War president

OK, let me get this straight.

The pedophile/rapist/liar/convicted felon who is serving as our president woke us up Saturday morning –wearing a decidedly unpresidential baseball cap – to tell us that he just bombed the crap out of Iran, ostensibly to make the world safer by decapitating the murderous and horrific Khamenei regime.

Remarkably, Iran's nuclear program – which Trump declared obliterated in last June's airstrikes – somehow managed to resurrect itself in less than a year and needed further tending to. Not so obliterated, apparently. 

Soooo, in the midst of current negotiations over Iran's nuclear program – which seemed to be making some headway – Trump couldn't resist from unleashing the huge military buildup he'd assembled in the Mediterranean and ordered the surprise airstrikes Saturday morning. He did it without Congressional approval, a violation of the Constitution. Bombs away. One of the first things destroyed with all this precision weaponry was a girls' school. Reportedly, more than 50 children were killed.

Yes. I feel safer now.

Trump has advertised himself as the "peace president" and claims that he has (arguably) resolved eight wars in the past year and thus can't figure out why he can't win the Nobel Peace Prize without cajoling one from a rightful recipient. Meanwhile, if you're keeping count, Trump has bombed seven countries – Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela – in the past year alone. End a war, start a war. Peace president, my ass.

Repercussions are already here. Iran has retaliated with missile strikes against Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, Dubai, Jordan and Kuwait City. The strategic Straight of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil passes, is now closed. All that $1.98 gas Trump talked about in last week's State of the Union Grievance Address is fantasy now, or soon will be. 

There's a lot of talk here about a through line to the Epstein files and an apparent cover-up that seems to be growing every day in an effort to protect Trump, whose name is mentioned at least 38,000 times (if not more) in the files. Is the attack on Iran just another distraction? Could be. Trump once said that Obama would start a war in an effort to get elected. Now here we are just months from midterm elections and Trump is dealing with plummeting poll numbers. If Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives, Trump is likely facing another impeachment. Or at least investigation.

The big social media debate right now is: So what if Trump didn't have Congressional approval? Obama bombed the crap out of people, too (Obama Derangement Syndrome arises). 

I walked myself through a mental exercise yesterday, wondering if Trump acted without Congressional approval, then would the military be following illegal orders to execute this attack? One friend suggested that it might require a Judge Advocate General (JAG) to make that decision. It'll probably ever come up, but I though it was an interesting idea.

Here's the deal. A president can authorize military strikes without the approval of Congress under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, which designates the president as Commander-in-Chief and allows him to direct the armed forces to defend the U.S.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 allows for urgent and limited actions, but requires the president to report to Congress within 48 hours. Unauthorized action is limited to 60 days.

Having said the above, presidents generally don't have authority for prolonged, full-scale war without Congressional approval. 

Here's where it gets a little dicey. The Department of Justice has argued in the past that a president can bypass Congress if the military operation does not rise to the level of "war." So a definition is required here. Constitutionally, what is war? I suspect the Supreme Court might get called in at some point.

Whatever it is, I think we're in the process of regime change in Iran. That's pretty clear with the death of Khamenei. What's not so clear is where do we go from here? Do we set up a provisional government? Install our own leaders? Institute a democratic republic instead of a theocracy?

What are the unintended consequences? What have we unleashed? 

More to the point, I don't think you complete a regime change with airstrikes alone. It usually requires boots on the ground. And that usually means body bags.

Are we ready for that? 

 

 

 

 

 

The astounding arrogance

I knew going into Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearings that there would be fireworks, but I didn't expect the explosion.

Or was it an implosion?

Attorney General Pam Bondi (center) ignores survivors.

 Attorney General Pam Bondi was grilled by a bipartisan panel of lawmakers about the Department of Justice's handling of the Epstein files. Playing to a crowd of one, Bondi tried her best to be evasive and, I think, deliberately contentious as she attempted to cover up the DOJ's obvious cover up over the mishandling of the release of the files.

Mishandling?

Not all of the files have been released. There is said to be at least three million more files still to be seen. Many are still redacted without explanation. All of this defies a recently-signed law to release the files in full by felon president Donald Trump, whose own name may appear more than a million times in the files.

