Tag Archives: Liz Cheney

Point of View Columns

The End of July 2021 – Another Week in the Life of America

July 21, 2021

The day is barely in full swing before the Congress Carnival displays it worthiness of the title. Yesterday, House Minority Leader Steve McCarthy appointed five Republicans to the House Select Committee on the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Three of the five had voted not to certify the election – a position which they shared with the thousands of insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on 1.6.21.

Two of those three, Congressman Jordan and Banks have also gone on to launch rhetorical attacks on the concept that there was ever even an insurrection, even after their appointment to the Committee. So House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed the appointments of Jordan (who has distinguished himself as being an unhinged defender of all things #45, including two impeachments – which should entitle him to immediate placement in the Bizarre Hall of Shame) and Banks, who was the author of a shameful anti-Select Committee diatribe mere hours after his appointment.

So McCarthy took his appointment marbles and went home – withdrawing all five of his nominations. And now the only Republican on this Select Committee is Liz Cheney who is at present an outcast in the Republican congressional caucus. And this is what will have to pass for bipartisanship in this increasingly polarized political environment that we are witnessing in real time.

July 22, 2021

A conversion of sorts is taking place these days. Not exactly Saul on the road to Damascus who became Paul. In this case we are witnessing leading Republicans like Steve Scalise and Mitch McConnell advocate that Americans get vaccinated.

Of course a quick glance at the calendar will reveal that they are almost seven months late to the game – except that it is no game when hundreds of thousands of Americans have died needlessly because the men and women in whom they believe did not advocate vaccinations early.

July 23, 2021

The 2020(2021) Tokyo Olympics began after a one year COVID-related delay. The stadium was empty, Naomi Osaka lit the Olympic torch…and then, in keeping with the bizarre times in which we live the opening ceremony ended with hundreds of Japanese tap dancers – seriously.

And now, over 95% of all COVID-19 deaths involve men and women who have not been vaccinated.

One has to wonder how these vaccine-deniers sleep or live with themselves.

July 25, 2021

In what must surely be a case of malicious déjà vu it appears that the new Delta COVID-19 variant is many times more virulent that the original version which, in its prior iterations, has already killed more than 600,000 Americans and millions around the world. And in this bizarro scenario we still have less than 50 percent of the American population vaccinated while vaccines are warehoused in freezers all over the country.

Meanwhile, only one percent of the 1.1 billion people in Africa has been vaccinated. And it may only be a matter of time before the plague sweeps across that continent and this country unless something like sanity begins to take hold in the United States and something like human compassion enlightens the wealthy nations of Europe, Asia and the Americas so that vaccines can become readily available to the people of Africa.

As of now we have not seen enough sanity.

As of now we have not seen enough compassion.

As of now a dystopian future for the planet seems closer than ever.

July 26, 2021

It appears that not a day can go by without Trump propagating the Big Lie that the November 2020 election was “stolen” from him and his voters. And, although it may seem counterintuitive, the more that he tells this lie with no facts, proof, evidence of any kind, the more people come to believe him.

At this point we live in a country where somewhere between 50 million and 100 million Americans either that the election was “stolen” or, in any event, that there was something wrong with the 2020 election. And it should be remembered that a very significant percentage of these millions of Americans are very well armed with military grade weapons.

And right now there is a current of thought (if thought is the right word) that Trump will be restored to the presidency sometime in August and many of these well-armed supporters will be coming to the Capitol – again – and as we learned on 1.6.21, this cannot be a good thing.

July 27, 2021

Today the House Select Committee on the January 6th insurrection met publicly for the first time. Four members of the Metropolitan Capitol Police force stole the show. And all they did was tell the truth about what happened on 1.6.21.

But hearing from these men first hand, providing a literal blow by blow account of the insurrection mayhem spoke volumes to their courage and sense of duty. It also cast a penumbra of shame over all the insurrection deniers and proponents of the Big Lie.

One can only hope that there are enough brave men and women to stand in the way of the coming wave of the next insurrection – and there will be a next insurrection.

July 30, 2021

It may be that another symptom of the COVID-19 virus is straight out madness. How else to explain the vise-like grip on ignorance that is held by so many Americans in the face of the Delta variant which is so much more virulent than the original. Not getting vaccinated is bad enough. Refusing to allow your unvaccinated child to wear a mask in a school building filled with hundreds of other unmasked (and unvaccinated) children can only be a recipe for tragedy of disastrous proportions.

