Author: BC

“To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follow his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.”

JFK – from Profiles In Courage

JFK is perhaps the closest thing that exists to a 20th Century bipartisan icon in today’s fully polarized body politic. Fox/AM often trots out liberalism’s martyred prince to illustrate “how far left the Democrats have gone.” That many observers do the same with Reagan to highlight how reactionary the GOP has become doesn’t account for the chutzpa the Hannitys and Carlsons show when claiming Kennedy would now “probably be a Republican.” Nevertheless, JFK’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection of essays provides a wholly relevant point of departure to consider what kind of candidate we should hope for to confront the worst President ever to seek re-election.

Of course anybody with a pulse and not reliant on lithium to stay out of jail represents an improvement. Yet and still, why not seek the best we can hope for, not necessarily from a policy point of view, but from the standpoint of character. After all, the menace Trump poses stems from his ugly wretchedness as a human being. The extreme policies he embraces have more to do with his reckless desire to hold close a base of nihilists than any ambition to convey an enduring ideological stamp. Considering Trump in any other way normalizes his pestilence, which makes more likely its ability to survive him.

In surveying the growing Democratic field it’s gratifying to see that some of its most serious contenders are women. This clarifies Democrats ignored the rubbish put forth by too many that Hillary’s electoral ills were more about her sex than her imperviousness as a candidate. Indeed, as we witness the degradations a genuine misogynist foists on the office he never wanted, and certainly feels no urgency to promote the standing of our society’s better half while within, it is reassuring to witness a full quorum of qualified women prepared to mount serious candidacies. Yet and still, and quite obviously, that doesn’t mean they should be judged by different criteria, or receive passes based on gender. Where they’ve been, and how they got here, are as fair game as the storylines of their male opponents.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has thrown her hat in the ring and is a formidable contender for the nomination. In a field increasingly moving leftward, she may very well be able to stake out a significant chunk of moderate ground. Her contributions in the Senate have been solid; she has amassed a body of work with many impressive aspects which bolster her qualifications for high office.

That said, from the standpoint of the courage and character this cycle’s Democratic nominee should possess in heaps, a review of her past raises concerns. Klobuchar made her bones as a county prosecutor two decades ago during a period where voters, particularly white voters in suburban Minnesota, were demanding law and order as crime rates spiked. After being elected by a razor thin margin, the new county attorney was glad to oblige, actually embracing the Rudy Giuliani approach of aggressively prosecuting lesser crimes as a strategy to address more serious offenses. Trouble was, in Minnesota, just like New York City, minorities were disproportionately run in and handed sentences often out of whack with either fairness or common sense.

Nothing in the record shows Klobuchar as anything but glad to play along; indeed, after winning her first term by a 1 % margin, voters rewarded her get-tough approach with a lopsided reelection win. Meanwhile, jails in the state filled to capacity, many minority inmates serving stiff sentences for relatively minor crimes. Looking back from today’s vantage point, with sensibilities informed by a different standard more concerned with empathy for those whose basic civil rights suffered at the foot of policies catering to white fear, Klobuchar has some explaining to do. Her answers have left much to be desired.

Rather than owning up to the political expedience another time demanded, and simply acknowledge it may have been a mistake that she has now learned from, Klobuchar knee-jerked her inner swamp denizen and revised her past. Her tenure as the county attorney actually saw a general reduction in inmate populations, declared the Senator, citing statistics of an obscure liberal think tank that would not survive even a cursory double take. In fact, when the Washington Post’s fact checker, who has become any concerned citizen’s bestest buddy in the age of Trump, dissected her proposition, he was compelled to give her four Pinocchios…. a liar’s rating. Called to address the falsehoods she had promoted, a Klobuchar staffer spewed weasel inanities that are always employed when the gig is up and the goal is simply moving on to another issue and news cycle.

To be fair, Klobuchar is no outlier when it comes to a past checkered by that time’s political winds. Joe Biden ran a campaign punctuated by his resistance to busing in a state now defined by inequities its shoddy public education system creates. Cory Booker has been a sponge for special interest campaign cash, and way too good a friend to Big Pharma. Kamala Harris weathered a genuine scandal as a DA, resulting in the dismissal of hundreds of cases. And so on…. But Klobuchar is distinguished by her current response…. one that, stripped of its profunctory claims toward good faith, roughly equates with a typical Trump whopper. No thanks!

Surviving the Trump abyss in tact as a going democratic concern will require some overcompensation in certain areas. One of those, to my eyes, is a demand his successor lean heavily on some basic qualities our Chief Executive does not possess… integrity, courage, empathy, and an abiding adherence to transparency. Simply relegating the Democratic nomination to a contest of policy positions, a referendum on where the pendulum has swung, doesn’t cut it. To paraphrase JFK, we should be concerned about the path each has followed, and perhaps reward those who took a more difficult road less traveled. Klobuchar’s recent piss poor defense of flitting along the 90s’ “get tough on crime” jet stream badly fails to fill that requirement. BC

“Little Mickey, get in here!”

“Yes Sir! Although I am surely not worthy, how can I at least attempt to meet your needs?”

“Listen Mickey, this Twitter blackout is killing me. These fingers need to move! The deplorables want me declaring victory over that deep-state scum, Mueller!”

“Sir, I know you’re anxious, but we need to wait. It’s still not a slam dunk. Granted, no indictments is promising, but Barr used the word “comprehensive” to describe the report. A lot of ground was covered, and you faced loads of liability.”

“Don’t give me that, you little rat, it was a witch hunt! Whose side are you on anyway?!”

Your greatness, it cuts me to the quick you could ever question my loyalty. I’d not only take a bullet for you, I’d take one for Uda… Er, I mean Don Jr. I’m all about MAGA! But listen, this thing has many aspects; Mueller’s team opened plenty of cans with lots of worms…. uh, for no good reason of course.”

“It’s all bullshit, Mickey. Powerful men like me and Vlad won’t be leashed. My people want me to keep my promises. That’s what I’m doing and then some… like that hill in Israel… what’s it called again?”

“The Golan Heights, Sir.”

