Our would-be “Emperor” has no clothes.
While the nation is being torn apart, those who are (nominally) in charge are playing “duck and cover.” As protestors massed in front of the White House, Trump turned off the lights, reminding the writer of the linked Raw Story of Halloween nights when neighbors who’ve run out of candy turn off their lights and pretend no one’s home.
Not exactly a profile in courage. Or leadership.
The would-be autocrat, the lover of military parades, the bullying issuer of bluster and threats spent an hour last Friday night in the White House underground bunker. Multiple media outlets have shared leaks from GOP insiders who report that Trump is worried for his safety, and that he’s been frightened by the size and venom of the crowds.
Heather Cox Richardson shared a stunning–and telling– paragraph from an AP story:
As cities burned night after night and images of violence dominated television coverage, Trump’s advisers discussed the prospect of an Oval Office address in an attempt to ease tensions. The notion was quickly scrapped for lack of policy proposals and the president’s own seeming disinterest in delivering a message of unity.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden was out in the streets talking to protesters.
Raw Story described the act of turning off the White House lights as “a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s leadership,” and shared the sentiments of multiple Twitter users, who weighed in using the hashtag “Bunker Trump”–“stoke the hate, then run…how pathetic,” “Lights out at #WhiteHouse is a powerful symbol. Total lack of leadership from @realDonaldTrump.” And another tweet that was particularly on point:
Like all other strong men, Donald Trump is a coward and soft and terrified. Hiding in the White House and turning off the lights is all on brand. These are insecure, sad little men who build themselves up with the iconography of fascism to hide their fear.
It has become abundantly clear that Trump’s tweeted insults are examples of projection.( A recent, telling example: In a telephone conversation yesterday with a number of governors, Trump reportedly accused them of being weak.)
The Guardian called the President “the destroyer.”
Not even Trump’s harshest critics can blame him for a virus believed to have come from a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, nor for an attendant economic collapse, nor for four centuries of slavery, segregation, police brutality and racial injustice.
But they can, and do, point to how he made a bad situation so much worse. The story of Trump’s presidency was arguably always leading to this moment, with its toxic mix of weak moral leadership, racial divisiveness, crass and vulgar rhetoric and an erosion of norms, institutions and trust in traditional information sources. Taken together, these ingredients created a tinderbox poised to explode when crises came.
The Guardian–voicing the obvious–notes that Trump, who was “uniquely ill-qualified”for the Presidency, is ignoring crises he has no competence or desire to address, and meeting unrest in dozens of cities with authoritarian language: “thugs”, “vicious dogs” and “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
The nation waits in vain for a speech that might heal wounds, find a common sense of purpose and acknowledge the generational trauma of African Americans. That would require deep reading, cultural sensitivity and human empathy – none of which are known to be among personal attributes of Trump, who defines himself in opposition to Barack Obama.
A spokesperson for Black Lives Matter was quoted putting into words an opinion held by most thinking Americans since 2016:
He doesn’t have a clue. He’s a TV personality. He has a cult following that’s centred around this white power broker persona rooted in white supremacy and racism. Wherever he goes, he carries that role and that kind of persona, but ultimately right now with what we’re looking for in this country is real leadership. He is incapable of providing that because that’s not who he is.
A civil rights leader also quoted in the Guardian article noted that, while Trump didn’t create hostility and division, he incites it and thrives on it.” And in words that echo many of the comments that have been posted to this blog since 2016, he added:
The problem here is that we can focus this simply on Trump or we can also focus on all of those folks that have enabled Trump: the Republican leadership, the corporation that may make statements in support of this work but, on the other hand, do all sorts of things to prop up, support, donate to Donald Trump. You don’t get Trump and Trumpism without a whole host of institutions and individuals that support and enable him.”
We don’t just need a “blue wave.” We need a blue tsunami.
Nero Fiddled, Trump Tweets. This moron has nothing good to offer.
Corporate America must stop supporting Trump Media. As long as Fox / Rush and all the others get FUNDING from Corporate America, this is going to be much harder to change. There is so much money moving about in the disinformation business. How does that end? Corporate Responsibility? Patriotism? Not yet.
“The problem here is that we can focus this simply on Trump or we can also focus on all of those folks that have enabled Trump: the Republican leadership, the corporation that may make statements in support of this work but, on the other hand, do all sorts of things to prop up, support, donate to Donald Trump. You don’t get Trump and Trumpism without a whole host of institutions and individuals that support and enable him.”
