It has been an exasperating six months for this author and blogger, as we are witnessing the persistent attack on American democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law by Donald Trump and his Cabinet officers and other loyalists.
So another break, going on vacation again, is in the offing, with the expectation that there will be a resumption of commentary by the week of August 4.
Meanwhile, to my readers and followers, I wish you all peace and tranquility, a major challenge in these times!
Donald Trump’s incessant attacks on many of his predecessors in the White House is unparalleled in American history!
Trump has attacked over the years not only Barack Obama, but also Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and both Presidents Bush in vehement and outrageous ways.
In the past, there were cases of “bad blood” between Presidents, but nothing on the scale of what Trump has done.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had strong criticism of each other, as well as Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams, and neither Adams attended the inauguration of his successor. But later, Adams and Jefferson revived their former friendship, with extensive letter correspondence over the last 14 years of their lives.
John Tyler, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan were unhappy with Abraham Lincoln’s policies during the Civil War.
Andrew Johnson had issues with his successor, Ulysses S. Grant, and refused to attend Grant’s inauguration.
Theodore Roosevelt fought bitterly against his own annointed successor, William Howard Taft, and challenged him in 1912, and both TR and Wilson were at odds very often with Woodrow Wilson.
Herbert Hoover was very bitter in his loss to Franklin D. Rooosevelt, and during the terms that FDR was in office, probably more vehement than any other situation other than Trump, and FDR never invited Hoover to visit the White House.
Harry Truman was critical of Dwight D. Eisenhower to some extent, and he and Richard Nixon were dire enemies, until Nixon brought the Truman piano in the White House to the Truman Library in 1969.
Jimmy Carter tended to be critical of other Presidents, but in the case of Gerald Ford, they became the best of friends after both had left office. Carter remained a strong critic, but in a dignified manner, of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
Despite past rivalries, both Bush Presidents and Bill Clinton became good friends in later years, and the same for Barack Obama and the two Bushes.
It is extremely inappropriate for the members of the “Presidents Club” to be lambasting others in that group, and it was refreshing that Carter and Ford became friends, and that the Bushes and Clinton were cooperative, as well as Obama with the Bushes.
But then, Donald Trump has destroyed the idea of camaraderie among the small, select group who have the opportunity to be President of the United States.
Donald Trump is attempting to divert attention from the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal, which has caused an uproar among MAGA Republicans.
His latest tactic is to have Tulsi Gabbard, former Democratic Hawaii Congresswoman with a controversial record on foreign policy issues, and appointed Director of National Intelligence by Trump, to conjure up almost a decade later that President Barack Obama was involved in a conspiracy to destroy Trump’s election in 2016 over Hillary Clinton, and even making claims about the Presidential Election of 2020, which Trump still contends was “fixed” by the Democrats.
This ploy is being utilized, despite Marco Rubio, presently Secretary of State, and head of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2019, asserting back then that Trump was assisted in winning in 2016 by Russian collusion.
It is a shock that Trump and Gabbard are claiming that Barack Obama has committed treason, a charge never labeled by a sitting President against a former President, who has been subjected to constant attack by Trump going back as far as 2011 onward.
This diversion from the damage and harm that Donald Trump is waging against the American people, and his willingness to do anything to take attention away from the Epstein Scandal, is stunning.
But no matter what Trump, Gabbard, and Attorney General Pam Bondi work to accomplish, there will be no actual charge of treason, as it has no basis, and just further proves how far Donald Trump is willing to go to promote retribution and revenge against so called “enemies” of his criminal activities.
Gerrymandering has been a curse since it was first created in the early 1800s by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who was also Vice President under James Madison for less than two years before his death in 1814.
Both political parties, and earlier named parties, used the political tactic to promote redistricting to favor their party fortunes, but now Texas is seemingly ready to redistrict in the middle of a decade, rather than when new census figures come out at the beginning of a new decade.
Their purpose is to make the Republican Party keep control of the House of Representatives by creating more Republican House districts, from three to five more, which likely would insure Republican continued control of Congress, at a time when the margin is just a few votes.
Those few votes make all the difference in passage of legislation and of President Donald Trump’s agenda, so clearly, the Democratic Party is trying to resist it, and may, at the end, utilize the same tactic in California, and possibly in other “Blue States”, such as New York and Illinois, and possibly even elsewhere.
After a totally exasperating six months in office, there is no doubt that there has been massive Presidential abuses of power, unmatched in American history, in the second term of Donald Trump.
Trump has utilized more executive orders than any of his predecessors; has issued a massive number of pardons, in most cases totally uncalled for, including for those engaged in the January 6, 2021 US Capitol Insurrection; has ignored a vast number of federal court orders; has attacked universities, news media, law firms, and corporations that dared to challenge him; and has managed to intimidate the Republican majority in both houses of Congress to do his bidding.
All this creates the image that Trump perceives himself as a “King”.
In foreign affairs, Trump has upended traditional diplomatic relations and alliances of many decades, with his massive attack on trade patterns through his imposition of high protective tariffs; and his changing diplomatic relations with our long standing allies in Europe and Asia. He has also antagonized our Canadian and Mexican neighbors, creating a tense situation on both our northern and southern neighbors, unprecedented in our history.