“Yea, the Golem Heights. Hey, cool, named after that little freak in The Lord of the Rings, huh? Loved those movies. Actually sat through most of them. Tyler’s daughter is hot.., with the Spock ears. Loved her. Anyway, I’m an ally you can count on. Bibi said jump, I said how high! That is MAGA foreign policy right there! Now that I’m not going to jail we can really start delivering. But, damn it Mickey, I need to tweet!”

“I understand best of all mankind, it’s got to be hard, but just hang tough for a bit longer. Remember, Mueller isn’t the only witch hunter out there. The Southern District of New York can act on his findings. That would be trouble.”

“Screw those assholes, they’re weak. I own New York. They’ve never laid a glove on me. That rat bastard Cohen did his best and Sean says Mueller’s got nothing. That’s good enough for me. I want to send out some warnings and let Chuckie and Nancy know they better be careful. The Sons of Anarchy love me!!”

“Well, your highest of all IQs, he did pretty much prove you lied, er, embellished, from start to finish with that floozy. Those checks are very bad sir.”

“Why… you little scab! I’ve had it with you! He did that all on his own, I didn’t know anything about it. Bad enough I have fake news to worry about, my own Chief of Staff/Budget Director/Head of Consumer Protection stabs me in the back! You’re history, Mulvaney!”

“My deepest apologies, oh hair that’s the most natural, it wasn’t my intention to anger you. I’d carry your golf bag on the hottest day, and look the other way any time you sought a better lie, sir. It’s simply that Congress is now in the Democrats’ hands and, whatever Mueller’s Report concludes, Schiff is going to keep at it.”

“Let him try! Sean and Tucker already promised they have my back! Shiftless will be public enemy number 1 now that Mueller only proved I lied at every conceivable opportunity. Fair is fair. My people understand the difference between the law and politics. They want to move forward and focus on that rotten Federal Reserve trying to ruin my economic miracle. The brilliant, er, who’s that great economist I’m appointing again?”

“Stephen Moore, oh most virile of all men.”

“Yea, Moore… he’ll shake things up over there! Love how all the snowflakes are crying he doesn’t have any credentials. Who do they expect me to pick? Some lib?! Love driving them crazy. Besides, Kudlow says he’s the best. I like him, too… even if he is a stuttering son of a bitch… hee hee. Hell, he’s more of a weasel than you, Mick!”

“Uh, thank you most decisive. I think. Anyway, please promise to stay off the Twitterverse for a while longer. Let’s make sure it’s a done deal before taking a victory lap. Go get in another round sir. Better yet, I believe the Greg Gutfeld show comes on soon. You know how much you love that little imp…”

“Yea, he kills me. Hilarious, but loyal! Ok, Mickey. But this type of discipline is tough. Trump does as he pleases, when he pleases. Just call Barr and remind him who he works for! I don’t want any of this integrity bullshit with him. Get me a copy of that report with plenty of cliff notes! Got it! Meanwhile, I’ll call Pudgy Pompeo and conference in Bibi. That election is going to be close. He sure is going to owe me!…..”. BC

George Kennan was perhaps the greatest American diplomat. An East European expert, it was Kennan who slapped American policy makers out of their obtuseness toward the emerging threat Stalin’s Soviet Union posed to the West. Kennan was the architect of Containment Strategy, initially designed as a delicate balance between discouraging Soviet aggression while avoiding World War III, which most understood to be in nobody’s interest.

Underwriting the entire franchise, particularly during the dangerously fluid years immediately following WWII was the fine art of US-European diplomacy, dedicated to the consolidation of NATO and the establishment of a global system of trade. Diplomacy was key because the US had emerged as preeminent and would need to demand many things of many people and countries. They couldn’t be ordered, but rather had to be tactfully instructed on the benefits of multilateral relationships subordinate to an overall vision of collective security. Nothing could be taken for granted, and the contributions of all had to be appreciated, each to his unique capabilities.

It’s worth noting how successful those diplomatic efforts were. Seventy-five years later, Europe remains at peace and the trade system underwritten by the Marshall Plan produced relative prosperity throughout the decades. And Kennan’s Containment paradigm? Despite plenty of mistakes it’s open-endedness surely encouraged, Vietnam chief among them, it resulted in the collapse of Soviet power while sparing the world another global military catastrophe.

Of course moving forward within today’s disparate geopolitical systems and augmenting many outdated elements of European collective security was always going to require a deft touch and bold, intelligent diplomacy. Tragically, those qualities are slim and none at Foggy Bottom these days…. and slim blew town a while back. Exhibit A of the dearth of this Administration’s diplomatic talent is Richard Grenell, our preposterous Ambassador to Germany.

While the President’s bafoonery in Britain, France, Brussels and Helsinki inevitably garnered most of the headlines, Grenell’s day in and day out tactlessness has been impossible to ignore. As recklessly prolific a tweeter as Trump, Grenell was literally hours into his new assignment when he tweeted German companies still doing business in Iran better close up shop. It was stunningly inappropriate and earned him immediate scorn which he has done nothing to mollify.

Whether it’s been cheering on right wing opponents of the Merkel government or threatening sanctions for German companies participating in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project, which Trump seems to oppose more as a means to counter charges he shills for Putin than any substantive reasons, Grenell has been condemned by both sides of Germany’s political aisle for “outrageous” conduct that has actually violated established diplomatic principles. A paid contributor at Fox News and frequent guest of Tucker Carlson, Grenell has responded to the widespread criticism by simply labeling it “fake news,” and claiming he is attacked because of progressive disdain for current US policy.

In fact, Der Spegiel, a prominent German weekly, published a profile of Grenell in January based on a wide plethora of sources in and out of the government. The picture it painted was of an isolated Trumpie, more alt right provocateur than emissary, a brittle, thin-skinned narcissist with no support anywhere other than the far right fringes he openly flirts with.

It’s not hyperbolic to say the US Ambassador to perhaps our most important ally is detested by all except neo-facsists. And what does Trump have to say about his man in Berlin’s job performance, even as a growing bipartisan group of German politicians actually call for his expulsion? Three words… United Nations Ambassador. With Foxette Heather Neuart pulling the plug on her appointment – apparently the result of an undocumented nanny – Grenell is said to be near the top of Trump’s list to replace her. That would be a promotion Grenell has hardly earned, unless the criteria is merely mimicking the boss.