The words above from the Guardian, this country’s primary source for much of our information, are telling us why the primary elections are vital. ALL primary elections, but this year they will either maintain or oust Trump’s base of enablers. We have much going on to distract us from local and state elections; but those distractions will increase and escalate if we do not vote in the primaries which will set the agenda for the November 3rd election and either the salvation of this nation or its demise.
TODAY IS PRIMARY ELECTION DAY IN INDIANA!
Last night in Indy,very close to the Governor’s residence and just when protesters and police were on the brink of a violent clash, key individuals showed the power of non-violent communication, empathy & compassion. There was de-escalation and relative quiet for the rest of the night. Policing and humanity at that moment at their best. A moment of grace.
Hopefully a turning point.
IndyStar: Police, protesters walk together in Indy
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/indianapolis/2020/06/01/indianapolis-protests-police-demonstrators-walk-together/5313988002/
evict trump, like he has done to others,and hopefully hes broke to..
Trump’s specifically mentioning the second amendment, out of any context, was a clear invitation to the brown shirts to take to the streets. Escalation and more chaos is clearly the goal. A November election is getting more unlikely.
“Like all other strong men, Donald Trump is a coward and soft and terrified.”
I am having a problem accepting and a grammatical question regarding the term “strong men” as it is used here; shouldn’t it properly be “strongmen” which is defined as the plural form of “strongman, one who leads or controls by force of will and character or by military methods.” Trump is indeed cowardly, soft and terrified, his greatest strengths are his ego and his money. Does he really fit the description of either form of that terminology? Just askin’
EVERYTHING TRUMP TOUCHES DIES. Yes, it is a book title. But it is also being verified by current events. He is touching our country, and is helping it die. He and his fellow stalinists are tickled pink to be fomenting a civil war. It’s what the sick minds of Mercer, Bannon and Trump have had in mind all along.
It’s clear that Trump is not just a pissing-his-pants coward, he is a psychopath. Until he is out of power, he will continue to wreak havoc on the very fiber of our nation.
Well last night he promised to move our armed forces into the streets to quell the unrest. That was after he had all of the federal police departments in and around DC remove peaceful protesters from the vicinity of the White House with flash bangs and horses. Then he had the nerve to cross LaFayette Park to St. John’s Episcopal to have his picture taken holding what may have been a Bible. I’m grateful to the bishop of DC for condemning his photo op. I’m equally saddened that the park police and others didn’t refuse to be used against the citizens.
What is missing so far in these protests is some kind of list of changes needed for the country to go forward. What we have heard thus far are the grievances, all real, all timely. What we have seen is raw anger and desperation. Here and there have been signs of compassion by the police, but mostly what they have displayed is their military might and the rule of force. From those in positions of power there has been knee-jerk reactions or what is clearly nothing short of a state of incomprehensibility demonstrated by their status of “missing in action”. From the Governor of the state comes his Pence like soft tones assuring all that Indiana has “done so much, has come so far”. This while his Republican legislature refuses to pass a hate crimes bill and strangles the ability of the cities to govern themselves.
Unless and until those in power accept their responsibility for the social and economic injustices being practiced by their police departments and their powerful supporters we will remain in a state of rebellion here and across the country. But first we need a list of real changes that are needed in order for us to move forward. Top of my list is the requirement that all members of a force live in the community they are policing.
Peggy,
“I’m equally saddened that the park police and others didn’t refuse to be used against the citizens.”
Don’t wait for that. It’ll never happen. Just wait till he calls out the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard & Border Patrol. I guess then, we will decide to take EFFECTIVE ACTION.
Better Late, than Never? NEVER!
Change comes about by EFFECTIVE ACTION, not TALK.
What do cowards do? Cowards cower!
Definition.org states;
“”Its meaning in that context is “To draw back instinctively, as from something alarming” but because of the other meanings, there’s also a feel or image of a person making himself smaller in fear, which gets us back to “cower” or “cringe.””
And there you have it the perfect image!
A bully, someone who is instinctively a coward, a person who has a big uneducated yap! They yap attempts to cover up the coward. Another perfect image, one that describes entire genetic line past and present.
