Tomorrow: Will Republicans Choose Democracy Or Tyranny?

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes.  In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die.  And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
—    Edmund Burke
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.  He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole.  Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right.  Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.  To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.  Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else.  But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
—    Republican President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt
[Tomorrow, Congress (both House and Senate) will meet in joint session to “officially” count votes from the electoral college and declare the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.  The “winner” of the election was former Vice-President Joe Biden.  The loser of the election was the current President: Donald Trump.  Biden won the election by over 7 million voters nationwide and surpassed the 270 electoral college votes required to become President.  The losing President (Trump) and his political party (the Republicans) are claiming there was voter fraud and election “irregularities” – but, only in the swing states where the President lost the election and only on the votes for the Presidency (not for Republicans who kept their offices while the President did not).  There is NO evidence to support claims of either significant voter fraud or irregularity in ANY state.  The Republicans are lying to the American public and to the voters they represent in the hopes of furthering their own political careers.  The American public has voted.  Trump LOST by a significant margin.  It is well past time to accept reality and turn to solving the outstanding problems facing our country.  Tomorrow we will see which “representatives” (Congressmen and Senators) in our government believe in “democracy” and which are willing to sacrifice our country’s principles for the sake of an incompetent businessman / politician / con-artist.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2022	Just Waiting
2021	Tomorrow: Will Republicans Choose Democracy Or Tyranny?   (Well, I guess we know which one they chose…)
	How Long Must I Dream?
2020	On Killing Foreign Generals…
2019	Patient Understanding
2018	I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Form
2017	Fashionista
2016	A Faulty Model Of God
2015	Non Sequitur
2014	No Flags League
	I Ain’t Who Am
2013	Spoiling For Fame?
2012	How Many?
2011	Too Tired To Chat Much
2010	I Must Be Crazy!!

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Nothing New Here

“Too Much and Never Enough” (2020©)  —  book review
Today’s review is for the recently released family psychoanalysis / gossip tale concerning “Uncle Donald” aka: President Donald Trump, the Trump family and the “House”.  The full title is:  “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man“, and is written by Mary Trump, PhD., (the President’s niece) who happens to be a trained psychologist.  Mary is the daughter of Donald’s older brother Fred Trump, Jr. With Fred Sr being their father.
According to this story, Trump Sr. wasn’t happy with Trump Jr., feeling Jr. was too weak.  Sr. felt like he was a tough guy and he wanted his heir apparent to be tough, too.  From the sound of it, Sr.’s father was a jerk (a$$hole is a better description), and he passed it down to Sr. who tried to pass it down to all of his children.  It sounds as if Sr. was mostly successful with all of his children (with the possible exception of Jr.), but since the story is being told by Jr.’s daughter, we can’t really be sure.  After all, Jr. threatens his wife repeatedly – at least once with a firearm – and he dies young from alcohol abuse.  Anyway, as near as we can tell from this book, Sr. passed down the coward, liar, cheat, con man, gene to all of his children.  And, by the by, Sr.’s wife was no saint either.  The result of all this is that Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany all seem to be cut from the same poor cloth.  It’s too early to say anything about Barron (the President’s youngest son).  Perhaps his mother has saved him, but it doesn’t seem likely as she is not spoken of well in the book (or in the news) either.
Is this book any good?  Does it shed like on the President, i.e. does it help explain his actions?  Is it worth the time and money to read?  Yes.  No.  And, so-so.
This book is a surprisingly good read.  I fully expected the author to be as incompetent as the rest of the family is presented.  She is not!  Her writing style is excellent and the reader (me) feels like you are right there with her as scenes play out.
Does the book “explain” Donald Trump.  NO!  I started the book knowing (as much as you can “know” anything about a person you’ve never met) that Donald Trump is (in no particular order): a liar, a con artist, a terrible business man, a coward, a cheat – taxes, business and personal, and (IMHO) a narcissistic sociopath with delusions of grandeur.  Basically, he is unmatched as a “LOSER” and the fact he happened to become President and arguably the most powerful person on the planet will never change the BIG “L” which will ultimately be assigned to him by history.  In a very strange way, he has proven himself to be the “greatest of all time”, after all.  I’m just not sure you want to be the GOAT for losers.
At a certain level, reading this book “almost” creates a sense of sympathy for the family.  BUT, then one realizes that lots of perfectly normal people grew up and out of similar familial issues.  To quote my old Drill Sergeant:  “I will listen to your reasons, but I will not accept your excuses.”  He is what he is and his upbringing neither excuses his current actions nor does it absolve him of his past ones.  With all the wealth and opportunities he was granted by birth, he has chosen his path(s) and they have always been those of the lazy, the ignorant and the corrupt.
Is this book worth the time and money to read?  If you don’t know anything about the President and his family history, I guess it will have some limited value.  There are lots of particular details about the older brother (Fred Jr.) which I didn’t know.  I also didn’t know the President’s mother was as bad as she is presented.  Other than that, though, most everything has been on the news (especially since the book’s release).  If you don’t watch the news, I guess you may learn something.
Final recommendation:  moderate.  This is a surprisingly well written book, a very fast read, but I’m glad I didn’t buy it.  I hope the author wins her suit against Donald and his sister, who both appear to be crooks (based on the book).  This book IS a good gossip read – if that’s what you’re into.  (And, sometimes I am, too.)
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On This Day In:
2021	Climate Change Deniers
	We Don’t Listen Anyway
2020	Nothing New Here
	Talk To Me
	Register And Vote
2019	Love And Leave
2018	Smiling If Not Laughing
2017	Chilled And Smooth
2016	But Sometimes You Have To Stand In Front
2015	The Key Shift
2014	Remember ISIS / ISIL?
2013	What Have You Done Lately?
2012	B8
2011	I’m Definitely Not In Control

