Tag Archives: Bill Clinton

May 29, 2026 · 10:32 PM

Lazarus Orwell

Lazarus – Hebrew, “God will help.”

“Name Your Baby”, Lareina Rule

“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”

Winston Smith in “1984”, George Orwell

In the 1994 midterm elections, the Republican Party achieved something they hadn’t in nearly four decades: they won the majority of seats in both houses of congress.  And they won big; a “Super Majority” that clearly showed an early rebuke of President Bill Clinton’s agenda.  Newt Gingrich, a veteran politician from Georgia, was elected House leader.  At the start of 1995, Connie Chung, then co-anchor of the CBS Evening News, interviewed Gingrich’s parents at their home.  Puffing on cigarettes and speaking barely above a stage whisper, Gingrich’s mother, Kathleen, noted her son didn’t particularly like Clinton or First Lady Hillary Clinton.  In fact, she said, he had an extreme disdain for Hillary and said he’d called her a “bitch”.

The national reaction was explosive.  Gingrich himself never confirmed whether or not he’d actually said that, but condemned for taking advantage of two people who weren’t “media savvy”.  How media savvy does someone need to be, replied Chung, to know they’re speaking with a nationally renowned journalist and have three cameras set up around them?

But Chung had unknowingly orchestrated her own demise.  CBS almost immediately terminated her.

In 2004, as then-President George W. Bush was in the midst of his reelection campaign, Dan Rather, another veteran journalist and anchor of the CBS Evening News (Chung’s former colleague), dived into Bush’s so-called military record.  After graduating from Harvard in 1968, Bush immediately joined the Texas National Guard.  The Vietnam War was raging, and young men were being drafted into military service.  Getting a position in a National Guard unit was highly coveted and difficult to obtain.  According to…well, himself…Bush completed his first stint in the Guard in 1972 and reenlisted, before moving to Alabama to assist in the presidential campaign of George Wallace.  He then joined the Alabama National Guard and supposedly got suspended for missing an annual physical exam.  But what happened after that is largely unknown.  Bush’s records mysteriously disappeared.

Dan Rather had gained fame in 1961, as he delivered live coverage of Hurricane Carla’s landfall in Texas.  He began anchoring the CBS Evening News in 1981.  The outrage over his questions into Bush’s military service was palpable.  The same political and social conservatives who screamed over Bill Clinton’s lack of military service were suddenly offended with Rather’s report.

At the start of 2005, CBS dismissed Rather.  For the second time in a decade, the news conglomerate had allowed themselves to be intimidated by a key political figure.

All of that nonsense came to light recently, as controversy fell atop Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show” on CBS.  A few months ago Colbert interviewed Texas politician James Talarico who is running for U.S. Senate.  However CBS didn’t broadcast the interview.  Apparently CBS hadn’t heard of this thing called the internet and something else called YouTube.  Its legal advisors claimed the interview was in violation of the Federal Communication Commission’s Fairness Doctrine – a creed that mandates broadcast networks devote equal time to views on national issues.  Generally the rule applied only to news programs; talk shows were exempt because they were considered entertainment venues.

Until now.

If either previous presidents Bill Clinton or Barack Obama got upset every time a public media figure mocked or even criticized them, they’d be incarcerated for life in mental health hospitals.  In contrast the administration of current President Donald Trump is obviously of fragile spirit.  Colbert has been a vocal critic of the president.

CBS canceled “The Late Show”, which had been broadcasting since 1993.  Last week was the final telecast.  They claimed low ratings, but I don’t believe that.  My followers know what a strong free speech advocate I am.  It’s not just the writer in me – it’s the human being in my soul; someone born and raised in a country that values the right to speak freely.

Politicians utilizing their power to coerce a media into compliance or silence is the essence of totalitarianism.  Other countries allow this to happen.  China or Russia sound familiar?

I’ve never been a fan of Colbert, but I’m still angry over his show’s cancellation.  It’s obvious what happened.  But what should we, as free people, do about it?  How much of this madness are we supposed to tolerate?

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May 16, 2026 · 3:41 PM

Draft Well

Recently President Trump signed an Executive Order that will impact military readiness in the U.S.  Beginning in December 2026 all able-bodied males in the country will be automatically registered for Selective Service (the military draft) upon turning 18.  The late former President Jimmy Carter reinstituted the Selective Service system in 1980, requiring all males born in the U.S. since 1960 to register for the draft within 30 days of their 18th birthday.  A number of lawsuits against the system in the following decades have failed to reverse the policy.

