2018-02-27

"Congress looks for more clarity from Trump as it weighs response to Florida school shootings." What a load of dingoes' kidneys. First of all, clarity?!? From Trump?!? Then, since when does the co-equal legislative branch of government need guidance or clarity from the executive? I don't recall Republican or Democratic members of Congress waiting to hear what response Barack Obama, George W. Bush, or other presidents wanted from them on one issue or another. Sure, there will often be a lot of partisan falling in line, but it's telling that the GOP senators and members of Congress (not to mention the Democratic ones) can't even be sure in which direction Trump will ultimately lean.

And perhaps most importantly of all, on an issue as large as this one, grow a gods-damned spine. Whether you feel strongly that certain weapons should be banned, or that loopholes need to be closed and background checks need to be more rigorous, or that everything's just fine the way it is and this will all blow over sooner or later... search your feelings (you know it to be true), stake out your position, and stick to it (while retaining the right to evolve it), regardless of what the person in the Oval Office thinks. Plenty of U.S. Senators and Representatives have countered plenty of Presidents, whether they were in the same political party or not. If you can't hold an opinion or propose a policy change (or no change at all) without first hearing what Donnie "Out of His Element" Trump thinks, don't wait 'til your term is over. Just head for the exit door now, and let someone with a backbone and a brain at the upper end of it win your seat.

2018-02-16

Thirteen Russian nationals, and three Russian firms, have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States via the 2016 election interference. The Trump campaign has not been tied to this interference, nor has the special counsel determined whether or not it was effective in its goal of altering the election's outcome, but it just got a lot harder for Trump to reasonably claim (to responsible adults) that Russia didn't interfere. This would be a good time for members of Congress who still have spines to insist that he enforce a bipartisan sanctions bill that was passed last July.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is moving along, too slowly for many, but it takes as long as it takes. Those of us who don't like what Trump stands for (when he stands for something), who don't like what he says or what he does, must accept that this investigation won't necessarily lead to an indictment and/or an impeachment of the Donald. Believe what you want, but neither you nor I know for an incontrovertible fact that he or anyone close to him colluded to steal the election. If it happened, and it can be proven, there'll be hell to pay. Otherwise, Mueller will conclude the investigation and many of the same people who cheer him on now will be accusing him of being bought.

Don't get me wrong. Trump's no angel, and he's probably done things, maybe even while in office, that could/should result in charges. Doesn't matter until and unless something can be produced that will stand up to a court's scrutiny. Regardless, this "information warfare" on the part of Russian actors, possibly on behalf of the Kremlin (with which the Internet Research Agency has close ties), can't be ignored or downplayed by the Petulant any longer, and our senators and Congresspeople need to press him on it. It's pretty clear where the "fake news" has been coming from all along.

Read the full indictment (if you're into that kind of thing) here.

2018-02-06

Trump's suggestion that not applauding him might be treasonous needs to be addressed seriously, even if his mouthpiece claims he was joking. The time is long past to excuse his statements as idiocies and gaffes. When he started his ill-fated term, OK, sure, he didn't know what he was doing, but he's been doing this for over a year now. If we the people, and the men in women in the Senate and the House of Representatives who supposedly represent us, don't hold him accountable for his words and his actions, then we deserve what we get.

It's too easy to brush it off. "He didn't mean it like that!" "He was obviously joking!" "Don't take everything so literally!" And yet if Barack Obama or George W. Bush or Bill Clinton or any other president had intimated that those who opposed them (and they all had people oppose them) just might be guilty of treason, there would be an uproar. A justifiable uproar.

Of course, he's probably trying to turn the focus of the word "treason" away from his campaign, and the investigation into it, and onto others, preferably his political opponents. We shouldn't fall for that. Neither should the Republican colleagues of the Democrats accused. Or are we saying that it will be OK for the next Democratic president to say the same when Republicans fail to genuflect enough? Everyone needs to condemn this and make it clear that it's not OK, not even if it really was a joke.

Letting the Petulant get away with labeling legitimate investigations as "a witch hunt," insulting politicians (of both major parties) who refuse to toe his line, and implying that refusing to clap for his speech could be called treason lowers the bar and normalizes this autocratic behavior. No, he's not a dictator... yet. Maybe he doesn't even want to be. But allowing ourselves to shrug this off as not a big deal, not worth making a fuss about, could lead us down a slippery slope where someone (perhaps not Trump himself, but someone) does seize control because we let it happen.

