Waves of a Fever

"Things come and go in the news cycle like waves of fever." – Adam Curtis

....though during the last two and a half years, our fever has not broken once.


One of my missions in this blog is to simply chronicle the goings-on in our nation, and I struggle to keep up. So here is a feverish news digest of a bunch of big stuff and some little stuff that would be big stuff if there weren't so much other big stuff.


This week in America's Drumpfster fire.


Our border crisis hit us all extremely hard when we viewed a photo of the death of a 25-year-old Óscar Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter Angie Valeria. They drowned, clinging to each other, in the Rio Grande, desperately trying to cross to seek asylum after they were turned away at a point of entry. Here is their story. My son is just a little older than Óscar, and his daughter is the same age as Angie Valeria. This image pierced my heart, as it did all of us. We all want to turn away from the image, but we mustn't.

Reports emerged of horrific conditions at the border facilities holding children. Hundreds of children are still separated from their families, held in cages in border detention facilities and are held without soap or toothbrushes, unbathed, sleeping on the concrete floor, and inadequately fed. Slightly older children as young as 7 and 8 years old are caring for the toddlers who don't have diapers. The babies are forced to soil their pants. There are not words adequate to describe the shame that Americans feel over this happening in our country. "Crisis" is inadequate to describe the situation.


The President* of the United States of America was accused of his 22nd rape. This time, it is a New Yorker writer and advice columnist who outlined her attack in an upcoming book. Her allegation is specific, credible, and corroborated, but the media yawned. SCROTUS's reaction? The repulsive "She isn't my type." Classic reptilian abuser language. One question, Mr. Baby Hands. Tell us about the type that you do rape. We must be outraged!  Don't let your outrage wane!


King Minus again called into his favorite friendly "news" outlet, FAUX News Business, to rant incoherently for 45 minutes. He ranted like a buffoon about everything and nothing. Mostly nothing, because although the host, Maria Bartiromo, pretended to understand what he was talking about, it was typical nonsense, in the true sense of the word. If you can't stomach the whole incoherent 45 minutes, there's video in this piece from Esquire.


Robert Mueller will speak to Congress in an open session on July 17. Mark your calendars and set your dial. Here is a chance to educate the 97% of Americans who have not yet read the full Mueller report, despite the report quickly reaching the top of best seller lists. People pay attention to the spoken word. I don't care if Mueller doesn't answer a single question about the report if he will just read his report out loud.


The Supreme Court has been busy with a flurry of end-of-session decisions. They handed a win to gerrymanderers. They struck down the census citizenship question that the Repugs wanted. And they also refused to hear a case that would restore an Alabama abortion ban.


TЯUMP is at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. Deplorable behaviors are front and center, as usual. Particularly his and wink and nod to his Cutie Putie, joking and smiling, saying oh-by-the-way (wink, wink), "Don't meddle in the election." Watch the body language below. This is just grotesque.




I offer as contrast:

Pete Souza

We are on the brink of war with Iran. Like those arsonist firefighters who disable the smoke detectors and remove the extinguishers before throwing the match and coming back to save the day, the Demander-in-Chief has once again dug us into another crisis of his own making. In his quest to undo every action of Barack Obama, he had withdrawn from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement, leaving Iran angry and open to start aggressions, and now he wants to make a new deal. His G20 colleagues aren't having it. It's quite a pickle.


Systematic, repugnant misogynist racism reared its ugly head again in our favorite backwoods state, Alabama. A five-months-pregnant woman had an altercation with another woman. The pregnant woman, Marshae Jones, was shot. Her unborn baby was killed. Jones, the mother-to-be, was arrested and indicted on manslaughter charges in the death of her fetus, while her assaulter walked free. Tell me how this is America.


National treasure Jimmy Carter said he believes the 45th president is illegitimate. He's just saying out loud what most of us – including 45 himself – believe to be true.


The employees at Wayfair stood up for what is right and walked off the job. Our fellow sister and brother resisters protested their company's sales of furniture to the detention centers at the border. Americans on the right side of history! Let's hear it for them! Wayfair's response was tepid, sending $100,000 to the Red Cross, an organization that has nothing to do with assisting at the border. I think it's time to boycott to add pressure. (As an aside: I have had detention center profiteers as a draft post since the beginning of the year. I'll soon explore this topic further.)


We commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots yesterday. Happy Pride! We've come a long way in our civil rights fight for LGBT folks; we still have a ways to go.


And lastly, a bit of a positive:

The cavalry is coming. This week we had our first debates of the 2020 election cycle. Twenty Democrats faced off over two nights. I watched both and my first impression was "Yay!" There was a lot of progressive talk; all of the candidates had good ideas (except for that Marianne Williamson person. What is she all about?), and they all align with my thinking. We have a deep field of good people to choose from!

My winners from Night 1: Liz Warren and Julian Castro. Cory Booker looks good too. I like him.

My winners from Night 2: Kamala and Mayor Pete. What smart people! Uncle Joe looked tired, washed out, and unprepared. He sounded like just another old white male politician with nothing new to add, spouting the same old talking points. And Kamala was en fuego putting him on the defensive about his civil rights record. He was backing from the flames the whole time, and I would not be surprised if his end-of-three-minutes blank look saying, "My time is up" is turned into a meme, gif, or attack-ad soundbite. Like Rep. Swalwell (CA-15th) said, it's time to pass the torch. I am ready to put him on the back burner and throw my support to some of the others.

Liz and Kamala are by far my favorites of this talented cast!


Here is Stephen Colbert and his summaries of the debates. He does it better than I ever could.





and here is the amazing Kate McKinnon and her impression of Marianne Williamson.





Whew! That's a lot of outrage in one week! Let us channel the outrage into action. Find a candidate to support and SUPPORT her, with all you have. As the field changes, change your alliance, embrace another progressive, move this country back to its ideals. And while the campaigns roll on, contact your members of Congress TODAY. Express your outrage on these issues. Resistbot makes it easy. They'll fax a letter directly to your member of Congress, directly from your text or Messenger. Even if your representatives are progressive, write to them and express your outrage. Our leaders must hear that we will not stand for it!

Act with your dollars. Help at the border by donating to RAICES, the National Immigration Law Center, the National Bail Fund Network, or another charity working to help these unfortunate people.

Whatever you do, so SOMETHING! Get out your fire hoses.... It's up to us, Resisters!

Mike Luckovich

We are the change that we seek.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." – Barack Obama

Let's talk about racism and white privilege.

If there is one positive to our current set of circumstances in our country, it may be that people are talking more about insidious racism and white privilege. "White privilege" was not a phrase in my sphere before the last two years. Not that it hadn't been a part of my life, but the concept was not on my radar because, well, because I have white privilege.

What is white privilege? Simply, it's the ease with which white people move through the world and attain power. That's a simple description of a complex issue. Read What is White Privilege, Really? or this piece by Frances E. Kendall, PhD, for more insight.  Or, here is a simple video demonstration in the form of a race for $100, where some people get a head start.

I've written plenty in these posts about the increased expressions of overt racism and hate, but I've been understanding more about the subtle threads of racism and white privilege that run through all of us, and my eyes are opening.

This post will be woefully inadequate, and will probably illustrate how much I have yet to learn, but I am trying. I am genuinely trying to understand more so that I can be a part of the turn of the tides that we so desperately need. Bear with me while I take you on some of my journey.

A week ago, I attended a community event with my sister resister Patti called "Coffee with a Black Guy." It is what it sounds like. It was a group of more than 100 people, mostly white, some black, some Latinx, a few Asian, enjoying pastries and coffee, having a conversation with a black guy. It was an even mix of men and women, with ages ranging from college age to aging hippies. We were all there in an earnest desire to learn more and have some difficult discussions about race.

The conversation facilitator, James Joyce III, has led occasional meetings to just have a conversation. Questions were posed, experiences were shared, desires for action were expressed. It was inspiring and motivating. Mr. Joyce noted that for growth to occur, there must always be friction, just like a seedling must use great friction to break through the seed wall and make its way up through the rough soil. Friction and discomfort. Indeed, I have been feeling some as I think about myself and these issues.

