Politics – Page 2 – The Pencil-Driven Life

AUG 28, 2023

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas | The cartoonish corruption of the Supreme Court — Credit: Wikimedia Commons/public domain

Overview:

The archconservative justices of the Supreme Court have been enjoying a steady stream of gifts and luxury travel from right-wing billionaire friends. What checks and balances are there for a corrupt judiciary?

Reading Time: 6 MINUTES

Let’s stipulate one thing to start: I don’t doubt that some people call themselves conservative because they believe in small government, low taxes and individual freedom.

However, even granting this, it’s hard to argue that this is the animating idea of the American conservative movement as it exists today. Based on the policies they support, it’s plain to see that its organizing principle is very different. Namely, conservatism appears most concerned with protecting the privileged class—wealthy, white, male Christians for the most part—and ensuring they can do whatever they want. Meanwhile, they want to subject everyone else to increasingly harsh, oppressive and arbitrary laws.

Donald Trump’s shameless attempts to exploit the presidency for his own profit—about which Republicans raised not a peep of protest—are the most glaring example. However, those efforts were unusual only in that they were so brazen. He didn’t pioneer the tactic. He only engaged in it after lesser lights of conservatism had been getting away with it for years.

With that in mind, let’s talk about Clarence Thomas.

Me and my billionaire friends

Thomas has been on the Supreme Court since 1991. He’s one of its most conservative justices, voting against abortion, against gay rights, against gun control, against church-state separation.

Thanks to reporting by ProPublica, we also know that he’s been living large for years on a steady stream of gifts from conservative billionaires. The plutocrats who’ve lavished their wealth on him include Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate mogul; Paul Novelly, an oil baron; David Sokol, a private equity manager; and Wayne Huizenga, a CEO and investor.

In fact, “gifts” is a massive understatement. That word implies a small wrapped package, like something that would fit under a Christmas tree. The gifts that Clarence Thomas has been receiving are of an entirely different order. They’re entrance tickets into a rarefied millionaire lifestyle that the average American can only dream of.

They include flights on private jets and sailing trips on superyachts; VIP passes and skybox seats to sporting events; stays at ultra-luxury hotels, parties at waterfront mansions, and trips to exclusive resorts for the ultrarich. Crow bought several real-estate properties from Thomas and paid the tuition for Thomas’ grandnephew, whom he was raising as a son, to attend private school. He’s even bankrolled Thomas’ insurrectionist wife, Ginni, and her far-right lobbying group Liberty Central (whose mere existence poses its own massive conflicts of interest).

Like clockwork, Thomas’ leisure activities have been underwritten by benefactors who share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence. Their gifts include:

At least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.“Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel.” Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica, 10 August 2023.

Thomas has mentioned none of this in his yearly financial disclosures. But don’t worry, his billionaire friends swear that they’ve never discussed business on any of their little trips:

In a statement to ProPublica, Sokol said he’s been close friends with the Thomases for 21 years and acknowledged traveling with and occasionally hosting them. He defended the justice as upright and ethical. “We have never once discussed any pending court matter,” Sokol said. “Our conversations have always revolved around helping young people, sports, and family matters.”

Except:

Last October, in New Orleans, Sokol made a direct reference to a pending Supreme Court case while addressing a group of former Horatio Alger scholarship recipients. (Thomas was not in attendance.)

The speech veered into territory that made many of those in attendance uncomfortable and left others appalled, emails and others messages show. Sokol, who has written extensively about American exceptionalism and the virtues of free enterprise, minimized slavery and systemic racism, some felt. He then criticized President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, arguing Biden had overstepped the government’s authority, according to a recording of the speech obtained by ProPublica.

“It’s going to get overturned by the Supreme Court,” Sokol predicted, echoing a common legal commentary.

He was right. This summer, the court struck down Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. Thomas voted in the majority.

This poses the obvious question: Was Sokol only guessing at what the court was going to rule? Or did he have insider knowledge from chatting with his buddy?

It’s not just Thomas going for a dip in the waters of corruption, either. Samuel Alito, another of the court’s archconservatives, went on an extravagant Alaska fishing trip with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. Singer flew him there on a private jet costing $100,000 each way and paid for his stay at a $1,000-a-night luxury lodge.