Combine that with the stupidity that is being demonstrated in the streets right now, and the pandemic of covid19, you can see even a larger crisis on the brink. You can see the experimentation with martial law, now, Marv and others have been talking about this for quite a while! And, the foresight is astounding!
While others thought it was a joke, and it wouldn’t happen, the iceberg was looming larger and larger over the horizon, and, we are just about to collide with it.
Yesterday, the big rally in our area, burned out buildings, emptied out jewelry stores, destroyed liquor stores, damaged drugstores that are boarded up and closed, supermarkets boarded up and closed, every dumpster in the area burned out or melted, damaged personal vehicles damaged public vehicles, and unfettered anger from the young ones who are factionalized!
I was supposed to be a paid actor, I was supposed to be a Trumpian plant, I was supposed to be a white boy that needed to take a hike even though I probably have more African in me than some of those imbeciles spouting off. Some Hispanic guy stuck the book of Psalms in my face, told me I had to know what was in it, LOL! I asked him what I needed to know, or would you like me to explain to him from the Psalms what he needed to know. Then he got mad, pulled off his face mask, and had blisters all around his mouth which usually indicates crack smoking! I told him to get away for me because he had the plague, then he started screaming I was a racist because I told him he had the plague, SMH! I told some of the rest of the people in a loud voice, I said he had the plague because he does have the plague.
Then, as tall Asian kid starts hopping around pulling his coat open like he was going to get busy, and I told him that that probably was going to be a mistake, because some kid is not going to intimidate me, I’ve been through way way too much. So I just laughed at him. Some of the people I knew there, from the school district in such, were kind of shaking their heads, then a group came up and said, “Do Not Vote” the older preachers that were there couldn’t believe what they heard!
Now, I will have to say, those people were the plants! They were the ones who were paid to plant ideas to get folks not to participate in change! I couldn’t believe it myself, and I couldn’t believe how much of a positive impact it made on all of those young idiots in the crowd, chanting yes yes yes!
So, if there’s any question MAGA is not involved in this, as Trump says, and I’m here to tell you, you might as well stick a fork in this unless something even worse happens, because the die is cast already.
This one on for a while until the factions started arguing with each other, and one of those dudes that I was interacting with, pulled a pistol and then ran to their car to get away. I was already in my vehicle, I activated my performance mode and lit out behind them calling the 911 desk. The police were occupied everywhere else, so I stayed right behind them through most of the city, giving them the information and plate number, and as they got more freaked out, they became more erratic, and I asked the desk operator if I should break it off and just go home. She said they already had pulled up the information on where they were from, and they would be dealt with shortly. So I left, went home, and made sure I was prepared in case I had a visitor, LOL!
My point, I don’t get scared, I’m not afraid, I do have faith, and I try to stay informed! When I post stuff, I try to do it for the greater good. Just like Jack, and just like Marv, and just like Bradford, and just like Pete, and just like Larry, and even good old Lester, LOL!
I’m here to tell you, like I said earlier, the die has already been cast, because, the cast of that die has been flawed, and until the master tool and die maker fixes that cast for the new die, it’s going to become more and more imperfect! Mankind has lost control of his direction, and more than likely never really had control of it. Like a rudderless ship that can’t change its tack, it wanders aimlessly until it hits something, goes over a falls, or sinks!
When I see this happening, I don’t cower, I don’t hide in fear, because my faith is strong enough to know what’s happening! Too bad we have such a cowering lout as a leader, lashing out at everyone because of fear! What a shame, But, very prophetic!
Strong man? A better descriptive term would be brutal man. Or alleged strong man. “Strong man” gifts Trump a dozen virtues he does not have.
john,
Terrific! That’s called TAKING ACTION.
JoAnn – thanks again for bring sense instead of vitrol.
Theresa – thanks for “accentuating the positive” in talking about real change.
If we are “saved” from this scary moment, it will be because of local communication and action , Governors, mayors , local public servants and citizens.
I’ve seen what effective action looks like BEFORE. I had been the host for Harry Philo and Dean Rabb, MLK’s highest-profile, white attorneys from Detroit, during MLK’s EFFECTIVE ACTION in St. Augustine, which is about 20 miles south of Jacksonville:
“In the spring of 1964, as St. Augustine, Florida, prepared to celebrate its 400th anniversary, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) launched a massive campaign supporting the small local movement to end racial discrimination in the nation’s oldest city. King hoped that demonstrations there would lead to local desegregation and that media attention would garner national support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was then stalled in a congressional filibuster.
