Together We Rise, Or None Of Us Do, Part Two.

We're fighting bulls of the Buffaloes, Git a goin' – git a goin'
From Kansas' plains we'll hunt our foes;
A trottin' down the line.
Our range spreads west to Santa Fe, Git a goin' – git a goin'.
From Dakota down the Mexican way; A trottin' down the line.

Goin' to drill all day
Goin' to drill all night,
I got my money on the buffaloes,
Somebody bet on the fight.
~The Buffaloes, Regimental song of the 10th United States Cavalry Regiment, (First two stanzas.)

Yesterday, Republicans walked out of a hearing concerning the health of female veterans.

That's right, instead of doing their jobs, they simply walked out. Instead of even maintaining the most basic pretense of doing their jobs, they walked out, as one.

That kind of thing makes a statement. And that statement is "Fuck You."

You want to tell me again how Republicans love the military and support the troops?

Do it and I'm a laugh at you.

I know that is a crock of shit from what I've seen with my own eyes and from personal experience of dealing with this crap. And when Police officers start turning up with PTSD and shit they'll be abandoned too. Likewise when the next group Republicans decide to "Support" has a problem, the same will happen. If you're a Republican, everybody else is always expendable.

Fuck these motherfuckers.

One has to wonder, if these people would walk out on a hearing concerning the benefits of African American veterans, or Latino veterans, or LGBT or non-citizen veterans.

I think we know what the answer is to that.

A bit over a year ago, I wrote an article in response to a friend's emotional distress over a racist incident, it was concerning the contributions of Puerto Rican people to the common good, history, and success of the United States Of America.

Included in that article was this photo of 1st Lt. Olga Custodio, the first Latina to graduate from United States Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training. She became a T-38 Talon instructor pilot.

If you are a White person (especially a man) you may not get this, but things like representation are important.
Girls and young women seeing women in uniform may motivate them to do better, to possibly expand their horizons or possibly to seek a career in uniform themselves.

(Actually, you do intuitively understand this, my fellow white dudes...that's why historically so many people are so shitty toward People Of Color, LGBT people and Women in the military, and you goddamned well know it. Not only that, but I know you know it. Admitting you have a problem is the first step in correcting that problem.)

That's why even in developing countries like Afghanistan, when International Women's Day rolls around every year, the government tends to make sure that female government workers and military and police personnel are visible, in spiffed-up dress uniforms or whatever. Because even there, it's well understood that representation matters, this is true both in a modern society and one only aspiring to modernity.

And surely, we can do better than Afghanistan?

In this day and age, where a gender imbalance in Tech fields and a lack of women in various STEM specialties is clearly a problem it might help, to call attention to United States Navy Rear Admiral, and computer pioneer Grace Murray Hopper. AKA "Amazing Grace" and "Grandma COBOL." For fuck's sake, the Navy saw fit to name an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer after her, and the ship was ordered and presumably named in 1992, during the term of Republican President George H.W. Bush...and launched in 1996 and commissioned into the Fleet the following year.

So we can do better. Republicans are just currently choosing not to.

I'd be willing to bet you money that social media in particular would probably be improved by more women in Tech, women who could damn well be inspired by Grace Hopper's example.

Things like equal pay and benefits are important...for the simple reason that if somebody is doing the same job as everybody else...which by the nature of military service everybody in a given unit must put forth equal effort within the context of their duties or shit doesn't function properly and people can get killed...they should damned well get paid the same.

When the War Department decided to try to get away with paying Black troops less during the Civil War, several regiments fought without pay until the disparity was corrected....and there were plenty of those guys who didn't live to get a paycheck. But they understood the importance of people having an equal share in the promise of America enough to fight and die for it nevertheless.

And if you can't understand that, then I can't explain it to you.

In a changing world, a world that must change if our planet and species are to survive, privilege is the enemy of progress.

If you can't understand that women who served in the military deserve to have their concerns heard by our legislators...all of them...then fuck you. I can't help you, and you will never get it.

If your misogyny or your racism or your wealth is just that damned important to you, then you are part of the problem and as far as I'm concerned you need to be dealt with accordingly.

And I say that as a middle-aged white dude.

One who'd never have gotten to this point in life without women and people of color.

Together we rise, or none of us do.

And I say that as a former conservative and Republican.

The way the Republican Party is currently conducting itself is immoral, and you damned well know it.

The Image of the Beast (American Revelation II, Part 5.)

 Our public interest depends on private character, on civic duty and family bonds and basic fairness, on uncounted, un-honored acts of decency which give direction to our freedom. Sometimes in life we are called to do great things. But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love. The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone. I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well. In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times. ~George W. Bush

Fucking seriously?

Last night, and continuing into this morning, "Conservatives" are making a full-court press to slime Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, and increasingly not only him, but in effect all immigrants as "untrustworthy scum" for...doing his job, upholding his oath, attempting to deal with a situation through proper channels and only going to Congress when...all other avenues were exhausted?

Again, seriously?

It's funny how all one has to do these days to be voted off the island is...be against or disagree with Trump, increasingly even if it's just about one thing.

It's no longer a political party, it's a cult.

These people don't give a fuck about America...or more precisely, they've bought into Trump's conceit that he is America.

And they've bought into all this shit, so hard that they're willing to abandon everything else, light everything else on fire, and shit all over everything they've ever previously claimed they valued...for Donald Trump?

How does that work exactly?

I mean, I understand they see themselves in him, and they like that he enables their racism...but one could have said the same thing about a lot of Republicans...and no few Democrats as well. What makes Trump different?

Or is it Republicans who changed?

Well, technically no. One of the people who's joined in trying to slime Lt. Col. Vindman is John "Torture Memo" Yoo, of Bush Jr. Administration infamy.

Fuck that guy.

Yeah, at least some Republicans have always been this shitty, or the kind of cowardly opportunistic shits that'll go along with anything, if they think they might get something out of it. We as a country, have been fortunate that even these sons of bitches, before 2016, managed to find themselves leaders who had a grander vision than racism, tax cuts and unlimited executive power.

We are all unfortunate, that this time they failed to do so. But none are more unfortunate here, than Republicans themselves. Far too many have gone along with this shitty ideology the whole time, hoping they would get something out of it, fearing they'd be asked too many questions.

And now, they're being shown as what they have been all along, by their devotion to Donald Trump of all fucking people.

I think we've officially hit the point where Republicans don't give a fuck about America or its national security.

They believe in their racism. They know that kind of crap can be protected with AK-47's and Technical Trucks, or white hoods and burning crosses.

I think we've hit that point because Republicans have realized that the rest of us aren't going away and they're going to have to share America with LGBT folk and liberals and non-Christians and people of Color.