One thing that Mr. Joyce said that struck me was that that not acknowledging white privilege is "willful ignorance." I was taken aback by that phrase, as I understand "willful ignorance" to mean stupidity and an unwillingness to learn, which is not me at all. In fact I've taken pride in my ability to be introspective and willing to do the hard work of growth in many areas of my life.

But for me, yes, it is absolutely ignorance, but willful ignorance, maybe not. I grew up in a white, upper middle class town, from the beginning, I was immersed in white privilege. I didn't know it was white privilege, but I did know that the town I grew up in was an anomaly of the area. The surrounding areas are financially depressed, Hispanic and Native American rural communities. I always had the sense that the rest of the state hated us on "the hill." I always felt hesitant to acknowledge to new friends in other parts of the state that I lived in my town. I was embarrassed. Today, in thinking about it, it hit me that this was my first inkling that the reason was white privilege. I was in a bubble. I never felt that there was outright racism there. But there was privilege. Lots of it.

After high school, I moved to another wealthy lily-white town. Another comfortable, privileged bubble. I didn't see outright racism. My friends and I didn't hate others of a different skin color or culture. I was liberal; in word and deed. I believed in equality through and through. But then, I didn't have a lot of friends of different colors. Some, not a lot.

My bristle at "willful ignorance" is perhaps part of my discomfort with the friction – my cognitive dissonance about my belief that I was truly not racist vs. the part of me that has subtly embraced my white privilege. I "knew" racism was out there, but it always seemed somewhere else and, thanks to the Civil Rights Act (thinking I), was on its way out. Like the white people that Scott Woods describes below, I never had to notice racism or truly care about it, having only lived surrounded by people who look like me. White privilege.

Racism is much more insidious. From Scott Woods:

The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people’s expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn’t care if you are a white person who likes black people; it’s still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don’t look like you. Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another. And so on. So while I agree with people who say no one is born racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe. It’s not a cold that you can get over. There is no anti-racist certification class. It’s a set of socioeconomic traps and cultural values that are fired up every time we interact with the world. It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it. I know it’s hard work, but it’s the price you pay for owning everything. 

More anecdotes of my personal ignorance and my developing understanding in the last couple of years:

The deep racism within the criminal justice system has shocked me.

I was truly awakened this year to blatant racism in the criminal justice system in this country when I heard the podcast In the Dark, Season Two, which followed the Curtis Flowers case. Curtis Flowers is a black man in Mississippi who was charged with the murder of four people at a furniture store that he had recently been fired from. The District Attorney has tried this man six times. Six times! Flowers has been on death row for 22 years. Just yesterday, as I was writing this piece, I learned that the United States Supreme Court overturned his last conviction based on the fact that the jury was systemically skewed to be white. The D.A. had rejected black jurors based on race, and the podcast laid out the facts quite elegantly. The way the D.A. handled juries was shocking and maddening, but I was shocked and angry about the whole system – top to bottom – that put Flowers in jail and on trial. It was institutionalized racism that worked to finger him as a suspect, intimidate and coerce black witnesses, as well as systematically reject black jurors, resulting in six trials ending with hung juries or convictions overturned on appeal. My shock was a manifestation of my white privilege. I've never been exposed to such racism. I haven't had to think about wrongful convictions or witness intimidation or all-white juries.

Season Three of Serial, also deepened my understanding of institutionalized racism. This podcast examines the criminal justice system in Cleveland, which is just one city of many U.S. cities. The stories were just outrageous and sickening. Yet the stories outlined just a few people in just one American city. Racism is absolutely rampant in our criminal justice system which I was "kinda sorta" aware of, but not truly concerned with, thanks to my white privilege. I was comfortably ignorant of it.

Another eye-opening piece is the Netflix documentary 13th which looks at the 13th Amendment and its codified re-definition of slavery in America. It's sobering and outrageous. When you are finished with it, watch the Netflix docudrama When They See Us, about the Central Park Five.

Watch and listen to these pieces. Absorb them, learn from them, get uncomfortable, get angry, and act.

I've had a couple of times when my own white privilege and ignorance confronted me in my face.

A Facebook friend who also happens to be a speech pathologist and a lover of language, posted a question about code-switching and a use of language. She pointedly posed the question to her friends of color, but I commented to the language use aspect. I was chastised, rightfully so, for asserting my white privilege in answering a question that was not directed to me. I was abashed and took it as a learning moment. Sometimes a white person needs to be quiet.

