Giving and Receiving Anger

WHEN IT CAME to my attention that someone was angry with me for my critical comments about the Christian religion, I was reminded of my own anger, could empathize, and decided to pay more attention to it.My anger originated in fear, as I reexamine my childhood. I first became afraid of evangelical Christians when I was in grade school, and they started trying to save me. From what I needed saving was unclear to me, but the very thought that some terrible fate awaited me from which I required salvation greatly frightened me. My parents did well protecting from this, but a toxic amount of it slipped through their parental filter, leaving me exposed. When I was a child, crucifixes frightened me; now they merely horrify me. The suffering person makes me tremble with pity and terror. My fear has turned to anger, as fear normally does. Anger that what began as a cult evolved into a culturally dominant religion which adversely impacted my life, a religion predicated upon teh central event of a ritual blood sacrifice, a torturous death whcih mysteriously saves those who accept the ritual as giving grace, shielding willing cowards from the consequences of their own mistakes.My anger manifests with my awareness that the Christian religion has always rejected science, and still does. every time an evangelical votary denies the truth of evolutionary science, or dismisses the reality and importance of climate change, because, after all, the Lord will soon return. People who deny reality in defense of their political and religious beliefs,such as Trump supporters who deny Trump's criminal behavior, while holding him up as a defender of the faith, I reserve special anger for. They have forfeited moral integrity for the sake of political expediency. The Christian faith became fragmented from the beginning. The apostle went in different directions, preaching different messages. The roman Emporer Constantine tried to create canonical unity by having the Bible instituted as the Word of God, by clerical vote,but that didn't last long. The Word of God kept changing with each new edition. Over the centuries, the Bible kept changing, as powerful clerics added and detracted and edited according to their own personal agendas.The church fragmented into hundreds of varieties of the faith, andiIt became increasingly difficult to even know which kind of Christianity to embrace, or which kind to dislike the most.

Knowing, and Not Knowing, Science and History

I STAYED HOME on the fourth, depriving myself of any chance to catch Covid, and fulfilled my annual ritual of reading the Declaration of Independence, loudly, and dramatically. It should have been nationally televised, since it did Olivier proud, and might have kept at least a few folks home for a few more minutes, off the beaches, out of the bars, away from the picnics, far, at least fleetingly, from maskless parties. the most commonly used justification I heard for people risking death and spreading contagion on the fourth was; "People don't want to stay home on the holiday". Freedom, liberty, and all that. Surely they could do better. Welcome to the fun house,, the United States of amnesia, where inconvenient facts are labeled "fake news", fabrication passes as truth, and science is rejected the instant it conflicts with one's political or religious views. We have sunk so low as to have elected a president of the United States who apparently believes that giving people a test to determine whether they are infected with Covid 19 cause them to become infected with it. As the epidemic explodes in infection and death rates, simply do less testing, says the befuddled president, because that's the only reason we know about the rampant spread. The same medically challenged president, who claimed that windmills cause cancer, is now turning his fevered mind to history, ranting against removing monuments to killers and traitors, accuses some mythical radical left of "erasing history", as if removing monuments were tantamount to burning down libraries and museums. Trump, should know, but doesn't, all about erasing history, or at least twisting it into bizarre shapes. it was he who said that during America's war for independence George Washington took control of all the continental airports. Yes, he really said that. He also said that Italian-American friendship dates from the time of the Roman empire  under the Caesar dynasty.  And to think, he went to college, ostensibly.President Trump says that ninety nine percent of Covid 19 infections are harmless. Twenty seven percent of teh American people say they will not take a Covid 19 vaccination when one is available. An ancient Greek philosopher said that against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. and P.T. Barnum said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. They are all quite correct, except Trump, who is demonstrably mentally ill.