Those less than alarmed when Trump was elected swore whatever frailties he suffered as a statesman would be countered by qualified people who would be appointed to carry out the nuts and bolts of policy. James Mattis, HR McMaster, Nicky Haley, etc. were pointed to as examples of this protective backstop. They’re now long gone, and Trumpie Mike Pompeo’s State Department is tearing at the seams. This week’s conference call for the “faith-based”media only seemed directly out of an SNL cold open, hysterical if it wasn’t such a tangible symbol of yet another American institution being decimated by Trumpism’s regressive termites.

Grenell’s sorry performance in the heart of Europe clarifies the wretchedness is indeed a global malady. George Kennan was fond of saying he was less concerned about why people were doing things than how they were doing them. Our man in Germany fails at both ends of that equation. Kennan would have been a very very harsh critic of Richard Grenell. BC

“Drain the swamp” is of course a ubiquitous term, different things to different people. That DC had come to support a status quo of pay-to-play access to decisionmaking by the lead up to Decision 2016 was simply a given. Few believed that money wasn’t critical to a place at the table inside the beltway, or in most all state capitals for that matter. Yet and still, the Trump campaign, and the full Fox/AM delivery system supporting it 24/7, employed a significantly more ominous definition of the “swamp,” imbuing it with monolithic nefariousness, centrally controlled by the Clintons and devoted to nothing less than totalitarianism geared to stripping all but their cadre of apparatchiks of anything other than toil and hardship.

In late October of 2016, as Election Day neared and he was all but conceding defeat, candidate Trump equated the swamp with “a rigged system” that was busy undermining his chances. “Either we win this election, or we lose the country,” warned the Donald in between hissing that the fix was in for Hillary. And while the Trump campaign put forward a generic list of policy prescriptions to address revolving door public service/lobbying practices, to Trumpism’s wretched core the DC establishment covered everything from Alex Jones’ pizza parlor pedophilia to Benghazi cover ups, Planned Parenthood infanticide to Vince Foster murder theories. The swamp was limited only by the imaginations of the Fox/AM “personalities,” all of whom were now echoing Trump’s dire warnings that electing HRC would surely constitute the end of days.

Looney right wing fever dreams aside, anyone who wants to get a bird’s eye view of what overt corruption looks like can begin with Trump’s Inauguration Committee. Headed by one of his very few actual friends, investment huckster Thomas Barrack, the enterprise was a sludge magnet from the start, literally viewed worldwide as the open door to access, not to just Trump Administration policy, but the now fertile landscape of government contract possibilities. Millions immediately began to flow in unabated, presumably for inaugural festivities, but with a subtext nobody needed their reading glasses to grasp.

Well over a $100 million poured into the committee, whose bookkeeping was Enron-like in its diligence to detailed transparency. Typical of the events the money underwrote was the opulent “Chairman’s Global Dinner,” the idea of Barrack, himself. The Washington Post provided an in depth look at how the shindig came together, and its distinct smarminess.

Originally not even slated to have the President-elect in attendance – he opted to attend at the last minute – the soirée was designed to bring together influencers from near and far, particularly the Middle East, Barrack’s networking comfort zone, with a stated emphasis on diplomacy. Billed as a start toward consensus and reassurance of Middle Eastern diplomats unnerved by Trump’s nasty campaign rhetoric, what it amounted to was a line-the-trough chance to gain the ear of incoming VP Pence and a host of Administration officials. Rick Gates, who later would be indicted on multiple felony counts and become a Mueller asset, was in charge of the dinner, which would ultimately cost $4.3 million for providing 550 guests the choice between filet mignon or black cod. Paul Manafort was also front and center, pressing flesh and surely taking requests.

Entertainment was a problem since no actual stars wanted anything to do with Trump. Finally, country band Alabama and Steve Wynn’s Showstoppers, a Vegas fixture, were lined up. But what really made one pause was the cash coming into the Committee, which made sure the guest list to the invite-only spectacle exuded the proper gratitude. Middle Eastern businessmen, who sent in donations starting at 500K were not forgotten, rewarded with a setting at one of the tables…. and a chance to chat with Rex Tillerson or incoming Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Right wing ATM Sheldon Adelson ponied up $5 million to the group and earned prime gala real estate to lay out his wish list, at the top of which was moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. And so it went.

The optics of a large group of incoming Administration officials dining away with a pack of deep pocketed donors looking for an edge did not escape many. Greg Jenkins, former director of W’s inaugural committee, no barebones operation by any stretch, was incredulous…. “This just doesn’t look good,” he observed, …” it just invites criticism.” Perhaps, but who was going to report on it, “fake news”?

Turns out there were other interested parties. Last month, federal prosecutors in New York issued a subpoena to the Inaugural committee seeking information on all of its donors and vendors. Another federal probe is looking into money laundering, conspiracy and false statements. Barrack himself has been asked to turn over documents, which he says he will be glad to do, no doubt bucked up by confidence that the pardon card will be available if needed. Elliott Broidy, a top RNC bundler, has been under investigation by the DOJ for outright selling White House access to China and other Asian interests. He, too, surely will bank on the President’s good graces… never the wisest of strategies.

The Trump Inaugural Committee, and its Chairman’s Global Dinner, were just the introduction to the torrent of slime imported from Mar-A-Lago to the nation’s centerpiece. Turns out this Administration has neither the will nor wherewithal to place any sort of checks or reconsiderations on its dirty dealings. From emolument outrages to porn star payoffs to census shenanigans to cabinet secretaries with a taste for high living on the tax payer’s dime, the list doesn’t seem to end, and worse, doesn’t seem to concern anybody throughout its entire grubby food chain. Why should it? The base of support they hang their hats on has been convinced they are doing nothing more than has always been done. It’s no biggie. At least they’re not pimping out little boys from pizzerias, or carrying out suitcases of cash on tarmacs to Mullahs! Those are outrages! You don’t see Trump eating popcorn while our people are being slaughtered in Bhengazi, do you?! Now that’s the swamp!

