6 V 2022: American democracy is defenseless

I am beginning to believe that our American democratic government is defenseless against those who would destroy it from within. Marjorie Taylor Greene lied like a trump at the court proceeding about her potential ineligibility to run for public office because of her involvement of the Rebellion of January 6. She claimed that she did not remember a long series of her actions that put her at the heart of the Rebellion — “I don’t remember.” Who could question that answer? After all, she alone knows what she remembers. This is strictly speaking true. But the court failed to take into account all the evidences in addition to her testimony that indicate that she did what she is alleged to have done and remembers it quite well. She perjured herself with absolute impunity.

The members of the College of Cardinals on the Supreme Court gave designedly evasive answers to questions about Roe v. Wade during their confirmation hearings, and were allowed to get away with it. They perjured themselves with absolute impunity.

Rudy Giulliani, like others of the criminals around Donald Trump, refused to respond to a subpoena from the Jan 6 Committee. Maybe Rudy takes lying under oath more seriously. Will the committee seek to have him declared in Contempt of Congress? They may, they may not, and even if they do, the DOJ will see to it that he will be dead before he is made to answer for his Contempt of Congress.

I want to know if our governmental system is itself flawed in ways that make it so vulnerable. Or, if the governmental system is sound, have the American people become so self-centered and indolent that they have betrayed our governmental system?

3 V 2022: At Supreme Court, the fix is in

Leaked documents give additional evidence that the Catholic faction has turned the Supreme Court into the College of Cardinals. They have their package for the right diehards ready to go, wrapped, sealed, and awaiting delivery. How many of these Catholic justices gave assurances to the confirmation committee that they would stick to the law in the event of a clash between the law and their religious convictions? And how many of them perjured themselves in saying this?

30 IIII 2022: Report of a Trump Rant. Boebert a whisper of reason?

Have a look at CNN today for a couple of reports of Trump’s psychotic fits at the time of the Black Lives Matter riots. We laugh at the Hitler Rants parodies on youtube. Are we one day going to see Trump Rants as well? 

We are so LUCKY that Trump’s insanity did not do more damage to our country. And how much damage is his mental illness continuing to cause through the Republican Party and the MAGA-nuts around the country? These people are like a family whose father routinely gets drunk and savages everyone but are unable to admit to themselves and to others how much of an absolute menace he is.

Then there’s a story originating in Politico, but now appearing passim, about a violent clash at the last “Freedom Caucus” meeting between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert about Greene’s gig at a White Supremacist rally. Greene is claiming she did not know that the organizer of the rally, an old buddy of hers, is a white supremacist. I’m really surprised Marjorie actually remembers having spoken at the rally. I wonder. Is Lauren upset because Marjorie upstaged her by showing up at a more extremist rally, or is she genuinely concerned about the damage Marjorie’s consorting with semi-criminals might cause to the right wing of the GOP.

28 IIII 2022: Pray to whom? for what? and why?

I see that Thursday, May 5, is supposed to be the  2022 National Day of Prayer. This Day of Prayer may be announced in a Presidential Proclamation, but it is being run https://www.nationaldayofprayer.org. At their website you can visit their store where you will find for sale a variety of tee shirts, polo shirts. mugs, totes, and caps, all the Armor of God of mega-church religion.

The theme of this year’s Day of Prayer is “exalt the lord, who has established us based on Colossians 2:6-7 NASB.” I was puzzled when I looked up Col 2:6-7 in the NASB, for it reads: “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” I suppose this year’s theme is derived from “established” (bebaioumevnoi). Of course, “Established,” taken out of context, can have a variety of meanings. So I want to know: “Established” in or upon whom or what? I’m guessing that, as used here, in connection with the American National Day of Prayer, who has established us is intended to mean “who has made us the Establishment.”

There is another, considerable ambiguity in the theme. Who, exactly, is “the Lord”? Oh, well, everyone knows that. The God of Christians is the same as the God of feminists is the same as the God of Muslims is the same as the Gods of the Hopi is the same as the Gods of Hindus is the same as the God of the Rastafarians is the same as the God of the Sikhs is the same as the God of Jews, etc., etc. Oh well, this is just good old-fashioned American syncretism at work. But are all these gods actually the same? I think that if you question these religious groups closely you will find that their gods are not all the same. But on the National Day of Prayer we are to treat “God” as an elastic term that good will can stretch to cover all the various notions of god, so that for this day they are all honorary “God.”

Why am I being so snarky about this? After all, no one is forcing me to participate in the National Day of Prayer. No, but by promoting a single “Lord/God” with decidedly Christian tinges they are trying to force me and everyone else to accept the implicit idea that “America Is A Christian Country,” for Christian hegemony in the United States is the principle underlying this “National Day of Prayer.”