The penalties for failing to register are severe:

  • Fines up to $250,000 and/or 5 years in prison.
  • Ineligible for federal jobs and many state, local, and municipal positions.
  • Ineligible for federal student financial aid (FAFSA), including Pell Grants and federal student loans.
  • Non-citizens can be denied citizenship (naturalization).
  • Roughly 40 states and Washington, D.C., deny driver’s licenses or renewal for non-registration.
  • Ineligible for training under the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

Yes…a $250,000 fine and up to 5 years in prison…for failing to register to serve (unwillingly) in the military of a nation that still maintains an incredibly unequal justice system and wealth structure.  (Understand that Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman each murdered someone and got away with it.)

Again, this system only applies to men. 

Now Trump wants to make it more difficult to evade compulsory military service.  Well…he should know.  Like his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, he did just about everything he could to avoid compulsory military service more than a half century ago.

One of my best friends, Preston*, has two 20-something sons and voted for Trump during all three of his presidential runs.  As the 2024 elections approached, he expressed concern that a Kamala Harris presidency would result in military action in Ukraine; meaning Harris would enact the military draft, and his sons could be impacted.  I was concerned about that, too, but I was more concerned that Trump would get back into office and take military action against Iran; the same way Bush invaded Iraq under the false pretense of protecting the world from an Iraqi-based nuclear war.

I was right.

Trump got into office and – under the guise of safeguarding the globe against an Iranian-inspired nuclear Armageddon, as well as defending Israel – attacked the Middle Eastern county.  Now, Preston is even more worried.

So am I.

In August of 1990, Iraq unexpectedly invaded Kuwait.  Fearful they were the next targets, the Saudi royal family fled their palaces and asked the U.S. for help.  As that year came to an end, then-President George H.W. Bush sent troops into the Saudi desert.  Ultimately Iraqi forces surrendered without much of a fight, but about 300 U.S. service personnel died in battle.  Shortly before the conflict erupted, Saudi leadership – still safely ensconced abroad – demanded that our people in uniform remove emblems of the U.S. flag from their attire.  They somehow found it offensive.  Bush bowed to the Saudi sheiks and ordered the removals.

Pull our boys out, was the first response from most U.S. citizens, including me.  It was an outrage.  If it hadn’t been for American demand for oil, the Saudis would still be living in ornate tents in the desert, picking sand fleas out of their ass.  The Bush family’s loyalty to the Saudi regime became apparent in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when the Bush Administration allowed several Saudi nationals to leave the U.S., while other travelers remained trapped at airports and hotels.

Shortly before the Persian Gulf War began, I visited my local gym and heard one young man ask another, “Ready to go?” in reference to the conflict.

I was 27 then and thought it was a real possibility knowing our political leaders’ penchant for war.  My father – who had been drafted into the U.S. Army and sent to Korea nearly four decades earlier – was also concerned.  He became especially incensed when the Saudi royal family demanded U.S. military personnel remove the American flag emblems from their uniforms; cursing the clan in both English and Spanish.

Throughout Bill Clinton’s presidency, his right-wing adversaries condemned his lack of military experience; labeling him with that dreaded “draft-dodger” moniker.  From 1968 to 1970, he was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford where he openly protested the Vietnam War.  But a large number of American expatriates did.  When he returned to his native Arkansas, he placed his name back into the draft lottery (to maintain his “political viability”) and drew a high enough number not to be sent into the conflict.

As the 2000 presidential election arose, conservatives were eager to prop up only one man: then-Texas Governor George W. Bush.  The eldest son of the nation’s 41st President, George H.W. Bush, the younger Bush graduated from Harvard in 1968 – and found himself eligible for military conscription.  He immediately managed to secure a position in the Texas Air National Guard (at a time when such spots were sparse and difficult to obtain).  After his initial four year stint was over, he reenlisted and then somehow was able to switch to the Alabama National Guard; in part, he later said, to work on the presidential campaign of George Wallace.  That second hitch should have been completed in 1976.  But no real record exists of Bush completing his service.  And then – as things tend to occur – misfortune arrived and Bush’s military records mysteriously disintegrated in a warehouse fire.

Bush’s Vice President, Dick Cheney, also came under scrutiny for his lack of military service.  During the 2000 campaign, Cheney declared he had “other priorities” during the Vietnam fiasco; receiving a number of draft deferments – mostly educational and one because he was a new father.

The same band of right-wingers who excoriated Clinton for his lack of military service weren’t so quick to demand a full accounting from either Bush or Cheney.  Also, in 2000, then Sen. John McCain sought the GOP nomination.  Coming from a long line of U.S. Navy officers, McCain served in Vietnam and was a pilot shot down over Hanoi in 1968, captured by enemy forces and held hostage for five years.  But the Bush political machine had the audacity to question not only McCain’s military service (which was there for all to see) but also his patriotism.  The same flag and country crowd who had demonized Clinton suddenly had no qualms belittling a real American military hero.

