Republicans must be held accountable for destroying democracy

Donald Trump is unfit to be elected to any office. This rhetorical statement is now proven.

The evolution of the Former Guy

An opinion published in The Roanoke Times - an editorial in the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: (The former guy❗😒) Trump’s recent rhetoric reminds us who he is — and why he’s unfit for office.

It’s a disturbing oddity of our current political era that a leading presidential candidate can suggest that an American general who  criticized him should be executed,😡 and that shoplifters should be shot on sight. This former guy also calls for the federal government to crack down on a television network whose coverage he doesn’t like and that an elderly man being attacked with a hammer is joke-worthy — and no one bats an eye.

In another Truth Social rant late last month, Trump made clear he is itching to use the power of the federal government to go after media outlets he doesn’t like should he be returned to power.

The parent company of NBC News and MSNBC, he wrote, should be investigated for “Country Threatening Treason” for reporting on the investigation into Russian influence during his administration.

Redeploying his go-to Stalinesque phrase “enemy of the people,” Trump expanded his target to include the entire “Lames Stream Media,” which, he wrote, “will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.”

“The Fake News Media,” declared the man who once swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, “should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”

The above-referenced lunacy all came from (where else?) the twisted mind, mouth and fingers of former president Donald Trump. And, (Hello❓ ) that was just within the past few weeks 😠❗.

Reach back to last year, and Trump was suggesting that the U.S. Constitution should be suspended to allow his return to office. (❓❗) back to Jan. 6, 2021, and he was directing his deranged followers to “fight like hell” to prevent certification of valid election results, fueling the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol that day.

In another Truth Social rant late last month, Trump made clear he is itching to use the power of the federal government to go after media outlets he doesn’t like should he be returned to power.

The parent company of NBC News and MSNBC, he wrote, should be investigated for “Country Threatening Treason” for reporting on the investigation into Russian influence during his administration.

Redeploying his go-to Stalinesque phrase “enemy of the people,” Trump expanded his target to include the entire “Lames Stream Media,” which, he wrote, “will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.”

“The Fake News Media,” declared the man who once swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, “should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”

Just a week after vowing to unravel the First Amendment, Trump told an audience of California Republicans that, in effect, he is also eager to sidestep the Fifth and Sixth Amendments — the ones that guarantee trial by jury and other rights for criminal defendants.

Shrugging off such constitutional niceties, Trump enthusiastically told the crowd of his solution for confronting retail theft: “You can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.”

“Shot!” he repeated, as the room cheered.

It was in that same speech that Trump reminded the world that, in addition to being a pathological liar and aspiring dictator, he harbors a demonstrable lack of empathy that borders on sociopathic.

How else to interpret his inhumane joke at the expense of Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who suffered a skull fracture last year — at age 82 — when a home intruder beat him with a hammer.

Vowing in the speech to “stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi,” Trump added glibly: “How’s her husband doing, anybody know? And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”

What a knee-slapper.

Then there was Trump’s social media attack just last week on a law clerk involved in his pending business fraud civil trial in New York. The attack included the clerk’s photo and identifying information, prompting the judge in the case to issue a gag order.

All of this oratorical poison should be considered in the context of a second Trump presidential term that would be different from the first in dangerous ways.

Trump and his allies have been open about their plans to remove many of the institutional restraints on the presidency should he return to it, in part by recategorizing wide swaths of federal employees so they could be replaced at will with Trump loyalists.

Former President Donald Trump blasts departing Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley,

It’s a disturbing oddity of our current political era that a leading presidential candidate can suggest that an American general who has criticized him should be executed, that shoplifters should be shot on sight, that the federal government should crack down on a television network whose coverage he doesn’t like and that an elderly man being attacked with a hammer is joke-worthy — and no one bats an eye.

The above-referenced lunacy all came from (where else?) the twisted mind, mouth and fingers of the former buy president Donald Trump. And that was just within the past few weeks.

Reach back to last year, and Trump was suggesting that the U.S. Constitution should be suspended to allow his return to office. Reach back to Jan. 6, 2021, and he was directing his deranged followers to “fight like hell” to prevent certification of valid election results, fueling the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol that day.

Reach back further still, and this silver-spoon draft evader was slandering war heroes (“I like people who weren’t captured”), whitewashing the Tiki-torch-carrying neo-Nazis of Charlottesville (“very fine people on both sides”) and extolling the virtues of sexual assault (“grab them by the …”).

