Tag: Mike Pence

After Trump, Can Love Break Through?

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OPINION: After Trump, Can Love Break Through?

The 1/6 insurrection aftermath is heating up

OPINION: After Trump, Can Love Break Through?

Editor: One year ago thousands of Trump supporters assaulted the U.S. Capitol. January 6, 2021 was one of the most horrific events in U.S. history. There is increasing evidence of behind the scenes maneuvering by Trump and his inner circle to thwart the law and overturn the 2020 election. The work of the 1/6 Select Committee is plowing forward, closing in on the instigators of the insurrection. Donald Trump’s role in the plot to end democracy in the United States is becoming more clear as emails and texts are made public. In the light of the current division in the country Anna Hessel believes it is time to be honest with ourselves, face the truth of what happened on 1/6/2021, bring the culprits to justice, and then move toward healing.

By Anna Hessel

The Crush Of Charlottesville

Back in 2017, I took one of the DNA tests that are so very popular.  Since I was adopted as an infant, my curiosity about my heritage peaked with regularity – I was giddy with surprise to learn that I am multi-racial.  Thrilled that the Lord has chosen to bless me with an interesting rainbow of cultures in a world where racial tensions dolorously abound.  On August 12, I looked on in horror at a group who call themselves ‘nationalists,’ terrorize Charlottesville, VA. One of them drove through a crowd in his Dodge Challenger, injuring 19 individuals and killing Heather Heyer.  Heather was a beautiful young woman, who was a local paralegal.  Little did I know, at the time, this was a foreshadowing of worse things to come.  This hideous act prompted then-former Vice-President  Joe Biden to run for president in 2020. In my opinion, his election is the only good that has come out of this.

Worse Is Yet To Come

On January 6, 2021, a similar, yet even more heinous act of violence occurred at our nation’s Capitol Building.  I find only small comfort in the fact that James Alex Fields, the man responsible for the horrific Charlottesville attack, was sentenced in 2019 to life plus 419 years. The sentence though appropriate does not bring back Heather Heyer.  Nor does it heal the scars, both physical and emotional,  of those who were injured, or who witnessed her murder. This callous disregard for life, an act of cowardice and pure evil, a precursor to the insurrectionists actions one year ago.

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Why I Vote

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Why I Vote

D. S. Mitchell

I grew up in Portland, Oregon. I graduated from Lincoln High School in 1964. I am a white female. I grew up in poverty. Both my mother and father were union members. They divorced when I was a teen.

But I was blessed. Everybody said I was smart. So when I graduated from high school I headed to college. I, like many others of my generation, was the first person in my family to graduate from college.

With the help of several great scholarships, I received my BS in Social Science/Political Science in 1972 from Portland State University. Not a particularly useful degree, in itself. My original intent had been to continue to law school, but my full-time job, parenting, and physical exhaustion, halted my education at that time. Ten years later, in 1982, I returned to Clark Community College and obtained an Associate Degree in Nursing. After graduation with my ADA, I worked for the next 33 years as a Registered Nurse in hospitals in Oregon, Washington, California and Nevada. I still keep up my RN license, and do volunteer work.

I have never missed voting in an election since I came of voting age. My mother called herself a “Roosevelt Democrat”. I am a passionate progressive in the vein of Bernie Sanders. I believe in political activism. If you have a political agenda, which we all do, it is necessary to speak up.

It amazes me to hear people say they, “hate government intervention in their lives.”

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Karl Rove Goes On Trump Attack

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Karl Rove Goes On Trump Attack

D. S. Mitchell

I have not heard Karl Rove’s name for quite sometime. When George W. Bush was in office Karl Rove dominated the news. Today he runs a SuperPac, or something.

Mr. Rove was not someone that I particularly liked when he was in the spotlight. However, in the Wall Street Journal yesterday Karl Rove took a bite at Donald Trump’s ankle. Here are a few samples of the criticism from that WSJ Op Ed.

Rove’s first nip was just another attack chorused by many Washington insiders, “He (Trump) lacks the focus or self discipline to do the basic work required of a president.”

Karl, most of us out here in the real world have known that simple observation for quite some time.  In my opinion, if Trump hadn’t inherited $300,000,000 million dollars when his father died I doubt whether he would have been able to hold a job due to his severe personality disorder.

Without his massive inheritance I can see Trump  drifting from job to job and living in his cousin’s trailer.  I think that sometimes the public believes that these rich guys are really, really smart. Yeah, some of them are really smart.  However, a whole lot of them inherited vast fortunes, have built up an inside network beginning at their private schools.  It’s nice to be an insider, it takes a lot of money and a lot of time.  It’s all about who you know and who you break bread with.

