This afternoon I am working on a couple of posts, including tomorrow’s Good People, so I am taking the easy way out and bringing you some chuckles … at least I hope they make you chuckle and not grab your head in pain!
Category Archives: Political commentary
A Shared Opinion …
There are a number of opinion writers who I read regularly, and Charles Blow of the New York Times is one. His column on Sunday struck a chord, for much of what he says mirrors my own thoughts very closely, especially when he says, “I would love nothing more than to write about other things, worthy things, more intellectually stimulating things. But for more than two years, I have written almost exclusively about Donald Trump.” I initially intended to only provide a few snippets from this column, but after I studied and pondered it a bit, I decided to share the entire column after all. Give it a read … I think you’ll be able to relate to much of what he says …
You Have a Right to Weariness
The struggle for goodness and decency is an eternal struggle, not a seasonal one.
By Charles M. Blow, Opinion Columnist
Do we have a right to weariness in an era of animus? More precisely, can we afford it, or is exhaustion a luxury reserved for those whose wealth, privilege and status insulate them from the losses the rest of us could suffer? Does patriotic defense of country require perpetual, obsessive vigilance, or is it permissible to retreat occasionally for one’s own mental and spiritual health?
These are questions I ask myself regularly, and ones that are frequently asked of me, if not in those exact words. People are trying to figure out the proper posture to take in a world riven by deceit and corruption, a world in which the leadership of the country represents an assault on decency.
This is a conundrum, I must confess.
I, as much as anyone else, feel trapped by our current predicament. I would love nothing more than to write about other things, worthy things, more intellectually stimulating things. But for more than two years, I have written almost exclusively about Donald Trump.
I feel compelled by what I view as history, fundamental and consequential, playing out right before me with nothing short of the life of the republic at stake. And yet, at a certain point, words begin to fail, or the obvious has already been stated. Once you have pointed out that Trump is a liar, you can then note only that he is telling more lies. The same goes for his racism, bullying, anti-intellectualism, corruption and grift.
At some point, it becomes clear that the abnormal, outrageous and unacceptable have become a constant, and even the rolling boil of righteous folk’s indignation reduces to a simmer.
People often ask me, “When will it end? What can we do to get him out of there?”
My answer always is, “I doubt it will end soon, and there’s very little anyone can do to change that.”
I hate to bear that message, but it is the only one I can deliver if I wish to be honest rather than popular.
As much as there was to celebrate last week, with liberals winning control of the House of Representatives, and doing so with such a diverse slate of candidates, it was also clear that Republican control of the Senate means that any hope of removing Trump via impeachment has shrunk to nearly nothing. Even if the House impeaches Trump, the Senate remains highly unlikely to remove him.
Democrats are even debating how far they can take oversight in the House without turning off people politically.
The only hope is that the Robert Mueller investigation may deliver something so damning that some Senate Republicans view it as unacceptable. But there is no evidence as of yet that anything would sway them.
Trump is taking steps to severely hamper Mueller’s efforts. Last week, he fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and installed Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general. The F.B.I. is currently investigating corruption at a company where Mr. Whitaker sat on the advisory board.
At this point, it may be more prudent to view what comes from the Mueller probe as fodder for the 2020 presidential campaign. It may not pave the way for an impeachment conviction by the Senate, but could well pave the way for an electoral “impeachment.”
It is very likely that we are stuck with Trump until the 2020 election, and even then the Democrats can take nothing for granted if they wish to defeat him.
That is the root of people’s distress. How can Republicans in Congress abide this behavior and use it for political positioning? How can so many of our neighbors condone open hostility to minorities, the press and the truth?
Or maybe the questions are for us. How could we not have registered fully just how hostile a substantial portion of America is to inclusion and equality? How could we not have registered the full depths of American racism and misogyny? How could we not remember that American progress has always been like a dance with a disagreeable partner, stumbling backward as well as moving forward?
I remember calling my mother when Trump was elected, and she was not nearly as distraught as I thought she’d be. Her stated reason: We’ve been through worse. She is an elderly black woman from the South. Her sense of history and heartbreak are long and fraught.
