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| New York . 2008 . Amnestic_Arts CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |
Alexis de Tocqueville . Democracy in America . 1835 . London . Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street . translated by Henry Reeve, Esq . p 129
Saturday, July 04, 2026
our turn
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
war + humiliation
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War, as some people apparently needed to learn, is not about the pleasure one takes in watching things blow up. It is politics by other means. To win a war means changing the politics of the enemy such that they must surrender. That is what Iran just did to the United States.
— Timothy Snyder . June 20 2026
This attack on Iran was/is an impetuous, illegitimate, dumb war.
Maybe a fitting way to commemorate our 250th national birthday is a good old fashioned housecleaning.
What say we begin at the top....
Sources
Image: Donald J. Trump - Truth Social https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116624042090139559, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=192752626
Friday, June 05, 2026
nothing to see here
Nothing to see here ... nothing new anyway ... The sitting president has history when it comes to granting celebrity impunity — if the celebrity is the sort who lets the First Felon grab 'em by the pussy (metaphorically, I'm sure).
8 years ago, Michelle Goldberg wrote of one such celebrity:
“Besides being a huckster and a sexist weasel, D’Souza is a felon who, in 2014, pleaded guilty to routing illegal campaign donations through a woman he was having an affair with, and the woman’s husband. (At the time, D’Souza was married and serving as president of the evangelical King’s College. His ex-wife would later accuse him of physical abuse.) For his crime, he spent eight months in a halfway house. On Thursday, Donald Trump gave him a full pardon, tweeting that D’Souza had been ‘treated very unfairly by our government.’”
He’s been telling us who he is from the start. Nothing about that has changed. What are we waiting for? For him to break the world and then escape under cover of darkness?
I say make him pay … him and all his weasels … for every illegal act, high crime, and misdemeanor he and they committed against us all.
[h/t Pierre Whalon]
Source
Friday, May 29, 2026
I CAN'T GET CAUGHT UP
Six years ago, we were, many of us, reeling at having witnessed what a jury would come to call *the murder of George Floyd.*
Many of us - but not all - saw in the murder of Mr. Floyd a signifier of a work begun but still left wildly unperfected. Some looked right at it; let it wash over them; others looked away.
A few — but loud as hell — welcomed that extrajudicial killing as street justice, and so drifted farther from the golden shore.
Into the strong currents of those days — and *for* these days ... to echo here and now — John Polite wrote this lament....
I can’t get caught up in my hurt that so many don’t even make the effort to sympathize with what black folks go through. They turn their backs to the racism and racial terror that exists the same way one of the police officers kept his back to George Floyd. He’ll probably use that as a defense (IF this ever goes to trial.) “I never touched him so I’m not guilty.” Friends, racism works the same way. Turning your back to it is just as destructive and makes us just as guilty as those who actively engage in it. It’s not surprising. But it hurts nonetheless.
I can’t get caught up when some people seem to be more outraged over the destruction of property than the brazen, deliberate taking of a mans life by those assigned to protect and serve. I agree that it is counterproductive. But your silence on the murder that triggered it is deafeningly loud.I can’t get caught up in those who view #blacklivesmatter as a profane thing and divisive, when they know perfectly well its not always affiliated with the organization of the same name and it certainly doesn’t mean black lives matter more than others. To the contrary, America needs to finally recognize that black lives are not regarded as highly as many others. Some still view us as 3/5 of a person—an assertion that was used to justify slavery. A great segment of America doesn’t believe that black lives matter. I am convinced Mr Floyd, Mr Aubrey and Ms Taylor would be alive today if they were white.I can’t get caught up by my non black friends, some who I’ve known for decades, that I went to school and church with, broken bread with, prayed with, who not only don’t try to understand, but verbally assault those who call out racism and white supremacy, yet who have “lots of black friends.” That apparently they have not once thought “this could happen to (insert black friend here).” If you’re a friend, try, at some level, to hear us and understand.I can’t get caught up in those who insist all whites are devils when I see too many of them strongly speaking out against racism (some of them even more than I.) While I don’t believe they can begin to understand what it’s like to be black any more than I can understand what it’s like to be white, I won’t disregard those who are truly trying, who have reached out to me personally asking “what can I do,” and who have been a part of the battle for years. It’s a disservice to white abolitionists, to the john browns, the jane Elliot's and others. we must give credit to those who make the effort.I can’t get caught up, because ultimately it will make me as hateful as those who hate me. And I don’t have time for it. It would be an insult to my parents—who have seen racism far worse than I’ve seen—yet taught me to love one another as Jesus loved me. It would deny the fact that my family was embraced by the first baptist church of riverside when we were the first and for years the only black family to join. That they ordained both me and my mother (who served on their staff for more than 20 years.) That they packed that church at my dads funeral, and still weekly visit and bring meals to the house three months after his passing.I can’t get caught up in the hate. God has shown me too much love in spite of the racism and hatred that pervades American culture. “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” - Dr King