It was a profitable investment:

In 2014, the court agreed to resolve a key issue in a decade-long battle between Singer’s hedge fund and the nation of Argentina. Alito did not recuse himself from the case and voted with the 7-1 majority in Singer’s favor. The hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion.“Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court.” Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski. ProPublica, 20 June 2023.

Like Thomas, Alito didn’t disclose this trip until it was uncovered by reporters. He claimed that “personal hospitality” is exempt from disclosure requirements. This is a willfully dishonest misreading of the law.

An awareness of impropriety

The legal system has a de minimis rule, which states that some acts are too insignificant for the law to concern itself with. If I invite my friend over for dinner at my house and spend $30 on some hamburgers to grill and a six-pack of beer, that would arguably fall under the de minimis exemption.

However, if I instead invite my friend to a catered party at my multimillion-dollar vacation estate, pick him up on a private plane, and hire a celebrity chef to cook for us both, that’s not de minimis. Any reasonable person can see that there’s a vast and significant difference.

The fact that the justices didn’t report these trips suggests an awareness of impropriety. They knew it would give critics grounds to question their impartiality.

The fact that the justices didn’t report these trips suggests an awareness of impropriety.

There doesn’t even have to be an explicit quid pro quo. Any reasonable person can understand that if a Supreme Court justice is personal friends with a billionaire who showers him with gifts, favors and luxury vacations—how likely is it that said justice will vote against his friend’s desires? There can be an implicit, yet still completely obvious, understanding that if they stopped ruling the way their benefactors wanted, the stream of gifts would dry up.

While I don’t think judges should have to take a vow of poverty or live in seclusion like monks, it’s common sense that they should step back from any case which they have a personal connection to. That rule applies if a case before the court involves one of your friends. It also applies if the case involves the conservative think tank your friend has donated tens of millions of dollars to, or the Fortune 500 company whose board of directors your friend sits on, or the dark-money lobbying group your friend underwrites.

In short, if you befriend ultrarich people who have their fingers in many different pies, you should have to accept there’s a much wider spectrum of cases you have to disqualify yourself from. But the conservatives want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to enjoy the lavish “hospitality” of their wealthy friends, but they also want to keep ruling on cases that concern them. It’s bribery and corruption in the purest sense of the word.

Checks and balances

Much like Donald Trump, these conservative justices are acting as if the law is beneath them. They’re treating their office not as a position of public trust, but as a sinecure they’re entitled to exploit for their own benefit and to do favors for their friends. This would be bad enough in any political office, but it’s especially shocking and revolting with judges appointed to life terms who never have to face the corrective will of the voters.

The simplest Constitutional cure for this rampant corruption is impeachment. Unfortunately, the prospects of that are dim. It takes a two-thirds majority of the Senate to remove a judge from office. In our polarized era, it’s clear that Republican senators value power above all.

Unlike in the days of Nixon, there will never be enough of them who’ll vote to remove a justice of their own party. As long as the Supreme Court’s conservatives keep voting the way they want, they’ll turn a blind eye to corruption or malfeasance, just as they’ve done with Donald Trump.

However, there are other reforms that can be made with a simple majority. For one, Congress could add new justices to the court to counteract the influence of the bad ones.

Or it could impose a mandatory retirement age. That’s a good idea in any case, as lifetime appointments to any office make a mockery of democracy. The judiciary needs regular turnover to keep up with the changing norms of society’s moral consensus. And, of course, it offers a useful test: will those GOP megadonors keep pouring their largesse on their “friends” when they no longer have anything to gain by it?

Lawrence: Trump co-defendant Eastman lied on television about GA indictment

MUST-SEE: Jamie Raskin on Trump’s DISQUALIFICATION from running in 2024

Ken Burns on why the Republican Party completely changed

STEVE SCHMIDT: ” It was an absolute honor to talk to Ken Burns, famed documentarian and national treasure, to talk about the importance of telling America’s story. In this brief clip, we discuss what changed in the Republican party in the last 10-15 years and how we can fix it.”