Recently, I’ve delved even more deeply into this line of thinking, reading about how black people positioned themselves during both Reconstruction and Jim Crow, when the political structures were largely arrayed against them.
I wanted to know how they survived and made progress against open hostility. The recurring themes are to never lose hope in the ultimate victory of righteousness; to focus your fire on the things you are most able to change; and to realize that change is neither quick nor permanent.
The struggle for goodness and decency is an eternal struggle, not a seasonal one.
Don’t beat yourself up if you need to tune out every now and then and take a mental health break. There is no shame in it. This is a forever fight. Once you have recharged, reapply your armor and rejoin the fight with even more vigor.
That white privilege thing
Our good friend Keith wrote this post nearly three weeks ago. I intended to re-blog it at the time, and as seems to happen more and more with me these days, I got side-tracked and it fell by the wayside. No matter, for his words are timeless … they were as true 100 years ago as they are today, and I suspect will still need to be heard in another century. Thank you, Keith, for this post, for reminding me of it, and for your generous permission to share.
Usually when Dr. Phil comes on, I leave the room. Seeing people yell at each other is not therapeutic for me. Yesterday, my wife said you need to see this one as it was an interesting group discussion on race relations and white privilege.
In one powerful, illustrating exercise, young adults of both genders and several races, religions, sexual preferences, and countries of origin stepped forward or backward based on answers to a series of questions. At the end of about thirty or so questions, white people tended to be at the front of the room, while other races tended to be at the back.
As a now 60 year-old white man, I can pretty much go anywhere I want without repercussions. And, I need not have to worry for my life when I am stopped by the police or state patrol. A black man in his Sunday best has…
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Shame On You, Donald Trump …
Once again, I find myself wanting to apologize for our ignorant, crude, ignominious, arrogant, brash, narcissistic so-called ‘president’ after he made a fool of not only himself, but of us all, when he was mistakenly allowed to travel to the EU over the weekend. To all my friends & family across the pond … please forgive us for sending him, for we knew not what we were doing.
The occasion, for any who may not know, was to honour those who died in World War I on the 100th anniversary of the end of that war. It was a solemn occasion, a time to set aside differences and come together to remember …
Trump started his trail of terror before even leaving Air Force One, when he tweeted an attempted insult toward Emmanuel Macron, President (in good standing) of France. But it got worse. His alleged purpose for traveling to Paris on Friday was to attend ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. The reality, as is always the case with Trump, was something else altogether, but that was his stated purpose. But guess what? It rained.
It rained. Trump was afraid of a little bit of water. I’ve often said I don’t think he bathes regularly, and this proves it! All the other leaders who had gathered in Paris for the occasion attended …
Angela Merkel braved the elements, as did Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Prince Harry, Spain’s King Felipe VI … even Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin found time to attend, despite the rain. Trump later claimed that the only reason he didn’t attend was that his motorcade would have disrupted roads. SO WALK, YOU F***ING MORON!!!
General John Kelly and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Joe Dunford attended instead – apparently they didn’t need a ‘motorcade’. 
Representative Don Beyer of Virginia hit the nail on the head:
“Millions died to protect the free world during WWI, and Trump can’t be bothered to honor their memories. Instead, he’s chosen to sit in a hotel and live-tweet Fox News. Just imagine if President Obama sat out a Veterans Day ceremony because of the rain …”
Just imagine, indeed. But then, President Obama was … well, you know … African-American, and thus his every move was placed under a strong microscope and picked apart like the Christmas turkey. Trump, on the other hand, is ugly white with layers of fat, acne, and a bad toupee, so he can do no wrong! (Yeah, I’m pissed – what tipped you off?)
“It’s incredible that a president would travel to France for this significant anniversary — and then remain in his hotel room watching TV rather than pay in person his respects to the Americans who gave their lives in France for the victory gained 100 years ago tomorrow.” – David Frum, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush
Even Winston Churchill’s grandson, British Conservative MP Nicholas Soames, joined in the rebuke, saying, “They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen,” and adding that Trump is “not fit to represent his great country.”