Organized demonstrations reached St. Augustine in the summer of 1963, when Robert B. Hayling, a local dentist and advisor to the Youth Council of the city’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), led pickets and sit-ins against segregated businesses. The Ku Klux Klan and other whites responded with violence against demonstrators, which escalated through the fall of 1963, when Hayling and three other NAACP members were severely beaten at a Klan rally, then arrested and convicted of assaulting their attackers. In December 1963, after a grand jury blamed the racial crisis on Hayling and other activists, the NAACP asked for Hayling’s resignation. St. Augustine activists then turned to SCLC for support.
SCLC had been aware of events in St. Augustine as early as July 1963, when King wrote to the White House questioning federal funding for the city’s 400th anniversary celebration. The following spring, after witnessing the activity of white supremacists and the absence of ministerial leadership in the city, SCLC board member C. T. Vivian recommended SCLC’s support. SCLC recruited white northern college students to participate in demonstrations and sit-ins during Easter week of 1964, and hundreds were jailed. Some were made to stand in a cramped outdoor overflow pen in the late spring heat, while others were put into a concrete “sweatbox” overnight. Bail rose from $100 per person up to $1,000.
King visited St. Augustine for the first time on 18 May 1964. Speaking at a Baptist church on 27 May, he told the congregation that segregation would soon be over in St. Augustine “because trouble don’t last always.” In the early morning of 29 May, the house SCLC rented for King in St. Augustine was sprayed by gunfire. On 11 June, the day after the Senate voted to end the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, King, Ralph Abernathy, and several others were arrested when they requested service at a segregated restaurant. Throughout June, SCLC led evening marches to the Old Slave Market, often facing counter demonstrations by the Klan, and provoking violence that garnered national media attention.
As the violence continued, King appealed to the federal government for assistance, asking the White House to pressure prominent white citizens to negotiate in good faith. Although by late June 1964 King was eager to leave St. Augustine and focus SCLC efforts on Alabama, he did not want to negatively affect the passage of the Civil Rights Act. When, on 18 June 1964, a Grand Jury called on King and SCLC to leave St. Augustine for one month to diffuse the situation, claiming that they had disrupted “racial harmony” in the city, King replied that the Grand Jury’s request was “an immoral one,” as it asked “the Negro community to give all, and the white community to give nothing.” “St. Augustine,” he insisted, had “never had peaceful race relations.”
As the Senate debated the Civil Rights Act, SCLC lawyers began to win court victories in St. Augustine. Judge Bryan Simpson continually ruled in favor of civil rights activists and encouraged SCLC to bring cases against the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations. On 30 June 1964 Florida Governor C. Farris Bryant [In 1966, I was confirmed by Congress to be the Deputy Chief of the Office of Emergency Planning then headed by Bryant] announced the formation of a biracial committee to restore interracial communication in St. Augustine. Although matters were far from resolved, national SCLC leaders left St. Augustine on 1 July, the day before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
Despite this national success, black residents in St. Augustine continued to face violence and intimidation. Consistent threats and picketing by the Klan led many of the town’s businesses to remain segregated. Although SCLC continued to provide some financial support to activists in St. Augustine beyond July 1964, the organization never returned to the city. King observed that St. Augustine had been made to “bear the cross,” suffering violence and brutality that helped prompt Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”
Colburn: “Racial Change and Community Crisis, 1985”
Lester,
Why don’t you explain to everyone your military service record?
I recall the thoughts from these pages following the last Presidential Election Day so I know most here, like I, are simply not surprised by this turn of events, in fact in various ways we expected it. Most here are about the same age as Donald Trump is so we have followed his celebrity from the beginning of it. What we saw, and expected to continue as President, was a trivial life devoid of accomplishment but buffered from incompetence by his inheritance.
We have been surprised at how, up until the pandemic, the country seemed to run on autopilot while Congress was being looted by Mitch from Moscow and the cabinet joyously joined the Orange King in taking apart what worked for us in the past.
Now the wreckage of the country is being looted by criminals much like those who looted our government.
This stands in stark contrast to the stories of absolute heroship and sacrifice hard working normal people gave us in response to the pandemic.
