Author: Ldavis0260

Yesterday we witnessed the hideous tableau of Trump’s first full cabinet meeting.  Five months into his tenure, Trump invited television cameras to capture the revolting spectacle of sycophancy on display.  Although the sight of everyone from Rex Tillerson to Reince Preibus debasing themselves to flatter this manifestly unqualified buffoon was seen as comedy, it was anything but.

As cognitive linguist and Berkeley professor George Lakoff has repeatedly pointed out, he who sets the frame controls the narrative and Trump is a master at framing.  By his tweets and photo ops, Trump has been able to dictate the day’s coverage and distract us from the momentous policy decisions being made.  While we were busy laughing at embarrassing obsequiousness, Trump was using the press as a megaphone to amplify his lies.  Low information voters will take the repeated untrue statements from that Cabinet meeting at face value, not bothering to read the fact checks in print media.  The press has to stop allowing itself to be used this way and call out the lies in real time. Continue reading “No laughing matter”

June 10, 2017

We have all long taken for granted that we are a nation of laws, not men. We have never stopped to consider how governance by people with utter contempt and disregard for that basic principle would impact the smooth functioning of our republic. Five months into the Trump administration, we are beginning to have the answer. The consequences were vividly on display with the testimony this week of James Comey. What was striking about Comey’s testimony was not simply his refreshing willingness to call a lie a lie, but his candor in describing his paralysis in the face of a President whose demand for personal loyalty revealed that he fundamentally did not subscribe to the view that no person is above the law. It is understandable that all 6’8″ of James Comey was flummoxed when faced with the combination of betrayal of baseline Constitutional values and the enormous power of the presidency. Continue reading “The fish rots from the head”

 

What we have learned in the last twenty four hours is that the Republican Party’s bloodlust for the power to enact their noxious agenda that virtually no one, other than their wealthy donors, supports, far outweighs any fealty to the Constitution or duty to our 244 year old democratic institutions.

Consider the evidence.  Yesterday, Dan Coats, Mike Rogers and Ron Rosenstein testified before Congress and repeatedly refused to answer the straightforward question of whether Trump had requested that they intervene in the FBI’s investigation of Mike Flynn or his campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.  They refused to answer the question, whether asked by Democrats or Republicans.  They did not offer any legally cognizable rationale for their refusal, admitting that the information was neither classified nor covered by a claim of executive privilege.  When pressed, they responded like Melville’s ”Bartleby the Scrivener,” saying, in effect, “I prefer not to.” Continue reading ““A republic, if you can keep it.””

In the past forty-eight hours, Trump has demonstrated that not only is he a narcissistic, incurious bully, but that he is dangerously out of control.  On Sunday, Trump callously derided Sadiq Khan, the Muslim Mayor of London, in the immediate aftermath of a horrific terrorist attack.  In a move right out of the Fox News playbook, Trump quoted a sentence fragment out of context to make it appear that Khan was minimizing the seriousness of the attack.  In a moment when any sane world leader, let alone the leader of Britain’s closest ally, would have responded with solidarity and compassion, Trump chose instead to stoke Islamophobia and score cheap points for his fearmongering policies.  Trump repeatedly demonstrates that he has a boundless capacity for boorishness. Continue reading “Vote as if your freedom depends on it”

June 3, 2017

It is an article of faith that humans are complicated beings, capable of both great good and devastating evil. We are taught that no one is all good or all bad and that even the most flawed human beings have redeeming qualities. Trump and his administration contradict that benign view on an almost hourly basis. The vindictiveness, dishonesty and cruelty behind every decision, large and small, are confounding. We vainly search for a shred of human decency or morality, only to come up empty, time and time again. Continue reading “Power – Use it or Lose It”

If we had any doubt that the election of Donald Trump has unleashed a hateful, destructive force in this country, we need look no further than the news of the last week. Hot on the heels of the murder of two Good Samaritans who were courageous enough to stop an assault on two sixteen year old African American girls, we have seen a noose hung inside of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the “N” word spray painted on the Brentwood home of NBA great, LeBron James.  Princeton Professor Keeanga-Yahmaata Taylor canceled two West Coast speaking engagements after receiving a torrent of violent, racist, sexist and homophobic threats in response to the Fox News broadcast of a clip of Taylor calling Trump a “racist, sexist megalomaniac.”  The escalating violence against and intimidation of African Americans is not confined to the stereotyped states of the Old Confederacy.  White Supremacists have waged violent attacks in the mid-Atlantic and the Pacific Northwest, in New York and California.  This is a national contagion. Continue reading “Destruction by design”

On Friday, we once again received alarming news of the latest victims of white supremacist rage in a seemingly unexpected place. Army veteran Ricky Best and recent Reed College alumni, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche were stabbed to death in Portland, Oregon because they interceded to stop Jeremy Christian’s racist harangue of two Muslim women on a rush hour commuter train. A third Good Samaritan, Micah David-Cole Fletcher, was also stabbed, but narrowly survived. Continue reading “Memorial Day”

An honest examination of the events of this past week leads inexorably to the conclusion that the Republican Party, from top to bottom, is nothing more than a criminal enterprise. They are unabashed in their naked pursuit of power and pecuniary gain at any cost, no longer bothering with the pretense of fealty to the Constitution or any vaunted patriotic ideals.      This may sound hyperbolic, but not if we look at the evidence. This week alone, we’ve seen a now victorious Republican Congressional candidate respond to a reporter’s legitimate question on his position on the AHCA in light of the CBO score by violently assaulting the reporter. Even more disturbing than Gianforte’s assault was the number of Republican politicians and commentators who excused it or mocked Ben Jacobs’ decision to press charges. From Governor Greg Abbott joking about shooting reporters to Laura Ingraham jokingly comparing Jacobs to the victim of high school bullying, the layers of wrong are almost too numerous to unpack. The common thread is that Republicans are endorsing violence as an appropriate response to inconvenient policy questions from members of the press. Continue reading “A Criminal Enterprise”

In the kakistocracy where we now reside, every day is like a dystopic, “Groundhog Day.”  The details may vary, but the themes remain depressingly consistent:  widening evidence of treasonous corruption from everyone in the Trump administration; fresh assaults on our basic human rights; and policy decisions driven by the idea that the desires of the ultra-wealthy trump the needs of everyone else. Continue reading “Groundhog Day”

On Saturday night, Second Lieutenant Richard Collins III was murdered by a white supremacist student on the campus of University of Maryland, College Park.  Lt.. Collins, who had taken an oath to “support and defend the Constitution” was murdered by a terrorist who belonged to a white supremacist Neo Nazi Facebook group.

Lt. Collins’ murder, though shocking, did not happen in a vacuum.  Throughout this year, the University of Maryland, along with other campuses around the country, has seen a spike in racist incidents.  On four separate occasions, white supremacist flyers were posted on campus. Continue reading “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight”