Stopping Trump

I ALWAYS THOUGHT HE SAID: "Actually, we won the election." Turns out, I found out, he said "Frankly, we won the election". Of course, it doesn't really matter. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. He said it in the very early morning hours of November 5, 2021. About one thirty, I think it was. Maybe you heard it the moment he said it, maybe later.Either way, the fact is, no matter hwo you are, the very moment you first hear Trump utter this infamous remark, you knew it was a lie. There was no doubt in your mind whatsoever. You knew it was a lie, and you knew that you had a choice to make, a choic which had to made immediately. Once made, there would be no turning back. We all made our choices, and we all live with the moral consequences of our choices, even if we don't know it or pretend not to. But make no mistake. There is not a single human being on Earth who actually believed what Trump said, then, or now. Nobody is that stupid, not even Trump supporters. That's why the situation is so tragic and sad. I submit that Trump's "Frankly, we won the election" are the most harmful words in American history, maybe the most harmful ever spoken. The roughly seventy five million people who chose wrong and jumped down the rabbit hole with Trump and his big lie are now stuck with both. They can never shed the burden of their deliberate, immoral choice. They had their opportunity, saw it, seized it, and must now own it, as they have done, are doing, and will continue to do. Perhaps a few of them, a small perentage of MAGA folk will, eventually, in the fullness of time, abandon ship, jump overboard, and swim to shore, claiming innocence. But that will happen much later, when it no longer matters, when the history books have long since been written and plausible deniability exists. For now,the rest of us, thoes of us who are not morally and intellectually bankrupt traitors are left to wonder whether Trump will try to illegally remain in office the rest of his life, like he tried to once before. Being a dictator for life has long been his ambition. His ambition, we have learned, has the full support of all MAGA. Trump planned the whole thing in advance. According to Ivanka Trump, two weeks before the 2020 election, her father said to her: "No matter what happens in the election, we'll just say that we won. Fuck it". Enough said. More than enough. Trump's big lie led directly to a violent insurrection which killed several and injured many at the Capitol building, a nearly successful attempt to overthrow the United States government, just as he planned. His entire seventy five million member movement aided and abetted the insurrection, fully approving of it, disappointed with its failure. Most MAGA members still insist that Trump's big election lie is not a lie, that the election was stolen from him and them. They know better, of course. They've known better all along, from the beginning. And now, now that they actually are in charge of the government, they are indeed overthrowing it, changing it more and more everyday, making it nearly unrecognizable. It is being remade into a fascist dictatorship, with all power concentrated in the hands of a single fascist dictator. This is no exagerration. We are donfronted with an immending, approaching disaster, the desturction of the American democracy. And that s why we the people must stop at nothing in or opposittion to Trump and MAGA, and must fight them with ever renewed vigor, until Trump and his terrorist mob have been utterly defeated and destroyed, and relegated to the proverbial dust bin of history, by any and all means necessary.

ANTIFA: Rejecting Fascism

THIS WEBSITE is unequivocably, unabashedly, unapologetically ANTIFA. Our hope is that this announcement will compel Trump, someone withinin his malignant "administration", or that one or more, millions more of his cult members will take notice, and respond with violence, censorship, or simple righteous indignation. (One can never taunt fascists with sufficient vigor). As they say, whatever works. That anyone, including Trump and his trumpets would object to the term "ANTIFA", especially since they claim to be so virulently opposed to not only fascism but being called "Fscists" is in itself humorous; the fools would be humoorous were they not in such deadly earnest, to paraphrase H. L. Mencken. Hatred of ANTIFA is predicated on the mistaken conservative belief that it is an actual organized entity, rather than a mere concept. Just as conservatives tainted the word "liberal", forcing its replacement with the word "progressive", they now threaten to force replacement of the contrived term "ANTIFA" with a new contrivance. "OPPFA", for "opposed to fascism", or " for "NOTFA" for "I aint fascist" might serve the purpose. Einstein, a celebrity of such great magnitude, so often photographed that he described himself as a "fashion model", received thousands of handwritten letters. A child once wrote to him, asking him whether human beings are animals. He replied that a better way to ask the question might be to ask precisely what characterizes animals, and whether humans are thus characterized. (It turns out that we are indeed animals.)...What is fascism?Fascism is a political system in which an authoritarian, dictatorial ruler is elevated to power by a political organization for the purpose of implementing a right wing extremist government. Everyone knows this, but it merits repeating. Xenophobic nationalism, excessive patriotism are primary characteristics. Also, militarization and veneration of all things military. Hatred of some external enemy, usually a foreign country is a key ingredient. Hatred of an invented internal enemy, usually an ethnic minority or opposing political party, is another. Others inclulde: suppression of all dissent. Constant propaganda extolling the virtues of "the regime" and "the leader". Contempt for intellectuals and education, control of the media, usurpation of the judiciary are paramount to fascist governance. Above all, fascism is the concentration of political power in the hands of a single individual, with the support of the political movement which supports the fascist ruler. It is an accepted historical fact that the inventor of fascism was Benito Mussolini. Fascism arose briefly in Italy in 1919, and resurfaced in 1922, when Mussolini came to power. The concept can be traced back much further, if only tenuously, to Julius Caesar. A "fasci" is Latin for "a bundle of sticks". The term "fasces" is also used. When Caesar, having conquered Gaul (modern France), entered th ecity of Roem and illegally brought his victorious legions with him, declaring himself "imperator" for life, fascism, arguably, was born. The Roman republic was dead, just as modern fscism replaces representative democratic government. All the instruments and powers of the state are brought together into one symbolic bundle of symbolic sticks, tied with a string, and possessed by the imperial ruler. Caesar assumed the authority of the Roman senate, the legislative branch, and of the two tribunes and two consuls, the executive branch. For this, Caeser was murdered by the Senate. Trump deliberatley mistakenly presumes that article two of the United States constitution give him essentially unlimited executive power. Trump has collected his sticks, with the full approval of his fascist party, and has tied them together with a string.