Now we come to Trump.  Donald “bone spurs” Trump.

No one has a desire to do something unpleasant – like pay taxes or wait in line at the grocery store.  And certainly nobody wants to go to war.  War is not just ugly; it’s stupid and pointless.

One Saturday evening in the late 1970s, my parents hosted a few friends over for a casual gathering.  Among them was a longtime male friend who brought along a young woman we hadn’t met before.  She seemed pleasant enough.  At some point, during a discussion, the subject of the Vietnam War came up.  The U.S. had just fled Vietnam in an ignominious defeat a few years earlier.  All of the men in the group had served in the U.S. military.  A few of them, including my father, had been drafted.  The aforementioned young woman mentioned that a young man she had been dating about a decade earlier had failed to heed his conscription notice and – apparently feeling intensely patriotic – reported him to some authority.  She said he got drafted anyway.

I remember the brief quiet that settled over our cavernous den.

“Wow,” my father finally muttered.  “How brave of you.”

And the conversation ended.

Don’t ask someone to do something you’re not at least willing to try – which is one reason why men have no business demanding women get pregnant.

I’m genuinely worried about Preston’s sons, as well as for any other young man who may get swept up into this conflict-laden world.  But I’m concerned for the greater population.  Despite all the patriotic bravado, the 2003 Iraq War really was about gaining access to the region’s oil.

I see the same outcome with Iran.

*Name changed

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October 11, 2025 · 9:04 PM

And the Madness Begins – Again!

Once more, political divisions have caused the U.S. Congress to shut down the government.  Sigh…again?!  Ever wonder if a long-running TV show will ever have its final season?

I’m not a federal worker, but my current role relies on the U.S. government functioning at full capacity.  Or at least at a rational level.  Then again, that may be too much to ask in the current environment.

Gosh, I hate to interrupt someone during their nap!

While literally thousands of people across the nation have found themselves on a reluctant furlough, members of Congress, along with the president and vice-president, are still getting paid.  Of course, they rarely suffer whenever such indignities befall the average peon.  Having lived in a gilded cage most of his life, Donald Trump can’t feel that kind of pain – certainly not with the support of his blind faithful.

The shutdown has entered its first full week, and – as usual – the finger-pointing has been rampant.  I’m almost afraid some of those fools will put their hands in traction!

I don’t care if any of them get hurt, though.  They’re not worth the trouble.  But Congress is as politically divided as the nation.  Trump bears a great deal of responsibility for that chaos.  He made it cool for some people to be hateful and bigoted.  Yes, he’s taking America back – back to a time when only people who looked like him held the bulk of the country’s power and money.

But the nation has been growing divided for decades now.  Technically I believe it started with the Watergate fiasco, but worsened the moment Bill Clinton first announced his run for the presidency.  It only intensified after the turn of the century.

Thousands of federal workers are now not getting paid.  That includes active duty military personnel; even those stationed overseas.  But Trump has done the right thing in that case and ordered that they continue getting paid.  Air traffic controllers also aren’t getting paid, but are being forced to work, as they are considered essential employees.  Many, however, are calling in sick.  They learned their lesson more than four decades ago.  In 1980 the Air Traffic Controllers Union was the only labor group in the U.S. to support Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign.  The following year they went through on their threats to strike – demanding better pay, updated equipment and more controllers.  And then Reagan fired 11,000 of them.  Needless to say that was the last time any work union in the U.S. supported a Republican for the presidency.

Even though things look okay for me now, I’m still concerned.  The government agency my company contracts with has been the target of many public officials, especially Republicans.  Trump, however, has issued another threat.  He’s promised to terminate a number of federal associates and says that, when the government reopens, he’ll make sure they don’t get any back pay – which has always happened in the past.

Personally I think it would be great if every essential employee doesn’t show up for their job.  I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!  That’s not likely, however, but I’d love to see how these sanctimonious Republicans would respond.

In the meantime, average taxpaying, law-abiding citizen will continue to feel the adverse effects of this morass.  It’s a never-ending cycle of incompetence in the highest levels of the political universe.

Image: Gary Larson

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November 8, 2024 · 8:47 PM

Self-Inflicted

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

Sinclair Lewis, 1935

I had a certain sensation deep inside of me; the same kind of feeling when I know something dramatic – either good or bad – is about to happen.  This time it was bad, and I almost felt sick.  Donald Trump has been reelected to the U.S. presidency.  He becomes only the second president in U.S. history to win a second term that didn’t immediately follow the first.  He also has the dubious distinction of being the first indicted criminal to be elected.  Little could be stranger or sadder for the American people.  I suppose, though, that too many people drank that proverbial Kool-Aid offered by the Republican despot; a man who openly admires the likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un; who has advocated violence against others; who has threatened to imprison anyone who disagrees with him; who incited a riot nearly four years ago; and who has demonstrated no true respect for average, working Americans.