So yes, Trump has been a rhetorical dirty bomb throughout his eight years at the center of the nation’s political stage. So much so that pausing now to note his latest verbal assaults against democratic norms and basic decency might feel redundant.

But Trump’s latest unhinged utterances are important to note here for two reasons:

One, the very phenomenon of the normalization of his psychotic rhetoric is in itself dangerous. The mere fact that he spews so much verbal sewage that the culture has gotten used to it shouldn’t provide a pass to a man who, according to polls, has as much chance of being the next president as does the sitting one.

And two, Trump’s always-toxic rhetoric seems to be getting worse. To the extent this is because he understands he has a real possibility of returning to the White House, and is signaling his intentions on getting there, the nation should listen.

Some of his worst recent rhetoric was aimed at someone formerly in his own inner circle — in this case, Gen. Mark Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the final months of Trump’s presidency.

As Trump was attempting to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, Milley assured his Chinese counterparts during a phone call that the U.S. government was stable.

That call, made at the behest of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, was perfectly appropriate, given the world’s trepidation about the turmoil within the U.S. government at that moment. Yet during a rant against Milley on his Truth Social media platform last month, Trump called it “a treasonous act,” one “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”


That kind of wink-and-nod threat is easily translated by the more deranged of Trump’s followers — as former Vice President Mike Pence could attest, having narrowly escaped being lynched by the MAGA mob on Jan. 6 after being publicly accused by Trump of disloyalty for refusing to help him steal the election. Milley recently said Trump’s threat has prompted him to provide added security for himself and his family. ...

In another Truth Social rant late last month, Trump made clear he is itching to use the power of the federal government to go after media outlets he doesn’t like should he be returned to power.

The parent company of NBC News and MSNBC, he wrote, should be investigated for “Country Threatening Treason” for reporting on the investigation into Russian influence during his administration.

Redeploying his go-to Stalinesque phrase “enemy of the people,” Trump expanded his target to include the entire “LamesStream Media,” which, he wrote, “will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.”

“The Fake News Media,” declared the man who once swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, “should pay a big price for what they have done to our once great Country!”

Just a week after vowing to unravel the First Amendment, Trump told an audience of California Republicans that, in effect, he is also eager to sidestep the Fifth and Sixth Amendments — the ones that guarantee trial by jury and other rights for criminal defendants.

Shrugging off such constitutional niceties, Trump enthusiastically told the crowd of his solution for confronting retail theft: “You can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.”

“Shot!” he repeated, as the room cheered.

It was in that same speech that Trump reminded the world that, in addition to being a pathological liar and aspiring dictator, he harbors a demonstrable lack of empathy that borders on sociopathic.

How else to interpret his inhumane joke at the expense of Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who suffered a skull fracture last year — at age 82 — when a home intruder beat him with a hammer.

Vowing in the speech to “stand up to crazy Nancy Pelosi,” Trump added glibly: “How’s her husband doing, anybody know? And she’s against building a wall at our border, even though she has a wall around her house — which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”

What a knee-slapper.

Then there was Trump’s social media attack just last week on a law clerk involved in his pending business fraud civil trial in New York. The attack included the clerk’s photo and identifying information, prompting the judge in the case to issue a gag order.

All of this oratorical poison should be considered in the context of a second Trump presidential term that would be different from the first in dangerous ways.

Trump and his allies have been open about their plans to remove many of the institutional restraints on the presidency should he return to it, in part by recategorizing wide swaths of federal employees so they could be replaced at will with Trump loyalists.

And with Trump having had four years to practice pushing the levers of power, it’s unlikely that people like Milley — the institutionalists inside the White House who restrained Trump’s worst impulses last time — will be positioned to provide those guardrails this time.

With that in mind, Trump’s recent rhetoric is not merely disgusting but alarming. He has, to paraphrase the famous warning from Maya Angelou, reminded us who he is. On that issue, if on no others, America should believe him.

There is zero pro-life message in the Rittenhouse murder verdict

Pro-life gun control zealots are rabid about being pro-second amendment.  This wrong-minded logic is the highest level of hypocrisy.

Pro-life hypocrites are also likely to support the death penalty!

Maine Writer - In my opinion, if Kyle Rittenhouse had been a man of color, he would not have lived long enough to have a trial in Kenosha, WI,  because the police would have seen him as a perpetrator and considered him a threat to the public safety.  Just my opinion. In other words, American justice was not blind in the Rittenhosue jury trial.  Instead, the jury was "blindsided" by a biased judge who was apparently influenced by Second Amendment rights being somehow at risk if the defendant Rittenhouse were convicted. 