Being Jeffersonian

I WASTED TIME and energy walking across my front lawn to my mailbox, for it was empty, and since the mail has been mostly good news lately, I was mildly disappointed. I got over it, and soon realized my disappointed was inevitable, and my walk unnecessary, because it is Independence Day, a day when one can wait an eternity for mail which never arrives.This year's attenuated, virus plagued Independence day seemed less special than any other in my sixty five years. Every July fourth I read aloud, in a stentorian, sonorous voice, the Declaration of Independence, to an audience of one. I began the tradition in college. by now, I know the seminal document quite well. I remind myself of its author, Thomas Jefferson, in tw o or three ways WE both liked to read, and were both knowledgeable in many areas, although Jefferson was expert in many, and I, poor I, in none.Jefferson in his lifetime, and I in mine were both disappointed in the lack of the social and scientific progress we had both anticipated in your youths. Jefferson kept waiting for the United States of america to free his slaves, for the society in which he lived to make it possible for him to free his slaves without suffering tremendous hardships in so doing, both to himself and to the former slaves. It never happened. As  child, i expected that I would live to see colonies on the moon and Mars, and the elimination of disease, poverty, and war. In terms of idealism, i was every bit Jefferson's match. Last but not least, Jefferson and I were both hypocrites, making us both members of a very large club, perhaps including all humanity. Jefferson's hypocrisies are well documented and known; his slave ownership and opposition to slave, among numerous other examples. Mine might be too numerous to mention, but one in particular comes to mind. As i age, I find that not only do I deplore the human trait of anger, but I find that i see it everywhere around me, often directed at me. So great is my disgust at teh anger i see as being rampant in our current culture that I have resolved that anyone who becomes angry at me i will henceforth exclude from my life. the list of exiles is long, and becoming longer. In all cases, i see the anger of others towards me as being unjustified, overreactions, needless exercises in venting and manifestations of their self loathing. And I'm sure there's some truth in that. But what I must accept, or at least acknowledge, is my own anger. My anger is directed against, for the most part, Donald Trump, all his many supporters, and people who reject science, especially evolution and climate change. Whether these folks are legitimate objects of my anger is another matter; the fact is, that is a considerable body of anger for one person to bear. But, as we say, its a tough job, and somebody has to do it.

Raging Anger

THERE RECENTLY RAGED on Facebook, and perhaps other places, a virtual war concerning whether 'tis proper to breast feed in public. Although nobody seemed able to identify its source, contact tracing would likely result in pinpointing a single conversation gone bad. The Puritans versus the free spirits, presumably. No one knows who won, if anybody. No one ever does, no one wins, nor nor who claims victory. all parties, presumably. It is now well documented that people become merciless savages, to quote Jefferson, when using a computer, barricaded from direct enemy fire by a screen. This is why I only use Facebook to promote this website, and to spread opposition to tump, among people who already oppose him. No new friendship formation or conversation online for me. I learned that lesson twenty years ago, in AOL chatrooms. When the lady the other day, having sworn up and down that she could never bring herself to hate a human being, then moments later declared her hatred for Colin Kaepernick, I couldn't remain silent, much to my regret. I pointed out the contradiction, then suggested that disapproval was preferable to hatred. She sarcastically responded that once again I had demonstrated my intellectual superiority. People don't like to be corrected, even people who have no internal self correcting mechanism. The other day my neighbor's teen age son brought out a ton of garbage one minute after the garbage truck had come and gone. He spilled some watermelon rind from the trash can, then just kicked it into place, leaving it lying on the ground until the next pick up, which would be in three days. the flies began to gather immediately, and my neighbor hates flies. I thought it made for a funny story, but when i told him, boy, did he ever get mad. he thought I was mocking him. I hope I'm finally learning how to deal with people in an angry culture, with the three epidemics of Covid 19, racist tension, and anger all infecting the United States of Anger and Arrogance at once.The trick, of course, is to strictly avoid all three sources of disease, meaning, human beings.

Erasing Insults

FOR NEARLY NINETY YEARS one of America's most famous and popular football teams has been and still is named after a racial insult. Ironically, appropriately, teh team is located in the nation's capitol, the center of the power of racial oppression Tat the name is an insult, a racial slur, is indisputable, despite claims to the contrary. The name was an insult from its beginning in the eigthteenth century, was an insult throughout American history, and was certainly an insult, although a widely accepted one, when it was adopted by the team in 1933. When an insulting expression is repeated often enough, people become accustomed to it, learn to embrace it, and forget the original insult. Under great pressure, the team's owner, long intransigent, may finally acquiesce to decency and reality.As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, people long accustomed to insults and abuse are far more inclined to suffer the abuse than to take action to remedy it. In the same document, Jefferson, a strident racist himself, referred to native Americans as "merciless savages" upon which the term 'redskin' is arguably a vast, if dubious improvement in terms of decency and respect. Jefferson would probably have agreed that people are inclined by nature to become merciless when their lands and livelihoods are being stolen, and their culture destroyed by a violent people who claim to represent "civilization". People who engage in insulting behavior almost always defend their words and actions, and refuse to acknowledge their own need to change. They re therefore fortunate that society tends, over time, to lean towards justice and decency, long though the process of social evolution normally takes.