I am embarrassed by and disgusted with many of my fellow Americans who helped put Trump into office.  The Democratic Party, however, really has no one but themselves to blame for this chaos.  Their leadership stood by as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2020.  With all due respect to those two gentlemen, their time had come and gone.  The window to run for and win the U.S. presidency is small.  I felt Biden and Sanders would have better served the country by giving speeches and writing books about the value and importance of democracy and how people like Trump pose the worst threat to our constitutional freedoms.

For the Democrats, the 2020 presidential race began with the most diverse slate of candidates – and ended with the same tired old figures that traditionally represented both parties: old White men.  Now understand I’m a mostly White male and have no qualms about it.  But this nation boasts too varied a population to rely upon the same types of people to lead us.

And it’s not that the U.S. isn’t ready for a female president.  We’re way past ready.  It’s just that the Democrats (and the Republicans for that matter) have never chosen the right women to lead them.  I’ve always said Hillary Clinton was too divisive a figure.  While I loved Bill “Who’s Your Daddy” Clinton, I personally never cared for Hillary.  And, although Kamala Harris made history by becoming the first female vice-president in U.S. history, she didn’t do enough to separate herself from Biden.

In 1993 Canada elected its first female prime minister, Kim Campbell, and highly patriarchal and staunchly Roman Catholic México just elected its first female (and Jewish) president, Claudia Scheinbaum.  Thus far, eighteen other women either have been elected or ascended to the highest office in their respective countries in the Western Hemisphere:

Jeanine Áñez, Bolivia, 2019-20

Rosalía Arteaga, Ecuador, 1997

Michelle Bachelet, Chile, 2006-10 and 2014-18

Dina Boluarte, Peru, since 2022

Sylvanie Burton, Dominica, since 2023

Xiomara Castro, Honduras, since 2022

Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua, 1990-97

Eugenia Charles, Dominican Republic, 1980-95

Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica, 2010-14

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina, 2007-15

Lidia Gueiler Tejadam, Bolivia, 1979-80

Mireya Moscoso, Panama, 1999-2004

Mia Mottley, Barbados, since 2018

Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, Haiti, 1990-91 (acting president)

Michèle Pierre-Louis, Haiti, 2008-09

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil, 2014-16

Portia Simpson-Miller, Jamaica, 2006-07 and 2012-16

Claudette Werleigh, Haiti, 1995-96

Trump does not represent me – never has and never will.  He has proclaimed total disrespect for people who aren’t exactly like him.  And I’m certainly not like him.  I’m not a wealthy, full-blooded Caucasian womanizer who cheated on his taxes and has disdain for the American military.  I feel that he’s a genuine threat to free speech and the right to vote, but – like most conservatives – has the full support of gun rights advocates.  This latter band of extremists has always placed the value of firearms above free speech and the right to vote – and certainly above the lives of human beings.

One of my concerns with Trump’s return to the White House is that he will implement the so-called Project 2025 – a federal policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right conservative outfit that is a borderline hate group.  Many officials in Trump’s first administration took part in the project’s creation, which demands a complete overhaul of the government based on staunchly conservative ideology.  That philosophy features opposition to the usual causes: abortion and reproductive freedom and queer rights, but also immigration and racial equity.  Moreover, Project 2025 calls for unwarranted surveillance on specific individuals; using force to quell protestors; and targeting journalists who they deem enemies of the state.  This might sound familiar to those schooled in global political history.  They’re the same kind of tactics the Nazis and the former Soviet Union used on its own civilians.  Argentina pursued the same agenda during its “Dirty War”, and North Korea is doing it now.

I don’t know what’s next for America, but I see nothing good on the horizon.  I’m certain my conservative friends and relatives will assume I’m being paranoid, even hysterical.  Yet I felt similar sensations of foreboding when George W. Bush became president in 2000.  And I was right.  The U.S. ended up both in war and a recession.

I’m almost certain it will happen again.

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January 20, 2023 · 3:23 PM

What He’s Done

SWAT officers take Solomon Peña into custody in Albuquerque, New México. (Photo: Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)

Earlier this week New México police arrested a failed Republican congressional candidate and charged him with hiring some men to shoot up the homes of Democratic opponents. Solomon Peña allegedly was dissatisfied with the results of his race last year and decided to seek revenge in the worst possible way: through violence. Like his idol, former President Donald Trump, Peña is an election denier and claimed fraud in his own run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost to his Democratic opponent by more than 3,600 votes.