What parent would run that risk? Virtually all parents routinely have their newborn children vaccinated for smallpox, measles, etc. – what is the problem now? Clearly the problem is just the flood of misinformation that is spewing out over the internet and television channels. And that flood now has submerged logic, common sense and the survival instinct.

It would appear that, unless the spell of ignorance is broken, there will be a tsunami of pain spilling out across this country during the next 100 days.

Let us hope that the spell can be broken.

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Point of View Columns

May 2021 – Another Week in the Life of America

May 1, 2021

32,346,895-576,239 (Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead at the beginning of the day)

Today it was announced that 101,407,318 Americans have been vaccinated. That amounts to one-third of the nation’s population. That is the good news. The not so good news is that it is going to be more than a struggle to get the other two-thirds to also get vaccinated.

Close to two-thirds of self-identified Republicans (60%) have indicated that they are not going to get vaccinated. Clearly this is a way for the Republican Party to be more of a minority than it already is – but stubborn stupidity is hard to overcome.

How stubborn and how stupid? The Man Named 45 has publicly encouraged Republicans to get vaccinated and while they would clearly follow him over a cliff in true lemming fashion, they are refusing to save their own lives and the lives of those that they love. That’s how stubborn and that’s how stupid.

May 2, 2021

32,415,395-577,007 (Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead at the beginning of the day)

Clearly there is no such thing as a slow news day on this planet anymore. Tens of thousands of people are dying in India every day. Like something that might have been written by Dante, bodies are being burned in the streets as all of the crematoria are overflowing with corpses.

India is a nuclear power. India has a modern navy. India has countless billionaires and wealthy families. India is an international destination for concierge-style state of the art hospital care.

But clearly, the powers that be do not think that universal health care is a right, but rather its a privilege.

Sound familiar? It should. It sounds a lot like the talking points of too many opponents of the Affordable Care Act right here in America.

May 3, 2021

32,421,989-577,045 (Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead at the beginning of the day)

It was reported that over the weekend Senator Mitt Romney was booed mercilessly at the Utah State Republican Convention. It turns out that the Romney was the target of a censure motion, his crime was voting to convict 45 both times that he was impeached.

It is important to remember that it was just nine years ago that Romney was the Republican presidential candidate in what turned out to be a losing campaign against Barack Obama. It is also important to remember that the Romney familiar, devout Mormons to be sure, are part of the institutional foundation of Utah.

And it is also important to remember that, during the ascendancy of the Cult of 45, none of that matters. Blind loyalty to 45 is all that counts and means everything. The Cult of 45 is the reincarnation of the Lost Cause that proliferated throughout the former Confederate states, keeping a tight fisted grip on unreality even in light of the fact that they had lost.

Elements of the Lost Cause exist to this day – consider the proliferation of statues of Confederate heroes and the stubbornness with which so many white Southerners cling to these faux idols to this very day. So it should be no surprise that in the modern era the Lost Cause has now been resurrected as the Cult of 45.

May 4, 2021

32,472,129-577,565 (Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead at the beginning of the day)

The tumbrils are rolling down the avenues and boulevards of the Republican Party. The mobs are looking for the turncoats, traitors and apostates that might dare suggest that 45 didn’t lose the election and also dare to state that truth, not lies, should be the brand of the party.

Danton, Marat and Robespierre would have been proud, disappointed only that actual heads are not rolling. But careers, reputations and the work of lifetimes are being trashed – just ask Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney and we can be sure that there will be more.

The fact that 70% of Republicans still believe that 45 won the 2020 election reveals everything that we need to know about the Republican Party – it has become a nihilist tool of authoritarian strategies and ambitions, with healthy doses of white supremacy, racism, nativism, xenophobia, nationalism and guns – many, many guns – thrown in for good measure.

It should be clear by now that what is happening to the G.O.P. is a danger to democracy in the United States and should be the subject of real concern. Of course, figuring out what to do with 50 million Americans that have just gone off the rails of the nation will not be easy.

The last time there was a schism this profound was in 1861 – and we all know what happened then.

May 5, 2021

32,513,803-578,504 (Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead at the beginning of the day)

Today an independent advisory group recommended that Facebook continue to suspend 45 from using its services for at least another six months. This means that he is barred from tweeting his brains out in the middle of the night but it will not loosen his stranglehold on the Republican Party for even a millisecond.

We have seen dominant political personalities in this nation, but any historian would be hard pressed to name a man or woman who has ever had such a widespread and devout following. By now anyone who has been paying attention knows that all 45 wanted out of being president was to be the object of attention and adulation.

