Jones reports that calls to LGBT suicide prevention hotlines have soared in number since Trumps victory. The volume of calls has increased in some case to five times the previous daily number of calls.   Among callers' concerns are the potential roll back of LGBT protections and the increased boldness of Christofacsists and other alt-right groups in their anti-LGBT propaganda and physical attacks.  Indeed, last month a piece in Newsweek looked at the plans of a Trump supporting Neo-Nazi organization to embark on a campaign of harassing gays, women, minorities - and, I'm sure, Jews - to the point where they will commit suicide. This is Trump's new America.  Clearly, his promise to "make America great again" translates to "make America white and heterosexual again."
 People have good reason to be fearful.  Yet the question that remains of what to do both on a personal safety level, particularly in the face of increased levels of hate crimes and embolden Christofascists and right wing extremist who believe that Trump's election has given them license to act on their bigotry, and a larger level to defeat the ugly elements now being empowered by the Trump/Pence regime. I will start with the issue of personal safety.  I have long been a strong advocate of gun control and have heretofore been very anti-gun and pro-gun control legislation.  Now, I and others are looking to form a Pink Pistols chapter in Hampton Roads (chapters exist in Richmond and Northern Virginia) which will assist members of the LGBT community to learn how to own and use handguns for self protection.  Over the years I have received death threats before in comments left on this blog - one reason I moderate comments - but heretofore never took them too seriously.  Now, things may be different and a new vigilance needed.  I have always been proud to be "out" and visible.  Now, one has to wonder if that makes you a potential target.  Is it a coincidence that 81% of evangelical Christians supported Trump and that literally every death threat I have received in the past has come from someone professing to be a conservative, Bible believing Christian?  I think not.
 On the larger community and societal level, LGBT citizens must redouble their efforts to educate family members, friends and neighbors about the policies that are already being planned that will harm not only the LGBT community, but also minorities and the elderly if the Trump/GOP plans to repeal the Adorable Health Care Act and convert Medicare into a voucher program come to pass.  This effort will be laborious and will not be accomplished over night.   Sadly, many will not want to hear the message they need to hear.  Yes, many Americans have been economically  battered from global economic change, automation and the continuing wars in the Middle East that should never have been launched.  But the real question now is this: will 2017 Americans act like 1933 Germans did when confronted by the rise of Hitler and his message of hate and bigotry and, of course, vilification of scapegoats or will they oppose those seeking to play upon their worst instincts and stand for decency.   As a recent column by Megan Carpentier noted, "we all like to think that we’d stand up to wholesale abrogations of our fellow Americans’ constitutional rights (or, at least, for the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness), but a large body of psychological research suggests that once we’re ordered to do something atrocious, we feel relieved of the burden of feeling guilty about doing it. 
 Each of us has a role to play in stopping the worse from happening.  We need to speak out and make it clear to all of our elected officials that we oppose the ugly elements of the Trump/GOP agenda.  We cannot afford to act like 1930's Germans.  

 My "friends" who supported Trump have already proven that they are no better than 1930's Germans who abetted or tolerated Hitler's rise. Those who opposed Der Fuhrer are the ones who must act, along with those who were too lazy or indifferent to get out and vote.  Many of these latter do not grasp that they are on the target list.  Either get off your ass and act or expect to be swept away.  Now is not the time for excuses or cowardice,. 

The Betrayal of Democracy by "Moderate" Conservatives

I suspect that history will blame much of the mainstream media for enabling the rise of Donald Trump and the extremism that has devoured the Republican Party.  During the Obama presidency, "moderate" conservatives who never did anything to support or defend the legitimacy of America's first black president did nothing to condemn or criticize the growing extremism and out right racism, religious fanaticism, and bigotry of the Republican Party.  Only when it was too late did the likes of David Brooks, Michael Gerson and a host of others begin a rear guard effort to stop Trump.  But it was too little and much too late.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at this failure and targets Brooks in particular although the criticism applies to many who foolishly see themselves as "moderates".  Here are highlights:

Of all the failures that have led to the historical disaster of the Trump presidency, perhaps the least-remarked-upon is the abdication of responsibility of the American center. Those of us with moderate inclinations need an effective center as a brake against extremism. When one party veers too far from the center, the center joins the opposing party, until the extreme one can be coaxed back into the mainstream. David Brooks calls for a rejuvenation of the center under the Trump presidency. But Brooks himself is the perfect encapsulation of why the center has proven so hapless, allowing itself to enable extremism rather than prevent it.