— John Polite . May 29 2020
Friday, May 22, 2026
i can see clearly now . then + now
[Thoughts on May 22, 2021, revisited and extended on May 22, 2026]
"Today, Senator Angus King, Jr. (I-ME) came out and said it: 'We need answers on the 1/6 insurrection—but many of my [Republican] colleagues are indicating they will vote against an independent investigation. When people start moving heaven and earth to block an investigation, I have to wonder if there is something to hide.'” — Heather Cox Richardson . 05.20.21 on her fine Facebook feed
[Note: Do you recall any serious attempts to block the seven far-from-independent investigations and 30+ Congressional hearings into the killing of four Americans at the US embassy in Benghazi?]
In words attributed to the little-known but reportedly great Carlisle Marney: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you flinch before it sets you free."
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
And we’re back...
And, we're back: 7 Years ago, Justin Amash, Republican-about-to-turn-Independent Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, posted his take on the then newly released"Report On the Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election" — the Mueller report.
Representative Amash concluded that Attorney General William Barr deliberately misrepresented the Mueller report to the American people. Amash assessed that President Trump had, in his term, engaged in impeachable conduct, and that partisanship had eroded the will of Congress to check and balance the president. And he concluded that few Members of Congress had read the Mueller report.
The evidence was there all along, available to anyone.
[ Volume 01 . https://www.justice.gov/d9/report.pdf
Volume 02 . https://www.justice.gov/storage/report_volume2.pdf ]
A few months later, President Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on different corruption charges: Abuse of Power, and Obstruction of Congress.
[ https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres755/BILLS-116hres755enr.pdf ]
He was acquitted by the Senate.
Later, he was impeached by the U.S. House again, this time for Incitement to Insurrection.
[ https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hres24/BILLS-117hres24eh.pdf ]
He was acquitted by the Senate.
The prevailing public argument in the two Senate acquitals seemed to boil down to the expectation that 1) The president would learn his lesson and 2) If the president did not learn his lesson, he would face jeopardy in the justice system.
Judging from his behavior going forward, it seems Mr. Trump did learn a lesson, but not the one members of his party say they anticipated.
You probably don’t need a rundown of the president’s misbehavior toward the U.S. Constitution; the law of the land and the Courts … nor do you need a list to help you tally the results playing out in the economy; in broken international treaties and relationships of trust; in extrajudicial killings in the waters off Venezuela; in complicity in the killing of 70,000 civilians in Gaza; in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz; in the mistreatment of brownskinned Americans, asylum seekers and guests; in the cycle of apparent self-dealing, misappropriation of government funds and personnel; in the deaths of ½ a million poor people in the wake of DOGE closures; in the attempt this week to write away all of the tax and business fraud liabilities to which he may be subject under the law … and much, much more….
[ https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1441086/dl
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1441216/dl ]
The corruption is staggering and, staggering as well is the approval his debased and debasing behavior enjoys from Americans who, just a minute ago, claimed the high moral ground.
In this election season, I think we must make Republican candidates fear the people more than they fear the president. There may be little room for MAGA-aligned officials and voters … though we have enjoyed the occasional revival of public morality here and there and now and then over 250 years together, so, who knows….
Be that as it may, there remain Republicans who may respond to the call to rededicate themselves to this particularly Americn Democracy; and Independents who know a bad deal when they see it, and will vote a better deal, even if there’s no perfect deal on offer.
The need is now; the time is now; the later it gets, the hard it is.
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Mothers' Day (not Mother's Day)
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| Julia Ward Howe, 1908 |
In September, 1870, the great Julia Ward Howe wrote, maybe, the first Mothers' Day card.
