2 fatally stabbed on Oregon train after trying to stop man’s anti-Muslim rants, police say
Another member of President Trump’s base has made the news in Oregon by killing two and wounding a third. Eternal rest to the two murdered citizens and a rapid recovery to the third. Pride in these three mitigates the bitter shame caused the U.S.A. by the misbegotten Jeremy Joseph Christian.
“Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Friday that the American public would ‘never leave the house’ if they knew what he knew about terrorist threats. … It’s everywhere. It’s constant. It’s nonstop,’ he said of the terror threat.”
These words are from a report about a statement by the Director of Homeland Security on Fox News [sic]. Now neither the venue nor the speaker make this particularly credible to me, but I was struck by how applicable this could be to gun violence in the U.S.A., where some people actually “never leave the house” because of shootings in their neighborhoods. And yes, gun violence is everywhere, constant, non-stop, yet the establishment and the American people would rather get worked up by hypothetical terrorism when we have actual terrorism raging all unchecked in our midst.
Donald Trump delivered the commencement address at Liberty [sic] University [sic]. Jerry Falwell Jr. has declared that Trump’s speech at Liberty U. was the best commencement speech given at Liberty U. and is going to go down in history as one of the best commencement speeches ever. Mr. Falwell statement could be partially true in that Trump’s speech may well have been the best commencement address in the history of Liberty University. But, though the speech will go down in history, it will not be remembered as Falwell suggests.
Trump wanted Comey to pledge his loyalty – not to the Constitution, but to Trump himself. This is redolent of the personal oath to the Führer that the German military had to take during the Nazizeit. There is an additional mime in Trump’s vilification of Comey, for it makes me think of episodes on hitlerrantsparodies.com when Hitler denounces “Fegelein, Fegelein, Fegelein!”
I can’t tell whether Jeff Sessions is a lying, punitive bastard or simply stupid. I once thought he had some integrity and common sense, but now …
Trump’s firing of Director Comey shows that we must have a special prosecutor with plenary power to look into the Trump-Russia connections and other sleazy aspects of the Trump campaign. Failure to do so will paralyze Congress and Country in a tug of war with Trump and his confederates. The only downside of appointment of a special prosecutor is that Trump may very likely start a war in order to draw attention away from the investigation and claim some kind of special immunity because we are “at war.”
Current assumption of the epithets “patriot,” “christian,” and “family,” should not go unchallenged. Why should ignorant, xenophobic bigots be able to claim the name “patriot” in their attacks on democratic values. “christian” is now a dog-whistle synonym for reactionary bigot. Authentic christians must speak out against the explicit and implicit exclusiveness, anti-feminism, and anti-intellectualism that are involved in the abusive appropriation of this epithet. “Family values” are patriarchal values, and the many families flourishing outside the patriarchal system should complain about this usage, or, better, start to identify what true family values are.
Well, the U.S. dropped the Massive Ordinance Air Blast, its largest non-nuclear bomb, on I.S. tunnels in Afghanistan, and managed to kill a total of thirty-six I.S. militants, a bargain at only $3250 per kill. Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, or, rather, his thoughtless reactions to events in a world that he does not understand appear to have him spinning like a whirly-gig. But that is not the case, for the M.O.A.B. and the cruise missiles are not part of a foreign policy, but of domestic strategy. Their purpose is to re-direct attention from the incompetence and shady dealings of the Trump regime, and if the irregularities of his campaign and the demolition of the federal government become undeniably apparent, he will start a war.
I read yesterday that Russia has mounted an alternative facts campaign the gist of which is that all the business of Russian collusion in the gassing civilians in Syria is part of a big conspiracy to make Russia look bad. Well, we’ll see how this plays out, but I’m not much worried. The late Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, have an historical practice of lying, and, to give credit where credit is due, have succeeded fairly well for amateurs. But now they are going up against the Father of Lies in D.C., and our Liar and his minions can out-lie the Russians any time.
However, I am worried about Bashar al-Assad. Assad, may not be a major player in the world of violence, but he plays like a pro. He is so ruthless that he makes our old enemy Sadaam seem scrupulous. Assad and his gang are fighting for their lives, for if their foes prevail in Syria, they and many of their families will be slaughtered for sure. Some coalition of interests may out-maneuver or overwhelm Assad, but one-on-one he is much tougher than the real-estate agent from N.Y. City.
In Saturday’s paper there was an article from the AP entitled “Israel will curb West Bank construction ‘when possible’.” I suppose Israel’s takeover of the West Bank is becoming a bit of an embarrassment, hence this meaningless concession from the expansionist government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel has for years now been carrying out a colonization of the West Bank, sending in colonists to create new settlements in the wilderness. Of course, as in the case of American colonization, the wilderness is populated by natives. Wholesale relocation of Palestinian populations has been tried, but usually has awkward consequences. So the plan is to build settlements of Israelis newly arrived from the United States in sufficient number that at some point a claim can be made that there is an Israeli majority on the West Bank and/or that there is an Israeli minority in Palestinian lands that Israel must protect. Then Israel will declare itself the “protector” of the West Bank Jews, and make Israeli annexation of the West Bank a pre-condition of any peace agreement in the area.