The premise of Brooks’s column is that there needs to be space “between the alt-right and the alt-left, between Trumpian authoritarianism and Sanders socialism.” This is a terrible way to conceptualize the political map. First, it distorts the ideas of the two sides, equating a small-d democrat like Sanders (who merely proposes more regulation, taxes, and spending) with Trump, who — as Brooks concedes — is authoritarian. And second, it distorts their power. Sanders remains a left-wing outlier among his party, while Trump is the dominant force within his.

Brooks spent the last eight years defining the center as something Obama was not. It didn’t matter that Obama supported a health-care plan first devised by Mitt Romney, or a cap-and-trade plan endorsed by John McCain. Brooks nestled himself into the territory between Obama and the angry, no-compromise Republicans who were shutting down government and boycotting all negotiations with the president. If Obama endorsed the policies Brooks preferred, he would simply pretend that Obama had not proposed them. Indeed, one of the most common genres of David Brooks column was a sad lament that neither party would endorse policies that in fact Obama had explicitly and publicly called for.

If Obama offered a deal to raise taxes through tax reform while reducing entitlements, Brooks would write a sad column about how nobody was willing to raise taxes through tax reform while reducing entitlements. If Obama favored education reform, an infrastructure bank, and more high-skill immigration, Brooks would write a sad column about how nobody favored those things. 

The effect of all this commentary was not to empower the moderate ideas Brooks favored, but to disempower them. Brooks was emblematic of the way the entire bipartisan centrist industry conducted itself throughout the Obama years. It was neither possible for Obama to co-opt the center, nor for Republicans to abandon it, because official centrists would simply relocate themselves to the midpoint of wherever the parties happened to stand. The well-documented reality that the parties were undergoing asymmetric polarization was one they refused to accept, because their jobs was to be bipartisan, and it is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon not understanding it.

The centrists could have played a role in braking the growing extremism of the Republican Party. It would have meant telling the country that there was now one moderate, governing party and one extremist faction, and parking themselves with the moderate party until such time as the dynamic changed. They could not do it. If there’s not much of a center left to stop Trump from trampling democratic norms, it is because the centrists abdicated their responsibility and destroyed themselves.

The Political Cowardice and Fear Must End

Adress Latif/Reuters

My earlier post looked at the whining by the usual suspects about the "politicization" of the gun massacre in Connecticut.  I made the case that the issue MUST be politicized because it is the only way that meaningful change can occur in order to make these horrible incidents much more rare.  A column in the Washington Post follows up on this theme. Here are some excerpts:

Twenty children and seven adults are dead in Newtown, Connecticut. This time, the cowardice, the fear, the evasion and the political convenience must end.

We have had enough. American politics is plagued by timidity and paralyzed by opportunism whenever we even consider talking action to curb gun violence. No other developed country in the world has these massacres on such a regular basis. In no comparable nation do citizens have such easy access to guns. On no public question other than gun violence are those who demand solutions after an ungodly episode accused of “politicizing tragedy.”

It is time to insist that such craven propaganda will no longer be taken seriously. If our political system does not act this time, we can deem it as totally bought and paid for by the representatives of gun manufacturers, gun dealers, and their very well-compensated lobbyists and mouthpieces.

"Regardless of politics.” That is what it will take. A president who no longer has to run for election is in a good position to say this, but he and the rest of us must change the politics of guns for those who will face the voters again. We cannot just be sad. We must be angry. We cannot just shake our heads. We must shake our fists, and wield our votes. We cannot just say that curbing gun violence is one issue among many. It is a paramount concern for our country.

And we will have to avoid the paralysis created by those who insists that every mass shooting is the work of one deranged individual and never, ever the result of flawed policies.



[W]e already know that it is far too easy to obtain guns in America. We already know that it is far too difficult to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. And we already know that weapons are available that should not even be sold. We must act now to curb gun violence, or we never will.

A second op-ed underscores the ridiculousness and cowardice of politicians' refusal to stand up to the gun lobby so as to protect children and innocent citizens.  Here are the money quotes|:

We live in a society that makes it very, very easy to kill kids, although we want to pretend that isn’t true.  The 20 young children gunned down inside Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday were swaddled in federally regulated, fire-retardant blankets, rode in elaborate car seats plastered with safety stickers, and learned to ride bikes with elbow pads, knee guards and safety helmets. Some of them may never have had a Twinkie pass their lips.

We worry about the hormones in their milk, the violence in “Spongebob Squarepants,” and yet this country tolerates the existence of a military-style assault weapon built for no purpose other than killing lots of people on a battlefield — fast.

People will continue to say that the right to bear arms is written into our Constitution. It’s a sticker on a truck, a political statement swathed in red, white and blue, a stand on tradition, individualism and a huge gun lobby soaked in cash and merciless about winning, winning, winning.

But nothing will change when it comes to guns in America.  That is something rotten and infected in our culture. And it breaks my heart, at least 27 different ways.