Trump lied near every sentence on the campaign stump and has spewed near 10,000 more zingers since taking office. Much of his fiction is dedicated to creating an alternate reality he and Alex Jones claim existed before he came to town. Fox/AM has fully embraced that narrative and continues to spin lies for no other purpose than providing the false equivalence it’s criminal champion requires to seem….. normal. Viewed from the lens of Sean Hannity’s imagination, the unsexiness of mere bribes for favors seems downright pedestrian. After all, didn’t you hear Rush thinks the New Zealand massacre may be a false flag orchestrated by Democrats?! Now that’s what needs to be drained!! BC

My son Luke doesn’t really know how to lie. The whole concept is something autism won’t permit him to employ. Luke Carey for President! There will be many awful legacies we will have to deal with should the nation survive Trump as a going democratic concern. Very high on the list will be reestablishing at least an abiding demand for the truth. Trump lies as he breathes and that doesn’t seem to be an issue any longer. “Hey, that’s just him” is being put forward now even by otherwise voracious critics. Instead of a horrified gasp, we now get knowing chuckles across our political spectrum.

The President clearly lied about having business interests in Russia. He definitely lied about knowing Don Jr. met with Russian agents promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. It has been proven beyond question he lied about paying off Stormy Daniels as the general election approached in 2016. Of course,, he’s continued to hold ridiculously tight to the lie/delusion his inauguration crowd was the second coming. With the latest monstrosity of a White House budget, it’s clear he flat out lied about his determination to protect Medicare and Medicaid from deep cuts. The list is endless, and in fact, the Washington Post Fact Checker, probably journalism’s most important cottage industry right now, has cataloged near 10,000 flat out lies from the President’s yap since Inauguration Day. Needless to say, this is a practice that simply can’t survive his vile tenure if we are to continue as a pluralist republic.

Howard Schultz, the man who convinced us paying near $10 for a cup of joe is reasonable, wants to run for President. Yet and still, the Starbuck’s founder can’t be bothered with any party affiliation or, more importantly, the cumbersome nomination process such ties entail. So, like those of his 1/2 % ilk are prone to do, Schultz plans to use his money to forego such drudgery and run as his own entity. What does he have to offer? I suppose it can be called “common sense plutocracy,” gleaned from his “rags to riches” personal story. A filthy rich moderate with a heart; he’s one of us…. look at his bio.

Indeed, Schultz has created a personal brand that leans heavily on Horacio Alger to assure all he has the bona fides to empathize with struggles Americans at even the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder confront. He may be a billionaire now, but unlike the gilded devoid we currently suffer, his roots are true and assure a just perspective.

Schultz has claimed a tough-as-nails upbringing in the Brooklyn projects, a hell few but the most focused and determined could escape. According to Schultz, he hails from “literally the wrong side of the tracks.” Fights were commonplace, Schultz has recalled, only the relative scarcity of guns compared to today kept them from ending much worse…. but, stresses Schultz, “they were tough in their own way.” Yes, to hear Schultz tell it, the Bayview public housing project he was forced to endure stacked the deck against any hopes for achievement and future prosperity. Only his tenacious resolve, and a football scholarship to a midwest university his on-field feats earned him, separated Schultz from his destitute peers, who surely suffered as adults the same fate their deprived childhoods ensured. Not so fast.

Some excellent, very in-depth reporting by the Washington Post clarifies a much different picture. Turns out the Bayview housing project was more Rockwellian than dystopian, more middle-class than poverty ridden. Schultz’s peers laugh and then grow irate at his claims they all grew up in desperation. Apparently, Bayview was designed and continually administered to make sure the poor and destitute were actually excluded! Residents had to demonstrate they were on the way up, not down.

Former Schultz running mates describe a working-class, white, largely Jewish enclave, complete with playgrounds, basketball courts… even an elementary school. It seems residents attended to hunger pangs by visiting two wonderful kosher delis just across the street, and sunset walks to bordering Jamaica Bay relieved the stress of the day’s toil. One former resident put it succinctly: Bayview was “…a shiny, wonderful world… Everything was brand spanking new.” Schultz called Bayview “an urban melting pot.” Data from the mid-60s pegs the demographic makeup at almost 95 percent white. Turns out the pot actually contained one big solid chunk of Caucasian.

And the football scholarship Schultz earned that provided his ticket out off the mean streets? Er, not quite. In a 2007 interview, Schultz confirmed “a football scholarship” to Northern Michigan University got him out of Brooklyn. Since then the story has changed. Its current incarnation is that the impressionable youngster “misunderstood” and “convinced” himself he had a scholarship. Really?! According to the latest version of past reality, Schultz left home certain he had a scholarship, but quickly realized he wasn’t college ball material and ended up scraping by financially on a myriad of jobs he worked to pay tuition. Blah blah blah.

While there is little doubt Howard Schultz is a self-made man, indeed an astonishing success story, to coin the well-trod maxim: it’s the lying stupid. That Schultz has, throughout his adult life, seen fit to, not embellish, but lie about his narrative is disqualifying. Trump’s ascension to high office was fully dependent on the fiction he turned a one-time $1 million, promptly-paid-back loan into gold. Similar reporting by the New York Times proved conclusively the Donald instead failed constantly and was bailed out by his father to the tune of more than $400 million in today’s dollars. Just another obnoxiously coddled rich kid acting badly time and again. Of course Trump, fully aided by Fox/AM, long ago convinced his wretched core the NYT was “fake news,” except when it reports a story he likes. Such BS needs to end yesterday. Whatever Schultz’s spinners put out won’t do…. it’s fiction. Period!

The most ruinous legacy of Trump will be the absurd scale of his misdeeds we accepted. All followers will succeed a man who set standards for ugly malfeasance no one else’s worst can come near. Thus, the temptation will be to allow a Trump grading curve that forgives far more than we should, in effect obliterating where the bar was before Trump came on the scene. It’s easy to hear the argument now: “well, if we crush Schultz, where does it stop? Everyone has peccadillos!” That’s true, and each case is different. Perhaps the test should be whether or not they are capable of owning up to their frailties, coming clean. That’s a metric Trump fails on the hour. Judging from the tongue-tied spin coming from Schultz flacks, it’s a standard he doesn’t appear concerned about meeting, either. Enough! BC

In Arthur Miller’s timeless Death Of A Salesman, Willy Loman suffers within the throes of dementia as his life circles the bottom of the bowl. Loman can no longer escape accountability for character flaws responsible for the wreckage of his most important relationships. Despite trying to delude a brighter picture, Willy faces his own failure, as well as his adult sons’ dysfunction, and is shattered by the reckoning. The moral is clear: the world’s agenda is often merciless, and not subject to alteration by the spin we attempt to apply… no matter how often we try to do so. Reality is not the servant of our imaginations, it’s consequences foist themselves on us whether or not we wish away their coming.