So there's your motive for a DOJ cover up. That's especially true when you consider the DOJ is now working for Trump and not the American people.

The DOJ has yet to prosecute a single person related to the Esptein files. Meanwhile, Epstein survivors – some of whom were underage when they were being trafficked – are treated more like criminals than victims.

At times, the hearings turned into unbecoming screaming matches between Bondi and the lawmakers – especially toward the Democrats on the panel. Bondi would occasionally smirk, or laugh, or insult the members in a shocking display of uncivility. Her strategy, it seemed, was to deflect and obfuscate each five-minute segment of questioning from each lawmaker without giving a straight answer.

She had no answers. 

She even brought with her a "burn book" to which she could reference each (Democrat) questioner, bringing to the surface yet another potential scandal. Bondi and the DOJ are being accused of spying on the lawmakers as they reviewed the unredacted files on the DOJ's computers, which they are allowed to do. It's not clear if this surveillance of elected officials is legal or not. Even Speaker of the House Mike Johnson thought the DOJ's actions could be inappropriate, adding, "although it probably wasn't intentional."

Pfft. 

Perhaps the most dramatic – and disturbing – moment of the day came when Representative Pramila Jayapal asked Bondi if she would apologize to the 10 or so Epstein survivors who sat behind her during the proceedings. They have yet to meet with the DOJ after years of humiliation and pain.

Bondi, behaving more like a petulant child than a 60-year-old adult, would not even look at them. She then tried to shift blame to Merrick Garland, President Biden's attorney general and then theatrically told the panel that she "would not get in the gutter for her (Jayapal's) theatrics."

At one point in the hearings, Bondi absurdly referred to how well the Dow Jones stock market was performing under Trump, suggesting perhaps there was something more pressing to talk about than rape, pedophilia and human trafficking.

I'm not sure the survivors waiting for Bondi's apology would agree. 

 

 

Unhinged

Now what?

A day or two after convicted felon president Donald Trump suggested that maybe it's a good idea to federalize elections in a dozen or so blue states – which would violate Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution – he tries to evict the African American living perpetually rent free in the back of his brain by posting a racists meme.

It was pretty vile. It took me a moment to find it on Facebook because 12 hours after he posted it on his Truth Social (Untruth Anti-Social),platform, the meme came down. But I did find it. It was a picture of President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle – both African Americans – with pictures of their heads transposed over the images of apes.

It doesn't get any more racist – or vile – than that. Trump said the image that a staffer – but not he –  posted was that of Trump as the King of the Jungle full of Democrats and that it should not be taken out of that context. Why post it at all? 

And that he won't apologize for it. He knew what he was doing. 

A few weeks ago an apologist for Trump dared folks to find anything at all racist about Trump, as if Trump was the squeakiest clean person ever. But this particular meme by Trump is nothing more than a racist trope with roots dating back not only to Jim Crow, but to the era of slavery and beyond.

Part of the autocrat's playbook is to dehumanize your opponent to make them look weak or subservient. Equating them with animals is a time-tested way to do that.

There are other glaring examples of Trump's racist tendencies. In 1973, Trump and his company, Trump Management, were sued by the Department of Justice for housing discrimination against African American renters. Trump settled the case, but the stench lingers. Then there's the Central Park Five case where Trump said five African American teenagers were responsible for the 1989 rape of a white woman, even calling for their execution even after they were exonerated.

And here comes Obama again, living in Trump's brain, when he basically invented birtherism, claiming falsely that Obama was not born in the United States and thus was Constitutionally prohibited from serving as President.

As if that wasn't enough, Trump launched his 2016 presidential campaign in a speech where he said Mexico was sending criminals to the border, bringing drugs and crime with them. Scare tactics.

Then I started to think a little more about what's going on here, and how interconnected all of this stuff might be.

Everything – and I mean everything – serves as a distraction for Trump as he tries to justify his administration's mostly anti-Constitutional impulses.

There are a number of things Trump doesn't want to discuss, most prominently the Epstein files, in  which his name appears at least 38,000 times and thus implies he was engaged in pedophilia. So create a distraction. How about annexing Greenland? Striking Venezuela and seizing its oil? Or maybe nationalize the vote? Better yet, maybe invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the ICE protests in order to declare martial law? How about the government-sanctioned murder of protestors to distract from the Epstein files?