2018-01-30

I'm not interested in what Dotard Trump says in tonight's State of the Uniom address. If his actions tomorrow and henceforth don't demonstrate a genuine desire to help the Dreamers, to improve the nation's infrastructure (badly needed in my neck of the woods) - including getting Puerto Rico's power situation resolved, to commit to liberty and justice for all, to discuss global issues like climate change and international trade in a mature fashion with the rest of the world... hell, to discuss anything with anybody in a mature fashion, then his words, even if they are the best words, are devoid of meaning. Worse, they're self-serving lies.

"Union" hardly seems the appropriate term anymore. I don't wish harm on anyone, not even Trump, but there's a lot of ill will in this nation. There are a lot of people who've been convinced by themselves and/or the demagogues at both ends of America's political spectrum to believe that they, the others, the people in this country who feel differently than they do about the state of the union, are ignorant or spiteful or traitorous or evil. More likely some combination of all those. The fact is the vast majority of us just want to live our lives, surround ourselves with friends and family, grumble about our jobs, enjoy our sportsball games or Marvel movies or homebrewing or whatever it is that gives us some pleasure, and let others do the same. Whatever your feelings on religion or Confederate statues or firearms or gay marriage or draining the swamp or Pink Floyd's The Wall, odds are you don't want other people to be hurt or killed because they feel differently.

There's a lot of rhetoric and a lot of speechifyin' going on out there, and that's fine, but everyone should really take a deep breath (though the EPA is turning that into a bad idea) and remember that after all is said and done, we're still in this together. We ned to work together if we truly want to make America great. Just Republicans, just Democrats, just plutocrats or libertarians or progressives or Greens or socialists or moderates or extremists... just can't do it alone.

2018-01-25

I don't really think of Donald Trump as evil (unlike many of my fellow liberals and progressives), but Davros? I was perturbed to hear Trump is spending a few days with the Kaled unstable genius.

I'm unsure as to which of the two would be the worse influence upon the other. I can't help wondering what the Daleks (assuming Davros has any left with him) will make of Trump and the delegation of the "best people" he brought with him. And I can almost hear the word "Exterminate!" being Trumpeted across the United States. Still, I rather hope the Democrats don't decide they need to start making Cybermen to counter the threat. That just wouldn't end well.

Also, why does everyone keep misspelling Davros' name? The 'r' isn't silent, people.

2018-01-17

It appears that Trump has, unsurprisingly, ignored anyone that has warned him his attacks against the press are dangerous, churlish, and comparable to those of many authoritarians of the past and the present. Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake have recently been very vocal about the unprecedented and unwarranted assaults against the media, but really, all government officials and politicians of all parties should be forcefully denouncing this behavior, regardless of whether or not they intend to run for office again.

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Donald Trump doesn't have to like the coverage of his actions and statements on CNN or MSNBC or in The Washington Post or The New York Times. He can rail against them if he wants to. What we can't allow him to do is to try twisting a fact he doesn't like into a lie. If he said something that was offensive or impolitic or just plain dumb, and it reaches a journalist's ear and gets reported, he can't just cover his ears and pretend it never happened and anyone who says it did is a liar. If a scientific fact clearly counters a policy his administration favors, he's free to continue pushing that policy, but not to deny or ignore the fact. Maybe he could get away with that while running a business, but not while running the country in the name of the American people.

We can't normalize this behavior of accusing the media of spreading "fake news" while he and his press secretary and others in the White House (and the Senate, and the House) are intentionally obfuscating or outright lying to us. If anyone deserves a "Fake News Award," it's Fibbin' Donnie.

2018-01-10

OK, Donald Trump is calling for tougher libel laws? The guy who doesn't think twice (probably not even once) about accusing the President of the United States of America of not being American-born, or alleging that a senator's Cuban father was with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the JFK assassination, or libelinglabeling several investigations into potential collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives as a "witch hunt?" This guy wants it to be harder to say things about someone that aren't true and get away with it? 😂

I guess maybe he doesn't know how else to react to the double-whammy releases of the "Fire and Fury" book and the Fusion GPS testimony transcript. (The Senate report on Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe probably doesn't sit well, either.) Well, yeah, he's throwing in some of his usual moves, too: threatening lawsuits, fuming petulantly on Twitter... The thing about libel, though, is that you have to have some character before it can be assassinated. The genius doth protest too much, methinks.

Resist!

In the four weeks since this regime has been in power, I've marched against the immigrant / refugee / Muslim ban and taken part in yesterday's general strike. (In fact, I'm even mentioned in a Village Voice article about the latter.)