Defining Freedom, Reasonably

GOVERNOR ABBOT OF TEXAS has reversed course, expediently.Not so long ago, says, several days, he was among the staunchest of staunch defenders of individual liberty. No local government in Texas, said he, had the constitutional right to order American citizens to wear face masks. Now, he himself is so ordering, Texas wide, as the great American epidemic spirals out of control, consuming the country, reducing its arrogance to ashes. Vice President Pence recently asserted, in the face of increasing numbers of sick and dying Americans, that we still have our first amendment rights of assembly and speech, notwithstanding the current inadvisability of gathering together and freely peaceably assembling in large numbers inside buildings. The V.P. is evidently willing to die, and to see others die, from a disease they need not encounter, if only they will suspend their freedom of assembly for a short time. He would die with the constitution clutched in his dead hand. Freedom, said the great German writer and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is nothing other than the opportunity to do what is reasonable under all circumstances. If ever there were a better definition, show me. This epidemic, and for that matter this racial strife, is the result of nothing other than our vaunted American zealous defense of individual rights, and our refusal to change, or to compromise those liberties in the face of extreme circumstances. Resistance to gun control is not about owning guns. It is about our refusal to be told by anyone at any time that we are not allowed to own them, our refusal to surrender even our freedom to behave unreasonably.. Resistance to mask wearing, and the assertion of our freedom not to, isn't about wearing masks, its about our stubborn, arrogant refusal to cooperate with society and to allow ourselves to be told to wear them, for public safety. everyone cherishes freedom. But freedom is not an absolute value, just as free speech is not absolute, it is placed in context with circumstance, and the needs of society. Freedom is closely associated with reason, without which freedom is nothing other than meaningless chaos.

Militarizing the Police

IN THE NINETEEN SIXTIES, centuries of anger and frustration exploded into widespread street protests, first in L.a., in 1965, and then elsewhere, and everywhere. They were called, conveniently, "race riots". African-Americans did not burn down their own neighborhoods, as they were accused of doing. they owned nothing. they burned down the neighborhoods in which they lived, which were owned by their oppressors. The Viet Nam War protest were not connected to this, nor to the women's rights protests, or gay rights protests and movement. In a hierarchical society, there are many axes to grind. All this concurrent social unrest frightened the ruling corporate elite,  to whom any arrangement remotely resembling egalitarian equality was unacceptable, and which responded, predictably, with more force and oppression. The militarization of urban police also began in Los Angeles, as detailed in a new monograph titled "The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The first SWAT teams, Special Weapons Attack Teams, later changed to thelses aggressive sounding Special Weapons And Tactics, performed as advertised, breaking up street protests. now, SWAT teams almost exclusively break down doors in warrant free drug raids. Now the police are fully militarized, rows of officers looking like Darth Vador sci fi figurines. Armored personnel carriers, tanks, steel piercing amunition all ready to rumble through city streets, destroying everything in their path. Armies of occupation, foreing invaders. All this does not quell mass violence, rather, it exacerbates it,  stirring protests into stree wars. All this business about "defunding" police departments seems a bit amprphous and extreme, but is on the right track in one key regard: our society needs to stop expecting to solve all its social ills with police force, and start expecting ourselves to heal ourselves from the ground up, one angry mentally ill American citizen at a time, by which is meant, all of us.