Since we suffer our own Willy Loman in the White House, constantly spinning his own facts in a relentless attempt to sell America an image of his Presidency that has little to do with reality, it’s prudent to remind ourselves that normalizing the crisis such fantasy represents is ruinous to our future prospects. Trump fatigue simply means accepting his lies because we’re tired of hearing them. Yea, whatever you say pop, time for bed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out yesterday and announced impeaching Trump was not an option she favored. “He’s not worth it,” said Pelosi, admitting the exercise would be more trouble than certain Senate aquittal could justify, unless startling new revelations come forward. Say what?! Almost 10,000 public lies in two years, including denying payoffs to a porn star mistress weeks before he was elected, repeated assurances he never would have picked his first Attorney General if he knew he wouldn’t obstruct justice for him, and certainty he lied about knowing his son met with a Russian agent claiming to be in possession of damaging intel on Hillary Clinton, just for starters, isn’t a basis for seriously considering impeachment? What is, then? My Lord.

Pelosi suggests we just wash Trump away in an electoral landslide instead. Sadly, that’s easier mused than done. The Speaker seems to have her own issues with wishing the best in an addled fog. After all, Trump got elected in 2016 after literally trying to lose. Now he already has $100 million in the bank and all the benefits incumbency bestows. Moreover, unhinged campaign rallies are the one Presidential activity he actually likes to do. After haphazard wack-a-mole forays in 2016, Trump/Pence 2020 is sure to have its act much tighter.

Trump 2020 is promising the most comprehensive data mining operation ever to uncover hidden coal within the GOP base to be shined into general election votes. And the message? Nothing new. Trump spinners call it “raw populism” put forward in “frank terms” by the “combative” President. Calling Trump “combative” is like calling a nuclear bomb “disruptive.” The GOP has normalized the worst civic crisis in our history and plans a campaign designed simply to further deaden the senses of the rest of America.

Brad Pascale, Trump 2020’s Campaign Manager, claims “on every metric” the new operation outpaces 2016 “by many multiples.” The campaign will proceed on three levels. First, uncover new votes from wretched core acolytes heretofore unwilling to get out of the recliner in swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan. Of course, the subtext to any GOP voter outreach is the compliment of parallel voter suppression efforts at the state level. In Florida, Trumpie Governor Ron DeSantis continues his best efforts to undo the will of 2/3 of the state’s electorate and slow roll voter rights for convicted felons. In Wisconsin some of the harshest voter ID standards will couple with strategically underserving various polling stations to help stack the deck.

Next will certainly be an unhinged effort to fully smear whoever emerges from the crowded Democratic primary field. Everything possible will be thrown at the wall to see what sticks. Fox/AM will go full 24/7 to create and push this cycle’s email server and Bhengazi sagas. Frank Luntz will have his focus groups busy explaining why whatever peccadillo is selected threatens the future of US sovereignty. Like the cyborg miscreants of The Terminator, Fox’s prime time lineup simply will not stop until Trump’s opponent is rebranded as the enemy of all that is white Christian.

Finally, there will be Trump himself. Fully disenchanted with the work required by the job he will again seek, the President is in a rabid lather to get Air Force One in the air and hit the campaign trail. The CPAC monstrosity clarified “off script” is the only way Trump plans to go in 2020. It’s going to be full Jim Morrison day in and day out until November. How awful it will get is anybody’s guess… nothing will surprise. But it’s a sure bet everybody but those who actually want to hear his drivel will emphatically tune him out. That could very well mean talk will instead focus on Joe Biden as a retread, or Amy Klobuchar’s treatment of staff, Bernie’s commie leanings…. anything but the inferno blazing right in front of us.

Trump and his co-conspirators want nothing more than Election 2020 to become part of just another horse race paradigm. Hey, some colts act up in the gate, what can you do? Let’s get down to some serious polling and focus on the numbers. Newsflash! This is not a normal situation! Already Trump and his Capitol Hill minions are equating Mueller’s work and any other efforts to hold his corruption to account as efforts to rig 2020 results. Delegitimating the process will surely become a big part of his stump ugliness. Perhaps the most important quality we can look for in a Democratic standardbearer is a determination to circle the White House with troops loyal to democracy and show the ex-POTUS off the White House grounds after his inevitable refusal to accept results he doesn’t like.

Talk to anyone raised in a dysfunctional household and you’re likely to hear at some point they simply went numb and got tired of the conflict, acceding to the madness they couldn’t escape. Happy and Biff Loman ever humored Willy’s delusions to avoid his rage and rancor. Two years into the worst Administration ever given White House keys, the most important portion of American voters and politicians appear affected by a similar level of skittishness. Trump isn’t just the elephant in the room, he’s the Ebola on the fork at our national place setting. Ignoring his hourly menace in favor of tailoring messages that “reassure” the voters who foisted him on us in the first place their concerns “won’t be ignored” plays right into his grubby little hands. It also clarifies one thing above all else: the GOP and its base aren’t the only ones given to normalizing a pestilence far more concerned with surviving its own seditious corruption than any service to the national interest. Pretending otherwise, like his boss Howard’s refusal to keep Willy on as the firm’s “New England man,” won’t set our table. BC

There’s a great scene in the classic film Norma Rae, when the title character, played at Oscar-winning caliber by Sally Field, asks the pastor of her congregation to use the church for a union meeting. She makes clear a number of black folk will be in attendance, and declares if he refuses the request she will leave his flock. The pastor, busy adding a coat of paint to the facility, barely takes his eyes off his chore and matter-of-factly tells Norma how much he will miss her voice in the choir. What Would Jesus Do? That’s an inquiry many a theologian has pondered on a selective basis.