“President@realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops? Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow — & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president.” – John Kerry, Vietnam War veteran and former Secretary of State
However, the best rebuke came from none other than French President Emmanuel Macron in this one sentence that is bound to become iconic …
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism by saying ‘our interests first, who cares about the others’, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values.”
Ooooohhhh … good one, Mr. Macron!!! And then he went on …
“I do defend my country. I do believe that we have a strong identity. But I’m a strong believer in cooperation between the different peoples, and I’m a strong believer of the fact that this cooperation is good for everybody, where the nationalists are sometimes much more based on a unilateral approach and the law of the strongest, which is not my case.”
But at the end of the day, Trump did manage to find time for one world leader … his ol’ buddy …
Perhaps this, then, was his sole reason for spending millions of taxpayer dollars to travel abroad for the weekend? Or perhaps it was to seek a relief from the heat of last week’s mid-term elections? Either way, he once again wasted huge amounts of our money in order to do nothing more than embarrass us. Shame on you, Donald Trump … Shame on you.
A Dose of Snark …
I haven’t done any ‘Snarky Snippets’ for a week or so, for the elections and the surrounding detritus have taken up a large portion of my time and energies. But today, I am settling back in and had a few things to say about this ‘n that.
California is currently suffering three major wildfires, one of which, the Camp Fire, is now the most destructive recorded in state history. The blaze destroyed the entire town of Paradise, north of Sacramento, and has killed at least nine people. About three dozen more remain missing.
Donald Trump had nary a word to say about the fires until 3:00 a.m. yesterday morning, when he tweeted …
What a guy, eh? So caring, kind and compassionate for the people who have lost loved ones, lost their homes and businesses … But, setting aside his typical inhumanity for the moment, with his words he has, once again, shown his ignorance. He did not bother to do his homework, to attempt to learn something about the situation before spouting off at the thumbs.
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has acknowledged that a downed power line is most likely the cause of the Camp Fire, although no official cause has yet been announced. High winds are the major factor in the rapid spread of the other two fires, and overall, a lack of rainfall contributed to all three.
I’m sure the people of California, not to mention the firefighters who are risking their lives to try to save lives and property, must be heartened by and appreciative of Trump’s words … not! Think before you tweet should become his new mantra and somebody in his administration should plaster it over all the walls in his office and living quarters!
Either Trump’s handlers have not learned their lesson, or they are not up for the job and we need to hire new handlers, aka babysitters. I would have thought that by now they would have learned not to let the man leave the country. He does not play well with others. He does enough damage here at home, but every single time he has traveled abroad, he has further damaged our relations with our allies. Friday was no exception.
Trump arrived in France Friday to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the end of World War I and meet with world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron. Moments after landing, Trump tweeted an attack on Macron …
Given the level of venom Trump has directed toward European leaders in the past, who can blame members of the EU for feeling a need for protection, even against the U.S.? Yet another case where “think before you tweet” might have been sound advice.
Remember a week or so ago, right before the mid-term elections, when Trump was so scared of his party losing their majority in the House that he was grasping at straws, trying to inject a new level of fear in voters in hopes of winning their votes? And remember how, as a part of all that, he sent U.S. troops to the southern border, claiming that the caravan of migrants that was, at that time, some 1,000 miles away, was just filled with ruffians, criminals and even … gasp … Middle-Eastern terrorists!!! And the whole thing, he claimed, was funded by George Soros and his band of merry democrats!
Well, everything was a huge lie, except that he did send troops to the border. No reason, really, but he couldn’t very well claim there was an impending “invasion” without looking tough by sending troops, now could he? Besides which, the ‘man’ has been dying to play with his new toys (the military) for nigh on two years now, and here was the perfect trumped-up (pun intended) excuse!
Only thing is … while there is a migrant caravan, it is not anything but poor, starving migrants fleeing the violence in their own country, trying to protect their innocent children. And they won’t even arrive at our southern border until sometime in December. So … what’s going on now with the nearly 6,000 men and women who were ordered to go down there and quell the “invasion”? Gin rummy. Poker. Sitting ‘round a campfire telling dirty jokes. No electricity. Won’t be home for Thanksgiving.