Paying the Price For Freedom

IT IS IRONIC that the bullet which Killed Charlie Kirk came from the rifle of a lone gunman, unaffiliated with any gang, at the precise moment when Mr. Kirk was attemtping, while answering questions during a speech he was making, to ascribe gun violence in America to gang related activity. The questioner wondered about Charlie's reaction to masss murders and random gun violence in America generally, and asked him about it. How much gun violence in America is related to gang activity?, Kirk replied to the questioner, answering a question with a question. His evident intent was to minimize the perpetual gun violence epidemic in the United States by blaming the bulk of it on violent, competing gangs. We will, of course, never know for sure. What we can know for sure is that he was dead wrong, no pun intended. That boat simply will not float. Of the tens of thousands of Americans killed each year by bullets, an overwhelming percentage of them are killed by people they know well, often friends, former friends, family members, or estranged romantic interests, none of whom have anything to do with gangs. Drug deals, sometimes gang related, gone bad. Lover's quarrels. Disputes over parking spaces or property rights. Even road rage. The common denominator is that all of these disputes could have been resolved fairly easily by cool heads and calm, well reasoned negotiations, but were not. In almost every case,the killer calms down later and regrets his or her violent behavior, but by then its too late. The single greatest motivater is the passing passions of the moment; pre planned gun play is far less common. There are more guns in America than people. Many homes are filled with dozens of them. My grandfather, an avid gun owner and hunter,is said to have said that "If you put a gun in a man's hand, the first thing he wants to do is use it." We do indeed want to use our guns. I loved firing a BB gun and a twenty two rifle as a kid. I still sometimes think about getting a new set of guns, and going back to my childhood target practice hobby. We had a gang of twelve year olds walking around the neighborhood shooting up everything in sight, but wer never deterred or even approached by a single adult of police officer while in the act. Today, I would never do that. I don't have enough seventy year old friends to form a street gang. In today's word we would be in jail, or juvenile detention. Perhaps we should have been back then. The traditional conservative viewpoint is that America is a safer place when the citizenry is well armed. The more guns people carry in public, the more good guys with guns to stop a potential serial killer or mass murderer dead in his tracks. This, of course,is insanity. Its usually the "good people with guns" who do the shooting, again, from momentary passion. Now, in evident respect for Charlie Kirk, his stated position on gun ownerhsip and gun violence, which departs drastically from the "the more guns the better" nonsense, seems to be gaining popularity. "A few" deaths by gun fire is the price, an acceptable price, we pay for our sacred second amendment rights. Kirk never said what he meant precisely by "a few". (Isn't one too many?). Now he never will. He seems to have spilled the beans,so to speak, to have divulged a poorly kept secret; that guns, while in theory saving lives and preventing violence, in fact do quite the opposite. Widespread gun ownership, the second amendment itself, are the cause of gun related killings. If nobody had a gun, nobody would die by a gun. But of course, only the bad guys, whoever they , would have guns. The best kept secret of all is that is is we good guys who are the bad guys.

Canonizing Charlie Kirk

LIKE ONE OF THE SPEAKERS SAID, it was more a revival or political rally than a funeral. The deceased's wife showed amazing courage by merely being able to speak,let alone speak eloquently. Until his death, I had never heard of Charlie Kirk, had had no reason to, and almost wish now that I had not. The college students to whom he spoke were already conservative Christians before he spoke to them; he merely reinforced their existing beliefs. It has come to my attention that Charlie Kirk (one must, evidently, use both his first and last names in referencing him) considered the Civli Rights Act of 1964 a "mistake". Did he consider the other civil rights bills, the one in 1957 for insatnce, to be equally mistaken? He stated, evidently rather often, that gay people should be put to death by stoning, in accordance with the teachings of the Old Testament. If nothing else, that would considerably reduce the ohterwise inflated gun violence statistics. He reportedly advocated for shooting illegal immigrants as they crossed the border, bringing gun violence statistics right back up, and the stoning statistics back down. Further more, he apparently advocated for the killing of homeless people, difficult to believe though that seems. His remarks on these matters have been listed, with citations of date and place. They are eivdently valid. Justifiably a bit gun shy, all the speakers at the funeral spoke from behind bullet proof glass. Perhaps they feared that another conservative, like the one who murdered Charlie Kirk, would appear at the top of the stadium to inflict further pain upon the mourners. One of the speakers bragged that "their side" never resorted to violence to make their point, and that Charlie kirk encouraged civil dialogue with those with whom he disagreed. All well and god, but I must beg to differ about the violence. There was, for instance, the matter of Trump's preplanned insurrection of January 6, 2021, which resulted in several deaths and many injuries. Violence indeed. How soon they seem to have forgotten. Jesus never said anything about gay people. He did, however, indicate that he did not come to Earth to contradict or change Old Testament law. So, who knows. Perhaps Jesus was as savage and barbaric as his modern Christian nationalist conservative evangelicals who falsely presume to be Christ's ideological descendants. Or perhaps Jesus would have taught that gay people should be given unconditional love, social equality, and acceptance. Regarding killing homeless people, we can safely assert that in this, Charlie Kirk and his cult member followers are flat out wrong about this; Jesus clearly said that we should feed the hungry, house the homeless, and give unto the poor. Assuming all this is true, and that Chralie Kirk actually said all these horrible things, now that I know a little about Charlie Kirk,I despise him, almost as much as I despise his MAGA compatriots. His campus rallies were filled with students adorned with those notorious red ball caps. Charlie Kirk was all MAGA, a listener of Rush Limbaugh, the whole works. His apparently stated attitude about the homeless, the gays and transgenders, and about undocumented immigrants was pure, unadulterated hatred, just as pure and unadulterated as the hatred I would have felt towards him, had I ever heard of him. Now that I have heard of him, I feel it. I must assume that he would have forgiven me for it, even as his courageous widow forgave his murderer as she cried. I wouldn't want his forgiveness,I would want his reformation, his reformation to decency, and away from barbaric, hateful brutality cleverly cloaked in the veneer of religious devotion and dogma. Welcome the stranger, Jesus taught us. Do not gun down the stranger by the thousands. Evangelical Christians simply refuse to accept the reality that no human being needs to be guided by any other human being towards any religion or political ideology. Charlie Kirk is being elevated to the level of right wing sainthood, which will soon fadw away, as the memory of him does. People are perfectly capable of guiding themselves without assitance. To presume othersise is arrogant, and an insult. Charlie reinforced among young people what they alredy believed, and in that sense did the right thing, accepting people as they are, but only if they are like him.

Advocating For Capitalism

"ON THE CAUSES and Nature of the Wealth of Nations", more commonly known by the abbreviated title "The Wealth of Nations", is arguably among the most seminal books ever written, by 18th century Scottish economic and moral philosopher Adam Smith. It was published in the iconic year 1776. I haven't read it, and probably never will. I have read "about it" ( you now how that goes). It has been, not without validity, described as "the Bible of capitalism". It was an immediate best seller. Until recently in my ignorance I had always assumed that the book merely described the capitalist economic system in theory, but did not advocate for it. Actually, he not only described it in theory, he advocated for its implementaion at the beginning of the industrial revolution. During Smith's lifetime, "mercantilism" dominated economic activity in Europe, a system in which production and distribution of goods and services is determined, or heavily influenced by government regulation. Adam Smith was the first to develop and employ the modern economic concepts of division of labor and free markets. All this is well known. What is far less known is that Smith was not unhesitatingly an approving advocate for every aspect of free market economics. For one, he saw the encroaching factory system, in which extrreme specialization of labor and the assembly line immprove efficiency and production, not only as beneficial for national prosperity, but also, as harshly, brutally harmful to the individual worker. Smith saw that in the factory system human beings were reduced to mechanical cogs in a great grinding machine, reducing workers to worn out but replaceable parts. In theory, he said, if the profits from production are distributed fairly among those who are responsible for it, and without any external corrupting influences such as monopolies and heavy handed govenment involvement, fluctuations in the labor supply, prolonged bad weather or war, the workers, managers, and owners should all become economically equal, in accordance with the free market of labor. Otherwise, labor is being exploited by the owners for their own enhanced pfofit. Smith failed to foresee the tyrannical, dictatorial manner in which capitalists and industrialists would typically treat their workers, ruthlessly exploiting them with low pay, long hours, and poor working conditions. He underestimated the helplessness of workers against the tyranny of their slave wage masters in the absence of labor unions, which to Adams were nothing more than another corrupting influence against the purity of the capitalist system. In an unfetterd, truly free market economy, he asserted, widespread economic equality is the result. Accordingly, we can see that in in our modern economy, capitalism has not been allowed to operate in pure form, but has been distorted by the factors described above. Every major industry in America is a virtual monopoly. In order to resist exploitation workers form unions, and become enemies of their employers. Adam smith was wrong about the free market automatically distributing wealth equally.The governemnt is not the cause of the vast concentration and disparity of wealth in the industrialized world, expecially in the United States. The cause is capitalism itself. Capitalsim is in fact an economic system which inherently concentrates great wealth in the hands of an elite few, under all conditions. The "free market", like a perfect vaccuum, is merely a concept which does not and can never exist, because Adam smith stipulated that in orfer for it to work, people must behave in a rational manner, in their own self interest. And that, my fellow socialists, is precisely what people do not do, have never done, and never can or will do.