What a joke

Here’s the link to this article.

STEVE SCHMIDT

AUG 25, 2023

It is hard to sort through the surreality and absurdity of the FOX-hosted MAGA/GOP debate for the “also rans” that linger 40 points behind front runner Donald Trump, who faces 91 felony charges across four different jurisdictions, thus far. Absurdities piled up on top of one another, while hypocrisy, grandiosity, delusion and performative posturing could have been confused by a casual observer as being the necessary qualifications to run for president as a Republican.

Sixty-two years ago, a 43-year-old man rose and swore the 35-word oath that made him the 35th president of the United States. He was a decorated naval officer and combat veteran, who had served as a US senator for eight years and a congressman for six. He was thoughtful, observant, introspective and skeptical. His inaugural address ranks among the greatest in American history, and included these prescient words that I couldn’t stop thinking about last night as a 38-year-old demagogue and fame-seeking millennial took control of the debate from a feckless lineup of collaborators, appeasers, and FOX propagandists, with a fusillade of weapons- grade nuttery, rice paper-thin ignorance, and mind-bending naïveté wrapped together by ad hominem character attacks.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge–and more.

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do–for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom–and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

They most certainly did. Deep inside.

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There were some astonishing and illuminating moments from the FOX-fest, such as when Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis looked left and right before deciding whether to put their hands up and pledge to support Trump for president whether he is convicted, imprisoned, or anything else — no matter what, forever and ever.

Both men came into the debate filled with the conviction that shouting and inconsistencies are the key to projecting strength to an audience of extremists. Clearly when it comes to thinking on his feet and mirroring others, DeSantis was stuck in the pudding compared to Pence, who had much more experience. Let’s watch him do the same thing with water during a White House meeting with Trump before the former president and current criminal defendant tried to hang him:

‘Tis the season for revisionist history, and Mike Pence has made clear that Mike Pence is a hero for telling the man who incited an insurrection that killed and maimed, that he couldn’t help him overturn the election. He tried and thought about it, but when he called Dan Quayle, he told Pence that he was nuts and quite the hero. Watching Mike Pence perform his squinty-eyed, pious Reagan imitation right down to his canned and cheesy line that he is a “Christian, conservative and a Republican — in that order” has always been aneurysm-inducing for people with common sense and character. Mike Pence is a former cigarette spokesperson and lobbyist, who used donor money to live off during his first losing congressional race. He is a fraud, an extremist, and profoundly full of shit. After everything, when the question came about whether he’ll be behind the man who burned down what he said matters most, he made clear what he values — and it isn’t America. I guess there has always been a reason for Mike Pence why American wasn’t on his list. Mike Pence was Donald Trump’s partner and accomplice in all things — except one at the end. Remember though, but for Pence, we never would have gotten there.

Nikki Haley is the exact same person. There were moments in the debate where she appeared honest, cogent, strong, competent and principled. Of course none of those things are true, as has been ably demonstrated over the last seven years. She proved it when her hand shot up during the Trump forever auction. No matter what, she will be with Trump, whom she spent the debate excoriating by proxy through her castigations of Ramaswamy as an unprepared gadly for aping Trump’s positions 100% as his “mini me.” It makes no sense.

The abortion section of the debate was deeply chilling, and should terrify American women who don’t want their Republican member of Congress joining them in their bedroom, MD’s or pastor’s office. Though Mike Pence’s political career is at an end “The Handmaid’s Tale” is not. Can someone call casting please? What a commander he’d make. Chilling though he was, and as extreme as everyone else was, the DeSantis comments were memorable, right? I’m not the only person in America who heard him talk about a friend who survived multiple abortions, and was born in a pan, right? Please tell me I’m not alone in knowing that’s made up. The reason why I’m asking is because it’s important, given there is no such thing as up-to-the-moment of birth elective abortions that Republicans keep talking about. It isn’t real, and it’s never challenged. The failure of the Democratic Party to wrestle this issue into reality is appalling. Nevertheless, Nikki Haley was correct with regards to her worry about the political backlash that is coming to the nuttiness. There will likely be a women’s tsunami at the polls, unless America’s women are ready to sign up for transportation backwards in time about 60 years. I suspect it’s an offer they will enthusiastically refuse.

