9/11/01: Ancient History?

An entire generation of Americans has grown up since the events of September 11, 2001.  No need to go into the details of what happened that day if you're over the age of 25.  If you're not, then the words World Trade Center, Arab hijackers, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Osama bin Laden doesn't mean much to you.

To today's students, all of what became known as 9/11 has been relegated to history books and You Tube.  Just like the Civil War, World War II, the Kennedys, civil rights, the Vietnam War and other touchstones of American history.  It shouldn't be.  Whether they know it or not, the spectre of 9/11 has dominated their childhoods.

We see it in long lines of security everywhere you go.  The war in Afghanistan is nearly two decades old, and the U.S. has yet to find a graceful way out.  Immigration to this country has deteriorated to the point where people fleeing wars, oppression and natural disasters are turned away at the border, just because our current leader thinks "very bad people" might be in the mix.

Recent generations, when they're not busy with their smart phones, are more concerned about making it to adulthood alive.  Not because of terrorist bombs, but because of lone gunmen with more firepower and nerve to take out every human within range.  African-Americans and others take to the streets and highways to protest white police officers who target people of color just because.  The biggest moment of their lives so far hasn't been planes taking down two skyscrapers.  It was the election of Donald Trump as President, which creates its own set of challenges.

Having seen what violence, political corruption, racism and the effects of climate change have done to this country, the youth of America are not taking things lying down.  They are holding rallies, facing down white supremacists, and electing more women to Congress than ever in recent history.  Even Muslim men and women of color, which would have been considered impossible in 2001.

The emotions over what happened in the rubble of the Twin Towers and the wars of revenge that followed in the fall of '01 and the spring of '03 has faded with time, but they shouldn't be forgotten.  It is up to everyone to make sure improving this country is the one thing that would honor the dead.

All This and Greenland,Too!

President Donald Trump, always looking for the next big real estate deal to flaunt his already massive ego, is interested in purchasing Greenland.

Greenland is a massive island that sits on the North Atlantic with Canada to its south, the Arctic to its north and Europe to the east. Its population is the size of a small American city.  The polar ice sheet that envelops the island is apparently melting as we speak.  But it's what's underneath that interests Trump. If he's successful in his purchase, we could soon be seeing military bases, oil refineries (in addition to the ones that are already there), coal mines and possibly branded golf resorts.

But Denmark owns Greenland, and runs it as a quasi-independent entity with its own self rule.  They're not interested in selling, least of all to the United States.  And because they're not interested in selling, Trump has canceled his planned visit to Denmark following the G7 summit in France.  He even went so far as to call its prime minister Mette Frederiksen "nasty" for the way she reacted to the President's no-show.  This is not the first time Trump has reacted badly to women who are in a position to stand up to him, especially since he does not do diplomacy well.

In fact, Trump does not do well when things come between him and others who don't appreciate the power and the glory that is Donald Trump.

• He declares himself the "chosen one" in standing up to China on that ill-advised trade war of his, one that could cause a recession by 2021.  But he's not worried over that one either.
• Gets his pal Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, to deny American congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib permission to visit his country.  Then he calls any Jewish person who votes Democratic to be disloyal to Israel.
• Migrant families who came here illegally will now be held in detention centers indefinitely while their cases are being processed
• Backs off on his support of background checks in the wake of the most recent gun massacres in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, following a nice little chat with Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association.
• The mystery of whether Trump had anything to do with billionaire and alleged pedophile Jeffrey Epstein got deeper after his apparent suicide in prison.
• A Fox News poll revealed that several Democratic candidates could beat Trump if the election were held today, not in November 2020.  Which means the President is not happy with Fox News right now, usually his main source of information.

Sixty years ago, Alaska and Hawaii were both admitted to the union as states.  Not so much for their scenic beauty, but for their strategic presence in the Cold War era.  Could Greenland be the 51st state for much the same reason?

El Paso and Dayton: Presidential Word Crimes

As the Decade of the Gun continues, 31 people (as of 8/7/19) lost their lives in El Paso, TX and Dayton, Ohio within hours on Saturday.  Lives lost because two young men with an agenda and a small arsenal took advantage of lax security to open fire on places where people would normally gather.

The aftermath has been almost as predictable.  Calls for Congress to pass new laws on guns that won't be heeded.  Finger-pointing from both parties blaming the other for "reasons" why shootings occur, including mental illness and video games.  "Thoughts and prayers" are delivered as loved ones bury their dead.  And life goes on.

Not every mass shooting is the same, of course.  El Paso resonates because of its proximity to the U.S.-Mexican border, which has been the subject of President Donald Trump's ongoing campaign to keep bad hombres from crossing over, even if they happen to be families fleeing oppression and needing asylum.  The suspect in the shooting allegedly targeted Hispanics, who he believed were part of an "invasion" of Texas.