Filtering Fantasy Air

WHEN "I" BUILT MY HOUSE, it was located, and still is, between large trees.The house faces south, and the trees are close to the house, at both the east and west ends, and belong to my neighbors. During the summer they block the sun for all but a couple of hours each day. During the winter the sun, low in the south, comes streaming beautifully into the house through leafless trees in my front yard. I live in a small forest which I planted twenty years ago. I seldom need to use air conditioning, even when the temperature is above nintey. On summer nights I open all the windows, and use a window fan to suck in the fresh, night air. By morning, I can begin the day with a nice cool house filled with fresh air, and keep it that way by closing the windows during daylight hours. I lie in bed at night, and I hear the gentle buzzing of the fan, and I feel the fresh clean night air flowing in through the window screens, and out through the window with the fan pointed outward. I'm a ventilation freak. Wherever I am,I want fresh air in the room, circulating in from outside. Nothng dismays me more than to walk into a room full of people and no ventilation, and to inhale the aroma of carbon dioxide and human breath. My imagination kicks in, and I imagine the window screens as air filters, filtering all the pollution, especially carbon, out of the air, and filling my house with the pure clean nitrogen oxygen mixture which we seldom actually get to inhale. Window screens, cleaning the air like trees, only faster. I wonder how much air goes through the house at night, how much of my imaginary newly cleaned air I am sending back out into the world every summer night. Enough to make a difference? What if the window fan ran twenty four seven, all year along? I'd freeze to death, for one thing. What if every house and building on Earth did the same thing, filtering tons (does air come in "tons?") of air through window screens whenever the weather allows? Suddenly I remember that in Germany, for instance, people don't have window screens. I learned this from a ninety year old lady who was born and raised in Germany, remembers Hitler, and came to the United States with her American serviceman husband the year I was born, 1955. I'm just guessing that if the carbon removal and sequestration window screen technology of my fantasy ever actually manifests, that the Germans will suddenly fall in love with window screens, and install them in all buildings. The Germans are like that. When RFK, (the sane father, not the insane son), was murdered, his brother,Ted, said at his funeral: "some men see things the way they are, and say "why"? He saw things that never were, and said "why not?" Perhaps we could all benefit from doing more of that. Or, as John Lennon said "Imagine". Or, as Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Einstein also said that as long as there are people on Earth, there will be violence war. I don't agree with this, even though every piece of available evidence clearly indicates that it is perfectly true. I refuse to believe it, because I refuse to be realisitc, if reality is that unsavory. I prefer to live in my imaginary world in which some fine day the air will be clean, there will be no more war or violence of any sort, and our descendants will not hate and curse us for the world we left to them.

Calling Fascism Fascism, Fairly

THE FASCIST TRUMP, his fascist administration, and his fascist supportrs are becoming more aggressive, pressing their attack. And no, it is not unfair, inaccurate, nor morally wrong to identify all the above as "facsist" because of the consistancey with which their words, deeds, policies and beliefs are conspicuously fascist, period. Kimmel and Cobert are both toast, victims of Trump's disease, fascism. Attack and destroy whatever media is critical of the authoritarian ruler. Eliminate public forms of dissent. Der Fuhrer appeared on social media, as he does daily, and announced that he and his fascist governemnt shall attack and destroy any and all liberal institutions and organizations, and, by implication, presumably the antire progressive community and liberalism in America generally. For the sake of its own survival, it is now time for the progressive movement in America to lash out against Trump with unprecedented ferocity and intensity, and to attack and destroy him and his movement by all moral and lawful means available, including with words in the media, with politics, facts, arguments, public discourse, all before, as Rommel said of Patton, he does the same to us. In yet another of his many acts which evinces sheer, unadultarated mental illness, Trump has formally designated, by executive order, a non existant fictitious organization, "ANTIFA" as a "terrorist organization". The acroynm "ANTIFA" means nothing other, of course, than "anti-fascist", and includes anybody who oppsoes fascism, ideologically. There is no organization, no leadership or centralized control, nor offical membership list to be ANTIFA". It is, in fact, a concept, an ideal, rather than anorganized entity. President Trump, oblivious to this like most conservatives, tilts at windmills, intent on destroying organizations which don't actually exist other than in theory, in the heart and mind of everyone aoopsed to fascism, as emorphous concepts. Trump, ever the bully, announced his intent of placing ANTIFA on some list of terrorist organizations. That's only legal if the organization is in another country,and,if it is proven to be such anorganization, and,mostof all,ifitactually exists. Trump, delusional as always, tilting at windmills. Ich bin ANTIFA. I am solidly, passionately opposed to fascism, anywhere, anytime, especially here in the U.S.. So are millions of other Americans. Now is the time for all of us to speak up and speak out, vociferously, because Trump, with presumably the full support of Congresss and MaGa, seeks to silence us, to silence all criticism directed at him. It would no longer be surprsing, at this point, if Trump signed an executive order making it illegal to criticize him, his administration and policies, and conservatism in general. Nor would it be surprising, so dire has the situation become, so disastrous the popularity and the threat of authoritarian fascism has become, to witness the Republican Congress, Republican state legislatures and governors, and the entire MAGA movement wholly support such an order and to seek to help Trump implement it. Any offers or suggestions to tone down the language and turn down the heat must not include promises by progressives to refrain from criticizing Trump, or from calling him and his policies "authoritarian" and "fascist", because that is precisely what they are. Likewise, people who support fascist politicians are fascists. To deny this is dishonest. The more Trump attacks and attempts to silence his critics and opponents, the more vocal they should and must become in their resistance to fascism, Trump, and MAGA, for the preservation of democracy and the destruction of fascism in the United States of America.

