First Things First: If You Want to be One of the Good Guys, Act Like It

First we have to accept that Donald J. Trump will become the president of the United States on January 20, 2017. Against our better judgement, and in spite of our many protests, members of the Electoral College signed off on it and now it's a done deal. While we might call it many things--and we have--we haven't been able to prove enough hanky panky to make it illegal or even illegitimate.  It's going to happen.

So, okay, we hate the idea with a passion so rabid it's almost to the point of destroying us, of killing us, of making us eat and drink stuff that's bad for us late into the night when we can't sleep because we know that unbelievable excuse for a human being is going to be president and we can't do anything about it.

As Democrats, liberals, progressives--whatever--we should be used to not having control over anything coming out of Washington, but because we're Democrats, liberals, progressives, we live on hope. We think it WILL happen because it SHOULD happen. Because we're the Good Guys.

I can't stress enough that we're the good guys. We're going to need to keep repeating that to get us through the days ahead, and I'm going to be here doing just that, making a pest of myself, because I believe it so strongly. I have faith in us. We want what's best for the country--even for those clueless Americans who voted for Trump and keep supporting him as if he's just a normal guy who isn't really going to do all those bad things it looks like he's planning to do, by God.

The Trump presidency will be every bit as bad as we think it will be. Maybe even worse. But first things first: We've spent the last 18 months trying like hell to counter the attacks against everything we hold sacred. The things we hold sacred are still there, except now they're even more vulnerable, even more in need of our undivided attention.  So no wimps allowed. No whining. No carrying on about how it should have been, could have been, if only we had. . .

Got that?  Good. So let's get something else straight: The attacks on Hillary, Bernie, and anyone else who doesn't fit your idea of political perfection--they have to stop.  Hillary and Bill are going to the inauguration: get over it. Bernie is about to hold a rally: get over it. Chuck Schumer is going to be a pit-bull against the Republicans but there's that thing about Israel: get over it.

This isn't about your disapproval or your disappointment, it's about our survival.  We have bigger fish to fry, and they don't include the people in the trenches beside us. We're not all going to agree on strategy and some of us may even stink up the place, but if we don't fight this madness together the whole country will suffer. Keep that in mind the next time you want to sniff about some inane item wafting up to your pristine pedestal, forcing you to post or tweet in all caps ABOUT HOW AWFUL IT IS!!

What's awful is that Donald Trump is about to become the president, the Republicans are about to own everything from the House to the Senate to the Supreme Court to the majority of the states, and everyone from the Russians to the Religious ultra-right to the NRA to the KKK are gloating about their own part in making it happen.

What's awful is that we haven't yet convinced the press that they have a responsibility to report the unvarnished truth; that it's cowardice to hide behind ratings or paychecks or popularity while the country suffers from their silence.

What's awful is that millions of people will choose to go along and will fight us every step of the way. They'll work to undermine even those programs designed to help them and their own families. They'll choose to blame us when things go wrong because it must be our fault. Their propaganda machines say it's our fault, so it's our fault.

So first things first: Accept that Trump will be president. Accept that our ideas will be displaced, our goals will be postponed, our fears will be realized. Then recognize our true enemies, remember that we're the good guys, and let the battles begin.

Curtain Down On The Trump Show Already. Please.

I've got that thing again where my heart races and my belly hurts and I don't know whether those tears are from laughing or crying.  I'm craving chocolate, any kind will do, and I can't stop thinking the end of civilization as we know it is right around the corner or up the street or somewhere in Iowa.

I go to sleep stressing and I wake up stressing.  Terrible things are going on in the world.  I should be stressing over them, and it could be that that's what's going on, but it feels like it's Donald Trump.

He's doing this to me. I should stop listening to him. I should pretend I'm not living in a country where Donald Trump, of all people, could be a front-runner in a bid for the presidency.  I should stop waiting for him to mess up so badly there's no going back.  I should do that, but if I had that kind of self-control I wouldn't be a full-time self-unemployed political blogger on the liberal circuit.  Now would I?

I'm a mess and it's all his fault.  I have succumbed to the slump I call Trump.  Donald Trump has entered my brain and if I don't get this down fast, my words will start sounding like a three-bean salad on a bed of spinach.  (I have no idea!  It just came out.  I'm telling you. . .)

Just this week Donald Trump, the man who would be president (or Tony Soprano, depending on how he strikes you--not literally, of course, though that's not out of the question), told a Black Lives Matter activist/heckler at a public meeting to "get the hell outta here".  This was after the man had been pummeled to the ground and then kicked by one of Trump's goons supporters.  Trump then took to Fox News, and, in his best considered presidential tone, said the man was obnoxious and loud, so, "Yeah, maybe he shoulda been roughed up.  Because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing."