They bought into Trump's lie in 2015, they bought into the fantasy. I think, under the radar all too many realize they fell for nothing but a hologram.

Quite frankly I think they know they're going down, next year if not before. At the rate these people are going, they're as likely to be run out of power by an angry mob, wearing a spiffy new coat of tar and feathers as they are to be voted out.

I think they know it.

And now they're openly looking about to see who or what they can take down with them.

And as far as they're concerned if that happens to include the United States Armed Forces, they're good with that. Maybe they think Trump can smite the enemy with his bone spurs and Filet O' Fish farts.

Hell if I know, I cannot fit my head far enough up my own ass to see these people's "logic."

Fuck these motherfuckers.

Just remember, people, if they can slime Lt. Col. Vindman, they can and will slime you, for any reason or none at all.

I didn't take no oath to Trump. The Constitution and government and military oaths do not demand loyalty to any particular President, period...much less this one. You're supposed to obey your command team and accept civilian control of the military, not worship any aspect of it as a god.

I spent much of my life as a Baptist, I was warned endlessly about cults.

I'm no longer a Christian, myself...in no small part because of all these people who've now abandoned Christ for Trump.

But let me tell you one thing.

If we want to get through this mess in one piece we're all going to have to believe in something greater than ourselves more than these fools believe in their hate, racism, and Trump.

Never forget that the only thing that a racist will do with the Cross of Christ, at the end of the day, is set it on fire.

Never forget that they don't give a fuck about our Democracy, our history, our military, or any of the other aspects of our country that they've claimed to champion forever.

If they really believed it, they wouldn't be doing this shit.

But if they believe in nothing, that means the rest of us have to believe in something, even if it's just the Constitution or the secular principles of our country. I was taught that without belief in something greater than yourself, and without belief in Truth, freedom dies.

We all have to believe that America is greater than the emptiness in one man's soul. Is that so hard?

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
    But it's "Savior of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
    An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
    An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

~Rudyard Kipling, Tommy.

Part Four.

Reaping the whirlwind.

President Kennedy never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon. Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad. ~Malcolm X.

Last night, Trump got booed at the World Series game.

People chanted "Lock him up!" and "Impeach Trump!"

Oh, hey, Mr. President, these are The People, you know, the Forgotten Man you've been using to cover your shitty bullshit ass racism and bad behavior since you decided to run for President.

But this ain't one of your rallies where they screen everybody who comes through the door and security escorts out any dissenting voices that slip through.
Hey asshole. People be tired of your shit.

But then, predictably, today...media figures and politicians...even some Democrats...are coming out to defend Trump. Chris Coons and Nate Silver kind of surprised me. Morning Joe really didn't.

Take particular note of Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe, who both he and his wife have been insulted and lied about by Trump directly. Note the wording of the Tweet.

When a Republican...and Joe is a Republican, former Florida District 1 Representative in fact, another generation's Matt Gaetz (and this should show you how far Republicans have fallen in 20 years) pulls the "Hey, hey, we're all Americans, right?" card, you know that they know they're fucked. Ya know, though, when Joe was in office he pushed the same shitty agenda under Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert.

You know, those upstanding paragons of Republican family values from the 1990's.

I'm glad he saw the light, just like I'm glad there are Never Trump Republicans in a general sense, but the Republican agenda has always been shit. They've just been lucky that until now they at least managed to pick leaders who either didn't subscribe to the same shitty agenda, or could at least hide it better than Trump does.

Republicans see the writing on the wall, the chickens coming home to roost, they see that they're starting to reap the whirlwind of having angry, shitty, grievance-based militancy throughout the electorate for 50 years...because now Democrats and 'moderates' are starting to give it right back to them. And they're terrified, because as it turns out, Trump has blown their 50 year head start and damned near two thirds of the country hates him.

And yes, oh yes, they know the Republican agenda is unpopular.

You don't think Mitch McConnell is really trying to pack the judiciary to promote morality, do you?

Republicans see that hate coming for them, too. They know it already did last November. They know that wasn't the end. They see it every day in the Impeachment Inquiry against their god...and don't think that's not what Trump is at this point...maybe not to Congressional Republicans, only about a third of whom are "True Believers." But the rest, like any shitty, dishonest priesthood, are trying to find a way to turn the cult to their advantage, to find somebody else they can accuse of heresy so that they can live to bow and scrape and steal treasures and rich foods from the Imperial Palace another day.

But whatever spell they had cast over the wider electorate is gone. No matter how many times one of these assholes shouts "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!" It's too late. Whether anybody wants to come out and articulate it as such or not, Republicanism has been exposed as a fraud.

And like the Imperial Chinese Eunuchs condemned to wear their own amputated dicks in jars of formaldehyde as the empire crumbled around them...they know, and dread, the prospect of firefights between Communists and Nationalists in the streets and the foreign forces drawn in to try and take advantage. (Which in our modern case includes the Chinese, thus adding an element of irony to my example.) They know The People are discontented...

And they have no idea what to do.

So they try and bullshit their way out of it.

And people are laughing at them for trying. And the fear they've sown for decades rebounds on them.

Hey, hey, calm down now. We're all Americans, right?

That's funny asshole.

Funny how just yesterday I saw dozens of posts rather emphatically to the effect that no, we aren't.

Turns out, once you gin up the mob enough, it starts deciding who gets to be considered a Republican and who doesn't, and what the actual Republican in question has to say about it doesn't matter.

These people and their never-ending throwing of John McCain and his family under the bus pisses me off. I used to be a Republican, remember?

As a small business owner for much of the later 1990's I always figured I'd benefit from this mess eventually. That I never did, well, I woke up faster than Morning Joe did, and more honestly too, I'd hope.

Because I actually switched sides.

I hate these people for what they've made of my former political philosophy. I seriously was not taught like this.

Yes, I hate These Fucking People.

Their anti-Semitism and hate and racism all pisses me off. The fact that Republicans in general...and "Conservatives" in particular used this fucking bullshit to stay in power far longer than they should have to the point where it now threatens the survival of our country pisses me off.

Sooner or later, refusal to change results in stagnation and death.

Faced with "Change or die" Republicans have chosen death...and there are already those among them who are looking around to see who they can take down with them when they go.

And they have no loyalty to anyone or anything...except Trump.

You created this mess, Republicans.

I'm fine with Democrats and others throwing Republicans own shit right back in their faces, don't get me wrong.

But the rest of us need to be careful that this isn't where we end up in another 50 years. Hell, as of today I've observed that Republicans are not the only ones advocating shooting down their neighbors. Plenty of supposed Democrats and Liberals are doing it too.

That's not cool.

Let their chickens come home to roost, and don't let them lie their way out of it.

But at the same time, let us remember that we're supposed to be the good guys.