Justifying Political Violence

POLITICAL VIOLENCE is a hot topic these days, and it may get hotter before it cools off. Perhaps this is what a full scale American civil war would or will look like in the mid twentty first century: steadily escalating numbers of well armed citizens randomly gunning down known members of "the other side". We might hope that we can all agree on one thing: that there is never any justification for violence of any kind, political violence in particular. violence is wrong, period. Your hope is dashed, for we cannot. We cannot and do not all agree that political violence is always undesirable. Surveys indicate that upwards of ten to twenty percent of the American people believe that there could be situations in which political violence is not only necessary, but desirable. Certain situations might require a violent response, (such as losing elections).The exact break down eludes me, but I distinctly recall reading that tolerance and acceptance and advocacy of political political violence is much higher among conservatives than liberals, perhaps unsurprisingly. But acceptance of it is generally on the rise in the United States. An overwhelmingly high percentage of it is enacted by white supremacists, conservative extremists. Political violence,likeallother forms of violence, is of course a long standing American tradition, an American "core value" if you will. The founding document, the "Declaration of Independence" that political violence on a large, organized, national scale was and would in the future be unavoidable in the new country being created.Whereas Jefferson poins out that a people should never engage in revolution against their own government for what he called "light and transient causes", that peope canonly tolerateso much abuse and government oppression, and therfore there comes a time when they have no choice but to riseu,and, as Jefferson wrote" alter and abolish" their government, and replace it with a better, nor suitable one, by any and all means necessary, including violence. Jefferson's rather reluctant approval of political violence on a large scale under certain circumstances he expressed in a letter in which he wrote: The tree of liberty shall,from time to time, require the nourishment of the blood of patriots and tyrants." Jefferson further reckoned that such a revolution to overthrow tyranny would be necessary about once every generation, as tyranny would always creep into the government and return with every new generation. We don't want dramatic, barbaric political assassiations in this country, or bloody large scale political violence. What we want is a society and a syttem of government which is flexible anddurable enough to allow for change and progress through peaceful,lawful means, and that is exactly what we in the United States seem to have,and have had, for the most part, throughout our history. Most of the tragedy in American history comes when the system and society are not sufficiently flexible and durable to facilitate and accomodate fundamental change. Perhaps Jefferson would today be impressed at the restraint of the american people in refraining from most of his hypothetical generational revolutions. He would probably be surprised that we have kept Madison's constitution, and still use it, and even venerate it, today. He might think it wise to replace it with an updated version, more suited to our modern world, nonviolently, if at all possible.

MAGA, Making America White Again

UNLESS I"M DREAMING, again, and I don't think I am, Trump is expediting the immigration of sixty thousand people from South Africa to the United States, and, it is not irrelevant to mention that word is that all the people being chosen for acceptance into the great American fun house are white, lilly white. I don't know any more details. This was reported on my one and nearly only media source, National Public Radio, so, it must be true. I was sleepy, barely awake when I heard it, so, yes, I might have been dreaming, but...Idon't think so. I wish I had listened to the radio report more closely. Did Trump, the Trump administration, really and truly negotiate a deal or make the necessary arrangements to import sixty thousand South Africans, with the stipulation that they must be all white? Is it really possible tha someone, anyone, could really do something like that,other than the KKK or some white supremacist organization. Theanswer is yes,thi is exactly the sort of thing that Trump, his administration, and indeed his entire MAGA suport cult could and would do, without hesitation or reservation. You can certainly a well known racist like Trump doing something like this.You suspect, however, that doing this, deliberately excluding non whites from an immigration quota, is illegal in a wide variety of ways, and will at length only add many more to the thousands upon thousands of lawsuits in which Donald Trump is currently involved. Who knows? Maybe his Supreme Court will bail him out, as usual. White Christian America is angry, and not without reason. The percentage of Americans who self identify as "Christian" has been steadily declining for years, and has today gone as low as about fifty percent Christian, and the percentage of non Hispanic white Americans has done and is doing likewise, declining from seventy six percent thirty years ago to just under sixty percent today. With another decade or two, non Hispanic European-Americans will be a minority. We seem to be witnessing an inevitable "push back" epidemic of white heterosexual Christian conservative male rage, as colored minorities and women assume a position of greater equality in American culture, albeit with great resistance. White Christian conservatives are madder than hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. The entire MAGA Trump movement is driven by the immigration and ethnic diversity issue, Trump ran and won on it, twice; conservative American whites, feeling threatened, whose definition of aking America great again just like the way it used to be means going back to the nineteen fifties, increasing the percentage and number of white Straight conservative Christians, and getting reid of dark skinned people, gays and transgenders, and liberals. Years ago Trump said that he wanted more immigrants from places like Norway, and far, far fewer from, as he termed "shit hole countries" in Africa and Latin America. An estimated one hundred and eighty thousand Americans have been deported so far, during the Trump administration. They are all brown skinned people, and many of them are immigrants, though many of them have (had) lived in the U.S. for decades. Trump, and "I.C.E." will doubtles become increasingly efficient in deporting people, and may end up deporting millions of dark skinned undesirables. Who knows? Our MAGA rulersmight start bringing in white people by the million, from wherever they come. You might imagine that a lot of Russians and Ukrainians would be happy to get a new start in America right about now, eh? Nothing can or will prevent the white race from becoming an American minority. It had better get used to it. What matters most is precisely how that is accomplished, if it ever is.

MAGA, Sadly Lacking A Left Wing Killer

UNLESS I"M DREAMING, and please tell me if I am, it turnss out, or is turning out, that the young person who "allegedly" shot and killed Charlie Kirk is not, repeat not, a Trump hating radical left wing lunatic who spews hatred by calling Trump and his supporters mean things like "fascists", as if they had tried to steal an election by overthrowing the government, or something like that. Oh no, not at all. Rather he seems to be politically motivated, but unaffiliated as of yet, a political novice, from a conservtive Mormon family, this Tyler Robinson, and, last year, he allegedly wore a Donald Trump costume to a Halloween party. (I'd love to see it). Does that mean that he loves Trump, or hates Trump, or merely that he had a good idea for a Halloween costume, and acted on it? Could be any of the above. What seems increasigly certain is that, whatever precisely this idiot is, politically, he is certainly not a garden variety radical left wing lunatic like, for instance, Bernie Sanders or I am. And, it might seem, he is so far from being one that it will be difficult, and perhaps impossible for Donald Trump, MAGA, and conservative America to use lies and misinformation to twist him into the shape of one. Not that they would't love to. They are doubtless terribly disappointed at this cruel twist of fate, an apparently conservative political assassin when, for reasons of conservative expediency, a radical left wing murderer would be much, much preferrable. Its going to be a helluva lot harder for Trump and MAGA to blame every liberal in America for the murder, desperate that they are to do so. Had Tyler Robinson turned out to indeed be a strident left wing radical lunatic every liberal in America would be in danger. Trump would probably issue an executive order, and Congress and SCOTUS would probably back it up, making it illegal to be a liberal. And now for some facts. Liberals reacted to Charlie Kirk by signing petitions, staging protests, and challenging him intellectually, as he wanted. But he was killed by a fellow conservative. Of all the policically motivated murders or mass shoothings in the United States over the past, say, couple of decades, an overwhelmingly high percentage of them, somewhere far north of ninety percent, were carrried out by Trump loving hard right wingers. Anyone who doubts this or refuses to believe it for ideological reasons is welcome to go ask the FBI. Or, hell, you can probably google it. As Casey Stengal said: "You could look it up." And no, if the FBI tells you that indeed most political murders and mass shootings are perpetrated by right wing extremists, it does not mean that the FBI has been taken over by a bunch of radical left wingers, and is feeding you false information in a conspiracy to protect Republican shooters. Trump is already claiming that the entire American left wing is responsible for Charlie Kirk's death, by using hate speech. Despite the lack of any evidence for this, and a great deal of evidence against it, MAGA America will doubtless adopt this point of view, and promote it heavily, which is a great tragedy. Guns, of course, have nothing to do with it. Ironically, Charlie Kirk died within mere moments of trying to downplay the impact of gun violence in America. Our America is full of political speech of all kinds, hateful and otherwise. I for one will stop calling Trump and his followers fascists when they stop trying to overthrow the government and steal elections, stop trying to silence media sources they don't like, stop attacking educational institutions for teaching inconvenient realities, stop illegally sending the military into our cities to police the civilian population, and stop trying to gain as much power as humanly possible for Trump by taking it away from its proper owners. It might also merit suggestion that Trump and MAGA should either prove that left wingers, and not Trumpers, are the real lunatics, or find a more honest way to hurl their vile hatred and insults. If only Tyler Robinson had been a radical left wing lunatic. Oh well, can't win 'em all. Sorry for your loss, better luck next time.