The alleged shooter and possibly others in the white supremacist movement must have gotten their ideas from President Trump, who has been a thorn in the side of minorities for a long time.  In recent weeks, he told four Congresswomen of color to go back to where they came from.  He slandered the city of Baltimore as "rat-infested", and its African-American congressman for not taking care of his district.  He has allowed the mistreatment of migrants who are currently being locked up in cages.  He justifies it all by using language on his Twitter feed and at his rallies that entertain his base, but scares the hell out of normal people.

If Donald Trump were anywhere but the White House and continued to use rhetoric like that, he would lose his career and his fortune like that.  But Trump is President of the United States.  As we know from the Mueller Report, Trump can't be prosecuted while in office, and his term still has over a year to go.  His Democratic opponents can say whatever they want about him, but he must be hoping public amnesia will lead to a second term.

And as long as Trump is President, we can expect more mass shootings--just like every President so far this century--and more excuses from politicians who know which side of bread theirs is buttered on.  It's all coming to a neighborhood near you.

Of Rats and Tweets

As Democratic presidential candidates spin their wheels in Detroit, trying to convince the country (and maybe themselves) that they are the best alternative to the current occupant in the White House for 2020, President Donald Trump continues to find new ways to divide the country along racial lines while keeping his Republican Party in check.

Trump's latest target-by-tweet is the city of Baltimore, which he called a "very dangerous and filthy place", a "rat and rodent infested mess", and "no human would want to live there" in response to all the crime and violence that's been supposedly going on there.  He's also referring to the district that's been served since 1996 by Congressman Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat born the son of a sharecropper who's been taking shots at the President through his position as chairman of the House Oversight Committee when it comes to how the U.S.-Mexican border situation is being (mis)handled.

In the past few weeks, Trump has also used his Twitter account to demean other public figures of color besides Cummings:  the Reverend Al Sharpton and the congressional "squad" that includes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.  We have no way of knowing if the President has no "racist bone in his body", as he claims, or just says these things as a political tactic to throw off his opponents.  But it does make the country wonder if they unwittingly sent a white supremacist to Washington.

Trump has bad-mouthed other cities in the past, most of which are run by Democratic governments, as places that are fit for neither man nor beast (as W.C. Fields might have put it).  Any place that doesn't have a Trump-owned property, that is, which must be immaculate.  But then we hear reports of rodents and insects in Baltimore apartments whose landlord just happens to be Jared Kushner, the President's son-in-law.

Meanwhile, back in the Motor City, the Democrats spent two nights and 20 candidates debating each other over how they would run the country after Trump is defeated.  So far, the only ones assured of making it to the next round are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.  Which isn't very inspiring when you think about it.

But as long as we have a President whose only motivation to stay in office is that he'd be going to prison if he weren't, no one is safe from his digital diatribes.  Not ever race relations or world peace.  The Big Rat needs his cheese.

The Mueller Report for Beginners

Months after the initial release of the report that was two years in the making and cost millions of dollars to investigate Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, former special counsel Robert Mueller (who authored much of this) finally testified Wednesday to the House's Judicial and Intelligence committees.

This was "The Mueller Report for Beginners", whose intended audience was the millions (including some members of Congress and Yours Truly) who still haven't read the 400-page tome.  For those people, watching Mueller testifying on TV must have been a revelation.  For those who have read the report, the hearings turned out to be a dud, reiterating everything we've heard before.  Mueller mostly stuck to the script as promised, either declining to answer some of the questions asked by committee members, or directing them to find his answer in the report that some of them haven't read.

So what did we get out of it?

• Russia did interfere with the 2016 election, and could very well do so again in 2020.
• President Donald Trump could not be indicted until after he leaves office.  But he wasn't exonerated, either.
• Mueller tried to interview Trump, but the President and his lawyers stalled things for so long that the idea was dropped.
• Trump doesn't seem to understand that, even though he keeps repeating "no obstruction, no collusion", he's not off the hook.

All of this Mueller has already told us a few months ago, when interest in the report was high and impeachment talk was in the air.  But once Mueller turned in his report, attorney general William Barr spun the findings in favor of the President before anyone had a chance to read it.  Democrats dithered over impeachment.  The White House declined to make their witnesses available to testify before Congress.  And Mueller himself was reluctant to testify, preferring to let his report do the talking.  The moment was gone.

Now that the former special counsel has had his moment in the spotlight, what happens next?  Will Congress impeach Trump, knowing the consequences if they fail to convict him?  How many more revelations do we need before even Trump's supporters turn on him?  Can the Democrats really come up with a credible candidate who can beat Trump?  Will it matter if the Russians tip the scale in favor of the President?