They are destroying themselves. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. ~Hosea 8:7

This is the day that the Lord has made...

This is the day the Lord has made;We will rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24

This morning, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and others spoke at the funeral of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings.

I'd just like to point out that, if you went back in time and told younger, Republican me in 1999 that in 2019 Hillary Clinton would be preaching from the Word while Republicans had become the Cult Of Donald Trump, I'd probably have punched you right in the mouth. I certainly would not have believed you.

I'm serious.

But ya know, I suspect that Mr. Cummings, a 40-year, very active member of New Psalmist Baptist Church would have approved of her choice of words. And ya know, despite all the stuff he went through in this life, I never even heard of Elijah Cummings having anything bad to say about anyone that was not 100% deserved.

That's more than can be said for some people.

I'm a former Christian, and former conservative, and in cross-referencing this current mess from the last couple weeks with what I was taught, or what I knew then and know now to be acceptable behavior, the answer that keeps coming back is simply "That Does Not Compute."

I literally can't even recognize any of my former people anymore.

I got no further than the first post down before I saw that the idiots had already turned up.

Assuming this is a real person (which I don't) who the hell can be that angry and on point with the conspiracy theories and the partisan crap ALL the time?

Can't ya'll turn it off, even for just one half-day? A guy just died, give his funeral observance some respect. This is not cool.

And I'll tell you what, I REALLY don't like these people's lack of loyalty to, or respect for, damned near anything. It really bothers me.

But let us note the content of the moment just the same. Hillary Clinton preaches from the Word. Some idiot troll threatens her with baseless, bullshit investigations on behalf of a political party that has all but declared Trump its god.

You can't make this stuff up.

Meanwhile "Conservatives" and "Christians" piss and shit all over everything I was taught.

But more and more, just on a simple macro- sanity level, these damn people never turn it off. I had to take a break for a few days just to maintain my own sanity.

Do these people do that? I don't think so. And that bothers me.

As the Impeachment process continues and these people keep digging themselves into a variety of deeper holes, Republicans seem to be losing it, becoming frantic and unhinged.

And it's not just them, it's everywhere. We had a Transphobic incident at my work this week, and it seemed to really bother those who spoke to me about it.

I wonder why it's so hard for some people, to just see others as people.

I wonder if these assholes would be doing better if they just took a day off now and again?

These guys get the concept of self-care, and instinctively follow the 'rules' of their species.

You can't make a ferret be anything but a ferret.

However it doesn't seem to be that hard, these days, to get a human being to act like they're anything but a freaking human being.

Don't be like that. Take care of yourself and those around you. Be more like the ferrets, try to relax and enjoy life when you can.

And treat others with respect. Life is hard enough even when we're all trying to get along.

This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

I'll guarantee you one thing, conservatives. Donald Trump could not make a day, nor even add one single minute to his miserable life.

Stop acting like he's your god.

I want to go home and rethink my life.

To me the earth's most explosive and pernicious evil is racism, the inability of God's creatures to live as One, especially in the Western world. ~Malcolm X.

I want you to imagine something. Let's engage in a little speculative fiction.

Imagine if you will, a reversal of the situation we're in. On November 8th, 2016, Hillary Clinton handily won the election, leaving Republicans with a minority in both houses of Congress. Her first effort as President was to put Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court in early 2017. Her second choice, later that year, following the retirement of Clarence Thomas, was to nominate Barack Obama and he was handily confirmed by a Democratic dominated Senate.

It was there, that things began to go wrong. There was a subtle sense of energy building up around Republicanism, which was by then making a real effort...sincerely or otherwise, to wash itself clean of the stain of Donald Trump. This paid off in several off-year State elections, such as in Virginia.

Later, Following the retirement of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions in the fall of 2017, Roy Moore handily defeated Doug Jones and went on to preach fire and brimstone on the Senate floor. Though this often proved inconvenient, he made a good show for the base, which also began to regain some of its fire. Backed by a coalition of former Never Trump Republicans like Evan McMullin and Rick Wilson, by the turn of the new year Mitt Romney had declared his intention to make another run at the Presidency in 2020, and there was talk he might win this time.

And Democrats, overconfident, got their asses handed to them in November of 2018, losing 50 House seats and barely holding onto the Senate.

In the first week of the new Congress, Trey Gowdy (having replaced the newly retired Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House) immediately restarted the Benghazi investigations.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine...a NATO member as of the previous year...in April of 2019 citing Ukrainian aggression and naval incidents the previous autumn. Due to a diplomatic spat with Turkey, US forces could not be deployed by sea....and in any case since Cold War REFORGER plans had to be dusted off, and there was not enough shipping to spare for that. With US Army divisions and regiments of Marines pouring in to bolster their defense, NATO forces went on the offense and German and Polish forces bloodily stopped the Russians in hard urban fighting in Kiev, while the Turks saw to the liberation of Crimea...and then themselves refused to leave, citing the need to protect the (Muslim) Crimean Tatar minority. Additionally, much of the eastern part of the country had been devastated and was lost to occupation, with control of the Donbass consolidated and that region absorbed into Russia. Europe weathered the tide of another wave of refugees, and everyone began the costly task of setting up new lines of defense from the Norwegian arctic to the Black Sea.

Simply because there was suddenly too much else on their plate, the Clinton administration turned a blind eye to Turkish soldiers persecuting ethnic Russian Christians, particularly Evangelicals, which in turn enraged the American ones.

Supporting the defense involved a tax increase, which Republicans, sensing an opportunity, allowed to pass the House.

Between international fumbles, restarted investigations, tax hikes and the now deepening personal conflict with Erdogan despite the threat of the Russian juggernaut, support for Clinton began to sink like a stone as Mitt quoted Reagan's Evil Empire speech with all the gravitas of an Old Testament prophet and took the time to smooth things over with our disreputable ally.

Somewhere in all this, an impeachment inquiry began. Amid all the fuss, a group of younger Democrats who'd been elected in safely blue districts, led by freshman Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, decided they'd had enough of the Kangaroo Court Benghazi bullshit, and invaded the SCIF during a routine deposition.

In the process, several were shot and wounded, some severely. Though none were killed, all were arrested and would be charged and go to trial. Speaker Gowdy himself praised the professionalism of the Capitol Police while suggesting a measure of leniency for those in legal trouble. Both Fox News and Reddit got much political mileage out of a video in which AOC was seen to be wearing a GPS tracker on her ankle.

And like it or not, rightly so. It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong, or which you think it is. People got procedures they have to follow.

It technically doesn't matter if what's going on in the room actually is bullshit.

If any of this were the case, it bears mentioning that national security stuff is supposed to be apolitical and nonpartisan for a reason.

Over the last 20 years, who keeps consistently violating that?

Republicans.

...