The vivid hypocrisy on display these days regarding support of perhaps US history’s least God-fearing President is nothing new. Sadly, up and down the line, throughout the seminal moral conflicts of our maturation as a nation, many an otherwise pious servant of the lord has been on the wrong side of history, often attending to the line laid to follow by their church leadership. Slavery had no problem finding warm comfort in the weekly sermons of southern preachers. Ditto Jim Crow a century later. Congregations throughout the US prayed for the souls of “savages” even as Manifest Destiny destroyed their way of life. The many charitable avenues of Catholic outreach prove inadequate to beguile the decent from a top-to-bottom cover up of crimes so despicable they discourage retelling.

Lately we see some of the ugliest inconsistencies yet, carried out in the name of protecting the unborn and ensuring “religious freedom,” not to mention reviling desperate immigrants with the temerity to believe our national story. Widespread as it is subtle, encoded as it is unmistakable, what bedevils us today is no different from prior bouts of wretched disingenuousness steered in full from the dais, and wholly supported by the collection plate.

The Falwell Jrs., Grahams and Jeffress are merely new names on an old list of nasty hypocrites. What’s new is how dependent the President they buoy with false acclimation has become on them and theirs. Take away evangelical devotion and Trump’s 93% of GOP voters becomes much softer. The moral majority may be neither, but within the Republican base they call the shots. Make no mistake, they could deliver us from evil…. if only they didn’t adore him. Like many of the President’s wretched core, born again Christians will swear it’s the agenda stupid when pressed to explain how a serial adulterer and Howard Stern’s all-time favorite guest gets a pass for behavior they’d disown their own kids for. In fact, Trump has delivered the culture war goods, his selection of Mike Pence as number two assuring the looney right gets more than its fair share of love from the bully pulpit.

Yet and still, even more than Pro-Life extremism and the right to foist indignities on those whose sexuality they’ve decided deserves no quarter, let alone a wedding cake, the undertone of Trump’s evangelical support feels much like that of the rest of his wretched core… a disdain for those who populate his ever expanding enemies list. Whether it’s illegals, liberals, independent counsels or blacks ungrateful enough to protest getting shot by police while unarmed, turning the other cheek and loving the sinner appear to be on the back burner these days. It’s amen to MAGA intolerance as empathy now suffers at the border, a casualty to protecting our sovereignty from the invading hordes, the chaotic caravans. He’s keeping us safe, who cares if he paid off a porn star? God demands perspective, all things to their rightful importance… these are rapists and drug dealers we’re talking about! Pay unto Caesar and all that.

The surreality of Mr. pussy grabber signing the Bibles of those nature just tragically reminded she won’t be ignored dovetails with the preposterous dichotomy of flyover Christianity’s disdain for a good many things they know Jesus would do. Bigotry and xenophobia don’t get people to the head of any post-rapture line I’m aware of. Trump certainly never cared one way or the other, and now a solid majority of born-again America doesn’t seem to either. First things first, I suppose; let’s keep it white and right… worry about salvation once the job is done.

The worst number Trump polled among Christians was 66 percent in the midst of the government shutdown. Since then it’s been ticking back up as the President latches on to the infanticide lie Republicans pinned on Democrats for the gall of favoring a mother’s survival. This is a Handmaiden’s GOP and Trump is all in. However, even with Pence taking every opportunity to polish the Administration’s extremist bona fides on the Pro-Life front, the ugly attacks against most every group not on Roy Moore’s mailing list seems to really keep those awaiting judgement day enrapt. Don’t bother asking them WWJD when they’re in a lather over who Trump hates most at this moment… they’ll just tell you where to go. BC

Were one to poll Americans on human traits most important to, not simply leadership, but the role of a decent citizen, it would be a safe wager gratitude, humility and honesty would all be near atop the list. As far as Presidents go, it’s hard to cast an image of those we celebrate as our greatest without effortlessly imparting those critical characteristics upon them.

“Honest” Abe is more than myth or fable, any scrutiny of the record of his time in office quickly uncovers a man devoted to truth, and willing to pay a price for pursuing it. Harry Truman called his Chief of Staff, George Marshall, “the great man,” a testament to Truman’s own humble persona. FDR was stricken as a young man by polio, and fought tooth and nail his entire adult life against the disease’s destruction of his mobility, yet most always had a bright and cherry disposition for the world, and nothing in the way of self-pity, the plight of the ungrateful. Over and over we find through the history books these basic yet critical underpinnings threading through the record of great leadership. Hand in hand, peanut butter and jelly, one necessitating the others.

Conversely, the opposite more than often holds true and reinforces the initial premise. US history’s worst Chief Executives were near always the other side of the coin… morose, insecure and untruthful about their circumstances. Andrew Johnson by all accounts was petulant and intent on acting to erase the legacy of Lincoln without much worry for the nation’s interest. He even scheduled a national speaking tour to hold forth on just how fortunate the country was to now have him at the helm… sound familiar. By the time he resigned his office, Nixon had taken to the bottle and spent much of his time in seclusion, regurgitating his ever expanding list of enemies, darkly hosting his most bigoted inclinations. Bill Clinton figured the US was so lucky to have his brilliance, dabbling with an intern and outright lying to the cameras about it was an exemption greatness bestowed to him…. many disagreed.

“Common sense” seems always to pervade our national discussions. The answers are right there in front of us, it is often maintained, if only we brush aside the cob webs our predilection for complicating matters creates. Shades of grey don’t always need to be conjured for effective assessment. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously cut through the tomes of legalese to declare he knew pornography when he saw it. Ditto a President we can get a decent night’s sleep under. Newsflash.. the current White House occupant ain’t it. That this doesn’t appear obvious and “common sense” to millions clarifies a stark crisis and places us squarely in uncharted waters. The fact that so many readily acknowledge Trump possesses not an iota of gratitude or humility or honesty, yet is still acceptable, declares forthrightly a new disdain for the Presidency’s majesty in our national life, a shrug that utilitarian concerns rule the day and subordinate humanity when assessing the world’s most powerful job.

Voracious criticism of Trump’s frailties has become an annoying, repetitive cliche. Finding new words to describe his ugliness is now a cottage industry many have grown weary of; that’s called normalization. What he did two years ago was unprecedented and horrifying. He never stopped doing it, in fact does it more than ever. It’s all still there hourly, the lies, the unhinged rambling, the overt bigotry and personal attacks on opponents, and near every American institution; yet now it’s old hat and more often ignored as if it may go away… it won’t.