Coming soon:  "Modern Politics for Beginners".

Trump: One Man Tweet Squad

It's no secret that President Donald Trump likes to control the news coverage by taking to Twitter and talk about anything that crosses his mind.  It's his way of taking attention from Congressional investigations, low poll numbers, or decades-old videos of him palling around with a billionaire who is now accused of having sex with teenage girls.

The latest example?  His Make America White and Male Again crusade against undocumented migrants coming across the U.S.-Mexico border who he thinks doesn't belong here was reaching critical mass, with reports of migrants young and old being held in filthy conditions at overcrowded facilities and ICE going into several cities making raids to deport violators.  So Trump uses Twitter to invite four members of Congress to leave the country.

These four Congresswomen--Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan--are multicultural freshmen Democrats who have made names for themselves as progressives with their youth and outspokenness, sometimes to the dismay of their party.  All were born and/or raised in the United States, with Omar having come from war-torn Somalia.

None of that matters to Trump.  He wrote a tweet that wasn't intended for anybody in particular, but everyone could figure out who he meant.  It reads, in part, that the women should "go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came".   What people actually heard was "go back to where you came from".

This request has problems on several levels, such as :  Go back to where?  Their place of ethnicity?  Their hometowns?  Raise families?  Stay in the kitchen?  Get a real job?  What?

The President has insisted that he doesn't have a racist bone in his body, and that there are lots of people who agree with him on this issue.  He's called white supremacists "very fine people", his daughter Ivanka is married to a Jewish man, and his wife Melania is an immigrant.  If there is a racist bone in his body, let us see the x-rays.

Outrage over the tweets has led the House of Representatives, on a mostly party line vote, to decide that the President must be censured.  The Republican-controlled Senate probably won't go along.

The GOP is too afraid of Trump, and it's destroying their party.  Many a Republican has seen their careers come crashing down if Trump considers them "weak" or "not loyal enough" for him if they dare cross the line.

Congresswomen Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressly and Tlaib have been putting on a brave face after getting the Trump treatment, because it's possible their careers and lives may be in danger.  Already, shouts of "Send Her Back!" have been aimed in Omar's direction at Trump rallies.

The Democrats have so far not come up with a convincing alternative to Trump in its multitude of presidential candidates for 2020.  But Senators Elizabeth Warren (who was once dubbed "Pocahontas" by Trump), Kamala Harris (who is biracial and spent some time in Montreal) and other candidates of color should be watching their backs while trying to stay on message.

Who's next for President Trump to attack?  LGTBQs?  African-Americans?  Women?  Anyone except Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un?  The more Americans of all shapes, colors and beliefs want to get rid of this President, the more incentive there is for him to put them in their place.

Because, like it or not, Donald Trump is still your President.  At least until November, 2020.

America 2019, So Far

As tanks roll down the streets of Washington on the Fourth of July,  we are reminded that we are no longer celebrating America's independence.  Instead, we are celebrating a man whose ego knows no bounds, and whom everyone wishes would just go away.

Having said all that, it's time to take stock of America in the first half of 2019, and wonder where all that freedom and democracy went.

--An economy with low unemployment, so long as you can put up with stagnant wages while still paying for college.

--Trade wars with China and Mexico that end up making the American consumer collateral damage. 

--A President who rules by tweet, pals with dictators, and can't be prosecuted as long as he's in the White House. 

--Twenty Democrats trying to convince voters over two nights that they have what it takes to be the next Commander in Chief.   The front runner is a former Vice President who's older than the Current Occupant by only a few years. 

--In its zeal to keep dangerous criminals south of the Mexican border, the government is keeping men, women and children who aren't lowlifes in conditions that resemble a poorly-run animal shelter. 

--The Supreme Court gives the OK to states who jury-rigged voting districts for the sake of keeping certain Congressional seats in the hands of certain people in perpetuity. 

--A woman's right to determine what happens to her own body depends on where she lives.

--Women who claim the Current Occupant  sexually assaulted them decades ago are now waved off as being not his type. 

--Busing school children across city lines to achieve racial balance, which was a hot topic more than 40 years ago, has resurfaced with Senator (and Democratic presidential candidate) Kamala Harris saying she was affected by it.

--A new poll tells us that Americans' pride in their country has never been lower.  Wonder why that is?

--Nike has pulled its line of shoes with the  Betsy Ross flag design.  It seems to remind African Americans of white supremacists rather than American independence.  Wasn't slavery also prevalent then too?

--More people cared about how "Game of Thrones" ended, or that Netflix is losing reruns of "The Office" to NBC than bothered to watch the Democratic debates. 

As John Mellencamp would say, "Ain't that America?" Land of the free.  Home of the exploited and gullible.  And the clueless.   Happy 4th. everyone.