That's Mothers' Day, not Mother's Day (due respect to the latter). Here it is, courtesy The Library of Congress.
APPEAL TO WOMANHOOD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle field. Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before.
Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for carresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Cæsar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
Boston, September, 1870.
Source
Library of Congress . http://www.loc.gov/resource/ rbpe.07400300
The Deal ≠ The Delivery
The Art of the Deal is not the same as the art of delivering a fair and equitable deal for the American people and our neighbors, near and far.
Read this from Heather Cox Richardson, two years ago, a few months before we made the colossal mistake of putting Donald J Trump back in the White House ... and consider the U.S. economy at the end of 2024 — *The Envy of the World* — rebuilding after the Covid 19 global pandemic on the sound, real world economics of rules-based cooperation among large-, mid-, and small-nation economies; and compare that with the chaos unleashed by our Big Ugly Mistake.
We did this to ourselves, by entrusting political power to the wrong people, with consequences that threaten the well-being of not just a supermajority of Americans but a supermajority of people on earth.
Now we can undo this ourselves by electing a U.S. Congress who will force a return to the fundamentals that have tended towards shared prosperity and liberty in the past, and can help us get back on track again.
The road to a shot at another 250 years of American Democracy begins with electing and seating a 120th Congress dedicated to building a more perfect union on the foundation of the Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution, and the rule of law.
There's no shame in being fooled into a big mistake. There's great shame in not correcting that mistake at the earliest possible opportunity.
Sunday, May 03, 2026
just kidding ... [or *is* he...?]
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The Plutocrats' Pope . h/t Truth Social |
This time last year, the U.S. president posted the first layer of this joke.
Getting it right away, I added a second punchline.
The third one is the worst: Whatever you may think of clowns, you should be aware that the one pictured has a hand grenade.
Saturday, May 02, 2026
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
killing for the hell of it
Reflections on killing for the hell of it on March, 09, 2005 |
Last month [February, 2005], Marine Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis famously said, "Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot…It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling…You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil…You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."
Marine Corps Commandant General Mike Hagee, wishes Mattis had chosen his words more carefully. World Magazine columnist Gene Edward Veith, on the other hand, concluded that: "As in other vocations, so in the military, there is nothing wrong with enjoying one's work."
To Dr. Vieth, Martin Marty poses a few questions:
______________________________________
If a Christian believes that humans are made in the image of God, should it be "a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them"?
World Wars I and II, and many other wars, had Christian fighting Christian, sometimes because they were drafted to do so against their will. If a Christian believes that another Christian is a child of God, should it be a "hell of a lot of fun to shoot" and kill him?
If a Christian is an evangelical -- like those to whom World magazine is directed -- and he must kill someone who is as yet unevangelized, thus cutting short his potential for salvation, should it be a "hell of a lot of fun" to shoot him?
If a Christian is a grandson, son, father, husband, brother who knows that survivors of his killed counterpart will suffer all their lives because of his necessary act of killing, should it still be a "hell of a lot of fun" to shoot him?
If a Christian is to pay special attention to the weak, and he decides that someone "ain't got no manhood left anyway," should he do Darwin's work and eliminate the unworthy, taking a "hell of a lot of fun" in doing it?
Can the unconvinced -- and I don't mean just the "What Would Jesus Do"-types -- at least ask how finding it a "hell of a lot of fun to shoot" those who "ain't got no manhood" squares in any way with "love your enemies"?
___________________________________________
It just startles me what people who claim to know something about God are willing to put their name to in 2005.
So, with a line from someone who didn't claim to know much about God, I'm out:
"When I began as a prayerful student to study Christian literature in South Africa in 1893, I asked myself again and again, ‘Is this Christianity?’ And I could only say, ‘No, no. Certainly this that I see is not Christianity.’ And the deepest in me tells me that I was right; for it was unworthy of Jesus and untrue to the Sermon on the Mount."
Mahatma Gandhi’s Ideas: Including Selections from His Writings, C. F. Andrews; pp93-95 The Macmillan Company, 1930
we need this. why're you so mean?
Here's the list of U.S. presidents and administrations who have been calling for the construction of a large, permanent, secure, gathering space on the White House grounds for 150 years. **
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
18**
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
19**
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026 Donald J. Trump
** banned number sequence
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