Opposing Trump From Within

ALL ACROSS AMERICA'S fruited plain republicans are organizing manpower and money to help get Donald Trump unelected in November. At least three distinct groups have already organized, all replete with high powered Republican talent and funding. One group is being put together by former supporters and associates of the George Bush family, the family noted for their strong opposition to Trump from the git go. George 41 and Barbara famously resigned from the G.O.P. upon Trump's nomination in 2016, knowing the score. Another group, called "The Lincoln project", is centered in the nation's capitol, and puts out quite a blog and podcast show, featuring withering condemnations of the president, who retaliates by twitter tweeting his usual vile bitterness against those traitors. Still another more nationwide attempt is called simply "Republicans Against Trump". These are all people who have seen the waled handwriting, have come clean, many of whom were "Never Trumps" from the outset, and never wavered. Most never Trumpers dissolved meekly into the background, accepting the inevitable, much to the detriment of the nation. I have a dear friend, a ninety four year old alert active gentlemen whom I tried in vain in 2016 to see the light, or rather the darkness, in Trump. His vote was based largely upon his distaste for Hillary Clinton, like many Trump voters, the lesser of two evils theory. Actually, Hillary Clinton was the best qualified presidential candidate in American history, far more qualified than George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or all the rest. As Casey Stengel said, you could look it up. Far from evil, Clinton is a woman of high moral standards, intelligence, and integrity. her experience, knowledge, and intelligence would have made her an excellent president. A cursory examination of the reasons behind the widespread hatred of her reveals a combination of fabricated, dishonest accusations of criminal activity, and shallow, superficial distaste for her confident, exuberant personality, unbecoming a meek, subservient woman, the kind american men prefer. the Trump administration has been chaotic, corrupt, and disastrous in terms of policy, most recently exemplified in Trump's dismissive attitude towards the virus and towards the racial divide, which he has only made worse. Just as there were Germans who never came clean on Hitler, so there will be Americans who never abandon their cultish support of this remarkably corrupt, criminal man, Donald Trump. Fortunately, they will be few enough in number to be rather easily ignored and dismissed as the small minded fools they are.

Getting A Good Deal Too Good to Refuse

THERE IS A PLEASANT sounding opportunity, difficult to resist, called a "home equity loan", in which the happy borrower strides joyfully into her mortgage lender's tastefully decorated office and walks out with a fistful of cash, and less home ownership. Then the fun begins; Home equity loans are marketed as golden opportunities to travel, party, or home improve. Until about 1980 they were called "second mortgages", but that term didn't do, home owners, already burdened by first mortgages, were utterly horrified at the thought of obtaining another. Second mortgages were undertaken only by the financially desperate, only as a last resort, and, in terms of corporate profit, simply didn't do. Something had to be done to make second mortgages more appealing, positively alluring. Hence, the repacking under another description, home equity loan. The twentieth century was a crusade by our corporate masters to find effective, creative ways to part us from our hard earned money, to drag us deeper into dependent debt. when the American people refuse to spend in our consumer driven economy, or cannot spend due to poverty, we are enticed into greater debt by offers we cannot refuse. We fule our addiction to the material wealth we are assured we must strive for by spending money we do not have for pretty things we cannot afford and do not need, but think we do. We borrow more and more., to cover the borrowing we already did. Fifteen years ago I bought a beautiful home for no money down and no collateral..I was grateful that was all it took, give or take something over one hundred thousand dollars. I, a deliberately difficult borrower, accepted anyway.. That was during the good old  high rolling days, before the great recession ended the drunken fun and brought us back to reality, and conservative financing. I got lucky, rode the post recession stock market all the way up, and paid off my mortgages, both of them, fifteen years early. Others were not so lucky, and lost their homes. I never should have been given a  home loan. Now, we have something even more wonderful' the reverse mortgage, in which the lender pays you to slowly take your equity and your home away, at great cost to you. Who could resist? I never should hver borrowed money at such high usurial interests rates, but i did, and I got lucky. but, as they say, that's how we roll, here in the United States of Avarice.

Waiting For the Lord to Come, and the Virus To Go

EVERYWHERE I GO, I am one of only a few people wearing a face mask. Most of the time, I stay home. Either America doesn't care, or has given up. and the killer virus rampages across the land, killing relentlessly, turning us all into targets of opportunity. On the radio in the middle of the night they smug young girl sports talk show host made it clear that she intends to accept the invitation to the pool party, and that she does not care whether she catches the virus, but doesn't want to give it to anyone. What? There are no sports to talk about these days. Covid 10 insanity, on the air. The crazy ones say that it might be the end of the world, almost as if they hope it is, or don't care. The world will go on, for another four billion years, even if we don't, I want to but do not tell them. Even crazier are the Bible believers, the ones who say that Covid 19 is the fulfillment of biblical prophesy, that these are the final days, as if the scientifically primitive people who wrote the bible had the slightest knowledge of what would happen tomorrow, much less thousands of years in their future. The truly mentally ill are fervently awaiting the return of the Lord, in presumably a flaming chariot wielding a terrible swift sword, their mental illness manifesting itself in their complete disassociation from observable reality. These righteous, self deluded faithful needn't concern themselves with such non problems as climate change, impending environmental destruction, or global pandemics, for they have far greater concerns, the impending arrival of God, which gives them a perfect excuse to care about nothing nor anybody else. Since these disasters are our modern disasters, they must have been predicted by the Bible; how convenient to use twenty twenty hindsight to read into the bible predictions which simply are not there. Our current maladies are so severe that they can be used to justify one's religious beliefs, and the belief that followers of God foretold their future, our present, thousands of years ago, and that this truth is written in a sacred book which the modern faithful can easily hold in one hand, while waving off their responsibility to help us solve our problems with the other hand. Our righteous holders of the truth need fear nothing, nor help anyone, but can afford to sit idly by, and watch the rest of us suffer. according to the Word of God, Jesus told his friends that he would return in their lifetimes; he is long overdo. And if those still awaiting his return wish to spend their time waiting rather than helping and serving society, such is their right, and such is my right to call them mentally ill, and criminally irresponsible.