On Sunday he told George Stephanopoulos he has no problem with waterboarding because "it's peanuts compared to what 'they' do".  (Almost every Republican could be heard groaning.  Cheers, though, from Dick Cheney, who, until that moment, hadn't even considered pushing for the job of choosing Trump's vice president.)

Then, with cameras still rolling, Trump assured Stephanopoulos that what he'd said the night before about seeing thousands and thousands of Arab people in New Jersey cheering as the World Trade Center came down was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

George suggested in an adorably nice way that there are some--or maybe all--who can't find a single solitary bit of footage or eye-witness account that would make what Donald said even slightly true.  Donald chalked it up to reporters wanting to be politically correct, and George, not ever wanting to be branded a politically correct reporter (oh gawd no!), thanked him ever so kindly for his time.

I watched that and breathed such a grateful sigh you wouldn't believe.  At last!  Caught in his own terrible lie!  Hoist[ed] with his own petard!  Stick a fork in him! He's done!

But you know what happened, don't you?  Come on, admit it.  You know.

Trump's poll numbers went up.  The crowds loved him even more.  Fifty five percent of likely Republican voters now say they would trust him over all other candidates to do the right thing about terrorism.  (What would he do about terrorists? Namely ISIS?  He would "bomb the shit out of them!" and take the oil. Yay!)

He is a serial liar and is the number one choice among Republicans for the next president of the United States.  (These same people, so deathly afraid of refugee families fleeing for their lives, have no fear of a Donald Trump presidency.  No fear!  None at all!  But there I go again.)

You know by now--because I keep telling you--I tend to take these things personally.   My America is not a plaything.  It's not a joke.  Turning my country over to a non-politician with no government experience would be punking of the worst kind.  But even thinking for one second of turning it over to a lying billionaire braggart who has a history of taking but not giving, who calls people ugly names and shuts up anyone who disputes him, who is such an embarrassment even countries with their own embarrassing characters can't believe we've topped them--that's insanity undisguised.

There are horrifying things going on in the world.  Donald Trump's ascendancy into the heights of American politics isn't one of them.  I know and you know that he'll never become president,  (We know that, right?) but the people egging him on will still be out there, still wishing it had been Trump, and I will still have to live among them.  Festering.

Once Trump is gone, the press, never ones to let an exploit pass, will be egging on Trump's people, pushing them to find someone equally entertaining. Because when it comes to American politics, there's no business like show business and, above all else, the show must go on.

Well, curtain down already.  Footlights off.  Come out into the daylight.  It's a whole different world out here.

How The Benghazi Committee Led Me To Hillary

Last week, on the morning of the latest in a long line of House Select Committee hearings on Benghazi, I was finishing up a blog post in which I hoped during the next few months Progressives/Liberals would all just get along.  At that point, on that morning, I thought I was still neutral about the two front-runners.  (Joe Biden has announced he's not running and Martin O'Malley, the only other viable candidate, is so far behind he's almost invisible. It's early yet, but unless someone else shows up, it's going to be either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.)

I finished up just before the hearing began, hit the "publish" button, and settled back to watch what I already knew would be a win-win for Hillary.  How could it not be?  After all this time, the Republican Benghazi committee members are the only ones on the face of the earth who refuse to believe there's no there there.

Credit:  Caroly Kaster/AP

Well, I'm here to tell you, that wasn't just a win, that was a whomping!

They can't say they weren't warned.  The Democrats on the  committee begged them not to do it. Members of their own party begged them not to do it.  But do it they did, and as the hour grew late, after 11 hours of gotcha questions followed by Hillary's infuriatingly calm responses (and the interception of some formidable Democrats, Elijah Cummings chief among them), Committee chair Trey Gowdy, soggy as an old dishrag, stopped the madness cold, even after promising certain panel members they would get another chance at interrogating the witness.  Stopped it dead.  Th-th-th-that's all, folks.

Hillary the interogatee showed no signs of exhaustion and instead hung around long enough to give hugs and air kisses before flitting away, off to spend the evening partying with friends.

I realize now I've been leaning toward Hillary for a while, but it wasn't until last week, when I saw her strength and grace under fire, that I decided I could happily support her.  No one in public life has been more scrutinized than Hillary. Barack Obama may come a close second, bless his heart, but his public life can be counted in years and not in decades.  Hillary has been under the microscope since she was a young woman.  That relentless scrutiny is bound to turn up discrepancies--even a pack of lies.  She has spent her entire public life having to defend her every move, her every decision--from hair styles and pantsuits to why she did, in fact, stand by her man.