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Don’t Mess With The Lady

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday (5 Dec 2019), that the House is moving forward to draft articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.  “Our democracy is what is at stake.  The president leaves us no choice but to act.“
As she was leaving the press briefing platform she was asked if she hated President Donald Trump.   Pelosi turned and pointed at the reporter asking the question and said:  “I don’t hate anybody.  We don’t hate anybody.  Not anybody in the world.  Don’t accuse me.“
She returned to the podium to continue:  “I think the president is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence.  I think he is cruel when he doesn’t deal with helping our dreamers.  I think he’s in denial about the climate crisis.“
Impeachment, she emphasized, was about protecting the “Constitution of the United States,” rather than about policy disagreements or dislike of the president which could wait for the election.
“As a Catholic, I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me.  I don’t hate anyone.“
Speaker Pelosi continued, saying she prayed for the president, and, in fact did so every day.
As she turned to leave the stage she concluded:  “So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.“
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On This Day In:
2021	And Ever
	Love Wouldn’t Lie
2020	Why I Used To Jog At Dawn
	Seeing You In His Arms
2019	The Most Pressing Task
	Don’t Mess With The Lady
2018	Seek A Clear View
2017	Living With Myself
2016	Still Looking In Mirrors?
2015	Fear No Evil
2014	And Nothing Can Be As Tragic As…
2013	Your Tax Dollars At Work
2012	Historically Unacceptable
2011	Niners Are NFC West Division Champions!!
	The Essence Of Leadership