Divesting (Getting the Hell Out)

THE HARVARD CAMPUS, dignified brick, makes you feel intellectual, ready to learn and to was profound. John Quincy Adams slept here. Harvard grads get the best jobs. I dated a graduate of harvard nursing school one night, and found her lovely in many different ways. She planned to return to pursue a career at Harvard med. Harvard is my go to source for expertise, my best defense against evangelical conservatism. I never thought Harvard would disappoint me, but its stated intention of divesting its endowment portfolio of fossil fuel stocks by the year 2050 did the trick. By then I will either by ninety five or dead, and so will Earth's environment. The movement to force fossil fuel companies out of business by playing hot potato with their stock is well underway, gaining momentum. Trillions of dollars in stock have already been sold off by hedge funds, universities, individuals, et al, all environmentally conscious. The huge U. of California system is already fossil fuel free. Stock brokers who know where their bread is buttered are advising that fossil fuel stock have no future value. Harvard, the world's wealthiest university, staid and progressive at the same time, is behaving the way Thomas Jefferson did when pressed as to when he planned to free his slaves. I'll get around to it, he said, dismissively. Getting around to is just isn't good enough, at a time when Earth's biosphere and we with it hang in the proverbial balance. Twenty fifty is way late, but dignified old crimson Harvard'll come around, because fossil fuel stocks will be a bad investment and a bad albatross of a hold long before that, and Harvard, like the rest of us, wants to get out while the getting is still good.

Tweeting Racism

IT ISN'T ENOUGH that president Trump is making people sick by luring them into building by the thousands without wearing masks, and then proceeding to poison their vulnerable minds with hateful, racist, dishonest garbage. He now intends, as he long has, to abolish Obamacare by falsely arguing at the Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional, a ploy which, if successful, would effectively kill thousands, maybe millions more Americans left without health insurance. history seems to indicate that Obamacare is her to stay, for which we can be thankful. Trump's only motive is pure racism. he spent the entire Obama administration falsely, stupidly claiming that Obama had been born in kenya, now he wants to erase all vestiges of the Obama legacy. Weakening environmental protections, treating teh disastrous epidemic dismissively, eliminating federal funding for virus testing, all are actions which are killing untold thousands thousands of Americans, all in order to please his hard right wing evangelical base, whose belief that the Lord will soon return inspires them to regard the Covid 19 epidemic as fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and therefore, desirable. Those who continue to support the egomaniacal, emotionally ill criminal president are no better than he; they are accessories to crime, morally repugnant members of a criminal gang.Trump's latest childish act of inanity consists of his tweeting the message "white power". Always a coward, he claimed, or rather his spokes bimbo claimed that it was all an accident, that the president simply did not hear the man loudly shouting the racist phrase. Trump's crude behavior began long before his election, it began early in his life. We had fair warning. During his presidency, it has dramatically increased. Combined with demonstrably disastrous policies,it all renders him by far the worst president in American history, and there have been plenty of bad ones. Anyone who supports him at this point either has no redeeming qualities or character, or lives in a state od total denial.