Me in Washington Sq. Park; photo by Daniel Albanese / TheDustyRebel

In my last 'blog post, just hours before the inauguration, I expressed a willingness to give Donald Trump a chance, and a desire to have my concerns proven groundless. Well, we all know how that's turned out. Firstly, he's way too thin-skinned for the position. If the poor little snowflake can't take the same level of abuse that Barack Obama took from him and others without getting defensive and petty, then maybe it's time to retire. And stop the fascist attacks on the press. Maybe his die-hard fans believe that the media is their enemy, but true lovers of liberty know better. Sure, some outlets do show a bias, in one direction or another, and the media does share in the blame for getting this mess elected (as do we, the people) by not taking him seriously enough until it was too late, but it is clearly more important than ever that we have a free press that can hold his (and any) administration accountable for its actions. (If you want to let Trump's people know what you think about what they think about the media, take their survey here.)

In addition, the Petulant has appointed agency heads who seem intent on destroying those agencies (Betsy DeVos - Secretary of "Education"; Scott Pruitt - Administrator of the EPA; Tom Price - Secretary of HHS; Ryan Zinke - Secretary of the Interior... at least we avoided getting the Putz as Secretary of Labor). We get alternative facts lies almost daily from the Ministry of Propaganda's Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway, Reince Priebus, Stephen Miller, or Trump himself. Repeating something often and loudly enough does not make it any less false. And you're not going to distract us from Michael Flynn's very real and possibly illegal sanctions discussions with the Russian government before his short-lived appointment, or the Russian attempts to influence the election (which popular vote you still lost). House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz needs to investigate these issues, and Conway's Ivanka Trump commercial, and Donald's North Korea discussions with Japanese Prime Minister Abe out in the open at Mar-a-Lago.

Then there's the travel ban, which has already had a negative impact even on citizens and legal residents of the US. And Democratic Hispanic members of Congress being deliberately excluded from a meeting with the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a meeting one of them (Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL)) had called for in the first place. And the media blackout at some federal agencies (which happily resulted in some of those employees going rogue). And the blind eye regarding science, which probably has to do with all those non-alternative facts. And the absolutely asinine decision to go ahead with the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines, and to attack the unarmed civilians at Standing Rock. And baseless ranting accusations about voter fraud. And re-filling, rather than draining, the swamp. And potential conflicts of interest that Trump says presidents aren't subject to. And let's not forget the sad, pathetic wall.

Let's not lose sight of the big picture, either, or allow ourselves to become sidetracked. I don't want to consider, or believe, that the man approximately half of America voted into the White House is paving the way to a fascist state (through his own design or the Dark Lord Sauron Steve Bannon's or anyone else's)... but consider it I must. If the administration continues to insist on denying facts as produced by science or reported on by the press, and we just stand by and let them without holding them to account, then our constitutional federal republic is at risk of becoming... something else entirely.

I don't know yet if I'm going to attend tomorrow's "Today, I Am A Muslim Too" rally in Times Square, though I support it regardless. I am definitely taking part in the Washington, D.C. March for Science on Earth Day. I'm going to keep raising my voice in protest every time I think this administration does something to hurt what this country and its people stand for. Not everyone can make every (or even any) protest or rally or march, and I understand that... but we owe it to ourselves, and each other, and the nation (and the world!) to speak up, to stand up, to rise up- and to resist.

And hey, it's easy enough to take part in the Ides of Trump postal event.  :-)

We the Resilient

I'm no fan of Trump, to put it mildly, and I originally planned to write an angry protest song for Inauguration Day. However, last weekend I came across the "We the People" public art campaign, and a piece by Ernesto Yerena entitled "We the Resilient" really resonated with me. I ended up writing a song of the same name instead (lyrics here), and I think it's a little more 'people power' and a lot less 'impeach the president.' Give it a listen and let me know if you agree.

Not that I'm in the 'impeach' camp, not yet, at least. As I'm writing this, he's not even in office yet! I don't like his personality, I don't like what I've heard about how he treats and talks about and deals with other people, I don't like the positions he's publicly taken on many matters vital to the nation and the world (though he does flip-flop on some issues, depending on with whom he's last spoken)... but the fact is that he has not done anything as President of the United States yet. Words and thoughts are important, too, but let's wait for him to start taking some actions before we decide whether or not to condemn him.

I'm not expecting much. Everything leading up to this point tells me that his will be a disjointed administration, and while there may be some policy successes, there will almost undoubtedly be some stunning failures. Again, though, what he does beginning today may not be in line with what he's been saying for the past year and a half. I'm willing- no, I'm desperate to be proven wrong about him. Until I am, though, I stand ready to criticize where necessary, and caricature where humorous.