Yesterday, a bunch of Republican Representatives swarmed into the Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF) in the Capitol Building. In so doing, based on the videos that I saw, these people committed a number of crimes.

For which, in any other political climate, they certainly would have been arrested, and shot if they resisted.

Listen.

I know damned well what a SCIF is, what it is for, and that House Republicans violated one of the most fundamental aspects of US National Security, secure control of information, in doing this. They shit all over everything I was ever taught. They shit all over our national security...all to disrupt a fairly routine closed-door deposition that was part of the Impeachment Inquiry.

The door wasn't closed for nefarious purposes, it was closed because the law says it has to be. These people know this. They just don't care. They could all have been arrested, charged, tried and incarcerated. Hell, if they'd resisted arrest they would have been shot, because this really is a national security issue. I'm serious. Any unauthorized access, any violations of protocol such as bringing electronic devices into a SCIF is a serious matter that can potentially have deadly consequences, and so such things can be met with deadly force.

Try to barge into a SCIF on a United States Air Force base, or force your way into a Weapons Storage Area, let alone have your camera phone out around a hot structure taking video, and you're going to get shot.

And that's just one example.

House Republicans have effectively shown that they no longer care about their own lives. What do you think that means for you?

Yesterday, and last night at work, I was so angry that I could hardly even manage a conversation.

As a former Republican, among other things relevant here, I've spent the last two days wondering what the hell the first three quarters of my life was even for.

If this is permissible, I feel like I wasted my time. Like the alien dude that tries to sell Obi Wan the death sticks in Star Wars Episode II, and then gets mind-tricked, I want to go home and rethink my life.

I remember when NatSec *Was* pretty much the Republican issue. Now, Republicans don't care about it, to the point where they'll violate a SCIF? How can we continue to have a country when these people and the 30% or so of the general population that follows them do not care about the security of our country?

And why is it permissible, even...no, especially...to Republicans?

Fundamentally, at this point, it comes down to one thing.

Racism.

Even the vast majority of white conservatives will never see a dime, or one single benefit, from any of the Trump administration's policies or tax cuts or what have you.

Officially, at least.

But Trump is like a drug dealer with the racism, and he knows bitches when he sees bitches. Some people are so desperate to hang onto White Supremacy that they'll give up everything they have, even their dignity or self-respect...and quite possibly their life...for this motherfucker.

Because facts, history, law, reason and truth mean nothing to Republicans.

Indeed, Republicans long-proclaimed values mean nothing to Republicans. Actual conservatives like Bill Kristol, Evan McMullin, Max Boot, Mitt Romney and Rick Wilson are effectively apostate from The Party while Donald Trump's ideology of the Self remains supreme as he compares the House executing its Constitutional duty to the ethnic cleansing and murder of African Americans in the Jim Crow South.

And Republicans love him for it. Hell, some of these fucking people act like we never had a President before Trump.

Why? Because to These Fucking People, America isn't America if they have to share it with Black and Brown people or LGBT people, or if women have control over their own bodies and can say no to them. Because America isn't America if they can't just kill any person darker-skinned than they are. Because even though there's not much that Trump can do to actually change any of that...he has at least made the prejudiced assholes feel like it's OK to openly be prejudiced assholes again...and for most, that is enough.

And he has always done that. The ad to the left of this text was paid for by Trump in 1989, calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five kids.

What Trump did here, was basically try to call for a lynching, over 30 years ago now. At the time, I was around the same age as some of those kids and I was shocked and very angry about things like this ad, because as I saw it, if this rich asshole could do that to them, he could do it to me, too.

I should add, that my family was moderate conservative and just a bit over two and a half years later I registered to vote as a Republican. Trump was a Democrat at the time. I've never liked that guy.

Hate knows no party affiliation or national loyalty, it craves only the destruction of the Other.

And if we don't get a handle on that and find a way to stop this shit, impeachment or defeating Trump in 2020 isn't going to matter in the long term. Oh sure, it'll help for awhile. Our side winning either or both only buys off the real problem for a while longer.

As long as one American hates his neighbors more than he fears or hates a rival nation, these people are a dagger pointed at all our throats. As long as hate is presented as a virtue, or something to use to make money, it is a threat. As long as that kind of hatred is allowed to continue to exist, the longer it goes on the more likely this ends with Americans shooting at each other.

And nobody with a brain in their head wants that.

For the wages of sin is death. (American Revelation II, Part 4.)

When a mind does not know itself, it is flawed. When a mind is flawed, the man is flawed. When a man is flawed, that which he touches is flawed. It is said that what a flawed man sees, his hands make broken.
~Dak'kon, Planescape Torment.

So, evidently today American troops retreating from Syria were greeted upon arrival in Iraq by Iraqi Kurds throwing stones and shouting "Fuck you!"

And, for that matter, they left Syria being pelted with garbage and rotten fruit as well.

If you don't think this is a metaphor for our place in the world because of Trump, and post-Trump, you have another thing coming.

It's going to be the work of generations to regain the trust of the world, and our former place in it. And by the time we get there, we'll be facing a People's Republic of China that's in a similar position to America in the 1950's, militarily if not economically...and itself having been financed by American capitalism.

I've seen a number of Republicans, like Marco Rubio, make negative comments about these Kurds throwing rocks. Too damned bad, I say. This kind of stuff is the least of our problems in general, but for Marco in particular it shouldn't even be on the radar.

After these last couple of weeks the Republican Party deserves to be run out of power on a rail, wearing a nice new coat of tar and feathers. Seriously, fuck Marco Rubio and his Bible verses. These people are legitimately angry that we've left their brothers and sisters across the border...allies who fought and bled and died for us...to twist in the wind. All because of some shady secret deal that Trump made that, quite likely, only benefits him.

As others have said, though, Trump is the symptom, not the problem. He's the symptom of 80-some million privileged idiots who don't know anything, and don't want to know anything...because they figured out a long time ago that if they don't know anything they can believe whatever they want.

And seriously, they choose with malice aforethought to believe a lot of nonsensical dumb shit.

Well, boys and girls, this is what your shitty "beliefs" have gotten us, a President who thought he should have a "Victory Day" because it's too hot on the Fourth Of July. No, seriously, fuck these motherfuckers.

These fucking people, every last one of them, have spent the last three years attempting to do nothing more than turn the previous 240 years of American history into some kind of gimcrack celebration of themselves. Remember that these fools, one and all, were so pathetic that they bought into the character Donald Trump played on TV instead of paying attention and being aware of the shitty con-man that anybody who'd been watching anything other than the Apprentice and WWE for 30 years was god-damned well expecting him to be.

But it's worse than that.

Today, Trump called the Constitution "phony."

You know, our founding document and the basis for our entire government, that he supposedly swore to uphold.