Blaming the Left For Charlie Kirk's Death

CHARLIE KIRK allegedly embraced some extremely conservative viewpoints. For instance, he believed that no abortions, anytime, for any reason, should ever be allowed by law. He harbored some laughably false conservative biased beliefs, among them that without affirmative action, many of today's successful African-American leaders would be far less successful relying on their own abilities. (So, is he for, or against affirmative action?) Actually, without affirmative action, blacks would be relying not on their own abilities, but on their skin color, which is the problem, a problem they can do nothing about, but their racist overlords could, if only they would. Those who deny the existence of racism perpetuate it the most. Without affirmative action, African-Americans would not be relying on their abilites. They wouldn't be given a chance to. Charlie Kirk is also reputed to have said that a few gunshot deaths are a low price to pay for the second amendment. How could anyone actually say something like that? Evidently, a hard right wing advocate for conservatism and gun rights could. It was good of him to have the honesty to acknowledge that the second amendment causes rather than prevents gun violence, but what did he mean by a "few" gunshot deaths? Are five or ten a few? Are they an acceptable price to pay for the right to bear arms? What about a few dozen, or a few hundred, or a few thousand? At the precise moment when Charlie Kirk was shot and killed, ten thousand three hundred and fifty other Americans had already been killed by guns this year, and counting. That is the actual price we pay in these United States of America for our sacred right to bear arms, acceptable, or not. Apparently, to America, it is. One must surely admit that we Americans seem to have an exceptionally high level of tolerance for and acceptance of gun violence. Would Charlie Kirk conisder his own death by gun fire an acceptable price to pay for his freedom to own a gun? Some lady Congressperson, a Republican conservative and strident, said, essentially: "By god, all those people who have been calling people like Charlie Kirk and his kind "fscists" had better step up and condemn his murder, post haste". (She really didn't say "post paste"). Consider it done, madam congressperson. Within mere moments after the shot was fired it began to seem obvious that the killer was motivated by political concerns, and that most likely he was a virulent left winger who despised Charlie Kirk for his right wing politics. Indeed that may very soon or eventually prove to be the case. In the event that the criminal is never apprehended, it would present to society and history a fascinating if ultimately moot question to ponder: was the murder in fact politically motivated? More than twenty four hours after the murder, with the murderer still, amazingly, at large, speculation and myth making began. in earnest. Why wait for the answer? Facts are not needed to form opinions. It is certainly not necessary for the murderer to be a hardline left wing Trump hating Democrat for the blame to be placed on the entire Trump hating left wing community, its activists, ideals, and its allegedly inflamatory rhetoric. This irresistable narrative is already being constructed out of thin air and whole cloth, and will be pushed hard by Trump and his MAGA gang, without even the reinforcement of a suspect with known motives. It is not difficult to imagine the conservative American community overplaying this card, thus creating even greater national division, and not even caring.

Finding A Liberal Charlie Kirk

MY FIRST EXPERIENCE with conservative talk was Paul Harvey, in the mid nineteen sixties. He made conservatism sound pleasant, not by advocating it, but by gently imparting a traditionalist attitude to his subject matter. I had never heard of Rush Limbaugh until he had been famous for awhile, but I started listening to his show, fairly regularly, in the early and mid nineteen nineties. My friends gave me grief for listening to Rush. Rush infuriated me, but I thought I became better at refuting his point of view by learning about it. What I find interesting is that Rush Limbaugh's fame and following does not seem to have outlived him; it almost seems as if he has been forgotten soon after being buried. To me it always seemed as if Limbaugh told one lie after another on his radio show, and his claim that he gave preferential treatment to liberals in answering phone calls on the air seemed like an obvious lie. Rush always presented himself as some sort of guru style leader, the source of guidance for the conservative movement in America. America's conservtives, it now seems, have decided that he was in fact only an entertainer, one among many, not so immortal after all. I must confess I had never heard of Charlie Kirk; I may have heard the name, but not being part of the conservative ecosystem, I paid little or no attention to it. Considering his success and influence on college campuses, you'd think that he could have been as big a redio or television star as Limbaugh or the great but disgraced Bill O'Reilly, for those of you who remember him. His final words before taking a bullet in the neck are enigmatic. Dude asked him how many mass murders have taken place this year, perhaps trying to start an argument, and Charlie Kirk responded with a question: "does that include gang reated mass shootings?", as if including gang related shootings somehow unfairly inflated the total by polluting the purity of the genre. People who get their start by performing in front of college audiences,and who become wildly popular and successsful doing so, usually eventually move on to bigger and financially better things, like electronic mass media. You might suspect that Charlie Kirk would eventually have done this, and indeed might have been as popular and successful on radio or televsion as in student unions, and perhaps have become the heir to Limbaugh and O'Reilly. ON the other side of the isle, it might behoove left wing America to drum up a few people like Charlie Kirk to so effectively move among and enlighten the nation's young adults concerning the boundless virtues of embracing progressive politics and beliefs in general. Conservatism has been winning the public relations battle for a long time, even though surveys consistently indicate the progressive viewpoints on nearly all issues are embraced by amajority of Americans. Where is the liberal Charlie Kirk, or the liberal media Rush Limbaugh type superstar? Charlie Kirk did not reflect that ideology of a majority of young Americans, wasn't even in the mainstream spectrum. Far right conservatism is but a small minority all across America's upper educational fruited plain. Collegiate America is predominantly progressive, because progressive politics is change, and the young embrace change more than older folks, who tend to resist it. Charlie Kirk's greatest legacy could eventually be that he inspired an America founded on tolerance and free speech to defend and preserve those sacred values by eliminating from society any influence which tends to encourage violent responses to them.