She's been a First Lady, a Senator, a Secretary of State.  She did all that while being under constant fire from haters on the Right and on the Left.  Is she  deceitful?  Is she reserved?  Is she less than transparent?  I'll bet she's been all three.  Intense, unrelenting public scrutiny will do that to a person.  But her kindness, her friendships, her work for women's and children's causes is almost never acknowledged.  She is an adoring grandmother now, and her charity work is well known.

She held herself back for years, thinking, wrongly, that she needed to show strength and not softness.  Now she knows better and it's driving her enemies crazy.  They so want to keep believing she's a ruthless she-devil war-monger in the pockets of the rich.

Is she too cozy with Wall Street? She was, after all, the Senator from New York. It's no secret she takes campaign funds and Clinton Foundation donations from Wall Street donors.  There aren't many who don't.  (It's a tribute to Bernie Sanders that he can manage a campaign without super-PAC funds.  I wish him luck.)

Her vote on the Iraq War is ancient history.  It was wrong-headed, as she admits today.  I would be more concerned if she were still insisting she did the right thing.

Is she a war-monger?  She was tough as Secretary of State, keen on aiding oppressed human beings, not keen on retreat, but she showed no signs of Condi Riceing us into a reckless sustained war.

Am I leaning toward her because she's a woman?  That's part of it.  I was born when FDR was president and I've lived through 12 more presidents--all of them male.  I would love to see a woman in the White House but I'm not choosing Hillary simply because of her gender.  I choose her because I think she'll do the best job of anyone running.  (I've been a long-time Bernie Sanders admirer and I love his passion for the causes I believe in.  I think domestically--as senator or maybe governor--he's outstanding.  I don't see him in an international role as president. His temperament, an asset when he's leading a cause, is worrisome when applied to "leader of the free world".)

There will be mountains of evidence against Hillary as the months go by.  Some of it will be disturbingly on the mark.  She has made her share of blunders--some of them calculating.  There were times when she was not even "likable enough".  But I see her as a woman under siege.  I marvel at her courage as she deals with it while still building a remarkable life.

She's a pragmatist. She has a history of wanting desperately to win at anything she tries and she's not above pandering to do that.  I want her to be as liberal as I am, of course.  I want her to be as liberal as Bernie Sanders.  I believe she'll be more liberal than Barack Obama (there are others who believe she may even be more liberal than Bernie Sanders), but her presidency will not be FDR's Second Coming.  (Neither would Bernie Sanders', no matter how much he might wish it.)

We need a president who can stand up to the Tea Party Republicans, who understands foreign policy, and knows intimately the workings of Washington.  I don't believe for a minute that she'll be a corporate pawn.  She also won't be Obama's--or her husband's--keeper of the flame.  There's a reason she's so feared by the other side.  It's because she's her own person and no matter what they do to her she doesn't break.

It'll take real balls to lead us through the next decade.  Hillary may be just the woman to get it done.


(Can also be seen at The Broad Side and Crooks & Liars)

Politicians out of control on Guns: Never Forgive, Never Forget

Yesterday 46 members of the Senate voted down a proposal that would have been a logical first step to gun control--universal background checks.  They were able to vote it down, even though 54 members voted for it because they rigged the way the votes count now.  Voting it down for no good reason is bad enough but they did it through cowardice, lies and cheats. The whole process was despicable, made even more so by the fact that it happened in the chambers where expectations of fairness and fidelity used to run quite high.

These public servants ignored the wishes of at least 90% of Americans and caved, instead, to willful profit-oriented special interests.  They lied about the content of the bill and insured their success by forcing a 60-vote approval instead of a fairer, more honest majority vote.

In a sane world, this would be enough to cause those who voted against the wishes of the people some actual discomfort, if not some actual punishment.  Our outrage (those of us who have sense enough to be outraged) comes today because we know nothing will happen to them.  They will go on for another day and another day after that making bad decisions that will affect all of us in one way or another, and all we can do is shout about it.

We are outraged.  The parents and families of the Newtown School massacre are outraged.  Gabrielle Giffords is outraged. The president is outraged.  The Democrats (all but four senators) are outraged. Certain members of the press are outraged.  But our rage at these 46 members of the United States Senate who voted to keep guns out of our control is, in the end, no more than hot air.  Rage, like hot air, dissipates.  It weakens to anger, and anger, when it is not satisfied, weakens to a sigh.  A futile sigh. We are exhausted.  We inevitably leave it behind and go on.