To be clear, the job of president was always secondary for him – it was being the center of attention 24/7 that fed his insatiable ego. Now that he doesn’t have the busy work of the presidency to distract him, 45 can now spend all of his time cultivating his MAGA mob, which he has been doing quite well even without access to Facebook and Twitter.

It appears that we will not be hearing the last of 45 for quite a while.

May 7, 2021

32,558,718-579,286 (Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead at the beginning of the day)

Say goodbye to Liz Cheney – at least as a part of the leadership of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. It should be noted that Liz Cheney is one of the most strictly conservative members of Congress and has been that way ever since she came to Washington.

However, she seems to be considered guilty of the unpardonable sin (A least on the Planet Republican) of criticizing 45 for continuing to lie about the 2020 election and for fomenting and inspiring the 1.6.21 insurrection.

And for telling the truth and having the temerity to speak her mind on the matter she is being banished to the furthest reaches of the party.

And it should be clear that we are seeing a preview of what this country might be like if 45 was ever returned to power as president. Loyalty tests anywhere and everywhere will be the order of the day and the cult of personality would be a matter of public policy.

We have seen this before – Germany and Italy circa 1935, North Korea circa 1950, Iraq circa 1985 – and it never seems to go well for the subject country.

As Americans we can never say that we haven’t been warned.

May 8, 2021

32,652,416-580,904 (Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases – the number of dead at the beginning of the day)

Federal civil rights violation charges against Derek Chauvin and three other officers connected to the murder of George Floyd – this simply never would have happened when 45 was president and William Barr was the Attorney General.

What a difference an election can make.

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Point of View Columns

War is No Game

In the military, efficiency is based upon training, practicing and training and practicing. Some of that practice involves simulations of combat and those are called “war games”. However, it is clear to anyone and everyone connected to the military that war is not a game.

That particular wisdom has not seeped into the American bunker also known as the Trump White House. It appears that Trump and his enablers, particularly Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, have concocted an international policy modus operandi that entails threats and faux confrontations, goading and threatening adversaries and then stepping back from the brink of actual confrontation and combat….just…. in…. time.

But if anyone seriously thinks that tightrope diplomacy is a good thing in these days and times of instantaneous communications and response, they also think that dancing on active airplane runways is a good thing.

What is most disturbing in the recent near-clashes with Iran is that there are people in the Trump administration who think that a war with Iran is a viable option and that it is “winnable”, whatever that means. Even more disturbing is that some of these people are the same people who said that a war with Iraq was “winnable” and that a war in Afghanistan was a viable option.

How these advisors can be credible after a trillion dollars of expense and the loss of life of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan men, women and children is a wonder in an of itself. One would think that John Bolton and his running partners – like Mike Pompeo and Liz Cheney – should be banned from ever advising anyone about anything, much less advising the President of the United States on matters involving war and peace.

Mike Pompeo is graduate of West Point and served in the Army for five years. He never went near a combat theater and left the military to pursue a career in business and politics. John Bolton was eligible for the draft during the tail end of the war in Vietnam and joined the National Guard as a way of assuring that he would not have to go into combat. Research does not indicate any military service by Liz Cheney.

So the three loudest voices in favor of military action against Iran have never been in combat and have avoided combat when there was any opportunity to do so (Pompeo could have re-enlisted in participated in Desert Storm, the war in Afghanistan and the 2003 war in Iraq). They are certainly intellectually capable of understanding the human and financial costs of war, but they ignore these costs so as to support a world view that could turn apocalyptic in a literal nanosecond.

It almost seems that these pseudo-war hawks look at war as being part of some great global game where they get to play Masters of the Universe. But in fact, they are playing with the lives of Americans and men, women and children all over the world. And if they think for even a brief moment that America is not vulnerable to a counterattack by Iran then they clearly have managed to erase 9/11 from their collective memories.

But Americans in New York and Washington remember 9/11. Americans who are in veteran’s hospitals suffering from PTSD and countless other injuries and disabilities remember the cost of war. And if these pseudo war hawks think that bombing Iran today and North Korea tomorrow will make America safe they are either stupid or deranged or both.

America and Americans have interests all over the world – therefore we are vulnerable all over the world. No American city will be safe in the event of another conflagration along the lines of an Iranian war. No American who travels anywhere in this world will be safe at a time when America is at war with the world.

Trump has shown some signs of baseline intelligence and common sense by calling off a missile strike against Iran – 15 minutes prior to launch. How close did we come to Trump Induced Trauma throughout the world, we may never know.

But Trump cannot continue to play with fire without America getting burned.

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