Editorial board echo published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in Missouri:  The American justice system has performed its job in the murder trial of teenager Kyle Rittenhouse, but in no way can this verdict be deemed to have served the cause of justice. 

Rittenhouse was the beneficiary of a Kenosha, Wisconsin, judge who did everything in his power to ensure Rittenhouse walked free despite clear evidence that the teen had inserted himself into a dangerous situation, goaded confrontation with Black Lives Matter protesters and recklessly endangered others with an assault rifle the boy never should have had.

To the jury’s credit, it deliberated for three days before issuing not-guilty verdicts on all five felony counts. 

The length of their deliberations suggested jury members at least weighed the considerable evidence pointing to Rittenhouse’s guilt in the assault-rifle killings of two men and severe wounding of a third. The video evidence was incontrovertible that Rittenhouse recklessly inserted himself into a violent protest situation while brandishing a fully loaded AR-15 rifle.

A member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority.

The vigilante community across America must be jubilant with the knowledge that it’s possible to go out hunting for violent protesters, provoking confrontation, and then successfully claiming self-defense to avoid prison time for murder.

The weapons possession part of this case alone should have yielded a quick-and-easy guilty verdict since Rittenhouse was 17 at the time and not permitted under Wisconsin law to possess a gun. Rittenhouse violated a curfew in order to join other vigilantes as rioters attacked and burned businesses in Kenosha. But Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed a misdemeanor weapons possession charge before the jury could hear it. He also dismissed a non-criminal count for violating the curfew.

Schroeder hamstrung the prosecution at every turn. He banned use of the word “victims” to describe the people Rittenhouse shot but allowed defense lawyers to refer to them as rioters and arsonists. Bad guys who deserved what they got, in other words. At one point during the trial, Schroeder’s cellphone rang. His audible ringtone was a portion of “God Bless the U.S.A.,” whose command to “stand up!” has gained particular popularity among conservatives in response to Black athletes kneeling in protest of racism.

Schroeder also blocked the prosecution from showing photos of an unrepentant Rittenhouse celebrating and posing in a bar after the killings with members of the Proud Boys, a group linked to white supremacy.

Even if the jury believed Rittenhouse shot in self-defense, it’s unfathomable how jurors could conclude he had not recklessly endangered others, the topic of two counts against him. There was ample video available with Rittenhouse stating openly that he thought his “job” was to run toward danger. 

No, his job as a 17-year-old was to obey the curfew, stay at home, and leave his assault rifle locked up and unloaded until he was old enough to carry it responsibly.

Teenage vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse quite literally has gotten away with murder.

Maine Writer post script: In my mind, the Rittenhouse jury's verdict just proves that right wing zealots who claim to be pro-life, really love their guns more than they value any kind of life. 

Here is a prime example at this link here. 

"‘Pro-Life’ Texas Representative Threatens Beto O’Rourke With an AR-15", published in The Cut, by Bridget Read.  "Briscoe Cain has been reported to the FBI for his violent speech, which you might think would fly in the face of the 'sanctity of life' –type rhetoric..."

"Recounting the reasons why Trump must not be reelected and Biden is the only rational choice..."

We recommend Joe Biden for president — and overwhelming rejection of Trump- St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial endorsement:

Barely two minutes into his new presidency in 2016, Donald Trump spoke these frightening words: “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” 

In truth, Trump was only getting started on a rampage of mass carnage. The coronavirus death toll on Trump’s watch now exceeds 211,000 among more than 7.5 million U.S. victims that, astonishingly, includes Trump himself, his wife, multiple senior staffers and members of Congress. The nation’s top military commanders are under quarantine. 

Democrats, moderate Republicans and Independents are called to vote for Joe Biden to be POTUS'46

Trump’s gross mismanagement poses a threat to America’s survival and a destabilizing force for the world. Trump’s American carnage must stop, with the Nov. 3 election as the catalyst.

The only option to rid the nation of this menace is for Americans to unite behind former Vice President Joe Biden and send the strongest possible message of rejection to the far-right, racist extremists sustaining Trump’s base. This is a call for moderate Republicans to put their country first: Join moderate Democrats and independents in forming a unified front dedicated to the common cause of taking back our country from a true monster.