Pentagon officials privately derided the deployment as an expensive waste of time and resources, and a morale killer to boot. ‘Privately’ … I guess they are all afraid to do their jobs and advise their commander of the realities. But the other thing is … guess who’s paying for all this and guess how much it’s costing? Yes, my friends, you and I are paying for it, even though we neither need nor want it. As to the cost … a final cost estimate of the deployment has not been made available. But Defense Department budget officials say that if the number of troops sent to the border does reach the 15,000 Trump has threatened, the price tag could hit $200 million, with no specific budget allocation from which to draw. Remember those “tax cuts” that only benefited the wealthy 1%? Do the math.
So concludes today’s batch of snarky snippets … but I still have more in me, so … stay tuned!
Just for a chuckle …
I’m sorely in need of a laugh … okay, I’ll settle for a chuckle … and figured perhaps you are too, so just for a laugh at the end of the day, I give you … Andy Borowitz …
Putin Loses Control of the House
MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it “the biggest disappointment of my political career,” Vladimir Putin conceded late Tuesday night that he had lost control of the United States House of Representatives.
Putin made his concession speech from the Kremlin, where he congratulated the Democrats for waging a “tough fight.”
“Maybe if Facebook and Twitter hadn’t banned so many of my fake accounts, the results would have been different,” Putin said. “But I don’t want to make excuses—I threw everything I had at these races, and I lost.”
Putin did, however, have harsh words for Donald Trump, who opted for a fear-mongering closing argument about immigration despite the Russian President’s objections.
“I warned him that that would kill us in the suburbs, and he ignored me,” Putin said. “I hope this teaches him never to disobey my orders again.”
Saturday Surprise — Going Places!
Okay, friends … twice this week I have robbed you of the fun stuff, Jolly Monday and Good People Wednesday, so I am determined to provide a bit of fun today in hopes of making up for it. We haven’t done any traveling for a while, so I went in search of really odd things we could go visit. Are you up for a bit of an excursion? Be sure to bring your coats, hats ‘n mittens, for at this time of year you never know what sort of weather we might run up against. So, hop aboard the Filomobile and let’s head for our first destination …
First stop … the Netherlands! Maybe we can pop in and visit my friend Choosing while we’re here! But first, a housing community comprised completely of ball-shaped houses. 
Bolwoningen (“ball homes” or “bulb homes”) is but one of the country’s housing experiments. The giant orbs stand in stark contrast to the conventional abodes located right across the street.
Artist Dries Kreijkamp was the mastermind behind the project, which was completed in 1984. Kreijkamp, who died in 2014, said he drew inspiration from clay huts in Africa and Inuit igloos. His logic behind the design is that round shapes are the most seminal and natural forms for living.
But to humans accustomed to living within more standard houses, dwelling within a concrete globe can feel unnatural. The buildings are best suited for single people or childless couples, as space inside is tight (592 square feet/55 square meters). The lowest level includes storage and central heating installations. A spiral staircase leads to a bedroom. Keep climbing the stairs, and you’ll then arrive at the level housing the toilet and shower. The highest part features a tiny living room and kitchen area.
Though interest in and funding for additional ball houses dwindled, this settlement is still going strong. People still live in Bolwoningen, and tourists have been known to wander by to gawk and gape at their unusual homes.
I’m thinking … no corners to clean!!! Then again … the square/rectangular furniture might not fit so well, either.
Since we’re so close, let’s travel over to Derbyshire, England, where there is a giant snail sculpture I was hoping to check out …
This magnificent example of public art is based at a location which was, from the 1990s until the early 21 century, a derelict industrial factory site between the Chesterfield railway station and the River Rother. The derelict factory was demolished and replaced with a housing development. This spiral sculpture is a result of the Chesterfield Borough Council’s planning policy, which encourages all large developments to include up to one percent of the total investment for public art.