His CPAC diatribe last weekend was his longest yet, more than two excruciating hours. Same ugly themes, same ridiculous self-glorification, same lie after lie, just more of it for an audience that deserved every agonizingly dull moment they received. Yet and still, it’s even more of a national emergency than it was two years ago because then there was hope the GOP would exert its will on his worst… that went by the wayside, as the Cohen hearing sadly confirmed.

A new Quinnipiac poll finds almost 7 in 10 voters believe Trump was guilty of crimes before his election. One-third of GOP voters think the President was a criminal. Since more than 4 of 5 Republicans support Trump, it’s clear many do so despite accepting the premise they voted for a lawbreaker. Incredibly, only 32 percent responded yes to the question of whether they believe the President is honest. Any way one dices that figure, a substantial percentage of the GOP base backs Trump even though they believe he is a liar. To put that number in stunning perspective, Barack Obama’s figure on the same question, in 2015 near the end of his term and with a rabid Fox-incited GOP base, was 53 percent.

What does it say about where we are that so many seem prepared to toss basic decency aside as a Presidential prerequisite? Is the GOP wretched core ensconced in self-loathing, confident they deserve no better? Or perhaps Trump’s amorality is exactly what they’re looking for, the better to carry out the dirty work their nasty grievances and resentment require? Maybe his skill set is ideal for ugly tasks like displacing families and banning Muslims, telling allies to shove it and African-Americans to just do as they’re told and quit acting so street. Perhaps a nihilist, fully resistant to the peaceful transfer of power the world relies on our system to faithfully facilitate, is just who they want. Some have said the times make the man… maybe now, instead, it’s the mob makes the monster. BC

“I think it’s important to explain why calling Pence “a decent guy” is an affront to the real meaning of the word”

Cynthia Nixon

CPAC, the circus of Fox/AM stars, is the nation’s most toxic echo chamber. Once a year at the National Harbor, America’s true snowflakes meet to assure each other their pain is shared… and legitimate. They meet to draw the line squarely between righteous resentment and bigotry. They spend three days reminding each other over and over, the better to make it true, that the names they are called for expressing their beliefs are simply the sour grapes of those who have lost the argument. At CPAC all are vindicated because everyone agrees with one another.

Since 2016 Mike Pence has been the gathering’s true keynote speaker. While the President has appeared faithfully as well, his monologues can never be counted on to be coherent, let alone provide flesh to CPAC’s mission. It is left to Pence to stick to his script, first robotically rehashing Trump accomplishments in his patently servile manner, and then anointing attendees in the moral righteousness only his bible thumping can bestow, allowing them to fan out afterwards reinvigorated to kick some serious liberal, socialist, queer, illegal, climate changing, BLM, anthem kneeling, Caitlyn Jenner ass!

Pence doesn’t orate so much as hisses folksiness. He’s vanilla that has turned, exuding a faint acridness. At CPAC, like most other red meat gatherings he specializes in, the Vice President creates symmetry between his twin purposes. First, define the villain and then make sure everybody knows Trump is leading the charge against them. Coding and subtext are advanced and well understood at CPAC. Kicking the LGBT community back into the closet is not mentioned at all, it doesn’t have to be. The “war on religion” covers vast swaths of bigoted muck. Casting hate as victimhood is a Pence specialty, and he personalized it this year.

At Immanuel Christian School in Northern Virginia they take their demands for spiritual purity very seriously. Indeed, the contract for employment at the school spells things out clearly, particularly its 8th article:

“I understand that the term ‘marriage’ has only one meaning; the uniting of one man and one woman,” it reads, adding that certain “moral misconduct” would be disqualifying, such as “heterosexual activity outside of marriage (e.g., premarital sex, cohabitation, extramarital sex), homosexual or lesbian sexual activity, polygamy, transgender identity, any other violation of the unique roles of male and female.”

Tough love to be sure. Heroic Karen Pence had no problem signing away her privacy, and made no apologies for doing so. At CPAC, the Vice President, feted “mommy” as a heroine to the packed house, the whitest of snowflakes, withstanding the worst of MSM scorn with dignity and grace. One was reminded of Kentucky’s Kim Davis, basking in the prophood Mike Huckabee accorded after she stood bravely on the courthouse steps to deny sodomites marriage licenses, a culture warrior standing her ground.

CPAC used to be a curiosity, a gathering of extremist freaks without filters, unabashed Beck and O’Reilly groupies, a cautionary omen of the dystopian specter Fox/AM run amok could create. Of course, those of us too concerned about that possibility were ostracized as pseudo-conspiracists, obsessed with ghosts and frightened by fantasy. Now it’s real and Pence crystallizes how bad it has become, and how much worse it can get. What was nothing is still nothing…. but it now occupies the White House.

Anybody truly familiar with evangelical America is not the least bit surprised it can worship a serial philanderer; that was never part of its criteria for loyalty. Personal peccadillos may rule the day over at Immanuel Christian, but as far as Presidents go, it’s all about the womb. Abortion fanaticism is the Rosetta Stone of right wing obedience. Trump’s calculus has never considered anything else. Offending most American women never phased Trump. He is, after all…. offensive. But a full embrace of A Hand Maiden’s Tale sensibilities on a woman’s control of her body ensures a pass on anything as pedestrian as porn star payoffs or other seditious corruption. Last week’s House Oversight fiasco served notice the GOP will enforce such selectivity. Through it all will be steady Mike Pence, the nation’s leading homophobe and misogynist, ever ready to pound the good book and rally the zealots, just as he did Saturday.

Trumpism is a crisis at so many levels, but none more significant than this critical question: is overt bigotry against traditional Democrat constituencies such as women intent on keeping government out of their uterus; those interested in being allowed to enjoy non-heterosexual intimacy free from scorn and disdain by Puritan busybodies with nothing better to do; and brown-skinned immigrants classified as verminous interlopers bent on violent crime sprees, now simply a legitimate sector of our national discussion and quite naturally subject to rhetoric abided within other areas of debate? Trump’s ugly assault on near every White House convention has been fully normalized by the GOP; ascribing credibility to Trumpism’s nastiest policy sensibilities naturally follows. CPAC’s carnival barkers, keynoted by Pence and his unhinged hero, punctuated that desire this weekend. What boundaries? It’s all fair except calling us names.