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Drip, Drip, Drip

The following is a partial transcript of President’s press rant (dtd: 9 April 2018) about the execution of a multiple location search warrant on Attorney Michael Cohen (Trump Organization attorney) in a start of the day “raid”.  You can find a full copy of the statement on multiple internet news sites.  The statements were made by the President at a special meeting of the President’s National Security Team where he was surrounded by the Joint Chiefs of the military and they were supposedly there to discuss the proper response to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against their own people.  [All comments (which appear in italics) are my own.  —    kmab]:
President Trump: So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys — a good man.  And it’s a disgraceful situation.  It’s a total witch hunt.  I’ve been saying it for a long time.  I’ve wanted to keep it down.  We’ve given, I believe, over a million pages’ worth of documents to the Special Counsel.
[The FBI did NOT “break” into the office / residence of the attorney.  They “executed” a legally authorized search warrant.  The situation does not appear to be either disgraceful or a witch hunt.  President Trump has indeed been stating both “for a long time”.  That doesn’t make the statement that “it’s” a witch hunt factually accurate / true.  The volume of documents given over to the Special Counsel is irrelevant and another attempt by President Trump to misdirect / mislead his supporters.  The vast majority of documents have been conveyed voluntarily, rather than under seizure.  This means, there “may” be some unknown volume of documents (it could be one or it could be ten million) which were not conveyed.  Without seizure, there is no way to verify the number which should have been conveyed.]
They continue to just go forward.  And here we are talking about Syria and we’re talking about a lot of serious things.  We’re the greatest fighting force ever.  [“Wag the Dog“, Donald.  “Wag the Dog.“]  And I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now — and actually, much more than that.  You could say it was right after I won the nomination, it started.
[Actually, the FBI investigation may have begun before his announcement to run for the nomination and that as the investigation of George Papadopoulos certainly pre-dates Trump’s campaign.]
And it’s a disgrace.  It’s, frankly, a real disgrace.  It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense.  It’s an attack on what we all stand for.
[Like many of President Trump’s comments, this is completely incorrect.  The investigation is “exactly” what is supposed to be happening.  The lawful tools of government are being used to prosecute a response to the Russian interference in our democratic election process for the purpose of ensuring it does not happen again.]
So when I saw this and when I heard it — I heard it like you did — I said, that is really now on a whole new level of unfairness.
So this has been going on — I saw one of the reporters, who is not necessarily a fan of mine, not necessarily very good to me.  He said, in effect, that this is ridiculous; this is now getting ridiculous.  They found no collusion whatsoever with Russia.  The reason they found it is there was no collusion at all.  No collusion.  This is the most biased group of people.  These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I’ve ever seen.
[When you know you are guilty and before the evidence can become public knowledge, attack the potential accusers with a claim of bias.]
Democrats all — or just about all — either Democrats or a couple of Republicans that worked for President Obama, they’re not looking at the other side; they’re not looking at the Hillary Clinton — the horrible things that she did and all of the crimes that were committed.  They’re not looking at all of the things that happened that everybody is very angry about, I can tell you, from the Republican side, and I think even the independent side.  They only keep looking at us.
[There is no need to “look” at Hillary Clinton.  Clinton has been under a Republican microscope for almost a quarter century and they have not been able to offer proof of a single crime.  Questions of judgement, yes, but not evidence of criminality.  And Republicans have spent millions of dollars trying to find proof – and haven’t been able to.]
So they find no collusion, and then they go from there and they say, “Well, let’s keep going.” And they raid an office of a personal attorney early in the morning.  And I think it’s a disgrace.
So we’ll be talking about it more.  But this is the most conflicted group of people I’ve ever seen.  The Attorney General made a terrible mistake when he did this, and when he recused himself.  Or he should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used a — put a different Attorney General in.  So he made what I consider to be a very terrible mistake for the country.  But you’ll figure that out.
All I can say is, after looking for a long period of time — and even before the Special Counsel — because it really started just about from the time I won the nomination.  And you look at what took place and what happened, and it’s a disgrace.  It’s a disgrace.
I’ve been President now for what seems like a lengthy period of time.  We’ve done a fantastic job.  We’ve beaten ISIS.  We have just about 100 percent of the caliphate or the land.  Our economy is incredible.  The stock market dropped a lot today as soon as they heard the noise of this nonsense that’s going on.  It dropped a lot.  It was up — way up, and then it dropped quite a bit at the end.  A lot.
[No.  Trump’s Administration has not done a “fantastic job” – except in his own mind.  They have not “beaten ISIS”.  ISIS – in Iraq – is being eliminated, but they (or whatever they evolve into) remain a worldwide threat.  The caliphate in Iraq has certainly been beaten down.  But, we should not imagine it has been defeated – once and forever.  Also, the American “economy” is not doing well.  The stock market is still doing well – a carry on from the Obama Administration – despite multiple days this year with massive losses, but main street and Joe Citizen (the “99%”) are both still doing poorly.]
But that we have to go through that — we’ve had that hanging over us now from the very, very beginning.  And yet the other side, they don’t even bother looking.  And the other side is where there are crimes, and those crimes are obvious.  Lies, under oath, all over the place.  Emails that are knocked out, that are acid-washed and deleted.  Nobody has ever seen — 33,000 emails are deleted after getting a subpoena for Congress, and nobody bothers looking at that.  And many, many other things.
[Again, #IncompetentDonald with the specious attacks on Clinton.  Hey, Donald.  News flash…  She lost the election in 2016 and you’ve been President for almost 15 months.  In another tiresome display of public relations / attempted manipulation we once again see President Trump acting as if he can “Wag the Dog” and at the same time drip, drip, drip his lies in a torturous attempt to discredit the rule of law and its enforcement via the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.]
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On This Day In:
2022	And Do The Right Thing…
2021	Rational Response
	This Can’t Go On
2020	A Different Premise
2019	Can Too
2018	To Get Strength
	Drip, Drip, Drip
2017	Bricolage Art
2016	Just A Shame
2015	Treasures Of The Mind
2014	Not Quite Exceeded Reach
2013	Who’s Side?
2012	Why I Joined The Army And Not The Navy…
2011	Is It Your Turn Yet?
	Just Trippin’