But sometimes a white person needs to stand up and say something.

Last year I visited Maui, and I had the chance to speak up but failed. Mostly because I didn't realize until after the encounter that it had been a racist rant. My daughter and I were on the road to Hana, admiring a waterfall near one of the notoriously narrow bridges on hairpin turns, when there was a traffic jam. The driver of a tour van stuck at another curve just up the road was honking frustratingly and ranting. Finally cars inched this way and that and people murmured about the frustrated van driver. When he approached the place where we were standing with several other people, he rolled down his window and *went off* on a guy just next to us, the only black person in the group viewing the waterfall. He never used the N-word, but he was foaming at the mouth and turning red, screaming for a while at the guy that he had better "move his fucking car - you're fucking parked illegally!" It was confusing to me because that man had been there before us, and how the heck could the van driver know who was the owner of the car supposedly blocking the road? Well, it was neither, as I found out. We walked out behind the man and his companion, and I realized that his car was not blocking the road. In fact, there was no car blocking the road! The black man's car was parked alongside the road, just like all the others who had stopped to enjoy the view. I realized then that the Australian driver had no basis; he simply singled out the one black person there. I felt ashamed that I hadn't spoken up. The black man himself had been calm and just said, "Keep driving, man." I wish I had recognized it and said something. Now, I am more aware and I will speak up next time.

White people, we have a responsibility to be advocates! We need to be allies.

I'm ashamed and uncomfortable admitting that it has taken fully 55 years of time on this planet to really start looking deeply and understanding more about the dangerous subtleties of racism. Am I as a white person entitled to feelings of discomfort and shame? I'm not the one who has suffered through my life. Is this "discomfort" racist in itself? Perhaps. This excellent essay from The New Yorker illustrates that I am not alone in my fretting. Many progressive white people express a "white fragility" when they are asked to face their own racism. In the end, though, emotions are neither right nor wrong. They just are. The after-effect of the emotion is what counts. Don't let your emotions keep you stuck; let them spur you toward action.

So let's act.

I've pointed here before to resources to use to combat hate, like this guide from the Southern Poverty Law Center. This is still important work, but I'm asking you to join me in digging deeper at the non-hateful threads of racism that are within each of us.


What I'm doing: reading, watching, learning, being outraged, donating, and committing to be an ally. What you can do: get uncomfortable, and also get outraged. Confront your ignorance, willful or otherwise, and acknowledge your white privilege. Recognize that "the civil rights era" wasn't 50 years ago. It's now. Join me in committing to be an ally. Have difficult conversations, be willing to stand up for things you didn't think you needed to. Just be the first.

Read this guide to find ways to combat your own racism. Talk to people of color, listen to them, challenge other white people, be willing to fix your mistakes.

When I get angry at the injustice, I donate to charities that work to help bring equality and justice, such as:

American Civil Liberties Union
Southern Poverty Law Center
Innocence Project
Fair Immigration Reform Movement
Black Lives Matter
NAACP
National Black Women's Justice Institute

(As always, please research any charity before donating money!)


And finally, because we have to laugh to keep from crying, here are Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock to give you more:









"You must be bold, brave, and courageous and find a way... to get in the way." – John Lewis

Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.

"Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions." – Blaise Pascal







Let's think about the people that make up most of SCROTUS's base: the evangelical right. I have recently had my eyes opened to the realities of the Christian Right in other parts of the country, and how this group is inexorably intertwined with the Political Right.

It is becoming obvious that both groups have a warped view of authority, specifically male authority, more specifically white male authority, and both groups are susceptible to the tactics of abusers. And scarier than that, they embrace this view and promote it as being a good thing. Both groups subscribe to Terror Management Theory, the psychological mechanism that stems from the anxiety and fear of death that drives people to gravitate toward others who share their worldviews and cultural groups, which includes insulating themselves with others who share the same prejudices.


These images have been popping up. These are real, not satire.

A good portion of the religious right also have this warped sense of a woman's "duty" to be servile to her husband. Here is another unapologetic Facebook post, not ironic and not satire. If you check out the page, you'll see she believes this horseshit.