Liz Lemon, the sculptor behind the artwork, used the land as inspiration, as the area is known for both Goniatite and gastropod fossils. She also paid homage to the land’s industrial past. Because the factory that formerly stood at the site built turbines for many of the world’s large hydroelectric dams, Lemon designed the sculpture in metal with a high precision finish to reflect the former factory’s dedication to high-quality engineering. Manthorpe Engineering completed the construction.
The resulting sculpture is about 25 feet high. The spiral form was created from many sections of stainless steel sheets that vary in thickness, and the way it fits together is evocative of the types of pipework construction used in the hydropower plants that the former factory worked on. The artwork has five rows of “portholes” of reducing size all the way around the spiral. The internal cavity houses blue and green fiber optic lights that are switched on at night.
Pretty cool, yes?
You guys know I love Japan, right? You didn’t know? Well, you’re right … I’ve never been there except on virtual tours like this one, but from what I have seen, I think I love Japan. And so, when we were invited to stop by Tokyo for a visit to a little bar in Kichijoji that boasts an elaborately decorated interior made up of skulls, skeletons, and even agony-filled faces of the damned adorning the walls, well, how could I resist?
The name of the bar is Yurei Izakaya, named for ghosts known as yurei, and its decor, menu, and staff blend Japanese folklore with plenty of haunted house kitsch. The food and drinks are made to look like bloody eyeballs, impaled bodies, and various yokai (mythological monsters). Most reviewers rate their meals—which are standard izakaya fare—as average, so don’t be expecting 5-star dining – it’s all about the atmosphere!
The highlight of visiting Yurei is the “wasabi roulette” in which the guests eat an order of dumplings or kushikatsu and whoever gets the one filled with wasabi “dies.” The unlucky soul is then dressed in a white kimono and laid in a coffin in the middle of the bar. The waiter then chants a traditional Buddhist prayer, thus completing the mock funeral. Isn’t this fun???
Back across the pond we go and let’s travel south to Argentina!
This house was the former home of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Argentina’s seventh president. He was also the author of one of the country’s most important pieces of literature, Facundo, which is not only a testament to his political views, but also a reflection of Argentina’s history.
Sarmiento also carried out some ambitious policies regarding education and had a tremendous influence on Argentina’s school systems. He trained new teachers and built new buildings for public schools. He successfully passed a sanction that guaranteed schools would be free and separate from religious teachings and opened various free libraries.
Sarmiento lived with his family in this house after his tenure as president (1868-1874), until he died in 1888. He chose a quiet abode in Tigre, a city within the delta around the La Plata River. Trees he planted still stand around the property, and the house still holds some of its original furniture. The building, which became a National Historic Monument in 1966 is encased in glass to protect it from the elements and now functions as a museum.
And now, folks, it’s time for us to head back home, for it is Saturday morning and I know we all have plenty to do, what with less than two weeks ‘til Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and just over six weeks ‘til Christmas. I have mentioned postponing Christmas to my girls, but they weren’t amenable to the idea, especially when I said I wanted to postpone it until next December – 2019. Sigh. I’m lacking spirit this year. Anyway, have a wonderful weekend, whatever you do!
No, Folks, This Is NOT Normal …
Yesterday morning we awoke to news of another mass shooting, this one at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, that left 13 dead, including the gunman. The first headline I saw claimed it was the “First mass shooting in the U.S. in over 10 days”, as if that were a statistic in which we ought to take pride. First, a mass shooting every eleven days would be nothing to be proud of even if true, but the reality is that it was not the first, but rather the eleventh mass shooting since the shooting at L’Simcha (Tree of Life) synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on October 27th. Eleventh. Think about this one for a moment. Did you realize there had been, on average, one mass shooting per day for the past ten? Why did we not know? How could we have missed it?
According to statistics from the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 307 mass shootings in the 312 days of 2018. It has become a common occurrence in our lives and we are, apparently, no longer shocked. Five people shot, nobody died … oh well, just another day in paradise, eh?
The words of one parent whose son, Telemachus Orfanos, lost his life yesterday morning tell it all …
“I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control.”
Telemachus had survived the Las Vegas massacre last year, only to lose his life in this one.
Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman from Arizona who was shot in 2011, tweeted …
“307. There have been 307 mass shootings so far this year. Do we really want to raise our children in a country where mass shootings like Thousand Oaks are a weekly occurrence? A country where every single day in America, more than 90 people are killed with guns? Classrooms. Places of worship. Newsrooms. Movie theaters. Restaurants. Yoga studios. Nightclubs. Playgrounds. No place in America feels safe anymore. No other high-income nation has this level of gun violence. I’m heartbroken, angry, and never going to accept this as normal.”
None of us should ever be willing to accept this as normal … it isn’t. I’ve quoted statistics in past posts, so I won’t bore you with them again, except to say that every other nation in the industrialized world has stricter gun laws than the U.S., and not a single one has the number of gun deaths … not even close … that the U.S. sees every single year. Every. Single. Year.
Tree of Life synagogue, Parkland, Las Vegas, Pulse nightclub, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook … how many more? How many more people in this country have to die before somebody wakes up and says ENOUGH!!! Small men who rely on guns to make them feel like big men need to find some other outlet for their anger! We The People are tired of the killing. The NRA owns most every republican in Congress, as well as the small man sitting in the Oval Office.
Please … don’t sit back and shrug this one off, don’t accept that gun violence in the United States has to be ‘the norm’. It doesn’t have to be. Write letters, make your voice heard, or one of these days it might be you who gets that call in the middle of the night.
And So It Continues …
Yesterday I wrote a post, And So It Begins, about the White House, aka Donald Trump, suspending the press credentials of CNN’s Jim Acosta simply because Acosta had the temerity to ask Trump the tough questions that we should all be asking. Later in the day, the White House released a manipulated video that attempted to prove their point that Acosta had grabbed the arm of the intern who was trying to take his microphone away from him. The video was immediately exposed as having been ‘doctored’ by experts and Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders were left looking like even bigger fools than before, though I doubt they realized it.
Today, Trump threatened to revoke the credentials of more reporters if they didn’t “treat the White House with respect”. Anybody feel a chill in the air? But he didn’t stop there. No, he went on to hurl criticisms at other reporters … completely unfounded and untrue criticisms.
Of April Ryan, also a CNN reporter, he said …
“You talk about somebody that’s a loser; she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. She gets publicity and then she gets a pay raise or a contract with, I think, CNN. But she’s very nasty. And she shouldn’t be. She shouldn’t be. You’ve got to treat the White House and the office of the presidency with respect.”
Might I remind Donald Trump that ‘respect’ is something that must be earned? In his 22 months in office, not once has Donald Trump treated the press (other than state-run Fox News) with any respect, but rather has taunted and harassed them at every opportunity. The office of the president was once respected, but frankly Donald Trump has not earned any degree of respect from the press and is well along in the process of sullying the office and the White House.
In response to a question by another reporter, he said …
“What a stupid question that is. What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot — you ask a lot of stupid questions.”
The question was not at all stupid but was concerning whether the Mueller investigation would be ‘reined in’ with the appointment of Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General. A valid question and one which we are all asking.
Yesterday, in response to my post about Acosta’s revoked press credentials, a reader commented with the following quote by President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
“Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged.”
Now do you feel the chill in the air?
Another … sigh … Trumptian Terror
On Wednesday, the day after the mid-term elections, Donald Trump demanded the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We all knew it was coming, and I think others will follow. While I have no love for Jeff Sessions, who is a proven racist, I am greatly disturbed by his termination. With Sessions gone, the door is open to either terminate or stifle the Mueller investigation. The Mueller investigation is no ‘witch hunt’, as Trump has claimed, but I strongly suspect has uncovered scandal and corruption beyond what we can even imagine. Methinks Mr. Trump doth protest far too much, and his claims of innocence are a joke … a bad joke.
Let us take a look at the man who will be serving as a temporary replacement for Session.