Pence will keep at false equivalency because it’s in his wheelhouse. His is a constant whine of circular resentment. He announced long ago a sense of shame wasn’t a concept he pondered much. Now he uses his bully pulpit near exclusively to argue for the legal sanction of vast groups of Americans, legitimated by theocracy yet motivated by little more than fear and disdain… the foundations of Trumpism. At the end of the day Pence is simply vacant, a huckster with little to sell. He and his need to hear two words often… Get Lost! BC

Anybody with sense at all knew from the outset the Trump Presidency was going to be a slog. From sixteen sorry minutes of truncated dystopian gibberish passed off as an inaugural speech, to a disturbing visit to CIA Headquarters, where he unabashedly laid bare a dangerously ignorant worldview and served notice how fully disdainful he would be toward any actual preparation for carrying out his duties, Trump has only regressed with time’s passing.

For those of us invested in our nation as going concern, this Administration has provided not a moment’s pause from the worry of nihilism at the helm, complete with a near daily desire to offend the senses. Trump doesn’t simply fail, he flails and fails, exhibiting the wholesale insecurities of one certain he never stacked up, but cluelessly hostile to any notion the public could be in on the secret. After all, megalomania is simply an outgrowth of pathological fear of failure.

Yet and still, as bad as Trump showed he was capable of behaving, as low as he proved determined to descend, there was, at least in the beginning, faint hope the GOP would sooner or later lose its ability to dodge duty in favor of party. There was that glimmer of possibility Trump’s relentless assault on propriety would make the right thing harder to ignore. Alas, whatever flicker of light still shone on that fading prayer for decency was fully extinguished yesterday.

Michael Cohen devoted his best years to running interference for Trump, intervening like some rabid jackal whenever his boss’ manic amorality was challenged by a wider world predicated on reason and shared responsibility. Yesterday, Cohen was asked how many times he had to insinuate himself into situations for Trump, episodes requiring ugly threats and intimidation, relentless F-bombs and promises of nefarious litigation…. his unique skill set. Fifty times? More. One hundred? More. Two hundred? More. Five hundred? Sure, over ten years, yea, that’s sounds right. In other words too many times to count. Enough times for it to become second nature. Standard operating procedure.

And so we finally get to the center of Trump’s onion, the very heart of why he is so destructive to our system of governance. Fact is, it was there all the time, his nom du plume, the jist of who he is, the full extent of his frailty…. A clinical refusal to take responsibility for any consequences his reckless narcissism continuously mars the world with. He’s always been the kid who just wants to keep opening Christmas presents with no desire to actually claim ownership and nurture anything. Verucca Salt with bad hair and worse skin. Cohen was on-call for whenever the world had the audacity to demand Trump answer for some mindless action, pay for something he broke, a deal he welched on, a human he trampled in search of the next gift to hurriedly unwrap.

Yesterday’s House Oversight hearing was exactly as Chairman Cummings described it, a new chapter that would necessitate the President again face the world and answer for his ceaseless pursuit of a responsibility-free existence, even as he, incredibly, occupies the world’s most accountable office.

Yet and still, never let it be said the White House doesn’t kick things up a few notches. Now, instead of one wild-eyed hyena ready to tear the flesh off of anybody daring to hold Trump accountable, there are multitudes of such beasts. who Cohen, himself accurately decried as “doing just what I used to do,” even as they engaged in one frenzied attack on him after another, not a one caring an iota about the disturbing charges he backed up against the POTUS, each instead making sure their insults carried a personal touch, the better to make local Sinclair newscasts back home.

Jim Jordan, the ranking member, ever bent on distraction from scandalous recollections by former college wrestlers he coached of his indifference to sexual assaults by a now disgraced team doctor, seemed glad to lead the pack. After an opening statement straight out of a Sean Hannity monologue, Jordan constantly repeated the same set of attacks on Cohen’s credibility without ever once addressing the substance of his charges. He seeped in righteousness as he proffered again and again that the sanctity of the committee room had been forever tarnished for hosting such a scoundrel. “We’re better than this,” Jordan mourned as he ignored proof a sitting President signed checks to pay off a porn star, and used charity funds to noxiously reimburse a ringer to drive up the price of a self-portrait at an art auction.

Mark Meadows from NC made his bones as a birther. Indeed, there is footage of him on the stump imploring voters to help him send Obama “… back to Kenya or wherever.” Of course, a sense of shame has never been in vast supply within the Tea Party, and Meadows punctuated that point by literally providing Lynne Patton, a token black Trump staffer, for show and tell to illustrate how the President loves his minorities. It was deja vu of Trump campaign rallies… “there’s my black!” Meadows also had his own staffers busy looking for gotcha moments he could run with. Again, the fact none of it had the least bit to do with the plethora of charges Cohen proved against Trump didn’t bother Meadows… nor, he was certain, his target audience.

From creepy Clay Higgins of Louisiana – a cross between a very bad Gary Cooper impersonator and wingnut former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke – to unhinged Paul Gosar from Arizona, who actually taunted Cohen with “liar liar pants on fire,” Republican committee members couldn’t froth enough as each breathlessly awaited their five minutes. How many different ways can one be called discredible scum? The GOP Rottweilers did their level best to answer that question for the nation yesterday, along with serving the clearest notice yet that Trump’s infinite peccadillos are nothing they plan to consider as liabilities. Doesn’t matter how ugly he becomes, Trump is the date these nihilists are holding close and going home with.

Several weeks ago, throughout his State of the Union address, despite having just needlessly shuttered the US Government for more than a month over a moronic campaign promise Mexico was never going to pay for, Trump was cheered on like Reagan by a faceless group of rowdy GOP adolescents. Yesterday we met some of them, and became fully acquainted with the harm they are ready to foist even in a minority capacity. This bunch is the dregs of our barrel, who owe Trump whatever relevance they can garner themselves on his gilded coattails….. and they lead the GOP House Caucus! Their shameful actions yesterday leave no doubt, until they are further marginalized with decisive electoral rebuke, we will all suffer for their servility to US history’s laziest, most corrupt and relentlessly divisive President. It’ll get worse before it gets better. BC