27 IIII 2022: Mad dog or brazen hustler?

John Bennett, the Chair of the Trumpublican Party in the hyper-regressive state of Oklahoma, called for the trial and execution of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and received applause from his bonehead Trumpublican audience. Bennett had called in 2016 for the execution of Hilary Clinton for the crime of treason, but he did not say what the charge might be against Fauci. But as Dr. Fauci himself says, an attack on him is an attack on science.

Is this Bennett just another fundamentalist mad dog. We might infer from his attacks on Muslims what his attitude must be towards Catholics, Jews, non-whites, and non-males. Or is he just the latest brazen hustler to take his place alongside Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, and other pistol packin’ mommas that are competing with one another for publicity and making ever more offensive statements. I don’t know how far they will go in their contest. It’s plain that they have no idea when to stop.

For my part, I don’t maintain that criminal coup-plotters, traitors, liars, and demagogues should be shot. However, I do believe a little time in the clink for inciting to violence might do them and our Country a lot of good.

27 IIII 2022: Empathy for Putin

So Rand Paul seems to think that because Georgia and Ukraine were once republics in the Soviet Union, the USSR’s successor state, the Russian Federation is, if not to be forgiven for its invasions of these two sovereign states, at least deserving of everyone’s empathy. Of course, any number of contemporary sovereign states were once part of somebody’s empire: so we’re bound to view with some sympathy the UK’s invasion of Ireland, the US’s invasion of the Philippines, the French invasion of Algeria, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. 

Paul’s line of questioning to the Secretary of State at the recent hearing was a desperate attempt to make up something, anything that could present the Biden administration’s handling of Ukraine in a negative light. Paul has not gone so far as some of his fellow Trumpublicans and voiced a deep admiration for Putin & Co. and denounced the US’s unfair treatment of Putin, a political ally and friend of our former president.

Trumpublican behavior flows from their conviction that:

1) There is only one game worth playing, and that is the to-the-death fight with the Democrats.

2) Republicans are the ones who make the rules for that game.

3) The game must continue without interruption, regardless of any other crises and events.

4) In that game, there is no playing field too small.

26 IIII 2022: A prayer for Ukrainian libraries

From the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury (d1345):

Almighty Author and Lover of peace, 

scatter the savages who crave wars 

that are above all plagues damaging to books. 

For wars, wanting the direction of reason,

make frantic assaults on everything in their way, 

and, without the use of reason’s restrain, 

advance with no discernment at all

and destroy the very vessels of reason.

21 IIII 2022: PARC: Politicially Activated Right-wing Courts.

The PARC division of the Trumpublican Party is in the news. The Supreme Court has kept faith with imperialism and colonialism. Justice Kavnaugh tells us, and seven other justices agree, that Puerto Ricans and residents of other U.S. territories need not be extended the same federal benefits as other citizens of the United States. This should come as no surprise if one realizes that the current legal and moral ethos of the Supreme Court is stuck in 1900 or 1857 or 1776 or 1526.

In a lower court that is also a Trumpublican creation, the recently appointed (2020) federal District Judge Kathryn Kimbell Mizelle has struck a blow for absurdity in her ruling against the mask mandate for interstate passengers. Judge Mizelle’s background in jurisprudence is so slight that the American Bar Association rated her as “Not Qualified” to serve as a federal trial court judge. But that did not matter at all to the Trumpublicans who forced her confirmation through the Senate. Why? Whatever the Trumpublicans actually believe (if believe they do), their image is fiercely anti-intellectual and reactionary, and so they maintain their appeal to the ignorant, reactionary, and resentful voters of their base.

So, you see, Judge Mizelle, like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is their kind of gal. Judge Mizelle does not come from a reactionary Catholic background, like Justice Barrett, but from an Evangelical background. She is a graduate of Covenant College in Lookout Mountain GA whose website proudly declares: “Our motto, ‘In all things, Christ preeminent,’ says it all: We exist to glorify and make known the name of Jesus Christ.” Covenant College asserts its devotion to what they call “Reformed Theology,” stating: “Reformed Theology: We are committed to the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, and everything we do is grounded in our Reformed theology.” Covenant’s motto should be inoffensive to the sympathetically minded. However, while a belief system that is founded on biblical inerrancy may be a fine guide to life, it must not guide the rulings of federal judges. 

The American polity is in part based on the delusion that one’s religion can be a wholly personal matter, separated as if by a firewall from political life. This is a big topic, and all I will say about it now is this: How much of a stretch is it to go from a shared belief in the doctrine that God created the universe in six days to a shared belief in the doctrine that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election?