As I've said before, when you elect people whose Word is shit, then America's Word becomes shit as well. An awful lot of our power in the world was simply based on the fact that the rest of the world thought they could trust us and the idea that the Man Behind The Curtain was at least somewhat competent. Well, guess what, ladies and gentlemen. That level of trust is now gone.

And it's going to be a long, hard and in all probability bloody road to get it back. Why? Because American soft power functionally no longer exists at this point. 70+ years of work by American Presidents, diplomats, military personnel and average citizens alike is down the drain.

It's tempting to say this is because of one man, but the truth is there's an entire political party, and an entire segment of America's wealthy, dedicated to protecting this clown and trying like hell to get him a second term if he can survive the first one.

Why? Because they want their tax cuts.

About that? Oh yeah, getting our previous level of power in the world back ain't gonna be cheap. Imagine if you will, Cold War style defense lines stretching from the Finnish Arctic to the Ukraine to the Golan Heights and protecting whatever's left of Kurdistan from the Russians, while quite likely also covering our Gulf-State allies from the other direction protecting them from Iran...and don't think we won't also be having to protect Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and I'm going to go out on a limb and say Hong Kong will eventually be added to that mix as well...from Communist China.

And we're going to have to do it knowing we have less money than the Chinese do.

So yeah, it's either going to be "Tax The Rich" or get used to basically being a vassal to a Communist superpower. I can remember when even suggesting that America bend over for Commies would get you beat up. Now? We're paying our own enemies to lay the groundwork for beating us.

Also, I'm going to guess that American Capitalism is probably going to have to find some other source of cheap goods besides outsourcing everything to the Chinese. Unless we want to fund our own destruction.

See, Russia is, fundamentally, a one, maybe two-trick pony. They have their information warfare, and a good amount of military power left over from the Cold War...which provides a basis for the modest upgrades they've managed of late. But they don't have the economic power that China or the US does.

And we're busy squandering our power, because Trump is a moron. Screw the rest of the world! This goon thought he was going to get to remake America in his own image and turn it into a celebration of himself.

Fuck that stupid bullshit.

And while we're at it, never forget that Trump and the Republicans can't even be bothered to care about our own people.

They lie to us constantly, for one thing.

And I don't know about you, but I have a problem with people who lie to me.

You can want the lies to be true all day, but your wanting it does not make it so. Actions have consequences, decisions made on lies rather than on facts and truth will tend to have adverse consequences, and right now on a daily basis I see those consequences piling up all around us.

People will die, because too many American conservatives bought into an obvious lie and too many American liberals couldn't be bothered to get off their asses to stop this shit.

And since Impeachment is steadily becoming more of a thing, to the point where even just enough Republicans are starting to see the writing on the wall, I worry that Trump's fanatical base will resort to violence to try and keep him in power. So, we'll likely have to deal with that, too.

All this, because in 2016 too many people couldn't be bothered to see past their own pride and selfishness to do what an awful lot of them now know they should have.

There's a reason Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

There's a reason the Bible says "The Wages of Sin is Death."

Think on that.

And know that it's going to fall on all of us to put things right.

Yes, You too.

Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.
Part Five.

Signs and Wonders (American Revelation II, Part 3.)

For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. ~Acts 17:29-31

Yesterday, I took a drive to go visit a friend of mine a ways north of here and retrieve several boxes of my old gaming books that he had sitting in his basement.

About a third of the way there, I passed this sign along the highway. It looked to be handmade, was painted red, white and blue, and had only one thing on it.

#WWG1WGA

The Q-Anon Hashtag.

In an area that I know has terrible internet service because it's not too far from where another friend of mine (who was in our gaming group, but who is unfortunately no longer with us) and his family used to live. They still had dial-up when dial-up wasn't cool anymore.

But there's this sign, this real-world meat-space sign, with a hashtag on it.

I thought about it, and the more I think about it the more it makes me think of those "Jesus" signs one sees all over the South, alongside highways and roads, because some people down there just love to advertise their religiosity.

And that bothers me, not the Jesus signs in Alabama and Florida and Missouri, but the Trump sign in Michigan that seems to evoke them. The United States of America is constitutionally, legally and in practice a secular liberal democratic republic.

The President is a wholly secular leader within that system, checked by Law and tradition and the other two branches of government, for a reason.

He's not a king, and he's sure as hell not a god.

Separation of Church and State is the very first item in the very first Amendment to our Constitution, both freedom of (and at first implicitly and later explicitly) freedom from religion. Growing up as a young conservative kid, a Christian kid, attending Christian schools during the waning years of the Cold War when half the world still quaked in the shadow of the Soviet Union, which none other than Ronald Reagan called The Evil Empire...I had it pounded into my head that I had freedom of religion and like it or not, so did everybody else. I had it pounded into my head that I should be damned grateful for this, what was seen as both a legal and perversely even a spiritual truth.

You were supposed to believe because you wanted to, not because somebody made you do it. In fact I was taught that God would accept nothing less.

But it's more than that. I grew up in a world where faith, conceptually, was under real no-shit attack. When I was a kid the news was full of stories about Afghan Mujahideen bravely fighting the Soviet Army with nothing more than light weapons and their own determination and guts. Many brave men died with the words "Allah Akbar" on their lips, telling the Godless Communists who they were and resisting even unto the last breath.

In my teens and early twenties we allied with the Gulf States against Saddam, who though he parroted veneration of Stalin, perhaps thought himself a god. Israel has always been seen as our ally and friend and proxy-fighter extraordinaire. Conservatives once defended the religious freedom of Muslims from liberals in newspaper op eds in the Detroit Free Press, believe it or not.

I know, I was there. That was what we were, circa 1995 or so.

Growing up in California, and since, I knew many Vietnamese people, from neighbors to co-workers later in life, mostly Buddhists and Catholics, many of them having fought against or lived under and then escaped Communism...so they knew what America was all about and appreciated it all the more.

My later 20's were spent to a great extent working in the food service business around Jamaicans and other Afro-Caribbean folk, Pentecostals and Rastafari and strict homophobic Fundamentalists. I've spent the last decade and a half of this life working for a Native American tribe...and I know Native people who are Christians of many kinds as well as Traditional practitioners and not a few who practice both and see no conflict between two sides of themselves.

Diversity, pluralism, and respect for other cultures once had a home on the Right as well as the Left. Maybe what our preferences were didn't gel with yours, but that was Okay too. You had a right to disagree just as surely as we did.

And that's the point. Sure, we railed against moral relativism and such, and some of those of us who took what we saw as a prophetic stand against moral decay, situational ethics and the encroaching armies of the Beast are positively irate at what we see going on in America right now.

Not from the homosexuals. Not from the liberals. Not from the most Godless Atheist or Communist.