Lastly, there was the rushed and nervous discussion around the Trump coup that was handled by FOX and the candidates, except Christie and Hutchison, as a live incendiary device on a timer. There are no words to describe the trivialization of the greatest act of treachery and political misconduct in American history by the very same news anchor — Bret Baier— who kicked off the madness with his worries about delivering the news that the orange führer had lost the election to his manipulated, incited and radicalized audience.

What a small, petty affair last night was.

Oh, and Asa Hutchison appears to be a normal, responsible, serious person. He’s clearly in the wrong party to have a chance.

Yesterday, I said the “debate would be a travesty and a farce.” Looking back, I was way too optimistic. What a joke.

Steve Schmidt reacts to the 2024 Republican Presidential Debate on Fox News | The Warning

What is ‘woke’? It’s my trigger word

Here’s the link to this article.

Avatar photo by JONATHAN MS PEARCE

AUG 19, 2023

Overview:

“Woke” is either the new “libtard” or it means nothing. Either way, it triggers me…

Reading Time: 7 MINUTES

Woke is the mot du jour. It’s everywhere. It’s what Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox News, uses incessantly. It’s what presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis platforms against with his “anti-woke” campaign agenda. It’s what my father-in-law uses when he’s angry with, in his own mind, some new nonsense—“Oh what’s that word…yes, that’s it, bloody ‘woke’!” It’s what the Daily Mail rails against. It’s what the BBC supposedly is. Or Disney. Or Goodyear.

There is real confusion about what this now-surprisingly-common word actually means. So much so, indeed, that the conservative author Bethany Mandel recently had a car crash of an interview where she froze, completely unable to define what “woke” means. This is somewhat surprising given that she is an author of a book against “wokeism” (Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation) in which she attacks “wokeness” as “a new version of leftism that is aimed at your child.”

It seems commonplace that people on the right accuse the left of “wokeism” that underwrites a “cancel culture” instituted by the left. The reality is somewhat different, as I argued against evangelical Christian and 2016 presidential candidate David French on Premier Christian Radio.

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said in 2021, “What you see now with the rise of this woke ideology is an attempt to really delegitimize our history and to delegitimize our institutions, and I view the wokeness as a form of cultural Marxism. They really want to tear at the fabric of our society.”

I am probably the them to his us, the sort of person who wonders why “social justice” has become something bad to aspire to.

So what does “woke” actually mean?

In this general context, not what it originally did.

In its earliest iteration, woke was part of the phrase “stay woke”, being a phrase used within Black communities referring to being awake and “alert to the deceptions of other people.” It was “a basic survival tactic.” The phrase appeared in a 1938 song “Scottsboro Boys,” a protest song by blues musician Huddie Ledbetter (known as Lead Belly)—a reaction to nine Black teenagers accused of raping two white women. Lead Belly said of it, “I made this little song about down there. So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there—best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”

At the same time, “stay woke” also literally meant to stay awake, in Black vernacular. in 2008, R&B artist Erykah Badu released a politically themed album with the song “Master Teacher” that included the phrase being used in several different contextual meanings, bringing the phrase back to the fore.

Fast forward to 2014, when Michael Brown was shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and the phrase came back to life. Needs must.

The context of the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement saw the phrase, now shortened to “woke”, being associated with anything to do with racial equality. It was only a hop, skip, and a jump to it representing anything and everything liberal in the world.

Because racial equality is the purview only of the left?

A Black person on a BBC show where you might not expect to see them? Woke. (Think the new Little Mermaid film or the recent Lord of the Rings series.) Silicon Valley Bank collapsing? Woke. Yale physician advocating sensible Covid policies? Woke (a “mind virus attempting to destroy civilization,” according to Elon Musk). It’s rather dizzying, keeping an eye on the myriad uses of the term.

In fact, here linked are more than 200 things conservative TV channel Fox News has labeled as woke. A few examples might help to show how woke has become the bogeyman of the right. And it’s a little embarrassing now.