Could Nancy Guthrie's kidnapping be connected to the Epstein files? After all, her daughter, Savannah – who is an NBC co-anchor of Today – has been involved in covering and interviewing survivors of Jeffrey Epstein. Anything is possible, I suppose.

None of this is normal. None of this is a reflection of the American soul or of the American essence, even in our faults. We are not perfect. But we generally know what's right and what is wrong. We make our course corrections. It's in our DNA. 

Just not in Trump's.

 

 

Lemon aid

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

                                    – The 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution

 

When I first heard Friday morning that journalist and former CNN anchor Don Lemon had been arrested and taken into federal custody for covering an anti-ICE protest in a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, my immediate thought was, "Uh-oh, here we go. Trump is going after the media big time now."

I don't think I'm wrong. 

Lemon and another independent journalist, Georgia Fort of Minnesota, were indicted by a grand jury on charges of interrupting a religious service at the Cities Church in St. Paul, where the pastor happens to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official. More on that later.

Lemon and Fort were once co-workers at CNN from 2017-2023. Both pleaded not guilty to the charges and released on their own recognizance.

Lemon was charged with one count of conspiracy against the right of religious freedom and one count of violating the FACE Act for interfering with the exercise of religious freedom. The indictment says Lemon physically obstructed a pastor and intimidated congregants. It also claims he planned the protest.

(The FACE Act of 1994 is the acronym for the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances. It was enacted to prevent violent or threatening conduct that hinders access to reproductive health services or religious institutions).

If you've seen the video of Lemon in the church, it becomes obvious how flimsy the charges really are. Lemon, an independent journalist, followed a group of protestors into the church where the protestors interrupted a service. Lemon, clearly announcing he was not part of the protest but there only to cover it, began interviewing participants about what was happening.

He was practicing journalism, as per the 1st Amendment, asking legitimate questions and nothing more. He was hardly an agitator.

Another indication of how weak this case is, is the fact that United States Attorney General Pam Bondi went through two prosecutors who refused to press charges before finding one who would. Bondi, a minion of president Trump, isn't practicing law. She's practicing her boss' retribution campaign.

What has amazed me throughout this episode is how a certain percentage of the population is celebrating the arrest of Lemon. I don't get it. Without the freedom of the press, how are you going to be an informed voter? Who is going to seek accountability from those in office?

It's also amazing to me how many people are suddenly experts in journalism without ever having tracked down a story, dealt with uncooperative subjects, or faced pressurized deadlines. Just because a story may not align with your own agenda doesn't mean it was faulty or malicious journalism. It's probably more likely that you are not open to different perspectives.

In Trump's retribution campaign, there's other stuff going on. Lemon and Fort are both independent Black journalists, an easy target for the convicted felon president because those journalists don't have the legal resources of a large media firm behind them. It's following the anarchist's blueprint to chip away at the foundations of our democracy.

Nevertheless, Trump is still attacking the 1st Amendment here in his painfully obvious Project 2025 shift toward autocracy and fascism. Although the case appears to be flimsy at initial glance, it isn't really the point. Instead it's Trump sending a chilling message to all media that the Constitutional protection provided to journalists (journalism is the only profession actually named in the Constitution. See "of the press") might only be a chimera. 

It's an attempt to stifle dissent.

It's a threat. On purpose.

•   •   •

When I learned that the pastor of Cities Church was also an ICE official,  the first thing that went through my head was "how can that be?"

What church actually supports deportation? Christian Nationalists?

I'm the son of a Moravian minister. And while I've admittedly lapsed in my devotions and Daily Texts, I still lean on some of the things I was taught by my parents as well as by the church. And one of the things I remember is that Jesus taught us to welcome the stranger.

I'm not a Bible thumper, but you can read all about it in Matthew 25:31-45. It's the passage where Jesus, speaking from the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem, teaches that welcoming a stranger is equivalent to welcoming Him. 

 "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Jesus then admonishes those who did not feed and clothe the stranger.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." 