Rove continued his ankle biting attack, ” His (Trump) chronic impulsiveness is apparently unstoppable and clearly self defeating.  Mr. Trump may have mastered the modes of communication (Twitter) , but not the substance, thereby sabotaging  his own agenda.”

Pretty strong words coming from “Bush’s Brain”.  Getting fired up, Karl continues, “Mr. Trump has figured out how to tweet his way around the mainstream media.  Yet, by disregarding basic fact checking, he is deepening the already considerable doubts Americans have about his competence and trustworthiness.”

I probably shouldn’t give Karl too much credit for his Trump attack.  I assume that Karl Rove is more about saving the GOP, than Donald Trump.  My gut tells me that Karl was approached, in some way, by a group of rich Republicans who are beginning to feel the heat, and are getting nervous about Trump and want to distance themselves from the coming cataclysm.

What I find so amazing is that there are so many pans on the stove that the cook is unsure which one to take off the burner first;  Russian collusion, money laundering, bribery, self-dealing, corruption, obstruction of justice.  My hope is that Robert Mueller is able to pull the pans off the stove at the right time and produce a banquet of charges against Trump, The Trump Organization, The Trump Campaign, Jared Kushner, Mike Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Paul Manafort, Mike Pence, and everyone of those other folks who have been twisting the law for their own enrichment and holding hands with a foreign government while swearing to protect the United States Constitution and its people.

Remember, do something today to forward the Resistance. Write the letter, make the call, share a progressive tweet. Stay involved. Stay invigorated. Do not give into fatigue. We are fighting the most dangerous threat to Democracy since the founding of the Republic.

Dar

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RUMBLINGS AND GRUMBLINGS

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Rumblings And Grumblings

D. S. Mitchell

FOREIGN POLICY

The dog has been walked. My Dinner is the remainder of my Cobb Salad, from lunch. I’m waiting for The Rachel Maddow Show to end. Dan Rather is giving an interesting interview, or I would just turn it off.

I worked on a long Calamity Politics blog post earlier today. The article focused primarily on the similarities between Donald Trump and Jared Kushner. What I want to do now, is drink an Irish Coffee, and get into the hot tub, and zone out.

But, I spend 23 hours a day wound up, thinking about the wild, turbulent, U.S. political daily may lay, and have trouble unwinding. Like right now, I cannot forget that 59 Tomahawk missiles were launched at a Syrian airbase on April 7th, 2017 by United States naval forces, for a yet, undefined purpose. Each one of those Tomahawk missiles cost a million dollars.

Less than a week later, the American military dropped the “mother of all bombs,” or, a MOAB, on a set of ISIS tunnels and linked caves, in Afghanistan. So, back to the previous question. What is the purpose? Is there a thought out strategy? We killed 36 terrorists. How much did that bomb cost? I think I read that bitch cost 314 million dollars. That is about $85 million dollars per ISIS fighter.

On top of that, the Carl Vinson and its Pacific Command strike force are headed toward the Korean Peninsula. Where apparently, the 30 year old dictator of North Korea, is having a party to celebrate his Grand dad’s birthday, and possibly detonate a nuclear weapon.

The U.S. Vice President, Mike Pence, is headed to South Korea as the first stop on his Asian tour. Is that reassuring, or not? I mean, Pence being there. If there is going to be a conflagration, wouldn’t he want to stay away? Or, maybe they know that no one is going to push the button and start a war, so it’s okay for him to go, right?

What am I gonna do? I can’t just ignore this stuff. It’s my job to report on the political news. I think I’ll have that Irish Coffee, to start with. Good night.

Join the Resistance

Dar

Russian Scandals Dog Trump

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Russian Scandals Dog Trump

By D. S. Mitchell

Swamp Life

It’s Saturday afternoon, and I look out to wind and rain. I’ve had all morning and most of the afternoon to think about the current administration. There are multiple simmering scandals bubbling up. Just about everywhere you look there is a swamp creature bobbing its head through dark sludge. It has become impossible to avoid them, they are everywhere you look.

An Inside Joke

Donald Trump ran for office proclaiming he would “drain the swamp”. It was an inside joke to all who knew the man. Trump has been a swamp creature his entire life, conning and grifting at every turn. However, I doubt that even the most skeptic of his critics, ever imagined the morass he would  surround himself with if elected president. Putrid and corrupt, the rot that is consuming the Trump presidency began before the election.

Follow The Money

I’m trying to bring sense to all the emerging scandals.  Once we find the decaying corpse of corruption that links Trump to Putin we may discover the truth about the Russian involvement in the 2016 election. And what I expect is a continuing effect on Trump’s daily decisions.

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