Loving Capitalism A Little Less

A RECENT SURVEY indicates that fifty six percent of the American people like, approve of, accept, or whatever their words were, the American capitalistic system. This is a decrease from the sixty percent approval free market economics received in twenty twenty one, during the pandemic, but before the long term economic effects of the pandemic took full effect and hit home. Millions of Americans were adversely impacted financially by the pandemic and the short term shutting down of society and economic activity which resulted from it. In a way, its a bum rap against capitalism; a system which has delivered prosperity to millions of Americans and fantastically enriched an elite corporate few seemingly does not deserve to be given reduced support merely because a pandemic temporarily disrupted it. Alas, life isn't fair. (On the other hand, such disruptions, "externalities" in economic jargon, are inevitable) One caveat is that the survey, reported on Scripps News television, didn't give the participants a precise definition of the term "capitalism", but relied on whatever knowledge and opinions about American economics the term engenders within each individual. This wss probably the best way. A well known phenomenon is that Americans express great support of socialism when it is described by words like "cooperative economics", or "economic equality", and the bias fraught, much maligned word "socialism" is omitted. Historically, American enthusiasm for capitalism waxed and waned like the moon or a roller coaster, depending on the times. Capitalism suffered a great decline in popularity around the turn of the twentieth century, when teh onrushing factory system reduced millions of American workers to what at the time was called "wage slavery". It regained its moxie during the socially and economically roaring twenties, but plummeted again, drastically, during the great depression. In 1920,and again in 1932 ,communist and socialist candidates for president received more than a million votes. World War Two and the post war economic prosperity of the post war period brought the the popularity of capitalsim roaring back. As the twentieth first century progresses, the primary trends, capitalistically, seem to be a rapid concentration of wealth, and, a shrinking of the middle class,and a large growth in the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line. A staggering amount of material wealth is being manufactured, but is being concentrated in the hands of a tiny fraction of the population. There is a theory that the current young generation of Americans is more progressive than its parents, and will take the United States in a progressive direction over the next few years. Perhaps there is truth in this. Perhaps the same is true of democratic socialism, as opposed to the plutocratic corporate capitalism we have now. Young Americans seem to like equality. Whereas we do not have a true democracy in America, but rather, a sort of republic of, by,and for the wealthy, similarly, instead of true capitalism, we have a corporate socialist system, an economy rigged for the wealthy, by the wealthy. In an economy in which less than one percent of the people own and control a third of the wealth of society, the teeming masses of the rest of us cannot be expected to give our approval of the political and economic status quo indefinitely. As more and more people see themselves, quite accurately, as being left out of the proliferating prosperity of the wealthy class,and as wealth continues to concentrated in the hands of an elite few, societal discontent with the economic system, corporate capitalism, or whatever one chooses to call, can only spread and grow. chooses to call it, can only continue to grow.

Tolerating Trump's Tyranny

THE SUPREME COURT, evidently intent on proving itself to be Trump's lap dog, has ruled that the Gestapo stye police brutality of Trump's personal police force, aka "I.C.E." may resume in Los Angeles, post haste. And, reports have it, it already has. For further proof of the reality of Trump's lap dog SCOTUS, bear in mind that the high court recently ruled that the president is above the law. It can always overrule itself if and when some damned Democrat gets elected. But for now, what Trump wants, Trump gets, no matter how many federal courts rule against him, nor how many laws they cite which he has broken. His nine lap dogs at the top of the food chain are always there, to bail him out, to make things right, for MAGA nation. Trump's blatantly illegal operation, of using the military to police the American people, is now legal, because Trump did it, and Trump, by law, can break no law, can do nothing illegal. We the American people now live in a virtual dictatorship. So far above the law is our current fuhrer that the military occupation of Washington D.C. is now beginning its second month, illegally, since the law stipulates a thirty day limit, and another illegal military invasion of a major American metropolis is all set to begin in Chicago. After that, who know? Can New York city and Newark, New Jersey be far behind? When will the stormtroopers come to your fair city? The only necessary qualification for invasion seems to be that said city be a Democratic haven, which most American cities are. As always, amazing, surreal and horrifying as is the behavior of Trump with his bizarre words, deeds, and policies, the reaction of his supporters to them is more horrorifying and amazing still. The country as a whole is against the whole thing, with the usual, somewhat predictable percentages: Forty two percent of America thinks Trump's military occupations of the nation's capitol and Chicago are just fine and dandy, and support any and all such occupations, while a large fifty eight percent majority are opposed to it. The same numbers as support and oppose Trump. One wonders what Trump supporters would have thought if Obama or Biden had done the military occupations. One wonders how enthusiastic Republicans truly are about invading America's cities with the military, or whether their approval of it is entirely based on their love, veneration of, and obedience to Trump, their iconic cult leader. Eighty five percent of Republicans support the operation. Ninety three percent of all Democrats oppsoe it. On this issue, the two parties, which are at odds with each other on nearly every issue, could hardly be more aligned against and opposed to each other. The military cannot remain in occupation of American cities forever. You hope that even Trump supporters understand and agree with this. Do Trump's advisors, if he has any, think that when the National Guard finally leaves Washington D.C. the crime rate will have been greatly reduced, and that it will remain greatly reduced forever? Or will it return to its previous level? In recent years its been going down. One might wonder how long and how much it would continue to go down, if Trump would simply leave well enough alone, and kindly refrain from using America's military, soldiers, and cities as theatrical props, stages upon which to strut and display, in the delusional fantasies of his delusional followers, his glorious god given power. If nothing else, it will be"interesting" to see precisely how much police state authoritarian fascism we the American people are willing to tolerate, before getting sick and tired of it, if we ever do, and doing what it takes to rid ourselves of it. Jefferson said that from time to time, the tree fo liberty will require the nourishment of the blood of patriots and tyrants. He also insightfully said that people generally are willing to suffer under tyrany to a great extent before rising up and fighting against it only as a last resort. Tragically, we may have a long way to go before we reach that point.

The Vaccine Debate, Heating Up

THE VACCINE DEBATE HEATING UP was a trailer on TV, and I thought, "Hasn't it been hot for a long time?" I kept the sound down, because I thought I already knew about the heated vaccine debate, and, I thought, and still feel, that I have a pretty good understanding of it. The lines of division seem to form along political lines, as they so often do in our United States of Animosity; the issue seems to have been politicized, removed from the realm of science and medical care and absconded by politics, as surely only we Americans can do. In a nutshell, liberals are in love with vaccine science, conservatives seem to range from grudging acceptance to suspicious of vaccinations, to outright rejection of vaccines generally as dangerous, useless, or whatever. I have found it difficult to find a political conservative who harbors nothing but positive thoughts about vaccination medicine. As usual, as always, the liberal point of view is the correct one. All vaccines are good for everybody, all the time, with but relatively few exceptions, is what the truth basically comes down to. History makes that perfectly clear. Why there is even any debate at all about the efficacy and value of vaccinations is, in many ways, hard to fathom. Like climate change and evolution, science has long since settled the matter, and our only choice is whether to accept science. Accepting science is precisely what American cosnervatives, especially those of the fanatic religious kind, often fail to do, foolishly. As always, the falsehoods do not originate or stop with Trump, but rather they extend all the way down into MAGA and mainstream conservative America, where they remain deeply rooted. The horrible spectacle of RFK.Jr. ranting like a lunatic for three hours in his testimony in Congress, and watching the Republican Senators respond to him, perfectly put the problem on display. The Democratic Senators dismissed Bobby Junior as the hoaxer and charlatan that he clearly is, while most of the Republicans seemed willing to at least tolerate him in their deference to and fear of Trump, rather than actively opposing and seeking to remove him, as they should. Trump, RFK Jr., Republican law makers, and MAGA folk all seem to think that funding for medical research should be reduced. One of the MAGA Senators said that he wanted to take the time to give ample and well deserved praise for our grat president, Donald J. Trump, for his, Trump's, brave, courageous, brilliant, miraculous response to and defeat of Covid 19, back in twenty twenty. Yes, he really said that. Its purely delusional,sycophantic nonsense as most people know. Trump's resposne to Covid 19 was a complete disaster which caused more than one million Americans to die needlessly. For that alone, Trump should have been impeached, convited, removed, and incarcerated,if not given the death penalty. For assisting rather than fighting the pandemic. Trump himself caught Covid not once, but twice. He did nto wear a mask, nobody around him did. He called Covid "a little flu", downplayed it and dismissed it for weeks. Trump suggested that ingesting bleach or horse pills would help. We all remember those crazy days. Project "Warp Speed" was the only logical response, any president with half a brain would have done the same thing, and Trump did nothing to help other than sign his name to a piece of paper, giving permision to the heroic scientists who would have found a cure anyway. Trump is a Covid denier, not a Covid haro. The hotter the vaccine debate becomes, the more exposed and discredited are the anti-vaxxers. For that, if nothing else, maybe its all worthwhile.