And here's a kicker for you: Jesus was a refugee from Egypt as a child.

I suppose in Trump's America, Jesus – a laborer (carpenter) with brown skin who doesn't speak English, and thus who fits the ICE profile – would be asked for his papers and deported anyway.

I wonder what it is they teach at Cities Church? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again

Maybe that convicted felon in the White House is right after all. Maybe we can't believe what we see with our own eyes.

Because I swear to you by all that's holy that I thought I saw guys pretending to be federal agents push a woman to the ground. And then I thought I saw a guy come to her rescue, first to help her back to her feet, and then to serve as a barrier to further assault.

And for this act of gallant honor, he was pepper sprayed by the collection of masked goons that was coming to the aggressor's aid. And then the guy was wrestled to the ground by four or five of the ill-trained knuckle draggers from Customs and Border Protection (CBP), who apparently don't understand the concept of de-escalation. Or the constitutionally protected right to free speech and assembly. They said it was obstruction, although they were the ones who were bull rushing him for attempting to help the woman. One of the pretenders took the gun the now subdued man legally owned under Minnesota's carry and conceal laws, which unarmed him.

Then they shot him. Five times. Some said it was 10 times.

His name was Alex Pretti, and he was a 37-year-old ICU nurse working for the Veterans' Administration and an American citizen. 

So, yeah, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. 

Now here we are, two weeks after the murder of American citizen Renee Good by a federal agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), not believing what we are seeing with our own eyes. In America. In 2026.

I'm concerned to where all of this is heading. The Constitution is our (the citizens) protection from government overreach, but it only works if the government respects the law. Right now, that's an idea that's not easy to accept when the head of the government is a 34-time convicted felon who is also an adjudicated rapist. His chief subordinate is a wanna be anarchist named Stephen Miller who idealogically resembles Heinrich Himmler, the head of Nazi Germany's horrific SS.

So, yeah, that's where we are if we're murdering our own countrymen. 

Under the convicted felon, we've become the country that attacks it's own house of government. We've become the country that ignores due process in order to disappear immigrants, both documented and undocumented. We're the country that tries to seize the territory of sovereign nations. The country that pirates oil shipping. The country that blows up suspected drug runners in the Caribbean without evidence, and then murders any survivors.

We're losing our allies.

We're losing our dignity. And our honor.

And when we murder our own, we're losing our country. 

 

 

(Inner) Peace Train

At first, I thought I had missed my opportunity.

We were in Winston-Salem Sunday morning trying to beat the wintry weather forecast and consequently, I resigned myself from any hope of seeing the 20 or so Buddhist monks come through Lexington during their incredible 2,300-mile Walk for Peace pilgrimage.

Monks walk for peace in Lexington.

 Somehow, their route from Ft. Worth, Texas, to Washington, DC, penciled its way through little ol' Lexington.

"Not a big deal," I rationalized to myself, figuring how could I feel bad about missing something that I'd never see in the first place?

But when we got back home a little after noon, we were astonished to see cars parked everywhere, especially near the J. Smith Young YMCA. It looked a bit like a mini barbecue festival. The monks were scheduled to take a rest break at First Lutheran Church next to the Y and to offer a message of peace, comfort and tranquility to the assembled. A fairly large crowd was milling around on State Street in front of the church. Several police vehicles were flashing their blue lights.

"They're still here," I said. "I'm going."

A half hour later, I was standing in front of the Army-Navy store on Main Street, along with thousands of others lining the way. Many folks were from out of town. 

An hour passed by as temperatures dipped to 38 degrees. Then another hour passed as a sporadic wintry mix of snow and rain fell from the clouds. As spectators, we'd become monks ourselves, exercising our own brand of patient discipline through the inclement weather.

Then, around 3 p.m. – "They're coming!"

 I made my way to the Square. The moment was indelible.

The monks, walking in single file – some carrying bouquets of flowers and wearing their signature orange robes – smiled or bowed their heads as they passed by. It might have been at this point where I remembered their mission and it sent a shiver of humility through me.