I know that lots of Christian and right-leaning women believe this, and even educated women – I know a few – have preached this lifestyle.



This attitude in the above is alarming. It's allowing abuse. It's rapey. Someone has brainwashed her, and that is scary, for her and for the 91K who "like" the Transformed Wife page.

Take all of that, add it to the war on women, specifically with regard to the forced-pregnancy movement, and we have an alarming, abusive trend in our country.

A lightbulb went off that the ultra-conservative and ultra-Christian are so intertwined because of their basic victim mentality. They are OK with being emotionally abused, and so they further these attitudes along.

Indeed, the larger relationship with Jesus is of this abusive type. An abusive partner, like preachers who talk about Jesus, will tell you that you are nothing without him; you aren't worthy of his love; you need him to be whole; you need him to be happy; only he can save you; you must not leave him; you must think like him; threatens that your life will be much worse without him; uses guilt to manipulate; uses fear to manipulate.

And we have the Abuser-in-Chief. Like a domestic emotional abuser, he lies; he gaslights; he name-calls; he uses character assassination; he mocks you in public and then says "it was just a joke;" he insults your appearance; he belittles your accomplishments; he asserts that he has a right to your body without your consent; he threatens violence.

I submit that the people that are most devoted to SCROTUS are ripe for the abuse. They accept the abuse, and they perhaps feel that they deserve the abuse. It is part of their fabric.

I'm not sure what we can do to combat this set of attitudes, other than to be aware of it, ask questions of those who seem enthralled by SCROTUS and challenge them to think, and continue to be compassionate. And in 2020, we must work to stop the abuse and take back our country into the compassionate, caring, loving arms of the rest of us.

Keep up the resistance.


If you feel that you are being abused and need help to escape your situation, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233

A question of religion

"As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population." -- Sam Harris


I'm openly atheist. Which means I reject all religion. Greek multi-theism is wrong because there are no gods. Christianity is wrong because there is no god. Islam is wrong because there is no god. Judaism is wrong because there is no god. Hinduism is wrong because there is no god. Native American theologies are wrong because there are no gods. Woo-woo new-age is wrong because it is not based on science and reason.

Religion is a hindrance to finding the truth, and extremists of any religion are dangerous. This has been true throughout the millennia.

Recently, there came to be a question of, should there be a difference in the way we talk about different religions. Specifically, Islam?

There are some who are sensitive to the plight of many Muslims in America who have been subject to hate and fear ("Islamaphobia"). It has been asserted that making Muslim jokes or critiques is off limits within our atheist community because it's "likening all Muslims into terrorists." The sensitivity about this extends to the fact that "it is a brown person's religion" and also therefore off-limits. There was an inference that we should only mock "our own religion." Hogwash. I have no religion. They are all targets.

A discussion arose from this meme that appeared after the Alabama forced-pregnancy law was passed.

I really like this image, but it was offensive to someone. So, I began to think deeply about this sensitive topic. It's what an atheist does! And I have a lot to say about it.

Firstly, all religions are wrong; there are no gods. All religions are dangerous because from them arise extremists. I am an equal-opportunity religion basher. The “Y’all queda” sentiment compares fundamentalist Christianity with fundamentalist Islam. Both sets of extremists have let their brethren within the religion down because they have perverted the religion to dangerous views. There is no doubt that extremist Islam -- in the form of Al-Queda and other groups -- has done harm to the world, just as the extremist Christians are doing in Alabama.

Plus it's a really clever pun!

In the United States, extremist Christians are doing damage. That's obvious. And this deserves attention and action. Extremist Christians have been harming the world for a long time, and we need to combat it. Atheists can be at the forefront of the fight.

Fundamentalist Islam has also done harm to the world. Women in Islamic communities are unequal. Extremist muslim violence is rampant. War among factions has been around also for millennia.

Even though in my view all religions are equally wrong, I will defend anyone’s right to practice whatever religion they want to until it harms others. And I'm the first to point out the good-uns who are doing right in the name of their religion, or in spite of it.

Harming a person based solely on her religion is wrong. Harming a whole group solely based on a shared belief is wrong. Unfortunately, some in the United States act out against Muslim people. This is wrong. We need to combat that.