The legitimate complaints and concerns moderate Republicans have about Biden certainly must pale in comparison to the jaw-dropping insults, bigotry and childishness they’ve seen and heard almost every waking hour of every day during Trump’s tenure. Biden is a good, decent person and a proven leader with a career in local and national politics spanning five decades. He has powered forward despite immense personal tragedy, including the deaths of his first wife and daughter in a 1972 car crash, and the cancer death of son Beau in 2015. The Republican attacks on his other son, Hunter, have been relentless — mainly because that’s the only major point of vulnerability they can find on Biden’s remarkable résumé. They’ve tried to paint him as a police-hating radical socialist. Such absurdities only underscore their desperation as Trump sinks deeper in national polls.

For every accusation Republicans have about Hunter Biden having used his family name to enrich himself, there are scores if not hundreds of far more egregious examples where Trump and his close family members have enriched themselves in illicit ways, often at taxpayers’ expense and in violation of the Constitution.

For every mocking reference Trump might make about Biden’s senior moments or his stuttering disability, there are hundreds of examples where Trump has mangled his own syntax or tweeted absurdities such as his infamous “covfefe.” Trump never matured beyond the stage of a middle school bully, lowering himself to mocking Biden’s stutter much like he mocked disabled New York Times journalist Serge Kovaleski in July 2016. This is not normal and should never have been tolerated by the American people.

Trump thinks this twisted style of leadership is funny, but the message he conveys to his extremist followers is that it’s open season on anyone they don’t like. Disagree with Black Lives Matter protests? Take up arms and confront them, or maybe even shoot a few like that kid did in Wisconsin. Don’t like immigrants? Take up arms and go kill some the way that guy did at the Walmart in El Paso. Don’t like protests against Confederate statues, mow down a few marchers like that guy did in Charlottesville, Virginia.

When America’s president stands in defense of bigotry, homophobia, racism and sexism, his most extreme followers hear a call to action. When Trump utters the words, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” he rewards them with a new motto and white supremacist recruiting tool.

Democrats already understand the dangers. Our appeal is directed at moderate Republicans who might still be on the fence. We get the vote against Hillary Clinton in 2016. We get the desire to pack the Supreme Court with conservatives. But the damage Trump has wrought is incalculable in exchange for any perceived benefits.

Vice-President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden

For those who hold their noses and rationalize their support for Trump on religious grounds, the balance of the Supreme Court has already been tipped heavily to the conservative side. Trump’s work is done there. A vote for him in November would affirm all the other things Trump has said and done that defy every core value religious voters hold dear. This is a man who bedded with a porn star and paid for her silence so voters wouldn’t find out. This is the man who used vulgarity to assert that famous people like him have a right to sexually abuse women. This is a man who struggles to quote even a single Bible verse. He bizarrely thinks Biden could “hurt God.” For him, the Bible isn’t a holy book; it’s a prop for a photo op staged in front of a church after he ordered federal forces to clear peaceful protesters from a Washington park.

America’s “pro-life” president has repeatedly shrugged off the 211,000 deaths that his pandemic mismanagement has wrought. Instead of embracing the simplest of life-saving practices, Trump treated mask-wearing as some kind of socialist plot. It posed such an affront that he reportedly ordered staffers not to cover their faces in his presence. The result: The White House has become the top coronavirus hot spot in the nation’s capital. Trump's own infection was so serious he had to be helicoptered to a military hospital, placed on oxygen and pumped with drugs normally reserved for the most severely endangered patients. Why? Because he wouldn’t wear a mask.

If anyone was naive enough to think this scare would prompt Trump to rethink his foolishness, no such luck. He orchestrated two expensive and life-threatening photo-ops, then unleashed a barrage of tweets and videos downplaying masks and disregarding the death toll. He triumphantly ripped off his own after ascending the White House South Portico, then told people not to be afraid of the coronavirus. He now portrays his own infection as some kind of Purple Heart badge of courage.

Trump is a national disgrace, as a growing list of his ex-appointees and military commanders have affirmed. His impeachment was based on solid evidence that he sought to use his office for political gain by withholding U.S. military aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt Trump could use against Biden. He divided the nation on racial lines by feeding racism and excusing blatant police brutality. 

Trump took a booming economy and ran it into the ground by prolonging the nation’s pandemic exposure long after other developed countries had brought it under control.

Biden is far from perfect and certainly has had his share of missteps. His selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate ensures those missteps won’t be repeated, because she was the one who broke from the pack and called him out, in a nationally televised debate, for a questionable record on race. In contrast to Vice President Mike Pence’s robotic, unquestioning support for anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth, Harris yields to no one when it comes to standing up for what’s moral and decent.