The monks follow the Vietnamese Buddhist tradition and are affiliated with the Huong Dao Temple in Ft. Worth. The mission of the Walk for Peace, inspired by the teachings of Gautama Buddha, is to raise awareness of "peace, loving kindness and compassion across America and the world."

There is also an emphasis on inner tranquility in their message. 

The walk has had its challenges. In November, several monks were injured when their support vehicle was struck by a truck, near Dayton, Texas The impact pushed the support vehicle into some of the walking monks, injuring three. One of them suffered a traumatic injury that ultimately required having his left leg amputated.

Their journey is funded through donations through platforms like Zelle or Zeffy, or directly to the Huong Dao Temple. Also, the Youth Peace and Justice Foundation is committed to sponsoring elements of the pilgrimage.

The monks tend to sleep outdoors in tents or in hosted venues such as temples or churches. Two of the monks practice the dhutanga discipline in which they do not lie down. They can assume only one of three postures:walking, standing or sitting – even when sleeping.

We live in precarious times and it could be easy to be cynical about the message propelling the Walk for Peace. I can't help but think we need a moment like this right now, to see the potential that lies within each of us to be better.

 

 

 

 

. 

Imagine that

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

                 Imagine - John Lennon, 1971

 

It was brought to my attention last week that perhaps the tragedy of Renee Good's murder in Minneapolis, MN, by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent could have been avoided if only there hadn't been that thoughtless open borders policy under the Biden Administration.

I don't know. Open borders may or may not have been the case. Or at least a contributing factor.

Me in 1973 - a long-haired hippie.

 What I do know is that the issue of immigration has been problematic for every presidential administration dating back to Eisenhower – and probably longer. Eisenhower had his own deportation initiative horrendously stamped "Operation Wetback." About 250,000 people were "returned" to Mexico under the program.

Which got me to thinking. Back in my college days – back in the early 1970s – I pretty much embraced the idealism propelling the hippie movement of love and peace. Most of my thinking at the time was generated by the war in Vietnam, which was consuming the lives of America's youth at a prodigious cost.

I think it was around this time when I began thinking that if we lived in a truly righteous world there would be no countries. If there were no countries, perhaps there would be no wars. 

Like I said, idealistic. That was never going to happen. War, I think, is forever in our DNA.

Then "Star Trek" came out in the mid 1960s as a by-product of the hippie movement, showing us that Earthlings had solved their petty prejudices by the 23rd century. When former Beatle John Lennon imagined no countries in 1971, I thought I had found a fellow traveler.

No countries. It's still an intriguing concept. Why can't people move across the planet without restriction? Who's bright idea was borders anyway? If you're a believer, do you think borders is what God had in mind for us?

But as humans, we are separated by differences in languages, in cultures, in politics. I suppose those barriers are in our DNA, too.

But the war against immigration fluctuates over time. In some eras, it's almost invisible. In other eras, it's a political flash point. Most countries (countries!) have problems with immigration, but in the United States, over the course of the past 250 years, our white Anglo-Saxon forebears have shown discrimination against the Irish, Germans, Italians, Chinese (or Asians in general), Catholics, Jews and people with brown or black skin. Prove me wrong. Our history as a nation of immigrants is littered with this travesty.

In recent years, the demographics of this country are palpably shifting. There will be more brown-skinned people within our borders (borders!) than Whites. Right now, it's the policy of the current administration to remove (deport) non-Whites, both documented and undocumented.

It's a horrible policy that's hurting the country.

There's a bitter irony here. Undocumented immigrants legally pay billions of dollars in taxes (an estimated $96.7 billion in 2022, including $34 billion in social security), yet are ineligible for social security or Medicare benefits themselves. Don't forget to say thank you.

Deporting undocumented immigrants seems self-defeating to the economy to which they contribute as a whole.

And guess what? Undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens. This flies in the face of the Trump administration, which preys on white fear that immigrants are rapists and criminals (the president himself is a convicted felon). Trump's promoting of immigrants as undesirables is more of a way to control the general population than it is to control the flow of immigration.

It's stupid policy.

Instead of funding ICE with a budget greater than most of the world's armies ($37 billion), perhaps we should be finding ways to better assist those seeking entry into the U.S., including those seeking asylum from their own oppressive governments.

Imagine that.