So we are here, in the wreckage, where we expected to be three and one half years ago. Our nightmares can’t be banished by waking up, this is what we wake up to now everyday.
This will end either like prewar Germany ended or like the beginning of a new country adapted to a new world that’s coming at us quickly no matter what we do. That will require immense change in the lives of all of us, but the pandemic experience showed us what we can be and those of us living at least in New York State still can see what competent government looks like.
I’m ready to end this shitshow in November and do what I can to clean up and rebuild.
Are you?
Pete?
“Are you?”
I’m with you all the way, if there is a November.
Theresa Bowers. This was posted on Facebook. The source should not surprise you:
Barack Obama
Yesterday at 10:16 AM ·
As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change.
Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.
First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation – something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.
On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms, whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk, compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause. I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come back. So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.
Second, I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices – and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.
Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.
It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people – which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.
So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.
Finally, the more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away. The content of that reform agenda will be different for various communities. A big city may need one set of reforms; a rural community may need another. Some agencies will require wholesale rehabilitation; others should make minor improvements. Every law enforcement agency should have clear policies, including an independent body that conducts investigations of alleged misconduct. Tailoring reforms for each community will require local activists and organizations to do their research and educate fellow citizens in their community on what strategies work best.
But as a starting point, I’ve included two links below. One leads to a report and toolkit developed by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and based on the work of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing that I formed when I was in the White House. And if you’re interested in taking concrete action, we’ve also created a dedicated site at the Obama Foundation to aggregate and direct you to useful resources and organizations who’ve been fighting the good fight at the local and national levels for years.
I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting – that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life. But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.
Let’s get to work.
– obama.org/policing-civil-rights-org-toolkit
– obama.org/anguish-and-action
What is rhetorically interesting is that there are two crimes we in these times fear that we will keep experiencing. One is the George Floyd story, a black murdered by police for the detail that his parents caused in the color of his skin. The other is a mass school shooting by deranged heavily armed men and boys fighting a war in their minds the rest of us can’t even imagine must less know.
What I’m wondering about is why a crime of the first type finally brought about a “we’ve had enough” raging response from the entire country, but not the last time we experienced a crime of the second type?
Thoughts?
Of all the things Trump has done or left undone I think, metaphorically speaking, the trip across the street for a photo op is (to date) his worst yet. Desccriptive words elude me; the first I thought of was pathetic, but that doesn’t get it. Disgusting? Outrageous? The lexicon doesn’t contain words or phrases that can describe my utter sense of just how far this creature has gone. He has to go, either via 25, a visit from a REPUBLICAN congressional delegation such as the one Goldwater led to tell Nixon it was over, or some other legal means of having him gone, in lieu of which a resounding electoral defeat this November (the only certain means by which we can rid ourselves of this blob of demented protoplasm, a bible-toting phony who makes Elmer Gantry look good.
Gerald – And yet trump supporters were criticizing the bishop for speaking out about his photo op, but not mentioning the “thugs” who did damage to her church….how do you counter that thinking??
A few times in history a single person can through a single action affect the course of history in the long or short-term. Here I am thinking of the of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 by Gavrilo Princip. There were other tensions in 1914 among the European nations, the assassination was a galvanizing event, the fuse, which led to the explosion of WW 1.
The death of George Floyd, in such a public, brutal, cruel and humiliating manner has likewise lit the fuse. The policeman who knelt on Floyd’s neck had a look of supreme arrogance and confidence that his aggression would not be punished in any way shape or form. The “system” would protect the policeman from any charges of police brutality, after all the “system” had “worked” in the past.
The Trumpet has stoked the flames of racism, since before he became President. With a booming Wall Street economy and the absolute subservience of the GOP, The Trumpet calculated he would be able to double down with his raving twitters.
The Corona Virus changed it all for the The Trumpet. What we knew about him was revealed, his wishful thinking that the Corona Virus would go away was dis-proven by events. Corona was the first event in his presidency he could not bluster or bully his way through. So he did what is another default choice for The Trumpet, blame someone, anyone else.
I am confident at least from what I read on Facebook, the followers of the Trumpet and Pastor Pence see no harm in calling out the Praetorian Guard of the military to restore “order” even if it means busting some heads in the streets.