Church Shopping

I AWAKENED this beautiful Sunday morning not sure where or if I was going to church. Last week I went to the tiny country Presbyterian church deep down in the valley, so, that's out. There were ten people in the building last Sunday, about the usual number. How much longer can our little church hang on, and keep living? My church going future, I think, is at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship twenty miles away; I hate driving, and the distance is a problem for me. Whether I want to fight the traffic today is doubtful, even though the traffic isn't too bad on a quiet Sunday college town morning. I haven't recently been to either one of the two Methodist churches I visited about a year ago; I liked them both, maybe I should go back sometime soon. Sometimes the most appealling option is to stay home, drink coffee, and watch the Sunday morning news programs with cat on lap. The notion strikes me that my approach to church going is somewhat remindful of and similar to shopping, for groceries, houses, whatever. Weigh all the options, choose one Or maybe choose none. The great American comercial consumer capitalist system in action, invloving individual freedom and choice, that we Americans so highly praise and venerate. Some might say that this approach demeans religion, putting it on the level of crass materialism. These same people are willing participants in the great American materialistic culture, and it could be said that my church shopping, shopping but never buying, actually elevates religiosity to the exalted level of American capitalism, the most sacred and popular religion in the country, as far as I can tell. I am pretty sure that there are boh Islamic and Judaic houses of worship within a twenty mile radius of my humble home, and, yes, I feel an interest in visiting them both, and in visitng any and all churches. Whether I ever will remains doubtful, but possible. I would probably ask permission first, and seek out a church escort to enhance my credibility. What I would ultimately like to do, given my aversion to driving, is to attend church within walking distance of said humble abode, and consider the possibility of attending it regularly. That would be ideal. But, alas it must be compatible with me. My open mindedness only extends so far, to a certain point. There are actuallly several, maybe two or three, churches within a few blocks of my crib, easy walking distance. However, as far as I know, they are all Pentecostal or fundamentalist in nature. That is the type of church I am likely to visit once, but not twice. Or, who knows? The ideal situation for me would be for the UU Fellowship (the Unitarians don't seem to be too much into calling themselves a "church", but rather a "fellowship") within a block or two of my lovely home, or hell, maybe even next door. I think they would make good neighbors...The cat show no signs of awakening and leaving my lap, I've plenty of coffee, and am not inclined to drive anywhere this lovely late summer morning. I may end up watching the Unitarian service on my laptop, always a convenient if imperfect option, certainly better than nothing. Church hopping is even more fun for me since I am content with my pantheistic religiosity, an since I know that I will always have a home among the Unitarians. And I will always have a home in a universe in which countless billions of sentient entities seek truth in their various and unique ways, or, as Goethe accurately said: "When I realized that everyone invents his own religion, I decided to invent mine."

MAGA, Harming Humanity

WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN Robert F. Kennedy Sr. ran for president, and I, by then a political animal, was an excited supporter of his. I can still remember that day in March, 1968, when Bobby announced his candidacy, quite late in the race, and as I recall he bumped his head on something on his way into the building where he made the announcement. Black and white big box television. Grainy curved screen, rabbit ears, three channels, maybe. His assassination devastated me. I still think he would have won the Democratic nomination, and would have defeated Nixon, and would have been a great president. Quite frankly, his namesake son is somewhat of a disappointment to me, to say the least. I strongly sense, or suspect, that among people of my approximate generation, people who remember Bobby Kennedy and loved him when he was alive, probably tend to feel the same way about RFK Jr. as I do. A disappointment. Even more frankly, RFK Jr. seems to me to be a nut, so to speak. His personal history, of years of strenuous, outspoken opposition to vaccines in general, obviously, indisputably, disqualifies him for his position as head of the Health and Human Services cabinet department. Like seemingly every appointment Trump makes for any agency leadership or office of any kind, Kennedy is unuquely, demonstrably, obviously unqualified for the job. His ant-vaccine views are quite evident today, as indicated by his raving, ranting testimony in Congress yesterday. His entire seven months in this office thus far, just like the entire Trump administration, has been a concerted attack on the United States, in particular, its health care system. Kennedy and the Trump administration have cut Medicaid, reduced funding for medical research, and placed needless, harmless limits on the availability and distribution of vaccines of several sorts. Kennedy is indeed a charlatan, as a Democratic Senator pointed out on national television. So is everyone else in the Trump administration, including Trump himself, an amazingly consistent pattern of criminality among all members of this criminal fascist administration. Vaccine denial, like climate change denial, is, it can be argued, inherently criminal, in that by denying the very existence of serious threats to the United States, they effectively assist in their harmful effects. The president of the United States, whoever it happens to be at any given time, absolutely must be a world leader in stopping climate change, and in facilitating the elimination of disease and hunger through heavy investment in and support of medical science, vaccinees, and the redistribution of wealth. Redistribution of wealth through Medicare, Midicid, Social Security, taxation of the wealthy, and food, housing, and income assistance for the poor. What the Trump administration does is the exact opposite of these things. The Trump administration takes from the poor and gives to the rich, it harms the poor and the sick, it is the world's most powerful leader in perpetuating climate change, expediting and hastening humanity's destruction and extinction by atmospheric carbon. The multi million member MAGA cult is a science denying, reality denying suicidal death cult, whose ideology and agenda must be defeated and abandoned, for the sake of not only our future, but our very existence on this fragile planet.

Stopping Trump's Attacks

TRUMP HAS BEEN ON THE ATTACK the entire time he has been president, if not his entire miserable life. Attacking public education, and higher education. Attacking the news media. Atacking the judicial and legal system. Attcking immmigrants. The list could go on, at length. You name it, Trump attacks it. I recall how shocked and distraught I was when he singled out Harvard for personal attack, using the trumped up excuse that there existed anti-Semitism on campus, and withholding about two billion dollars worth of federal research funds as punishment,penalty, retaliation, which ever. Actually Trump atttacked Harvard because Harvard, like all great universities, is a bastian of liberalism, doesn't like Trump, and because the story goes, Harvard turned him down for admission years ago, if you can believe such a thing. At the time, his attack of Harvard was Trump's most egregeious example of authoritarian fascism, a record which has been broken many times since, as records are, so it is said, meant to be. I was shocked, disappointed, and angry at how easily and completely, it seemed to me, Harvard responded not by fighting Trump, but by rolling over like a whipped dog and acceding to Trump's tyranny. Or maybe that's just my impression. But no more. A federal judge ruled yesterday that Trump's Harvard blackmail is illegal, and, Harvard, seemingly, is off the hook, soon to be reunited with its two billion dollars of taxpayer money. Who knows, maybe they'll cure cancer with it. We can be assured they will try. In other federal judicial rulings, Trump's militarization of American cities has been ruled illegal, his tariffs have been ruled illegal, all just in the past week. It is becoming increasingly amazing the amount of Trump's agenda which is being or has been eliminated by the federal courts. Trump's agenda, basically, has been destroyed by America's courts, including by many with conservative judges. Our venerated system of checks and balances, with co equal branches of government holding each other accountable, seems to be holding up, seems to be working to thwart Trump's fascism and to preserve democracy. This by itself is cause for celebration and hope for the future. There is an even more powerful force in American political life than the court system which can defend and preserve democracy and rid the country of fascism. That force, of course, is public opinion, and the free expression thereof. The power of we the people, stating what we want and believe. In our modern era of social media and smart phones, pubic opinion of we the people is potentially, potentially more powerful than ever, more powerful than any human force in human history. MAGA is an American minority. A majority of Americans oppose Trump, and oppose fascism. We the democratic majority must use majority rule, mob rule if you will, to overcome, destroy, and bury this whole extrrme right wing Christian fascism disease currently infecting the United States. Conservative Christian America overwhelmingly still supports Trump, making them both traitors and heretics. The arguments and reasoning supporting this assertion are convincing, persuasive, factual, not insulting, or slanderous. The American conservative community and the American Christian community have united, in service of fascism, and must be defeated. The best evidence of this is the mere fact that they have chosen as their hero and leader, and as America's president, a lifelong criminal who's every word since becoming president is a lie, and every action a crime.