In the midst of so much gloom and doom over the past six months, it is nice to see examples of hope for the future.
Therefore, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who has managed to be elected Governor twice in a Republican dominated state, is an inspiration.
Beshear has managed to promote decency and empathy, along with competence and accomplishments, that are making him a notable potential contender for the White House in 2028.
In pursuit of that possible goal, Beshear spent two days in the crucial primary state of South Carolina, making a great impression with his personality and goals for the nation at large.
Most importantly, Beshear comes across as a very likable and engaging personality, and clearly, should be seen as a major contender in the future of the Democratic Party.
With six months of this unending nightmare of the second Trump Presidency now completed, it is absolutely clear that this administration and President is unmatched in American history, and even rare in world history!
The level of evil, mendacity, mean spiritedness, and cruelty that Donald Trump and his supporters have visited upon Americans of all kinds of backgrounds, is shocking and beyond all belief, that there is a sense of decency in play, as clearly, it is not so!
Revenge, resentment, retribution, punishment, and harming people is the aim of the Trump Presidency, rather than compassion, decency, ethics, morality, and empathy.
The US Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Roberts, has become a total disaster, a disgrace to its 236 year history since 1789.
The present Court, with a 6-3 right wing majority, is the most extremist since the 1920s, and seems to have the purpose to join Donald Trump in destroying the regulatory state and the promotion of civil rights that has occurred from the New Deal onward.
Two of the members—Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—are the most extremist and corrupt members of the Court in the past century, highly arrogant individuals. And Chief Justice Roberts, who seems so concerned about his legacy in history as the leader of the Court, has given up trying to regulate the influence of these two members, and the three Donald Trump appointments, which with rare exceptions join in on most decisions, with an occasional, surprising split by Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett.
The three Democratic appointments to the court–Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson–are clearly frustrated, as indicated in their often fiery, critical responses to many of the Court decisions. It must be hard to have civil relations, and one would think, that the frustrations could lead to private thoughts of resigning from the Court. But of course, they know that if any of them were to resign, that would mean a future 7-2 Court and even more extremist impact.
Right now, in a very difficult time, we must be proud of their defiance, and their commitment to staying and fighting, and hope for their continued health and prosperity, with the fear if one is forced to leave, what a disaster that would mean for constitutional law, already in disarray as things stand now!
Six months have passed since the second Trump Presidency began, and it is now perfectly clear that Donald Trump has waged total war on the federal government, both commitments of long duration, and of agencies and departments of long standing.
The Republican Party in Congress, and the Supreme Court six member majority, are complicit in these horrendous actions.
USAID (US Agency For International Development), which provided life saving aid to millions of poor people, including particularly children, around the world, has been destroyed.
PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Program For Aids Relief), the major accomplishment of former President George W. Bush, which saved at least 26 million lives in Africa from the AIDS epidemic, has been gutted.
The Department of Education, created under President Jimmy Carter after being part of a combined agency under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a commitment to federal engagement in education standards and support, has been cut dramatically.
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), created under President Jimmy Carter, had been on the chopping block until the recent Texas Flood Disaster, but still is in danger of being eliminated, as the federal government is moving toward leaving weather and natural disasters to the states to handle on their own.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service, created under Republican President Richard Nixon, are both crucial agencies facing massive cuts in personnel and ability to do their work to protect Americans.
Public funding of NPR and PBS, one tenth of one percent of the federal budget, is being cut completely.
Medicaid and SNAP (Food Stamps), both coming about under President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s, are suffering massive cuts, which will affect, in particular, rural states, but overall, the disabled, the elderly, and poor children, a total travesty!
Tens of thousands of federal employees in a multitude of agencies have lost their jobs, and with it, the federal goverment loses their generations of expertise on all kinds of issues of national security, health care, environmental protections, and so many other roles the federal government has engaged in since the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, and commitments by Presidents of both parties in the past 50 years since the 1970s.
It is totally shocking that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has, by actions of the Trump Administration, become a pure dictatorship, with the aim of massive incarceration of millions of immigrants with no legal recourse to utilize against such action, as the aim is to deport millions over the next few years. This has been revealed in an exclusive exposure by the Washington Post yesterday.
The plans of Kristi Noem, Thomas Homan, Stephen Miller and others in the Trump Administration are moving toward an evil likely even worse than the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II.
This is totally against the Bill of Rights, and is pure Fascism, with the horrid conditions at the new “Alligator Alcatraz” a sign of the mistreatment awaiting the immigrant victims while they wait for deportation, often to nations that speak a different language, and to which they have no personal or family ties.
Breaking up of families and mistreatment that includes lack of sanitation, health care, and malnutrition, all conditions that make for what could be called “internment” camps, but some would say “concentration” camps, is the future, unless somehow, this monstrosity can be deterred.
But legally, it seems at this point like a losing cause, as America descends into a right wing, fanatical dictatorship, even threatening critics who are not immigrants, for their outspokenness in criticism!