So on and so forth. It’s a long list. And when you look at every subject included in that list, you quickly realize that “woke” is a very large umbrella term. Gathered under the protection of this term is every single liberal. And every single centrist. And every single person who happens to hold an opinion that someone angrily hopping about on the far right doesn’t agree with.

When you use a term so much, in so many contexts, to attack so many ideas and so many people, it loses any coherent meaning or utility. In economics, this is the Law of Diminishing Returns. The first pint of water in the desert is very useful and rather refreshing. The 31^st? Somewhat less so. We are now at a point that the term “woke” is empty, vacuous. It is the new “libtard”. If that’s where we are at, count me out.

It’s a very lazy term.

And the label now triggers me. If anyone mentions it, I take an instant dislike to their politics, to their morality. Because it says more about them than it does about me or their intended target. I can very often successfully sum up someone’s political positioning with their single use of that term in the same way that I can if they use the pejorative “libtard”. It carries about the same degree of nuance.

If you have issues with the use of pronouns and gender identity (and let’s face it, it’s something of a complex philosophical battlefield), then let’s have a reasonable debate. The same goes for climate change. And pandemic responses. And equality—racial, sexual, or otherwise. And…and…

However, if you are going to add into your debating rhetoric the use of the word “woke”, then you have lost me because not only is it completely simplistic, but it is a pejorative: It is used as a term to insult the opposition.

If I was to call every position or person I disagree with “fascist” or “Nazi” then these terms would lose their strength and utility and I would rightfully not be taken seriously. For “woke” I would prefer the term to be replaced with “progressive” in many of the cases because the intention of the target people or ideas is to make the world progressively better. The use of the word “woke” does a real disservice to the original meaning. When used as a pejorative like this, it becomes crass.

I am a socially liberal, economically centrist philosopher and politically motivated person. In the political psychology underwritten by the work of psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt (and his moral foundations theory), there are traits that are more associated with liberals than conservatives and vice versa. For example, liberals tend to be more inclined to an openness to new experiences, and fairness, whereas conservatives (the clue is in the name) tend towards conserving the status quo, being driven more by tradition.

We can see how some shifts in modern society might irk conservatives and motivate liberals. Some of these ideas are consistently seen as the beating heart of “wokeism”—perhaps gender identity, critical race theory and suchlike. (And so often, they are completely blown out of proportion.) Unfortunately, much of the problem comes when every other idea that (conservative) critics don’t agree with also get incorporated into the label.

We must remember that it is often ill-advised to listen to those with the loudest voices. The UK is following America’s lead when it comes to the right shouting about culture wars issues. All you need to know is that when politicians and pundits shout about the war on Christmas, or transgender restrooms, or political correctness gone mad, or the woke BBC, then they really have nothing substantial to talk about. Culture wars discussions belie a fundamental lack of policy.

We have seen this in successive US elections and it is starting to creep into UK campaigning. One side is serious about governing, and the other side has nothing in the locker but a woke checklist.

Do not be fooled.

The bandwidth of political discourse is being strangled with culture wars whinges about woke, and it helps nobody. We have existential crises facing us the likes and scale of which humanity has never faced: climate change and ravaging wildfires, the reignition of the Cold War into a very hot one, population, pandemics, wealth inequality, healthcare, and education. The list is long and worrying.

But when the right distract you with the woes of woke, they are deceiving you. They care little about these other topics, let alone have any actual workable policies on the matters.

There’s an awful lot of work to do without being misdirected by a shoddy magician’s sleight of hand.

It’s probably a tad inappropriate here, but the words of British comedian Kathy Burke (unlikely to be labeled “liberal elite”) are apropos: “I love being ‘woke’. It’s much nicer than being an ignorant fucking twat.”

If I was to be less abrasive and confrontational, I would simply say, “I’m woke. And?” Or, better still, “I’m nuanced. Challenge me on substance rather than throwing about lazy, childish labels.”

The progress towards a better future will be fraught with bumps in the road. We won’t always get things right, but shouting “woke” at anything and everything will end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Simply put, if someone brings up wokeism at the beginning of a political discussion, then they have their priorities firmly in the wrong place.