Saving Ourselves

IN SIBERIA  there was no spring this year. winter turned into summer almost overnight. The first few days of summer temperatures reached above eighty in the Arctic circle, setting records. The frozen tundra, frozen for thousands of years, is melting, releasing billions of tons of carbon rich methane gas into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. The Earth is dying, and we h umans are killing it, and with it, ourselves. at the rate things are going, there will be few future generations of human civilization. The way to save ourselves and the ecosystem is still available, but time is running out. It it a multifaceted approach including population control, solar energy, and reforestation, among other endeavors. World wide, we need to plant at least one trillion trees over teh next few years. The project is already well underway. Around the world, millions are being planted everyday, and many countries have instigated mass tree planting programs. We can all help by planting carbon eating trees (all trees eat carbon) in our local communities and in our own back yards. Fifteen years ago I bought a half acre of land, barren except for crab grass, built a modest house, and planted twenty saplings, and moved in. Now I live surrounded by a lush yard with a canopy of beautiful forty foot tall deciduous trees. The summers are hot where I live, but I rarely need air conditioning. The trees keep my house cool. their branches intermingle, and in them life thrives. It was once thought and assumed that trees standing near each other compete for resources, for carbon, sunlight, and water. Is nature not competition? Do all species not compete among themselves and with other species for resources and survival? An experiment involving radioactive water, a Geiger counter, and some trees on a tree farm proved otherwise. We now know that in fact trees share, that they cooperate in assuring teh survival of all, by communicating with each through their elaborate networks of deep underground root systems. Suddenly trees somehow seem more beautiful than ever. We humans have a lot to learn from trees.

Tyranizing

IT IS IRONIC that President Trump's hero is Andrew Jackson, since Jackson founded the Democratic party, and was, for the most part, a man of honor. On the other hand, Trump was once a democrat, if not a man of honor. Both men share tyrannical tendencies. Jackson usually ignored the advice of his cabinet, preferring instead to consult with his personal friends, his 'kitchen cabinet". Trump does much the same, often firing people who dare disagree with him, and relying on family members for advice. Andrew Jackson,like Trump, was elected as a populist, a m an of the people, someone who would represent the interests of the common man and not the wealthy elite. Both men entered office was considerable personal wealth, much of it acquired through dubious means. Jackson was arguably America's first Christian president, the first six having been "deists", who believed in a more scientific creator rather than a biblical one. Trump rarely attends church, and his religious views vary from time to time, he being quite willing to be a good Christian when in the presence of people who expect him to be. Both presidents became increasingly preoccupied with their own power the longer they served in office; Trump has blatantly taken actions traditionally and constitutionally reserved for Congress, Jackson behaving with such authoritarian tendencies that his one time supporter turned arch rival Congressman Davy Crockett began calling him "the government". Two peas in a pod, Jackson and Trump. Trump, the consummate christian, with all teh wives, women, and ill gotten wealth. Equally ironic it is that Abraham Lincoln was a founder of the Republican party, the anti-slavery  "free soil" party. The G.O.P. bills itself as the "party of Lincoln" what with its pure lily white racist streak, and the great prevaricator Trump the heir hilarious to honest Abe. If the Republican party wishes to consider itself as follower in the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, it might do well to first admit that black lives matter, and to take action to do something to help improve them.

Going Low

THAT PRESIDENT RUMP,a self acknowledged sexual predator (Access Hollywood), an impeached traitor and criminal many times over, retains nearly forty percent support of the American people is a testament to the tragically low morality and intellect of many if not most American conservatives and evangelicals. But justice, as MLK said, is slow but inexorable, and events are not moving in a favorable direction for Trump and his MAGA mob. The worsening epidemic is directly attributable to Trump's disastrous leadership; he called the pandemic a "hoax", then recommend that people drink bleach, then claimed that warm weather would end the problem, then eliminated federal funding for testing, among other crimes -  the recent nationwide protests over racism and police brutality, and the nation's belief that Trump has only made the racial divide in America worse, cannot but drive undecided, independent voters away from Trump and the Republican party this fall. John Bolton's book is teh coup de grace of a long list of former Trump insiders who ran out of patience and decided to come clean and "spill the beans" concerning trump's incompetence, dishonesty, and criminality. Into the fray once again enters the Supreme Court, rulingin favor of Obama's DACA, reducing to ruins Trump's anti-immigration campaign plank, reducing his xenophobic followers to foot stomping, fist banging barbarians, their anger and disappointment reflecting their own vile low morality, their contempt for the "welcome the stranger" message of Jesus, their hollow, phony pseudo version Christian faith. The innocent children of illegal immigrants can saty, at least for now, so says the court. And although this court rendering is likely only to encourage Trump to rant on twitter and lock children in cages, again, Chief justice John Roberts has demonstrated again that packing the court with right wing ideologues results not in right wing renderings, but, at least occasionally, in compassionate and wise justice.