Trump, Militarizing America

THE ELECTION OF 1876 was one of those weird ones in which nobody won, without some extra help. An arguably corrupt bargain was struck, when the northern presidential candidate, Hayes, was awarded the election over Tilden, in exchange for the north removing its post civil war army of occupation from the south, ending "reconstruction". A smart move by both sides, mutually beneficial, really. The Art of the Deal. As they say, whatever works. As part of that weird arrangement a law was passed stipulating that the United States government may never again use the United States military to police the American people. That's why Trump sending the National Guard to LosAngeles a few weeks back was illegal, a federal judge ruled yesterday. Nowever,the rulingonly applies to the judge'sjuridiction, not the wntire nation, since the Supreme Court recently overturned the American legal process by limiting by lmiting, for the first time, the effect of all federal judge rulings to their specific area of jurisdiction. Nonetheless,sendingin teh National Guard to anywhere in the United States, Washington D.C., Chicago, or wherever, is obviously llegal because of the same law, for the same reason. However, it goes without saying that fear of violating the law has never been a deterrent to anything Donald Trump has ever done,as president or otherwise. No emergency exists in the nation's capitol, and none exists in Chicago, which is evidently doomed and destined to be the next target of Trump's fascist agenda. Trump's "emergencies" are always trumped up, obviously. There is too much crime in the nation's big cities which are governed by democrats, and the feds must stop it, says Trump. Even though the crime rate has been going down considerably in recent years, there is still just plain too much of it, says the fascist....All this, presumably with the full approval of MAGA nation, which doesn't seem to be comlaining about the fascism, but rather, supporting it. Those freedom and liberty loving small government limited government conservative Republicans, Siccing the army on the American people. Who would have thought...The people who swear to God that owning a firearm is a God given inaienable right of all Americans, sending in the military to try to reduce the number of people who get killed or wounded by gun fire in America. You might almost think that a better, more direct, simpler way to solve the problem of gun violence in America, instead of letting it run constantly out of control, accepting the costs, and cleaning up the mess, might be to simply take the guns, the guns intended only for killing people, off the streets, if such a thing is even remotely conceivable in the United States of Attrition. The guard comes to town, and makes a strong presence in the streets, and the violent crime rate plummets, but only for as long as the uniformed well armed soldiers are patroling the streets. Then, when the army leaves town, the violent crime rate, the gun shootings, quickly returns to normal. After all, the military can't stay everywhere at once, in every big city in America, indefinitely. The expense would be prohibitive, and, after all, how long, really, can we freedom loving Americans tolerate living under martial law? It didn't take the good folksin L.A. very long to take to the streets in protest and anger. You somehow sense, based upon what you know about the average attitudes toward personal freedom of the average American, that, no, it wouldn't take very long for an American city, any American city, to get sick and tired of seeing their streets swarming with infantry and armor. Neither the extreme right wing nor the extreme left wing will want this for very long. We Americans generally won't. The courts will at least slow down Trump's militarization of America, and we must hope, and can probably trust, that we the American people will put an end to it,once and for all.

Trump, Testing His Limits

WITH TYPICAL ARROGANCE and disregard for the law, Trump signed an executive order requiring that everybody who votes in the United States must present a photo I.D. when casting his or her ballot. Precisely how this will work with mail in voting has not been explained in detail. Trump, of course, is also opposed to mail in voting, and it almost seems surprising that his executive order didn't outlaw that as well. Perhaps his next one will. The United States constitution specifically states that the several states shall be responsible for and in charge of voting procedures within their own states, including all laws pertaining to voting within their borders. Trump's order pertains, probably, only to national elections, whether or not he knows it, and is, nonetheless, most likely unconstitutional, according to a veritable bevy of the usual legal experts. No probably abut it, actually; its illegal as hell, like nearly all of Trump's authoritarian style executive orders. Trump and the Republicans, seemingly unable to come to terms with the reality that the progressive agenda is more popular throughout the land of liberty than their own, which is according to polls, quite unpopular, have over the past few years, invented and perpetuated the fantasy that there exixts rampant fraud and corruption throughout the electoral system in America, all of which benefits the Democrats, who are, accordingly, the culprits. Accordingly, the election of 2020 was stolen from Trump, by, presumably, the Democrats. That utterly false Republican religious conviction adheres today, as everyone knows. Millions of fake votes entering the system through the snail mail, and stealing elections for Democrats, according to this insane, nonsensical, paranoid but widespread (among conservatives) delusion. All the fake votes are for Democrats, none for Republicans, the story goes. Really? Trump and conservatives generally would much prefer that mail in voting be illegal, unless the voter is bed ridden. Republicans generally don't like expanded opportunities to vote early, as witnessed by the fact that they tend to vote in person on electoin day, while Democrats are far more likely to vote early or by mail. The object is to suppress voting, to keep vote totals down, because in any election in which voters vote in large numbers, Democrats have the advantage. Republicans don't mind if poor folks and minorities stay home on election day, and don't vote at all, early or not. Nurturing democracy means making it as easy as possible to vote, to get more people to vote. Making it difficult to vote is an attack on democracy, by people who have abandoned it. Perhaps if the Republicans can somehow limit the franchise to white middle and upper middle class straight Christian white men, all will be well in right wing America. A white Christian plutocracy with Trump at the top, issuing executive orders at an unprecedented rate, in effect ruling by decree, without the slightest resistance and presumed approval with Congressional Republicans. Trump, for instance, simply must pick another city into which to send the National Guard, just to prove that he can, and will. Testing his limits. So far,the judicial system is heroically doing its duty, striking down Trump's criminal actions, including his entire illegal tariff policies. The Supreme Court, however, seemingly utterly corrupt, might keep bailing him out. For more than three more years, Trump will test his limits with increasing frequency with blatantly illegal power grabbing behavior, paritularly between now and the midterms in twenty six. Trump knows that his executive orders are illegal the moment he signs them, if not before. Surely someone has told him. If not, the situaiton is even worse than imagined. He is purposely issuing illegal commands, asserting his authoritarian right to do so, expanding his power. Congressional Republicans and tens of millions of MAGA members will enable this with active support or tacit passivity. It will be up to the federal courts and us, the new moral anti-Trump majority, to put a stop to it.