There is a small minority of thugs (perhaps Trumpers pretending to be demonstrators) among the demonstrators who are taking advantage of the situation for their own ends, and the damage to the church was minor, some $20,000, and covered by insurance. The biggest thug, and the greatest danger to burning down our entire country, is Donald James Trump. The Constitution gives the bishop and every American the right to free speech and freedom of peaceful assembly to state their grievances, and it is thugs such as Trump and his tough guy following who would deprive all Amerians such rights under the cover of crowd control (rights that were won by the sweat, blood and tears of real patriots0, and in the course of events, destroy our most precious asset held in common – our democracy.
Marv – WADR what is your question about???
Trump is a total coward, without even considering the fact that when his turn came to serve his country, he had his Daddy buy him a deferment for fake bone spurs. He doesn’t even have the courage to face life as an aging man with male pattern baldness–the absurd pompadour is there to cover the scars from scalp reduction surgery.
Trump is per se offensive and a liar and hypocrite, but one of the worst things he’s done so far is to have a group of peaceful protesters tear gassed last night to clear a path for him to get to St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is a short distance from the White House, for a campaign photo op, complete with a Bible. This was, of course, to reel in the Evangelicals, and will be part of a campaign commercial touting how “tough” Cpt. Bone Spurs is. These protesters were peaceful, and had every right to be in Lafayette Park.
The Code of Federal Regulations at 28 C.F.R. §0.85 defines “terrorism” as including “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
Someone explain to me how tear gassing peaceful protesters in a public park, just to create a path for a fake POTUS to have a campaign photo op isn’t a violation of this regulation.
Of course, we have NO attorney general and NO DOJ, either, at least until January.
Wow! Way to go, John!
While I love the metaphor of turning the lights out for trick-or-treaters and would love to think that he is cowering in the White House, I have a different take on this. I was married to a real narcissist and see Trump as my ex on steroids. Even my daughter has commented that Trump reminds her of her dad. My read is that Trump saw turning out the lights as turning his back on the protesters, like he does when he walks out on a news conference. It was a block that said, “You can create all the havoc you want but I refuse to hear you and you aren’t moving me. I will win no matter what it takes.” I agree that he is a coward, but this is about winning.
If he is true to what I have seen myself, Trump also won’t leave the White House if he loses the election. It will take force or the threat of force. It took me a month to get my ex out, and when I told him that I was calling the police, he showed me a gun that I didn’t know that he had. Trump will pull out anything he can to prevent himself from being thrown out. You have heard him suggest that there will be violence, and the militia groups are gun(g)ho to oblige him. As are his cult followers.
Yes, we do need a tsunami of blue in November. Anything less will give him an opening.
For “marvelous Marv” – I have no military service (or bone spurs and the like).
My daughter just asked me a question which I must pass along. She said: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” I gave her the standard answer of “To get on the other side.” “Wrong,” she observed: “The chicken crossed the road to hold a bible in front of a church.”
Lester,
“For “marvelous Marv”-I have no military service (or bone spurs and the like).
I’ll leave it at that (for the time being).
You guys!
Fear is for the faithless! We can control our own actions, but it’s impossible to predict the actions of others. And their gullibility concerning false flag operations for that matter!
US Senate Barry Black on Monday: ““Today, we weep. We weep because every death diminishes us. We weep because of the grief of George Floyd’s family. We weep because of the explosive impact of deferred dreams,” he said, head bowed. “We weep because we know you are
weeping. Today, use our lawmakers for your glory. May they strive to find a vaccine to inoculate our nation against hate, sin and despair.”
Kudos to Gerald’s daughter! It’s the answer of the day! Can you honestly believe that guy and his photo ops? (No answer necessary(
Betty,
If you don’t effectively challenge someone, they can eventually get away with murder. Just check Trump’s scorecard.
Just sent a “thank you” email mail to Rev. Mariann Budde at:
mebucdd@dow.or
An acknowledge of good and courageous work often makes the action even more meaningful to the person who enacts action against power.
And my email to God Holcomb assured him that I for one do not think he is a “jerk”.
Great responses by all. Thank you! !!
This community sharing makes me feel less alone, less fearful, more empowered, and especially thanks to Sheila for letting this live.
Exactly, Marv! You keep us in the loop and more than most, you knew where this was headed. You also know how it will end if we don’t get moving. Thanks as always for your commentary.