In the U.S. many elected officials – mostly Democrat and liberal – have been the targets of political violence over the past 5 or 6 years; which (not surprisingly) coincides with the rise of Trump.  The animosity reached a feverish crescendo on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in a failed attempt to undermine the 2020 presidential election, as well as democracy itself.  I’m still angry at the sight of hundreds storming into the building and even angrier at those who continue to support Trump and dismiss the severity of that day.  Like most Americans, the rampage reminded me of images of developing countries in the throes of political chaos.  While various groups in the U.S. have threatened to inflict such carnage over previous decades, no one really thought it would happen.

We have Donald Trump to thank for that.

Threatening election officials and taking out opponents with bullets is what used to happen in places like Colombia and the Philippines.  Even as recently as 1995, Israel experienced political violence when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated.  The act stunned the international community and roiled the only truly democratic state in the Middle East.

Americans have always had a love-hate relationship with their elected officials, whether or not they actually voted for them, or even voted at all.  But I’ve always believed the Watergate fiasco was a major turning point in our nation’s disillusionment with politicians overall.  That a sitting president would seek to gain an advantage over his adversaries by concocting a burglary scheme shocked most people.  They always sort of knew politicians weren’t necessarily the most moral of individuals, but an actual break-in?

A greater sense of partisanship began to take hold in the ensuing decade and became more pronounced in the 1990s, as Republicans did everything they could – and failed – to undermine Bill Clinton’s agenda.  The scandalous (and genuinely corrupt) 2000 presidential election widened the chasm of discontent.  The GOP’s blatant disrespect for President Barack Obama was even more egregious and appalling – but not really unexpected from conservatives, as far as I was concerned.

Then came Donald Trump, and the haters suddenly had a license to lash out with unabashed vigor.  All the social upheavals of the 1960s were the result of tensions that had been brewing for decades; people had grown tired of just waiting for change and hoping for the best.  In a similar, yet twisted manner, the right-wing extremism that exploded under Trump also had been fomenting in the souls of angry (mostly White male) conservatives for years; that is, since…well, since the 1960s.  Ronald Reagan once said he wanted to return America to the time before the 60s screwed up everything.  As a relic of his past, he naturally didn’t understand we can’t go backwards in time.  That’s science fiction.  But that’s why I call most conservatives preservatives – they want to preserve the old ways of life; ways that were good for them, of course, but not everyone else.

Trump revised that futile dream with his “Make America Great Again” mantra; claiming he wanted to “take America back”.  Back to where, those of us with more than half a brain asked, and how far?  Back to the Civil War?  Back to the Gilded Age?

Peña is just one cog in the wheel of America’s political vitriol.  Think of this for a few moments.  Acting like a drug cartel leader, Peña (who already had a felony criminal record) hired some thugs to fire gun shots into the homes of people he thought had snatched victory from him. At least one of those bullets ended up in a child’s bedroom.  Just as with drug cartels, Peña and his henchmen cared nothing about their intended victims and any collateral damage – i.e., innocent bystanders.  Drug lords only care about their profits; everyone and everything else be damned.  Peña only cared about exacting personal revenge over what he perceived to be a corrupt system.  We’re not supposed to do that in civilized societies.

But that is Trump’s legacy.  That is what he’s done to the overall concept of democracy.

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June 12, 2021 · 8:12 PM

Hypocrisy in Action

I’ve often noted that conservatives can be incredible hypocrites.  For years they said no divorcee would be elected to the presidency.  Then they got Ronald Reagan, the nation’s first divorced Chief Executive, whose wife was the nation’s first divorced First Lady.  They dubbed Bill Clinton a draft dodger and condemned him for protesting against the Vietnam War while he was in college.  Then they elected George W. Bush who earned a comfortable spot in the Texas National Guard in 1968 and failed to complete his tenure.  They also elected Dick Cheney who claimed he had “other priorities” during the 1960s.

Conservative hypocrisy has reared its bigoted head once again – this time in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.  Republican Senators Ted Cruz, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Rick Scott and Tommy Tuberville submitted the correspondence to Garland complaining about what they perceive to be a double standard in punishment by the U.S. Department of Justice against the January 6 Capitol Hill rioters.  In contrast, they declare, many of the various protestors to the George Floyd killing who became violent haven’t met the same degree of discipline.

In part, the letter states:

“DOJ’s (U.S. Department of Justice) apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.  DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.  No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests.  It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.”

Please.  Spare me the anxiety.

The five angry White male senators don’t seem to understand the difference in the two events.  While some of the Floyd protestors devolved into rioting and vandalism, the original intent was to demonstrate against police violence; a recurring dilemma in the U.S.  The intent of the Capitol Hill rioters, however, was to disrupt congressional business and kill someone – most notably Vice-President Mike Pence.