But from our own people, who seem hell-bent on worshiping Bhaal, the Lord of Murder, to "Own the Libs."

It's not just that current Republicans have effectively enabled and raised up a literal Cult Of Donald Trump and used it to piss, shit, spit and vomit all over everything that America stands for. It's that in the last few days they've started depicting him as some kind of literal murder-god who will slaughter their imagined "Enemies" on their behalf.

These fucking people are too cowardly to even own their own violent fantasies.

"America, the Beautiful" seems to have been replaced with a minstrel-show version of "The Camptown races."

And for these people...that seems to be the entire point. It doesn't even seem to matter if it actually happens, simply the depiction of it, the thrill of imagining it...that's the point. It doesn't even matter if Trump really does that much. If he doesn't they'll just fantasize about it online in real time, as if imagining such could will it into being.

It's like, rather than accept that they were wrong and they got conned, roughly 25% of Americans would rather allow themselves to be taught to view the other 75% as literal Soviets, despite the fact that the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, and the Soviet Union ended on Christmas day of 1991 just over two years later.

And that, my friends, is bullshit. You may not agree with your fellow citizens...but that doesn't make them Marxists.

Speaking of, please don't forget that this kind of shit, the Bots, the Trolls, the horrible attitudes, the murderous fantasies of the American Right...are in fact being enabled and funded and egged on by Vladimir Putin and his Oligarchs, many of whom were, at least at one point, doctrinaire Marxists.

It's they who seek to destroy America, not the Democratic House Majority.

But no, believing the truth is too hard for some people, apparently. And there is no just believing some of the lie, either, either it must all be believed...and not just publicly, but performatively acted upon and accepted...or you might as well accept being branded as a heretic, no matter how conservative you are or how you've voted or what you've done before. There is no history, in the Khmer Trump, every year...indeed every day...is somehow Year Zero.

It's like we somehow ended up with a generation of people who never learned that visioning sessions and the WWE were all fake bullshit. At the very least, it has imperiled our nation that this is so.

Donald Trump is not a god, he's not even a killer. He's a con-artist.

People are dying not because Trump is some kind of great warrior, but because he is a truly great incompetent who absolutely sucks at his job.

Those people, as of yet, are not Americans.

But it's going to come to that.

Faced with impeachment, with arrests, with actual facts and real data now taking over the rhetorical battlespace, and the specter of conflict and genocide in Syria that's their own fault now darkening the picture even further for them the Trump administration and its supporters have not merely doubled down, but are attempting right in front of all of our faces to raise Trump up as their god.

I was a Christian. I know the history of my former religion. Religious wars end badly.

People will have to give their lives to stop this shit. It's coming to that. And Christians of all kinds will not be exempt.

People will die, as much from bad water and lack of food or medical care as from the conflict or persecution itself.

And when they go into the afterlife, they will not be judged by Donald Trump.

Remember that.

Part 2.

Part 1

The Sound of Stupidity (American Revelation II, Part 2.)

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made...
~Simon & Garfunkel, The Sound Of Silence.

Religion.

Traditional Values.

Whose religion? What traditional values?

These are important questions, that I see too few people asking. These fucking people speak in vague generalities to obscure very specific things. They do that, for a damn reason...because if they ever openly said what they wanted to do, they'd likely find themselves hanged from a traffic sign by an angry mob. When he says "Religion" he means "A certain kind of Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christianity that would regard Jesus as far too liberal" and when he says "Tradition" he means White Hetero Patriarchy. But even he can't say that and he knows he can't say that because half of his own people would walk out and the women in the audience would give him a second circumcision.

So he's reduced to spouting off with this kind of stupid pablum and blaming other people for problems that Christians and "Conservatives" have caused for themselves, often with malice aforethought and for the very worst of reasons.

And that, too, has got to grate on his nerves. No wonder these fucking people are so angry.

I rather suspect that if you brought together all the super hard-core Dominionist Christians in the United States of America...and that's where these kind of talking points originate...you could probably hold the convention in a conference room at the Amway Grand hotel in Grand Rapids, MI.

Just don't tell the organizers that pornography is available in the movie selections. In any case, they'll probably figure that out soon enough on their own. I'm serious. I have a lot of experience with various flavors of Christian religious fanatics of various sorts and they are some of the dirtiest-minded, most corrupt people imaginable.

It's almost cartoon level ridiculous. I'm serious when I say that a former partner of mine seems to really believe that God is going to literally give her truckloads of money as a prelude to her special role in the End Times...all she thinks she has to do is believe in it hard enough.

And then there's people like Barr, who seem to think that the nation and the world need to be "perfected" in order for Jesus to return. This flies in the face of the longstanding belief not only in Christianity, but in the Platonic Greek philosophy that underpins it...that things of this world are by nature not able to be perfected.

(And then these motherfuckers support an anti-Christian bullshitter like Trump?! Do they think this God of theirs is stupid?)

Additionally, there's the troubling fact that according to some research I've been doing lately (which included talking to actual religious nuts including my former partner) these fucking people appear to have entirely dispensed with the Rapture as a doctrine.

Don't get me wrong, it's a false doctrine, horse shit, something that was conjured and just made up, second cousin to Harvey the Rabbit. It literally does not exist.

But...

Without an out like the Rapture, what the hell do these people have any hope for? Starve to death while fighting some kind of holy war against the "Anti-Christ" in some kind of supernatural post Apocalyptic wasteland? Die of thirst when all the water turns to blood? What's even the actual draw, here? Is it really that much fun to try to make the Constitution and our founding fathers seem to have said things they didn't say? Especially when they're all on public record saying the opposite?

This is the best they can do? No wonder Republicans seem so desperate lately...

*Especially* when these motherfuckers gotta know all they got is Trump.

It's a cult, yes, but it's not even a very good one. It's effectively the constitutional equivalent of two idiots arguing Star Wars vs. Warhammer 40K while mopping floors at work.

Yeah, sure, Okay. It would be badass for Republicans (and maybe some other people too) if any of the stuff Trump said he was gonna do was actually real as opposed to a lie to get elected. I suppose it would be cool for them if Trump believed in Jesus and got up there behind the pulpit and preached a sermon from the Book of Acts with fire and passion without notes.

But something like that is never going to happen, and it's sad to see these fucking people try to convince themselves that it will. It's simply not in Trump's nature. To explain Trump in Evangelical idiom, the Self is on the throne, not God.

The simple reality is that Trump is hurting Christianity and conservatism, not advancing them. They're not even his causes, just things he leeched onto to get power. But like a leech, once he's sucked all the lifeblood out he's going to drop off, fat and happy, until something else comes along.