Legal experts argue this is why Trump can’t hold office again

The peaceful transfer of power

Here’s the link to this article. Read and be sure to watch each of the short video clips.

STEVE SCHMIDT

AUG 18, 2023

Engraving from 1869 commemorating the first inauguration of President George Washington on April 30, 1789

American greatness has been fueled and sustained by qualities of character that are timeless and sorely needed during these days of national crisis. There should be no mistake about this being a moment of crisis or blindness about its cause, or who specifically is responsible.

The three greatest American presidents — Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt — collectively created America, saved the Union, ended slavery, and saved the world from tyranny. Each man’s greatest achievements and service were fueled by their exceptional character and dedication to virtue.

Washington was a man of exceptional humility, who repeatedly walked away from power to set in motion a new epoch of history. He was an example of the restraint necessary to sustain a republic. His actions awed the world, as well as the people of our young nation. When he passed he was eulogized as first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

Lincoln demonstrated iron strength, indomitability, fortitude and magnanimity. His second inaugural is the greatest speech in America’s secular canon. Its words are transcendent.

He makes clear that the cause of war was the moral catastrophe of slavery. His determination is absolute.

Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’

So is his grace and magnanimity:

With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Franklin Roosevelt had the gift of faith, and because of it, he possessed a bottomless wellspring of optimism. Because of it, he was fearless — and made his nation so. His last inaugural address was the shortest in history. It stood at 544 words, but remains remarkable nonetheless as a declaration of moral purpose around a national purpose. FDR was a man without doubt by the end. His faith was in us, and it was not misplaced then or now. Here is what he said:

Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Vice President, my friends, you will understand and, I believe, agree with my wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief.

We Americans of today, together with our allies, are passing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage–of our resolve–of our wisdom–our essential democracy.

If we meet that test–successfully and honorably–we shall perform a service of historic importance which men and women and children will honor throughout all time.

As I stand here today, having taken the solemn oath of office in the presence of my fellow countrymen–in the presence of our God– I know that it is America’s purpose that we shall not fail.

In the days and in the years that are to come we shall work for a just and honorable peace, a durable peace, as today we work and fight for total victory in war.

We can and we will achieve such a peace.

We shall strive for perfection. We shall not achieve it immediately–but we still shall strive. We may make mistakes–but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principle.

I remember that my old schoolmaster, Dr. Peabody, said, in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled: “Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights–then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend.”

Our Constitution of 1787 was not a perfect instrument; it is not perfect yet. But it provided a firm base upon which all manner of men, of all races and colors and creeds, could build our solid structure of democracy.

And so today, in this year of war, 1945, we have learned lessons– at a fearful cost–and we shall profit by them.

We have learned that we cannot live alone, at peace; that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned that we must live as men, not as ostriches, nor as dogs in the manger.

We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.

We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, that “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear.

We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.

The Almighty God has blessed our land in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth. He has given to our country a faith which has become the hope of all peoples in an anguished world.

So we pray to Him now for the vision to see our way clearly–to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for all our fellow men–to the achievement of His will to peace on earth.

Eighty-two days later he was dead.

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Harry Truman had been vice president for just 82 days when he was received by Eleanor Roosevelt in her study in the White House on April 12, 1945. He had been playing poker in Speaker Sam Rayburn’s hideaway when a call came summoning him back to the White House.

Harry, the president is dead.

Truman responded:

Is there anything I can do for you?

Eleanor Roosevelt, a giant of the 20th century, replied:

No, Mr. President. Is there anything I can do for you? You are the one in trouble now.

Truman, a decorated combat veteran of the First World War, recalled his emotions this way, telling reporters the following day:

I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.

Why did he feel that way? What burden was thrust upon him?

It was the burden imposed by the most solemn oath that exists in American public life. Thirty-five words long, it is specifically proscribed in the US Constitution, and was taken for the first time on March 4, 1789, by George Washington. When Truman raised his hand, he was the 32nd person in American history to swear it. When he did, he became president of the United States of America. His styling was simple and unadorned. “Mr. President” is what we call the person who swears that oath. Here it is:

I do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

When it is sworn, executive power is either renewed or transferred. For 223 years, including through civil war, world war, assassination, economic depression and presidential resignation, it was peacefully transferred.