His name is Matthew Whitaker. He is an attorney with a rather unremarkable career thus far, his biggest ‘claim to fame’ being that he has run for public office three times … and lost ‘bigly’ two of the three. Whitaker ran as a Republican for Treasurer of Iowa in 2002 and lost by 12%. He ran for the Iowa Senate seat vacated by Tom Harkin in 2014 but came in only 4th in the republican primary with less than 8% of the votes. After the 2014 loss, he became a paid advisory board member for a company called World Patent Marketing, a fraudulent business based in Florida that deceived inventors into thinking that the company had successfully commercialized other inventions. The company was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2017.
In September of 2017, Whitaker was appointed to be Jeff Sessions’ Chief of Staff at the Department of Justice. The month before, he wrote an opinion column for CNN titled “Mueller’s Investigation of Trump is Going Too Far.” His premise was that the Mueller investigation should be limited and should not probe into Trump’s finances. And in June 2017, three months before becoming Chief of Staff, he said publicly …
“I also think, you know, we have another hearing in front of Congress where there is no evidence of collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign. Democrats continue to conflate the collusion issue, which there is no evidence of, with, with the fact that Russians did try to interfere with the election.”
His views on the Mueller investigation are high priority and would take an entire post to discuss, and while that is the most urgent issue that he will likely face in the coming two months, there are others that are equally appalling. Let’s take a look at a few …
- On gun control – “The mass shootings we’ve seen in our country have been often times and always executed by mentally ill individuals who those laws never would’ve impacted in the first place. So I don’t think infringing on Second Amendment rights will prevent those types of events.” Right-o … why bother to try to save a few thousand lives every month … they aren’t your lives, after all!
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On climate change – “I think the evidence is inconclusive, but there may be a human component to global warming. But that’s very small and it may be part of the natural warming or cooling of the planet. I’m certainly not a climate expert, but I don’t believe in Cap and Trade or those types of regulations that try to hamstring the U.S. economy as other countries continue to put carbon into the air. I don’t believe in big government solutions to a problem that doesn’t appear to be that significant or quite possibly isn’t man made.” Yeah, again … what’s a few million lives as long as they aren’t yours?
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On education – “I think the Department of Education should be disbanded and the resources either returned to the taxpayers or put into the schools. Bureaucrats in Washington D.C. shouldn’t know how to better educate my kids than I do.” Heh heh heh … like you’ve shown yourself to be so bloomin’ smart??? 🤣🤣🤣
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On marriage – “I believe marriage is between one man and one woman. Throughout history it’s traditionally been up to the churches and to God to define that. I don’t have an omnibus solution. Certainly it’s affecting all sorts of parts of our country. Here in the state of Iowa we can’t even get our elected officials to do anything about it and that’s really frustrating. It’s affecting our military. There are chaplains in the military under a lot of pressure to go against their religious beliefs.” Bigot. Homophobe.
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On federal judges – “I’d like to see things like their worldview, what informs them. Are they people of faith? Do they have a biblical view of justice? — which I think is very important. And what I know is as long as they have that worldview, that they’ll be a good judge. And if they have a secular worldview, then I’m going to be very concerned about how they judge.” Hey Jerkface … every hear of separation of church and state??? Has anyone ever told you that this is a SECULAR government???
Add to that he has indicated his belief that Social Security is unconstitutional and that basic labor laws like the minimum wage must be struck down.
In an interesting twist yesterday, a number of prominent attorneys including none other than George Conway, Kellyanne’s husband, have claimed that it is illegal for Trump to appoint Whitaker as acting Attorney General because he is evading the requirement to seek the Senate’s advice and consent for the nation’s chief law enforcement officer. Don’t hyperventilate over this one, folks.
Under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, otherwise known as the “appointments clause” of the U.S. Constitution, a principal officer, that is one who reports only to the president, must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate under its “Advice and Consent” powers. Legally, I agree with Mr. Conway and the others, but … this is the reign of Trump, where Trump considers himself above the law, and the relevant people in Congress and the Supreme Court have upheld his lawlessness more than once. And the bottom line is that if Trump is forced to bring Whitaker before the Senate to confirm his nomination … well, need I say more? It will mean not much more than a delay of a few days. Remember Brett Kavanaugh?