And the worst part of this, for me, is that there are Christians, "Conservatives" and Republicans out there who talk about Trump like he is Jesus Christ. In the end they're not going to get anything out of this but run out of power by an angry populace in a greatly diminished nation. The betrayal of the Kurds has made the military and a lot of the population angry, and has exposed a majority of Congressional R's for the shitty cowards that they are.

As the Middle East burns, again, this latest mistake seems to have overshadowed the Impeachment inquiry...though it will soon become part of it, if it has not already.

None of this puts conservatives or Republicans in a good spot long-term.

Oh sure, they might be able to break off a piece for themselves and found their own little Third World Absurdistan in a couple of Deep South states...but that would just make them openly dependent on the Russians, who'd probably also have to protect them. Long damned supply line from Murmansk to Mobile, just sayin' there, Comrades.

And even if you figure that splitting the country the Reds will get themselves part of the US Navy...well, just one Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer has more firepower than many of the world's entire modern navies. And no, aside from Mayport in Jacksonville there aren't many Navy bases in Red areas of Red states. Good luck, Cletus and Ivan. You're going to need it. I'd strongly suggest that even if you manage to reduce the United States by the 25% of people that voted for Trump and get Putin an East Bloc style satellite state in Alabama and Mississippi...you'd better pack a lunch.

Unless the United States of America dies of disinterest by its own citizens, we're eventually going to get Republicans out of power and we're going to win. I tend to think it won't be easy, but we will. We have to if we want to survive.

But then I see stuff like this. "Trump vs. Jesus: Christians can't follow both."

Apparently, it's from an Indiana newspaper.

That matters.

That's hope.

I'm just saying, Republicans, people are starting to wake up and see you for what you are. It's happening slowly, but the election isn't until next November. I think we'll get enough by then.

Until then, you've got over a year yet to continue to align yourselves with ideologies so shitty that you can't even speak about them or what they entail in public, and to get caught doing so.

You have fun with that.

Part One

Part Three

And behold, a White Horse (American Revelation II, Part 1.)

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. ~Revelation 6:1-4

So, early this morning, Turkey attacked the Syrian Kurds, because Trump pulled our troops out of the way and fucking let them. Anybody want to tell me how the President of the United States rolling over and bitching out for pissant wannabe dictators like Erdogan, or actual dictators like Putin, makes America "Great?"

Donald Trump has taken the United States and turned it from the world leader into a second-rate henchman of countries that Americans either can't find on a map...or back in the day drew a map in the sand and pissed on them.

Ya'll realize, I hope, that when this crap is over we are going to have to prove to our allies that we can even be trusted to do basic shit...and then spend another 70 years rebuilding that trust.

As I've said before we're likely going to have to do that, by defending a line from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea against the Russians, and another from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Gulf...not to mention treating the refugee populations that result from this current round of stupidity with some degree of decency.

Greatness is not made by bluster and bullying and ignoring anything you don't like.

It's made by doing the right thing on a consistent basis, by having some degree of morality, by defending those weaker than yourself, not abandoning them because you want to suck up to some power hungry wannabe-dictator.

Hell, I can remember when Americans in general, Christians in particular and Evangelicals most of all tended to empathize with people under the thumb of Commie dictators like Assad or Putin or who were being oppressed by radical Islam.

I donated to Voice of the Martyrs and got their news letters and swag for years, I still have a box of it somewhere.

Greatness comes from even the simple act of caring about other people.

Greatness is not made by rolling over for some third-rate thug.

As others have noted in the past, Syria in general...because of its previous secular government...and the Kurds in particular because of their secular, socialist organizations, have a higher-than-average rate of Christian believers than is normal for the Islamic World. All too often, this fact and the suffering inflicted upon those people by American foreign policy far too often goes unacknowledged or even completely unnoticed by White American Christians in general, and by "Conservative" white Evangelicals in particular. A lot of people put that down to racism. Honestly, at this point I'm not sure I disagree...but it might also have something to do with the fact that most of these fucking people couldn't find Syria on a Rand McNally large-print map.

Not to mention the fact that a majority of these fucking people simply ignore the Christianity of anybody who isn't white and/or of their particular denomination or church...and that, let's get real, most of these people really don't seem to give that much of a fuck about religion anyway, unless they get to beat somebody over the head with theirs for whatever reason.

Hypocrisy is not Great. Ignorance does not make us Great.

And then, to top off all the other stupidity of the last several days, somebody compared the Impeachment of Trump to "Regicide."

Trump is not a king.
Trump is not being killed, or even harmed in any physical way.

And somebody totally missed the entire point of America and 243 years worth of its history. This country was founded to be against the entire concept of kings and nobles and shit like that. This happened for a fucking reason.

Just like the modern Republic of Turkey was founded as a secular state out of reaction to the religious idiocy that often was part and parcel of the Ottoman Empire...and Erdogan, who seems to want to re-found it, to be a sort of reverse Ataturk if you will...is massively unpopular at this point, just like Trump is. (That's why he's bombing the Kurds, as a distraction.)

Hell, you can even say the same thing about the modern nation of Syria...although we've seen how that turned out. Such can even be said of the generally secular character of Israel. It's funny how the only people in the world who seem to want to go back to those ancient ideals of altar and throne...are privileged white assholes who never had to worry about living under that shit, and whose ancestors didn't have to deal with it either in most cases, not in living memory anyway.

But they want a King because they think a king will somehow kick the shit out of their "enemies" or something. Here's the thing with that, though. These people don't really see Communists or Terrorists or whatever as the enemy. Things like that are a logic problem, a phantom, something that isn't really real because they can't see it.

It's you and me, their hated neighbors, the people who disagree with them even if it's just a little...who they think is the Enemy.

That's who they want King Trump to protect them from...other Americans.

But see, here's the catch, Evangelicals. Trump eventually betrays everybody. It's part of his nature, it's who he is. Trump has a very long record of being publicly anti-religion, an equally long record of stiffing contractors and investors, and at the end of the day, what do you think he's going to do to you?

Trump doesn't care about conservatism, about Christianity, about judges or about anything other than a few vanity projects...and most of those he doesn't actually understand so they're tending to either get half-assed or they're just not getting done, either.

And you think you're going to benefit from this mess?

It's that right there, that even so many of the Believers gave away their souls for so damned little...that is exactly why America will be under the judgement of God soon, if it is not already.

You don't betray your allies and your friends.

You don't sell your country out for chump change.

And you sure as hell don't get to claim to be a Christian when you're breaking every single commandment that goes with believing in Christ.

So many of these religious people act like God is dumb as shit, or like He doesn't really exist.

Ya'll think the all-knowing, all-seeing Creator of the Infinite Universe can't see what's going on here?

Welcome to American Revelation.