But I will continue to reject the very premise of religion and the danger that arises therefrom.  We aren’t to persecute people based on religion, we are to reject all religion.


I have issue with the idea that criticizing Islam should be off the table because it is a brown person's religion. It's a ridiculous point to even have to address, but as a rebuttal, 40% of the world's Catholics live in South America, and Africa has the fastest-growing Catholic population. Catholics are arguably the worst of the Christians in terms of harm to the world through the ages. And today, it is a brown-person's religion.

Atheists don’t persecute any groups. We’re left leaning, inclusive, and compassionate in general. But we’re also people of reason (we need a new word, like reasonist). If religion is wrong because it doesn’t help lead us to the truth, then it’s wrong. If it harms people, then it is super wrong. If it goes against human rights, then it is really hugely ultra wrong. Which is why extremist Christianity and extremist Islam are both wrong and dangerous. One isn’t more wrong simply because the skin color of a majority of followers is a certain shade.

But yes, Muslims as a group, like Jewish people, are more vulnerable to hate in today's America based on their religion because of hate and fear. And as a left-leaning, compassionate, human-rights-lover, I’m sensitive to that. However, it doesn’t make that religion any more right than any other (just as it doesn’t make it any more wrong).


We can’t erase the fact that Al-Queda arose from religious extremism and went on to harm people just as those woman-controlling idiots in Alabama and other places are using religion to harm people. Both are terrorists.

Lastly, I feel I have to address one comment from a person sensitive to Islamaphobia. She intimated that it's only fair to criticize when the religion has failed its people, or complain when a religious body has build "gold tipped domed buildings."  It really seemed contradictory. Extremist Islam did fail its people and continues to do so. Al-Queda is the worst of Islam and should be condemned and mocked! It is not vilifying a whole group to vilify the worst of a group. And I will continue to speak, at the risk of offending someone.

And I wonder, does this gold-capped building qualify?

Done of the Rock, one of the oldest existing works of Islamic architecture.

Stay tuned...... more about religion and politics in the next episode! Oh yay!

#Resist

“A man is known by the company he keeps” -– Aesop

Or, in language the true Trumpers may understand:

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. Proverbs 13:20

Let's face facts. The only people that TЯUMP has consistently praised have been dictators.

I touched on it in a previous blog post about his love affair with Putie his sweet patootie, but he has heaped praised on dictators around the world.

The Mango Mussolini's April, 2017 conversation with Phillipines strongman Rodrigo Duterte was described as:

"It was a very friendly conversation, in which the two leaders discussed the concerns of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regarding regional security, including the threat posed by North Korea. They also discussed the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world. President Trump enjoyed the conversation and said that he is looking forward to visiting the Philippines in November to participate in the East Asia Summit and the U.S.-ASEAN Summit. President Trump also invited President Duterte to the White House to discuss the importance of the United States-Philippines alliance, which is now heading in a very positive direction."

He also congratulated Duterte on the way he has handled the drug problem and told him he is "a good man." Read the official transcript of his 2017 phone conversation here.

The truth about Duterte: He has called for vigilante justice and the killing of addicts and drug dealers, with 7000 killed in his first year in power; he has bragged about killing someone when he was young; he has made jokes about rape and sexual abuse; he has justified the killing of journalists saying, "Just because you're a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you're a son of a bitch"; last week he said he once was gay but "cured himself."

Hair Hitler has repeatedly praised China's president Xi Jinping, calling him "a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well." He called him the "king" of China, much to Xi's pleasure. He has said he has a "very strong and personal relationship" with Xi.

The truth about Xi: indeed, he paved the way to remove term limits and now is president indefinitely, opening a path to a severe dictatorship. Human rights in China are worse now than before Tiananmen. Censorship and oppression against dissent are rampant in China.

Adolf Twitler has praised brutal dictator Kim Jong Un, going so far as to say they fell in love. He sided with this satan when Kim called former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden "a low-IQ individual."

Phil Hands

The truth about his lover: Kim reportedly brutally executed several of his inner circle after the failed summit with Donald Dump earlier this year. He executed his own brother and uncles and many, many government officials. North Korea is one of the most devastated places on earth in all of the history of the world. The brutal dictator that rules by firing squad is one that no one should love. Ever.