They get away with these undemocratic actions once again because we have neither the authority nor the strength to stop them.  And they know this.

The president gave a masterful speech yesterday, designed to both clarify his rage and to shame them for their actions.  They don't care.

A portion of what the president said: 

Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders –- not just to honor the memory of their children, but to protect the lives of all our children.  And a few minutes ago, a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn’t worth it.  They blocked common-sense gun reforms even while these families looked on from the Senate gallery.

By now, it’s well known that 90 percent of the American people support universal background checks that make it harder for a dangerous person to buy a gun.  We’re talking about convicted felons, people convicted of domestic violence, people with a severe mental illness.  Ninety percent of Americans support that idea.  Most Americans think that’s already the law.

And a few minutes ago, 90 percent of Democrats in the Senate just voted for that idea.  But it’s not going to happen because 90 percent of Republicans in the Senate just voted against that idea.
A majority of senators voted “yes” to protecting more of our citizens with smarter background checks.  But by this continuing distortion of Senate rules, a minority was able to block it from moving forward.

Gabrielle Giffords wrote an impassioned editorial in the New York Times yesterday, designed to show her rage and to shame those senators.  They don't care.

From Gabby:

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

James Fallows wrote a great piece in the Atlantic yesterday called "For the Love of God, just call it a Filibuster".    They don't care. 

1. Today a provision that would increase background checks for gun purchases was blocked in the Senate, even though consideration of the bill was supported by 54 senators representing states that make up (at quick estimate) at least 60 percent of the American population.
2. The bill did not fail to "pass" the Senate, which according to Constitutional provisions and accepted practice for more than two centuries requires a simple majority, 51 votes. Even 50 votes should do it, since the vice president is constitutionally empowered to cast the tie-breaking and deciding vote, and Joe Biden would have voted yes.
3. It failed because a 54-vote majority was not enough to break the threat of a filibuster, which (with some twists of labeling) was the real story of what happened with this bill. Breaking the filibuster would have required 60 votes.

The Twitterverse clogged the place yesterday listing one by one the names of those senators who voted "no".  They don't care.

Journalists, essayists, bloggers, and hundreds of thousands of enraged activists took to their preferred soapboxes and shouted out in anguished rage.  The senators ignored us all.  They don't care.

They're counting on our inattention, our tendency to be distracted and manipulated, our refusal to believe our elected politicians could turn against us so cruelly, so blatantly, and so often.

This is our chance to show them how much we care.  We can't forget.  We must not forgive.  We will not let them get away with this latest insult.  They should not be allowed to win again.  Not if we are who we think we are.

On this Second Inauguration: Our Chance to Hope Again

Monday, January 21, 2013 - 7 AM:
As I'm about to begin the fifth year of my blog on this morning of Barack Obama's second Inauguration (held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's birth, a most appropriate and fitting confluence), I feel I should write something so powerful, so moving, so wise, nothing anyone ever writes about this day will even come close.

But anyone who regularly reads my blog knows that's probably not going to happen.  What I plan to do on this most auspicious day is to record the small stuff and leave the big stuff to the writerly biggies.  This will be a happy post, since this is a happy day for me.  (If even reading those few words sends the heat rising to the top of your head and you're threatening to blow, well, buh bye.  We'll talk again some time.)

(7:10 AM:  Joe Scarborough just said, "I don't want to be known as the conservative party or the moderate party, I just don't want to be known as the stupid party".  A delicious example of Joe's inability to speak in sentences that don't include the word "I", making the whole sentence double-funny. Nothing to do with today's festivities, just an aside.  We'll move on.)

I can barely conjure up how I felt on the day of Obama's first Inauguration, but I can go back and read that first blog post and there it is.  I can go back to the second and the third and the fourth anniversaries of that big day as well to see how I felt each time it rolled around.

And today, after more than a year of much wringing of hands, going between high hilarity (the Republican presidential candidates, one and all) to My God, Romney/Ryan could win and ruin everything, my president, Barack Obama, is about to re-enact the official swearing-in as the next and current president of the United States. (Re-enacted because January 20 fell on a Sunday this year and apparently we're not allowed to inaugurate on the Sabbath. But the president has to be sworn in on January 20, no matter what, so Chief Justice Roberts did the honors yesterday in a private ceremony (except for the cameras) and today it's being repeated at the Big HooHaw, anti-climactic as it might seem to the purists--who probably aren't going to be pleased about anything today, anyway.)

And, of course, there's Joe Biden--the icing on the cake.  Four more years of Joe--could I get more giddy?