The first time it was peacefully transferred occurred in 1797. John Adams was fully aware that the unprecedented event was regarded with amazement. He recognized the significance of the moment and spoke about the “great uncertainty” that had followed the revolution and the establishment of the republic. The achievement was fresh, new, extraordinary and filled with promise and peril. This is how Adams described the achievement that would utterly transform world history and human civilization:

But this is very certain, that to a benevolent human mind there can be no spectacle presented by any nation more pleasing, more noble, majestic, or august, than an assembly like that which has so often been seen in this and the other Chamber of Congress, of a Government in which the Executive authority, as well as that of all the branches of the Legislature, are exercised by citizens selected at regular periods by their neighbors to make and execute laws for the general good. Can anything essential, anything more than mere ornament and decoration, be added to this by robes and diamonds? Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? For it is the people only that are represented. It is their power and majesty that is reflected, and only for their good, in every legitimate government, under whatever form it may appear. The existence of such a government as ours for any length of time is a full proof of a general dissemination of knowledge and virtue throughout the whole body of the people. And what object or consideration more pleasing than this can be presented to the human mind? If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information, and benevolence.

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good. If that solitary suffrage can be obtained by foreign nations by flattery or menaces, by fraud or violence, by terror, intrigue, or venality, the Government may not be the choice of the American people, but of foreign nations. It may be foreign nations who govern us, and not we, the people, who govern ourselves; and candid men will acknowledge that in such cases choice would have little advantage to boast of over lot or chance.

The peaceful transfer of power is at the core of the American system of government and way of life. Its endurance was mistakenly interpreted by most of the country as permanence. It is not an inherited right. It marks renewal and recommitment to the core of the American revolution and the ideals that animate America. When power is transferred in America, it is a powerful and profound moment.

It is important to understand the desecration and chaos Trump and his mob have wrought with their attack against America. They have normalized conspiracy. They have made the truth and lie equal in a public square contaminated by the toxic sewage of division, propaganda and misinformation. They have assaulted the essence of America through a conspiracy to seize power that was bestowed by the American people on Joe Biden. The treachery is historic, unprecedented and ongoing. The days ahead will test America’s spirit, resolve and democracy.

Below are the moments when power was transferred. Listen to select words of the inaugural speeches of America’s Democratic and Republican presidents. Do you see the continuity and the majesty of what Trump and his filthy accomplices desecrated?

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Dwight Eisenhower, 1953

John F. Kennedy, 1963

Jimmy Carter, 1976

Ronald Reagan, 1980

Bill Clinton, 2000

Do you ever think about the Boomers?

Here’s the link to this article. A must read. Be sure and watch each video clip.

STEVE SCHMIDT

Do you ever think about the Boomers? I don’t very often, but I suspect I do more than most — which is barely at all. I wonder why the overwhelming majority of Americans never think about them and their potential. It’s almost as if they don’t exist at all. But of course they do.

Boomers, of course, are the nickname for America’s fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, which are the most powerful weapons of war in the history of human civilization. Here are their names:

USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN 730), Bangor, WA

USS Alabama (SSBN 731), Bangor, WA

USS Alaska (SSBN 732), Kings Bay, GA

USS Nevada (SSBN 733), Bangor, WA

USS Tennessee (SSBN 734), Kings Bay, GA

USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735), Bangor, WA

USS West Virginia (SSBN 736), Portsmouth, VA

USS Kentucky (SSBN 737), Bangor, WA

USS Maryland (SSBN 738), Kings Bay, GA

USS Nebraska (SSBN 739), Bangor, WA

USS Rhode Island (SSBN 740), Kings Bay, GA

USS Maine (SSBN 741), Bangor, WA

USS Wyoming (SSBN 742), Kings Bay, GA

USS Louisiana (SSBN 743), Bangor, WA

Aboard them are men and women from all 50 US states and territories. They are US Navy sailors, and are in the business of deterrence, which means they will be the first to know if Armageddon is at hand. After that, they will be the first to wonder what happens next.