According to Human Rights Watch:

Under the rule of Kim Jong-Un, North Korea remains among the world’s most repressive countries. The government sharply curtails all basic liberties, including freedom of expression, religion and conscience, assembly, and association. It prohibits political opposition, independent media, civil society, or trade unions. A 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry found that the government committed gross, systematic and widespread rights abuses, including extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions, and other sexual violence. North Korea operates secretive prison camps where perceived opponents of the government are sent to face torture, starvation rations, and forced labor. Fear of collective punishment is used to silence dissent.

Trumplethinskin has praised many other dictators, including Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman, and was even trolled into retweeting a Mussolini quote that was purposely attributed to The Talking Yam. He even praised Saddam Hussein, saying, “He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. It was over.”

Not only does he praise these savage dictators, he believes their lies and takes their sides over the U.S. government. TЯUMP has said multiple times that he believes Putin when Putin asserts that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. election. He said he believes Kim Jong Un when he said that "he didn't know" what happened to U.S. citizen Otto Warmbier, who fell into a coma after being captured in North Korea and died shortly after his medical evacuation to the United States. SCROTUS said he believed Saudi Arabia's crown prince when he said he did not order the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.


But what is concerning for me, more than the reprehensible relationship that he has with these dictators, is not that he simply praises these odious men, it's not even that he takes their word it. It's that he aspires to be like them. And it's what that portends for January 20, 2021. What if citizen Donald Drumpf decides he is not going to leave the White House when he loses the 2020 election?

Nancy Pelosi has concerns that the Democratic nominee will need to win by a huge margin for Lil Donnie Moscow to acknowledge the results. But I'm not so sure that even then he will willingly leave.

The Lyin' King does not subscribe to the law of the land. It has already been shown that he is a criminal, and it's not going to stop.

He has inoculated his base with his continuous rants about a "rigged system" and he lies about fraudulent voting. Before the 2016 election, in a debate with Hillary, he was asked if he would concede if he lost. He pointedly responded, "I will look at it at the time." He claimed then that it was a "rigged election" – which it was, but not in the way he intimated – and implied that he would accept the results only if he won.

Recently, he said that he wanted an extra two years tacked on to his tenure because two years of his presidency* were "stollen" (He's not entirely wrong... for two years, the lives of 327 million Americans have been been positively fruitcake). And he has also recently "joked" that he should be President for more than two terms. We all know that this man doesn't joke. He is deadly serious.

He admires Chinese President Xi Jinping for getting rid of term limits, thereby being "president for life," saying at a donor event at Mar-a-Lago: "He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."


So what will happen on Inauguration Day, 2020? In addition to a defeat at the "rigged" polls, he will have indictments waiting for him. Can you imagine the desperation he will be feeling?

I envision the the FBI coming to arrest him and forcibly removing him. Will we have SWAT teams surrounding the White House? At least Nixon had the respect for the nation enough to resign and leave. Benedict Donald has no allegiance or respect to anybody except himself. The scene on January 20, 2020 is a scary thought.  What will that mean for our country?

It's scary, too, because we know more and more that his base, and even regular run-of-the-mill conservative Americans, believe his lies and don't read and research for themselves, evidenced most recently by their honest surprise at Robert Mueller's statement that he found wrongdoing by their Supreme Leader.

And yet, I still have hope. It was evident from the Mueller report that his minions don't always follow orders to do his bidding. The majority of Americans have good sense and patriotism and know that the Constitution is sacred, our system is good, and it works. We must follow the rule of law.

But still, our work is cut out for us. We were complacent in 2016, assuming that he could never win. We must assume that he can – and will – win in 2020. We must work hard for voter registration, voter access to the polls, and we must work hard to get Democrats elected to both houses of Congress and to the White House. Every one of us has a responsibility to do what we can, by speaking out, by campaigning, by volunteering, or by donating, to get out the Democratic vote in 2020. We have 17 months. Let's get going. It's up to us, Sister and Brother Resisters, to save our Republic.

Let me end with another quote from Scripture, a prayer for SCROTUS. Please open your prayerbooks to Psalms.

Let his days be few, and let another take his office.  Psalm 109:8

#Resist