11:50 AM.  Barack Obama has just taken the oath of office again and now he is giving his inaugural address.

12:12 PM.  I am moved to tears.   It was a speech to remember.

And now I'm weeping again, as Kelly Clarkson sings "My Country Tis of Thee."

And again, as Richard Blanco reads his splendid poem, "One Today".

And Beyonce sings the National Anthem. . .

And now the benediction by Pastor Luis Leon.  A perfect bookend to Medgar Evers' widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams' Invocation.

(Okay, before you ask. . .I, the professed heathen, have no real problem with invocations and benedictions at government functions.  I may not understand the necessity, but I'm pretty sure a couple of simple prayers is not going to be enough to turn the government theocratic. )

And after an hour or so, it's done.  We have a president (and a vice president) for four more years.  In my case, I have the president (and the vice president) I wanted to have, but because we have elections that aren't completely off the wall there are some people who can't say that.  I've been there before and now I'm not. That means I'm happier than they are today, but never fear--if I live long enough, they will have their turn.  (Not that they'll deserve it, damn them.  Smiley face)

3:55 PM.  The president and the First Lady have made their stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue and are now back in their limousine, and I have to admit, I'm relieved.  I've never seen so many Secret Service agents in one place.  I'm sure there were sharpshooters stationed up on the roofs.  (I wish it weren't so, but in these times, with this president, we have reason to worry.)

We'll have four more years to debate the good and the bad of this presidency.  Time enough to start it up in the days to come.  I reserve today for celebration.  And tomorrow and tomorrow.

I'm that happy. 

 It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm. 

President Barack Obama, Inaugural speech, January 21, 2013.

(Cross-posted at Dagblog, as always)

On having to defend Michele Bachmann. Don't Make Me Do This Again.

The latest Michele Bachmann controversy revolves around the first words of a speech she made inside a tent at an outdoor Christian meeting in Iowa.  It had been raining and the first words out of her mouth were, "Who likes wet people?"  Someone leaning to the left either misheard or deliberately chose to present it in a doctored YouTube video as "Who likes white people?"  Guess what happened then?  Yesiree, it went viral.

The clip making its rounds on Wonkette and other sites left out her next sentence, which was, "Yeah, that's right.  Because we have the God of the winds and the rain, don't we?"  On the un-doctored video I watched she clearly says "wet people".  Clear as a bell.

I hate that I have to defend someone who is so clearly against all that I stand for, but I'm going to do it because, as a long time liberal, I know what comes of any attempt at hanky-panky at our end.  We get trounced for it and it never goes away.  But beyond that, phony attacks are their game, not ours.  Or I should say, mine.  I'll never be a part of that idiocy.  There is enough honest ammunition against Michele Bachmann without resorting to lies.

 This is the true version of her remarks.

And this is the doctored version.  (I'm still hearing "wet" instead of "white" but many people swear she's saying "white people".  Judge for yourself.) 

If you want to see Michele Bachmann at her dangerous worst, watch her here as she defends South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for making sure her state remains a Right-to-Work state.  Bachmann couches it in terms of "Pro-growth" but what she's saying here is that she wants to see every state become an anti-union, low wage state.  She says, "A right-to-work state is a good thing", and she's saying it clear enough for everyone to get the message.

In that same speech there's no doubt about her words as she threatens to take out both the National Labor Relations Board and the Environmental Protection Agency if she becomes president.  This from Politico:

“Our president decided to allow the National Labor Relations Board to try to stop what Boeing is doing in South Carolina,” said Haley, referring to the NLRB’s complaint that Boeing moved the plant from Washington state to South Carolina to punish union workers, in violation of law. “It’s the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen. If you were president — knowing he is saying he can’t do anything because it’s an independent agency, what would you do?”
“Why thank you for asking that question,” Bachmann said, inviting the crowd to applaud Haley and promising she would take her calls if elected president. “If the NLRB would also be continuing their current stance, they may not last very long. Once they see what I do to the EPA, they may shape up.”

(For the record, I'm not at all convinced the NLRB made the right decision about Boeing's move after the fact -- the plant has already been built; Americans are already working in those jobs -- but I am convinced that Boeing decided on South Carolina because of it's lax labor laws.)

  If the polls weren't showing this ridiculous excuse for a candidate as a Republican front runner it would be easy to dismiss all that she says.  Nearly every day it's something new and attention-getting. (This weekend it was God trying to get our attention about the deficit by sending us earthquakes and hurricanes.)  The times are such that we surely need to pay attention to what this woman who would be president has to say, but we don't need to make it up as we go along.
 
I mean, literally, we don't need to.