Conservatives have warned about threats to national security posed by Islamic vigilantes and illegal immigrants for as long as I can remember.  But, these weren’t the people who stormed Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, as Pence oversaw certification of the 2020 presidential election.  The rioters were mostly White people – many of them former military and/or law enforcement – from across the country who felt their dear leader, Donald Trump, had been cheated out of a second term by a corrupt electoral system.  I can almost hear Al Gore and Hillary Clinton laughing.

But I don’t recall bands of angry liberals storming Capitol Hill in January 2001, demanding Al Gore be lynched.  I also don’t remember seeing similar renegades bursting into Capitol Hill in January 2017, calling for Joe Biden’s head.  And it’s obvious to most of us with more than half a brain that the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections were fraudulent.  Yet conservatives denounced anyone voicing their disdain to those two events as whiners and sore losers.  We were justified, though, in protesting.  But we never got violent.  No one smashed windows, kicked in doors and hollered for blood to be spilled.  Neither Al Gore nor Hillary Clinton stood before angry supporters, urging for violent retribution against Congress.

It’s ironic, however, that Merrick Garland is in a leadership position.  Five years ago President Obama nominated him to replace Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Republicans – who held a majority in the Senate – refused to grant Garland the decency of a fair hearing.  Yet, they rushed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett last year, following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Again – hypocrisy in action.

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August 28, 2020 · 9:45 PM

So This Is Who We Have?

“I don’t make jokes.  I just watch the government and report the facts.”

– Will Rogers

Both the 2020 Democratic and Republican National Conventions have come to an end, and I couldn’t be happier.  Last week former Vice-President Joe Biden accepted the Democrat’s nomination for president, while Sen. Kamala Harris accepted the vice-presidential role.  And, over the last few days, incumbent President Donald Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence accepted their respective nominations from the GOP.  Aside from watching these political love fests conclude, the only thing that excites me more about this entire process is that the demise of the 2020 presidential race is in sight.  I feel even more disenfranchised than I did four years ago.

Okay, one other thing that truly excites me is the prospect that Donald Trump will be voted out of office in November.  But I have to concede that I’m not too thrilled with the idea of a Biden presidency.  Joe Biden was good as vice-president, but I feel less secure with him in the role of Chief Executive.  I’m certain, though, he’ll be much better than Trump.  Hell, a stray dog would be better than Trump!

In 2016 I voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein.  A physician, Stein had been the Green Party’s candidate four years earlier.  I knew Iceland would see 80-degree temperatures on Christmas Day before Stein would win the U.S. presidency.  But I didn’t like either Trump or the Democratic choice of Hillary Clinton.  Clinton supporters blamed people like me for Clinton’s loss in 2016.  But we didn’t cause Hillary Clinton to lose the 2016 presidential election.  Hillary Clinton caused Hillary Clinton to lose the 2016 presidential election.  Her and the Russians.  As we now know, Russia essentially elected Trump; just like the U.S. Supreme Court elected George W. Bush in 2000.  America’s role as the beacon of democracy seems to have been shredded over the past 20 years.

I just never liked Hillary Clinton.  I loved Bill (Whose Your Daddy?) Clinton, but I never took a liking to Hillary.  By 2016, she had acquired top much baggage; more baggage than a Samsonite warehouse or a Lufthansa flight fresh in from Berlin.

And I definitely didn’t like Trump.  Donald Trump had been running for president for some 30 years by the time he made it official in 2015.  The idea had arisen back in the 1980s, when his name and persona first became public, and much of the nation had grown enamored with the concept of rapid-fire wealth and public prestige.  As AIDS and cocaine rampaged, many in the U.S. found the likes of Trump appealing.  He survived the collapse of the financial industry related to the savings-and-loan crisis and the string of high-profile prosecutions that ensued.  It seemed there was a price to pay for fiduciary recklessness.  No one knew at the time, though, that Trump was actually a womanizing failed businessman and tax cheat.  We know that well enough now.  But he’s president.  And, as another massive health crisis grips the nation and the world, we see how incompetent and ineffective Donald Trump really is.

I’m sure Joe Biden can do better.  But I keep thinking Biden should have called it a political life after his vice-presidency ended in January of 2017.  He should have retired to his estate in Delaware to consult on other political campaigns, give speeches and write books.  He’d served his time in office; he’d done his duty.

For the Democratic Party, the 2020 presidential campaign had started with high promises and an extraordinarily bright future.  The field of candidates was the most diverse that had ever existed among any political party.  But, by March, we’d ended up with two old White guys: Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders.  Kind of like the Republican Party.  And I say this with all due respect to old White men.  I mean, I’m a mostly White man myself – in the golden days of middle age.  And, as I’ve declared before, White men aren’t the nexus of evil in America they’re often portrayed to be.  But I personally had hoped Sen. Elizabeth Warren would be the Democrats’ choice.  I would definitely be more excited with her at the head of the ticket.