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Let’s watch Commanding Officer John Gage of the USS Pennsylvania contemplate the end of human civilization and what it would be like aboard the ship that fired the missiles after the fact. Before watching though, are you at all interested in the personality type of the man who is wearing the silver oak leaves on his collar? What makes him tick? What is unique about his character, judgement and intellect that would interest the US Navy in turning over the keys to the most potent weapon that ever existed and the lives of those under his command?

Let’s watch:

Here is a remarkable scene from the fire control room aboard the ship. Notice the ages of the crew and the diversity. For those unfamiliar with naval rank, the Black man with two silver bars on his collar is in charge. He is a lieutenant. Look at the bridge of the ship and the faces. Right now, at this exact second, there is a crew of Americans in a ballistic missile submarine lurking, hidden, in each of the world’s oceans. They are training, preparing and readying. They are preparing to execute an order they simultaneously pray they will never receive. Let’s watch the captain explain the process by which he would launch nuclear weapons from his ship via ballistic missiles:

The commander in chief is the president of the United States. The crew will follow his orders and they will fire the missiles. The American people choose the person who can give that order. Why don’t we ever talk about that? Why aren’t politicians ever asked about it? It is real.

Let’s watch Martha Raddatz of ABC News talk to some of the women crew aboard the USS Maine. Listen to her describe the deadliest weapon in the world:

When you see the young Lieutenant Jg Erin Chandler handle the nuclear launch key what do you see?

What is it that a citizen owes her and her shipmates? How should we think about the young people who will hand the keys to the captain, who will launch the missiles that will annihilate civilization? Don’t we owe them wisdom and circumspection in our voting choice? Don’t we owe ourselves, our children and their descendants someone more stable, secure and trustworthy than Donald Trump?

Here is another question raised by the broad indifference Americans seem to have towards the country in which our descendants will live. When do we stop caring at all about what happens, and when? Is it after our grandkids? We don’t care what happens to their kids and their grandkids? Is it too far forward after that? Never let it be said that selfishness doesn’t kill in America.

Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks she might be vice president in the next Trump administration. She told The Atlanta Constitution-Journal about her ambitions, saying the following about potentially running for the Senate:

I haven’t made up my mind whether I will do that or not. I have a lot of things to think about. Am I going to be a part of President Trump’s Cabinet if he wins? Is it possible that I’ll be VP?

Now watch the captain talk about how the hidden submarine communicates with the commander in chief, receives its orders and prepares to fire. Lest there be any doubt around whether the order to fire would be disobeyed the captain will put your mind to rest. The missiles will be fired:

Donald Trump controls the Republican Party at an institutional level. Fully. He is unambiguously the boss. He is an accused felon facing nearly 100 criminal charges that include being at the center of the greatest criminal conspiracy in American history. He is running on a platform of retribution, revenge, threat and division. His intimations toward violence and chaos will inspire the results he hopes for.

We should all think about Boomers and the awesome responsibility of their crews and officers. We should think about their commander in chief. We live in an age of disgrace and unfitness that is both epic and conquerable. Moving past it requires zero tolerance for the extremism and cult of personality that has broken faith with American values in the name of Donald Trump. They have betrayed an idea for a person, and the surrender of a political party’s elected members to the whims of a despot has been as pathetic as it had been despicable. Whatever cowardice it represents, it will be viewed as unpardonable by history. The harsh judgement ahead will scorn the cowardice that allowed a fascist movement to plant, root and thrive on American soil in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.

America’s politics is covered as a game by much of the American media, which brings the same slimy touch to the endeavor of politics that wife beater and Trump fanboy Dana White brings to the UFC. It’s not a game. It’s life and death. This era must end. It is dangerous beyond any measure.

We should all think about our Boomers. We should think about the young men and women aboard them. They will survive the first wave. It is said that when the missiles launch, the survivors will envy the dead. In the end, there is only one American who is ever given the power and discretion to launch the weapons of extinction. That person is the president of the United States of America. What type of sick society would ever invest that power again in a man like Donald Trump.? What type of broken media would pretend the powers of the office don’t exist? What type of people are we?

In the end, we will know. America gets the chance to vote on its own euthanasia.