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A Message To The “Wanna Be” Dictator On Leadership

An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections.
—    Republican Sen. John McCain
On Tuesday (20 March 2018), the senior GOP senator from Arizona criticized US President Donald Trump for congratulating Vladimir Putin on being reelected as president of Russia.
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On This Day In:
2022	Seek Good
2021	Aging Well
	Now And Forever
2020	Always
2019	#45 Is More Of A Piddle Than A Puddle
2018	Found Out
	A Message To The “Wanna Be” Dictator On Leadership
2017	Still Waiting…
2016	Same Old, Same Old
2015	Shout!
2014	I Hear Voices
2013	Ethics And Standards
2012	Swing Higher
2011	Convicted For Life

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A Letter To 45

Dear Mr. President –
Congratulations on a remarkable run.  Millions have placed their hopes in you, and all of us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure.
This is a unique office, without a clear blueprint for success, so I don’t know that any advice from me will be particularly helpful.  Still, let me offer a few reflections from the past 8 years.
First, we’ve both been blessed, in different ways, with great good fortune.  Not everyone is so lucky.  It’s up to us to do everything we can (to) build more ladders of success for every child and family that’s willing to work hard.
Second, American leadership in this world really is indispensable.  It’s up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend.
Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office.  That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions — like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties — that our forebears fought and bled for.  Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.
And finally, take time, in the rush of events and responsibilities, for friends and family.  They’ll get you through the inevitable rough patches.
Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.
Good luck and Godspeed,
BO
[Former President Barack Obama’s hand-written letter to his successor – President Donald Trump.  Unfortunately, I fear for the seed, for the ground was rocky and the soil was shallow…     —     kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	A Little Forgetfulness
	Thoughts While Driving To Work
2020	Making Potential Come True
	Predating / Predicting Nerdhood
2019	Duration Unknown
	Day 6: Almost There
2018	Just Trying To Be Me
	Day 39: Half This Game Is 90% Mental
2017	A Letter To 45
	Some Small Place
2016	REDs
2015	Cities
2014	Still
2013	Dare = Hope
2012	Check My Math
2011	Just Asking

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