As usual, there has been no real mention of either the Green or Libertarian Parties.  They’ve essentially been locked out of the convention hall – again.  And Americans are overwhelmed by the demagoguery of the Democratic and Republican Parties – again.  Indeed, the U.S. is becoming less and less like a democracy and more like an oligarchy.  Does my vote – or the vote of any individual – truly count?  Throughout the year the U.S. has seen covert attempts by the Trump Administration to thwart the right to vote – one of the foundational pillars of any free society.  That’s typical of social and political conservatives.  While the Republican Party of the 19th century pushed for the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it was the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that propelled many conservatives into the arms of the GOP.  Recent efforts to enforce voter identifications, calls for limiting early voting days and ongoing battles to undermine mail-in voting prove that conservatives – the ones who will move Heaven and Earth to protect their sacred gun rights – will do anything possible to circumvent the voting process.

And here we are: stuck with two old men who represent more of America’s past than its future.  I was enthralled with Bill Clinton and I liked Barack Obama.  Yet, I just can’t bring myself to get excited with the current campaign.

My two biggest fears?  If Trump is reelected, the nation will descend further into social chaos and economic madness.  If Biden is elected, he may die in office, which will send the nation into equally unending chaos.

I know I will vote nonetheless.  People have fought and died for this right – even within the past 100 years.  There are literally millions of people across the globe who would relish the chance to choose between the lesser of two or three evils.  The people of Belarus certainly wish they had that opportunity now.  Amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic and a rash of voter suppression tactics, I will stand in line to select a candidate for the U.S. presidency.  It’s my right and my obligation.  Besides, I have nothing else to do two days before my 57th birthday.

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March 27, 2020 · 11:18 PM

Gang of Imbeciles

Woodall Rodgers Freeway, heading into downtown Dallas, sat nearly empty at 7:26 am on Tuesday, March 24, 2020 – the first morning after Dallas County’s “shelter in place”. This stretch of highway is normally packed with vehicles during morning rush hour. Photo by Lynda M. Gonzalez, Dallas Morning News).

“Greatness in the last analysis is largely bravery – courage in escaping from old ideas and old standards and respectable ways of doing things.”

– James Robinson

Crises can make or break a leader.  The 1979-81 Iran Hostage fiasco decimated Jimmy Carter’s final year in office and assuredly caused him to lose his 1980 reelection bid.  The 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing helped secure Bill Clinton’s image as a stalwart president.  The Hurricane Katrina debacle, on the other hand, proved George W. Bush was incompetent and ineffective as Commander-in-Chief.

The current COVID-19 scourge is Donald Trump’s national crisis.  It could be the savior of his presidency; the one element that ensures his place in the pantheon of great world leaders.  Or it could be his death knell; the catastrophic event which will equate him with failure, except his most devoted followers.  As things appear now, it’s turning into the latter.

Yesterday, March 26, Trump signed a roughly USD 2.2 trillion stimulus package unanimously passed by the U.S. Congress.  Because the COVID-19 mess has created a new set of “social distancing” protocols aimed at subverting the virus’ spread, a large number of Americans have suddenly found themselves jobless.  Restaurants, nightclubs, gyms, and tattoo parlors have been forced to shut down.  History will determine if that achieved its intended goals.  But, as of March 26, the number of jobless claims set a record at 3.3 million.  Who would’ve thought an invisible microbe could wreak such havoc?

Amidst this cataclysm, our dear leader, Donald Trump, has openly considered easing restrictions to the practices of social distancing.  Earlier this week, he suggested the U.S. could return to normal by Easter.  “I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” he said.  That’s akin to the captain of the Titanic shouting, “Pool party!”

It’s almost painful to watch Trump and his band of clueless minions pretend this crisis will obey a presidential command.  Many conservatives tried to explain George W. Bush’s pathetic handling of the Hurricane Katrina fiasco by claiming his adversaries wanted him to stop the storm from terrorizing the Gulf Coast.  I heard a few actually say that aloud!  And I had the pleasure of telling them, ‘No.  The issue was RESPONDING to the hurricane!’  Bush and the Republican Party were quick to declare war on Iraq in 2003.  But, when a REAL threat emerges, they failed miserably.

If anything, the start of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. some forty years ago proved how dangerous social conservatism can be to a health crisis.  Admittedly, thousands of people didn’t come down with HIV in a matter of days, as with the COVID-19 virus.  But the reality is that national policy should never be based on individual predilections or religious ideology.  Every time people make health-based decisions on their own personal religious beliefs, people die.  Every single time!