We could go on and on recounting all the reasons why Trump must not be reelected and why Biden is the only rational choice on Nov. 3. Perhaps the best case, though, is to ask voters to assess their own sense of patriotism — that is, putting country before self. They should ask themselves honestly: When has Donald Trump ever prioritized anything over himself? The answer is never. He would risk loyal staffers’ and bodyguards’ lives for a photo op. He would sell his country’s sovereignty to Russia for the sake of an election victory. Trump's moral compass is so skewed that lying is as natural to him as breathing.

Trump’s assertions of business management success are a myth, as his tax records show. Multiple ex-Cabinet officials and senior staffers have openly berated him as incompetent. He is loyal to no one and would gladly throw anyone, including Pence or his own family members, under the bus to burnish his own image.

Whatever this is, it’s the opposite of leadership. America badly needs a reset, which must begin with Biden’s election on Nov. 3.

Trump trending 2545 - echo opinion from Missouri about lies

St. Louis Post-Dispatch echo opinion letter to the editor:

It is impossible to negotiate with President Donald Trump because he constantly changes his mind and has absolutely no empathy. 

2545

Donald Trump lies multiple times each day; he has a very limited vocabulary and is not able to articulate what he wants to say. 

I really do not know why he would even run in 2020 after experiencing the presidency during the past two years.

I believe the 25th Amendment of the Constitution allows for removing a president, despite having legally attained his office, if he becomes impaired. How much more impaired must President Trump become before the House and Senate invoke the 25th Amendment?

The Democrats are not responsible for this shutdown. If Trump cannot govern for all the people of this great country, he should be removed.  Geraldine Jacobs • St. Charles Missouri

Where is Nikki Haley? Human rights advocacy needed for immigrants

History will not give up demanding accountability from the evil actions taken against immigrants, by the failed Donald Trump administration. The human rights abuses of innocent children of immigrants is unforgivable.  For the life of me, I can't understand where United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is during this inhumanity, while ICEgov is putting immigrant children in cages on the border. 

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is missing in the humanitarian defense of innocent immigrant children.

An editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch draws attention to the human rights violations now weighing on the Donald Trump administration for enforcing the cruel incarceration of innocent immigrant children.

It's a national embarrassment. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has issued a blistering criticism of two nations for human rights abuses. One was Egypt. The other was the United States. This is not good company to keep.

Egypt was hammered for a crackdown on the rights of protesters. The U.S. was hit for the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their families to deter illegal immigrants and those seeking political asylum in the land of the free. The practice is shameful, a blatant violation of American values and arguably the biggest scar on the nation’s soul since police dogs and fire hoses were turned on civil rights protesters.

“The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles,” the UN office said. “The child’s best interest should always come first, including over migration management objectives or other administrative concerns.”

The Trump administration’s response to this criticism was predictable. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley basically told the human rights office to butt out: “Neither the United Nations nor anyone else will dictate how the United States upholds its borders,” Haley said. (Shame on Nikki Haley, whose parents are immigrants!)

Moreover, Hally went on to bash the human rights records of some of the nations sitting on the UN Human Rights Council; this was correct but irrelevant. The United States is supposed to be better than the likes of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

In the weeks since the plight of the children was revealed — the government admits to 658 separations from May 6 to May 13; other estimates are higher — the administration has refused to respond directly to critics. Instead it denies and lies, falsely blaming the problem on Democrats, equating scared toddlers with MS-13 gangbangers. Previous administrations detained children who crossed the border alone, looking for their parents. The “zero tolerance” practice of separating even young children from their families is all Trump.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., decided to see for himself. He tried to get into a detention facility inside an abandoned Walmart store in Brownsville, Texas. The private firm that runs the facility under government contract refused to let him in. Health and Human Services officials said Merkley hadn’t given the required two weeks’ notice.

Even worse, local police were called to run the Senator off.

Merkley was eventually allowed into the McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol Processing Center, where undocumented migrants are taken when they first arrive. Families are separated here, with kids staying 72 hours in cage-like enclosures before being sent to detention centers or foster homes. All that was missing were the boxcars.

For having a conscience, a White House spokesman blamed Merkley for policies that “allow violent criminal aliens to flood into American communities.”

This is standard Trumpian lying and blame-shifting. Using it to defend the unforgivable, somehow makes it worse.

Echo opinion published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.