And remember, either by apathy, by fanaticism (and I'm looking at you here, Bernie-followers) or by maliciousness or worship of an unworthy man like Trump, you asked for this. You asked for the fall of our country and its standing in the world.

America was only ever what it was because the rest of the world thought the man behind the curtain was competent and that our Word as a country was good. That time has now passed.

And when we get ourselves out of this mess it's gonna be a damned long and hard road back.

Have fun.

Part Two.

Part Three.

Great and unmatched wisdom?

[Friar Tuck confronts the Bishop, who is hastily gathering up gold coins]

Friar Tuck: So, you sold your soul to Satan, your Grace? You accused innocent men of witchcraft and let them die!

Bishop of Hereford: Brother Friar, you would not strike a fellow man of the cloth?

Friar Tuck: No, no I wouldn't. In fact, I'll help you pack for your journey. [he swiftly loads the Bishop down with several heavy sacks] You're going to need lots of gold to help you on your way-you're a very rich man, eh? This too, and that! [Tuck holds up one final bag] Here's thirty pieces of silver to pay the Devil...ON YOUR WAY TO HELL! [Tuck shoves the Bishop to his death out a window]

~From Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

I think, as several people have put it, we've reached the Fuhrer-bunker stage of the Trump Presidency.

I'm not sure what the actual cause of this apparent mental breakdown is, but I imagine we'll all know soon enough. I suspect it has something to do with the impeachment inquiry, and likely Trump knows or suspects that such has uncovered information not yet available to the public. Just a guess.

But one of the effects of this shit, is that we're withdrawing from some territory or shifting the lines in such a way as to leave our Kurdish allies exposed to attack by the Turks, who have already stated their intention to attack.

Listen up, yo. If I were any of America's allies I would not count on shit until we get this orange traitor out of office. It really is that simple, he neither knows nor understands things like why it's good to have allies in the world. To him, the Kurds are basically just another contractor whose bill he chose not to pay...even though they basically did an amazing amount of the hard work of fighting Daesh for absolutely dirt cheap as far as proxy armies go. Wait a minute, where have I heard this song and dance before? Afghanistan, you say? Mujahideen, you say? We're making our own enemies in real time, by abandoning our allies yet again. It's like Republicans haven't learned shit from all the times they've pulled this bullshit and it's blown up in our faces before.

Fuck these motherfuckers. Great and unmatched wisdom, my ass. Every time I think this ungodly goat-rope of an administration can't go any lower or screw up any worse, they manage.

I was taught you don't abandon your brothers, that you do your duty, complete the mission, get the job done and then dead or alive we all go home together.

For fuck's sake, we as a nation still send people to comb through jungles and rice paddies to find the remains of the missing from the Vietnam war. But we're all too willing to abandon the living.

And why?

This fucking orange galoot has access to the greatest, most well-funded and supported intelligence network in the history of the world and where does he get his information? Fox News.

This makes absolutely no sense to me. Granted, I get a lot of my information from news feeds and certain people on social media, but I deliberately make a point of following both conservative and liberal sources *For* my data, as a means of making sure I'm getting the whole picture. Granted, nearly all of the conservatives that I follow are anti-Trump, but some of them have not always been so, Tea Party Joe Walsh for example.

Yes, sometimes you have to follow the assholes, just to make sure you have an understanding of what the other side is thinking. Granted, I don't have to follow very many of them. I don't follow Trump, but I don't have to, he gets ReTweeted by enough people that I follow, generally with commentary by them, that I don't miss much.

And what's worse is, aside from a small core of Trump True-Believers, Fox News seems to be slowly turning anti-Trump. I rather suspect this is only because Trump's stupidity is starting to cost rich people money.

So what's next? Breitbart? One America News Now? Some as-yet unknown conspiracy theorist?

It's only getting worse, and remember the President's official seal of approval seems to dictate where a certain subset of American "Conservatives" get their news in the first place.

Although, such has not always been the case, speaking of weirdo extremists that used to be their news people. When you've lost Pat Robertson...to the point where he says Trump will lose the "Mandate of Heaven" if we withdraw troops from northern Syria...well shit, I don't even know what to say to that.

Except that I'm confused, are we all Chinese now? I ask this because that is a concept out of Chinese traditional religion that has not one damn thing to do with Christianity.

No, not even the whacked-out Prosperity Gospel Pentecostal kind.

The term "Mandate of Heaven" has to do with Emperors, not Presidents.

But that's the problem, isn't it?

As I have said many times, we have a hell of a lot of Americans that simply don't even understand the basic history or purpose of the United States of America...just like they don't understand the Bible or a lot of the other stuff they claim to believe in, not even one little bit. I'm serious.

All too many Americans, in their great and unmatched wisdom, decided a long time ago that if they don't know anything, they can believe whatever they want.

And we're all going to pay the cost of allowing that to happen.

The walls are closing in on Trump. He knows Congress already has something, he knows public opinion of him is sinking like a stone and he probably doesn't actually have enough dedicated followers to pull off breaking off a piece for himself...though I'm sure they'll try anyway. He's screwed, on some level I think he knows it. This kind of mess is just him lashing out.

And there will be more.

And it will get worse.

Because we, as a people, have spent a long time coddling or enabling cranks, freaks, mentally ill idiots, outright frauds and raging morons. That's why. Because capitalism, mostly.

The snipped quote was part of a long, rambling E-mail sent to me by a former partner, who I've now actually blocked. Her entire basic premise basically boiled down to the idea that God was going to give her literal truck-loads of money because something something End Times Gazpacho.

And she said it as if that was the entire purpose of God, as if the money itself somehow equals Salvation.

I spent much of my life as a Christian. And that, right there, is literally one of the most anti-Christian messages I have ever heard in my life.

Mind you, this was from somebody who claims they didn't vote for Trump. (Actually, that's probably true. She doesn't usually vote and she seems to take pride in that, for whatever reason.)

Now, I want you to imagine what the people who did vote for Trump, who do support this crap, are saying when they think no one is watching. It's not hard to imagine that a lot of these fools support Trump because he thinks he'll hurt the people they don't like, or make them rich, or some such selfish motivations.

Trump is not the cause of our current national dysfunction, merely an effect, a symptom of it. The entire problem is itself a symptom of a deeper problem rooted in evil ideologies like base selfishness, misogyny and racism (see also the attempts to sexualize Greta Thunberg) false Gospels like Calvinism and the Prosperity Gospel, fear and hatred of change, and a general spiritual confusion that seems to believe that thinking "good" thoughts leads to the outcomes that one wants.

And until we, in our great and unmatched wisdom, step up and deal with these national mental problems that we have and make sure people have the intelligence to deal with them...this mess is going to continue, Trump or no Trump.

And the people who come after him will be much worse.

If we don't all make a stand now we're all going to pay the price later. So get after it.