But the AIDS epidemic showed that a slow federal response to a health concern can be lethal.  I’m watching the COVID-19 pandemic unfold here in the U.S. in stark realism.  As of March 27, the U.S. has achieved the dubious distinction of the most number of COVID-19 cases in the world.  Meaning we’ve now surpassed China and Italy.  Trump always declared America is #1 – and what do you know?!  The old bastard has finally been proven right!

I really don’t want to see Donald Trump fail in this entire imbroglio.  It’s not good to wish your national leader stumble and falter as a national crisis of any kind grips the nation.  But, thus far, Trump has shown no real leadership, with the exception of the aforementioned stimulus package.

It doesn’t need to be this way for him – or for anyone.  This could be his golden moment to prove he’s an authentic leader, not the failed businessman / tax cheat others claim he really is.  Every country’s leader is forced to confront a national emergency of some kind or another.  It just comes with the territory.  The U.S. presidency, in this case, is not school a crossing guard-type of position.  It requires more fortitude and clarity than most jobs, when in fact, the presidency is not a standard job.  It’s more of a calling – kind of like human rights work, or teaching.

As I view it in this moment of national surrealism, Donald Trump is not listening to the tragic sounds of that call.

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February 7, 2020 · 11:20 PM

Tweet of the Week – February 7, 2020

“Suddenly, in the span of ten minutes on Sunday, they became concerned about the welfare of women and girls.  I wonder if they were thinking of women and girls three years ago when they voted for the guy who said, ‘I did try and fuck her.  She was married.  I moved on her very heavily.  I moved on her like a bitch.’”

– John Pavlovitz, author and Christian pastor, regarding conservative uproar over the Superbowl half-time show by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira.

The right-wing hypocrisy over the performance is glaring.  Many of the people who condemned former President Bill Clinton for his sexual indiscretions have amazingly ignored the even more egregious actions of Donald Trump.  I follow Pavlovitz’s site, “Stuff That Needs to Be Said,” which has a definite liberal take on modern American life.

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December 20, 2019 · 11:34 PM

Trauma Nation

“Never let yourself be persuaded that any one great man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America.  When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.”

– Dwight D. Eisenhower

From a political standpoint, this has not been a good week for the United States.  On Wednesday, the 18th, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump.  Trump now holds the dubious distinction of being only the third Chief Executive to be recommended for removal from office.  As much as I personally despise our Russian-elected president, I’d rather see him voted out of office next November than be forcibly removed.  It would be the single strongest message to Trump and his band of right-wing sycophants that their extremist ideology is of no use to the American populace.

But the impeachment process hints at a failure in our national leadership and puts the institution of voting into question.  As the oldest continually-functioning democracy in the world, the U.S. has always been a beacon of freedom; our constitution an enviable guide to how a nation should operate.  Our right to vote is a core element of our very national existence.  It’s the heart of our democratic soul.  The president of the United States is often deemed the leader of the Free World.  That other elected officials would seek to oust him from that pinnacle slashes at our democratic heart.

I’m old enough to remember Watergate.  Even people who considered themselves staunch conservatives had to concede that President Richard Nixon was as crooked and devious as his detractors made him out to be.  On the night Nixon announced his resignation, millions of Americans tuned into the live broadcast.  Afterwards there was no sense of real jubilation.  As the nation inched closer to its bicentennial, most people – including my parents – felt sad.  When Nixon left the White House, the transition of the office occurred at the tip of a pen, instead of the barrel of a gun.  After all, we didn’t live in a third-world society.  No tanks, no bombs and no bloodshed.  Still, Americans asked, how did we get to this point?

I definitely recall the Clinton impeachment fiasco.  My brain and body became flush with anger at the self-righteousness of the Republicans Party.  They had done everything to undermine Bill Clinton’s presidency – even before he won the Democratic Party’s formal nomination.  And they failed.  Their bloodthirsty overreach extended shamelessly to the president’s secretary and the mother of the woman who kept that infamous blue dress.  They paid the price for their arrogance in the November 1998 midterm elections.  They lost their super-majority in both houses of Congress.  Conversely, the Democrats gained seats; the first time the same party as the president attained positions in the House and the Senate in a midterm election since 1942.

And now, here we are – for the second time some twenty years – at the threshold of usurping the leader of the Free World.  How did we get to this point?  As I wrote in an essay two years ago, impeachment should not be taken lightly.  Neither politicians nor average citizens should become obsessed with it.  A sanguineous mindset traumatizes the national soul.

With the term “impeached” now added to the title of President, Donald Trump’s place in political history has been secured – unpleasantly and distastefully carved into the American psyche.  He cannot escape it.  Deny it, yes, as his narcissistic persona is already doing.  But – like the sky – it’s ubiquitous and unmalleable.

How painful for this nation.

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