Tag Archives: news

U-flying-O’s!

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Started yesterday on the front porch, breathing in the scent of fresh rain – our first in several months – and reading about the Executive’s use of our armed forces to summarily execute a boatload of what it claims (without substantiation) were ‘terrorists’ because they were transporting drugs headed (again, without substantiation) to consumers in our nation.  This despite the Constitution’s clear directive that it is Congress, not the Executive, who has the authority to commit the nation to war.

At the same time, we have clear statistical indicators that the economy is heading downward and the budget deficit upward despite the supposed magic bullet of a massive tax increase – in the form of tariffs – being arbitrarily imposed on the masses (us all) without Congressional authorization, and an upcoming deadline to pass a funding bill in order to avoid another government shutdown with all that that implies.

Not to mention extortionate prosecutions of news, educational, scientific and legal institutions for the sin of exposing the Executive’s actions to logic, fact and the laws by which all the rest of us must abide.

So it was of interest, scanning headlines before heading inside for another cuppa, to see that Congress was, at that very moment, using the People’s time, facilities and dollars for a hearing on whether or not the military is hiding evidence regarding UFOs.

Can there be any better illustration that this Congress has abdicated its role in governing the nation, than this – that with so many intensely real and vitally urgent issues of authority, accountability and simply doing their jobs, our representatives are pursuing rumors about U-flying-Os!

P. S. – That day ended with news of the killing of activist and influencer Charlie Kirk.   Terrible news; a tragic destruction of life and an unjustified act of pointless violence, regardless of his or anyone else’s political opinions.  Here’s hoping the killer is quickly apprehended and brought to justice to discourage any others from similar acts.

Doublespeak Becomes our National Language

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The events of January 6, 2021, wherein thousands overran security at the U. S. Capitol Building, directly and violently assaulted security forces then broke into and vandalized that pre-eminent Federal facility, all while threatening bodily harm and even death to the elected representatives doing the nation’s business there, did not require the then-President to take any action and were actually “a day of love,” in Mr. Trump’s words or “a normal tourist visit,” in those of Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde.

But:

The events of the last few days in Los Angeles, wherein crowds gathered in predominantly peaceful demonstrations, are “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the U. S. government”– the standard set by 10 U. S. C. 12406 of the Code on Armed Services which the administration has abused to justify creating a national crisis by deploying Federalized National Guard and active duty Marine troops – despite urgent assurances by both local and state authorities that there was no need to do so.

Doublespeak, George Orwell’s prescient creation, is alive and active in the words of those who now govern our nation.

(There’s no excuse for throwing rocks or anything else at police forces. No excuse for looting or vandalism either, but such criminal offenses are properly and regularly addressed by civil law enforcement forces. Assembling in public to voice and demonstrate common feelings about events in one’s community is neither rebellion nor incursion but a right guaranteed to all in the U. S. by our Constitution, our laws and abundant examples in our nation’s glorious history.

Mr. Trump, who famously declared “I love wars,” who tried to declare himself, “a wartime president” back in 2020, and is eagerly anticipating his opportunity to preside over a grand military pageant, made a tactical mistake by predicating his current reign on avoiding foreign wars. To escape this bind, it seems, he has decided it is in his political and economic interest to find himself a domestic war. Stones thrown in LA are merely the pretext for this latest escalation of his own aggrandizement.)

“Good night and good luck,” indeed.

Autocracy Now!? – a personal opinion

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Following Mr. Trump’s second ascension to the Oval Office, Op Ed pages were flush with pundit pieces pondering whether our nation might be slipping toward autocracy.

Now, less than 10% thru the man’s political resurrection, the verdict seems clear. Since January 20th, 2025, we’ve:

Watched Mr. Trump invite elected leaders of sovereign nations to the White House on pretense of official business only to then enact staged humiliations (complete with laughably inaccurate accusations despite his having the entire resources of the Federal Government at his disposal to provide accurate information), all to generate “…great television…” in his perpetual self-promotion campaign.

Cringed at his lazy and feckless use of social media (“Vladimir, STOP!”), to ‘negotiate’ international disputes on which turn the lives and fates of millions, no doubt provoking scathing contempt among the hardened dictators who simply ignore his maunderings as they go about their bloody business.

Witnessed him elevate minor entertainment personalities to positions of real power despite their lack of relevant experience, and begun to see the damage their recklessness is inflicting both at home and abroad.

Cringed as his craven ‘spokespersons’ dodge, divert and dissemble to suggest his public pronouncements do not mean what their words plainly say and that reality is whatever their Don says it is, rather than what we perceive with our own eyes, ears and reason.

Seen him predicate foreign policy not on the basis of any lasting principle, nor of the Nation’s interests, but of his own need to appear ‘strong’ and to ingratiate himself with the most brutal and paternalistic figures on the world stage, currying their favor and reveling in the pomp and praise and gilded royal treatment they gladly dispense as a cheap price for neutering our nation’s hard-won soft power.

Observed him repurposing the Justice Department into a tool for personal vendetta, while neutering the rule of law wherever else it suits him through pardons, elimination of oversight and simply ignoring any statute, decision, precedent or custom he does not choose to follow.

In short, the question those Op Eds asked has already been answered: As of this writing and for all practical purposes, governance of the United States is no longer enacted by Congress, nor administered by the various Federal agencies and offices, nor constrained by the rule of law.

Those functions have, instead, been subverted to the whims of a single person whose overriding goal is to elevate his self-image above even the office of the Presidency while simultaneously feeding his obsessive greed and coagulating power in his name alone.

The autocracy is here, and it is U.S.

(The current questions are: how long will it last, and how badly will it end?)