I am Just Freaking Tired of This Nonense

Did you ever wake from a dream and begin to wonder if your fleeting memory of it was something that really happened or just a product of brain sorting information.  That happened this morning at 4:00 a.m. when I was convinced for a few minutes that I had sometime rearranged the shelves at my local Kroger to put different items on a shelf, sorted by color.  Like so many bookshelves in Zoom backgrounds lately where people store their books by jacket color.  (I am certain this habit is on a checklist for psychotic disorder by the way).  That feeling of is this real or is this just my brain has been a dominate feeling for the last four years and has increased in the last few weeks.  All of that is the result of a President who appears to not understand the job, the Constitution or even reality.  The stress is real and at times frightening.  

A good example is the fact that reports suggest that the President of the United States, having lost reelection, help a meeting with a conspiracy theorist lawyer and a former general who admitted to lying about illegal contacts with a foreign government.  The agenda, how can the President use the US military to overturn his recent election loss.  Basically the Commander-in-Chief was plotting a military coup in the Oval Office.  How this isn't a 24/7 story is amazing but the same President is absent without leave on so many other big stories.  Covid-19 is spreading faster than ever, we have a vaccine so we are looking for hope, the Republicans in Congress continue to hold up a response to the growing and serious economic collapse due to the pandemic, and it looks like Russia has accomplished the largest cyber-attack on our country ever.  But part of the reason that it is not dominating the Sunday morning shows is, in part, that we have all grown numb to Trump being Trump.  But that is a real problem.

President Trump's inability to accept the election results is damaging to our democracy.  (yes we are a democracy as well as a republic) Our antiquated way of electing the chief executive has led to his ability to make tons of challenges to the votes and he continues.  He has lost at every level of the judiciary, but continues because there are so many milestones.  First it was certification of the vote, done.  Then the seating of Electors from each state, done.   The meeting of the Electors in each state, done.  Now it goes to Congress, on January 6th they will vote to accept the Electors.  There is a process to object is at least one person in each chamber of Congress objects to any slate of electors, but there is zero chance that will change anything.  Each chamber as a whole would have to vote for the objection.  But before that it would have to be called to question with reasons for the objection.  When that milestone is achieved I can't think of anything that could put up a road block to Biden moving into the White House.  

But we need to look at what the President's recent meeting to ask how he could use the military to stay in power.  Go to any election post on social media and you will see dozens of comments of people calling for this.  One social media platform, Parler, a right wing response to Twitter, has been litter with people calling for armed people in the streets to stop Biden from taking office.  They continue to attack anyone who even suggests that Biden one the election.  Even long-time Trump supporters who are coming back to reality get attacked.  Fox News was replaced for a minute by Newsmax as the source of information.  Newsmax is a conspiracy driven producer of what they call news, but even them are being tossed aside because they acknowledged the the Electoral College results.  But what is worse is that some have acted on the delusion promoted by the President that had a former police officer holding a delivery man at gun point thinking he was bringing fake ballots.  

Violence should never be the answer to a political dispute.  But we have already seen that on the part of some on the right as a group want to kidnap and kill the Governor of Michigan.  We see it now with even members of Congress calling for it.  We cannot operate like this and just chalk it up to Trump being Trump.  Our Republic is fragile when we allow bad actors to have leadership positions and the Republican party has been cultivating people who are bad actors for decades now.  Will some of those elected officials who seem to not have a concern about the country but about their own power.  They need to be stopped. 

There is no chance that the President will remain in office after January 20,2021.  But in the mean time he can cause many problems for the incoming administration and the country as a whole.  I hope the party will finally put country over party and power.  If not we must remember that their power comes from us.  We are the ultimate bosses of these people who represent us.  Let's make sure anyone who tries to subvert democracy never lives that down.  

Crisis of Faith and Today's Politics

Faith in the Divine is a personal endeavor, however for many of us we practice it collectively.  We join religious traditions that tend to share our beliefs and practices.  But we don't give up our individual experience and understanding of our connection to God.  When we speak of multi-faith groups we often think of the collaboration between people of different large religious traditions.  But every religion, denomination, and even singular house of worship is multi-faith.  There is a high probability that the person sitting or standing next to you in prayer in your chosen house of worship connects with the Divine and hears the teachings of your scripture differently from you.  That is okay.  Diversity of thought, even within a self-selected group truly is a strength.  

I am writing this in part to a response of a friend who is having a crisis of faith over the fact that her chosen tradition includes some who see President Trump as chosen by God.  This has been baffling to many over the last 5 years.  President Trump has never been the first person you think of when imagining a Christian leader, especially among evangelicals.  His lifestyle is what they would rail against from pulpits for decades, he was pro-choice until he started to run for office, he has openly admitted to extra-martial affairs, including with women for money, he is divorced several times and couldn't come up with a single meaningful Bible verse when asked about it.  In fact he tried to quote a verse when speaking to a room full of Christians and so botched the citation to it that it became a long running joke that still pops up regularly.  So why you might ask?  Well for some supporting him was, in part, because they didn't like Secretary Clinton as a candidate in 2016.  The demonetization of the Clintons is on record for over 30 years.  Donald Trump, formerly friends with the Clintons, was a perfect weapon for them against her and the history of her family.  A brash bully who while not very articulate, was able to make attack lines stick and feed the need for some people to have someone articulate that which they felt in their heart.  They cheered him not because he was a great man with a vision for the future, but because he wasn't a great man.  Because he was a base man that sounded like an anonymous comment section of social media page.  He was their hate avatar.  So when they chose to back him strongly, they stuck with him, allowing any of his actions to be explained away when it contradicted who they were.  They also got sucked into the cult of personality that is so common among people looking for a simple answer to the complex questions of the day.  So Trump embodied both, a way to express their own hate and to offer a simple way of viewing the world thinking it would benefit them.  This, of course, is not the totality of the Christian Trump supporters but this is a good number.  

There are also those who like his relationship with the right wing of Israeli politics.  For many Christians, Israel is the lynch pin for the second coming of Jesus.  Many evangelicals are heavily invested in Israeli politics in favor of the more conservative positions in the Israel population.  Bibi Netanyahu is happy to exploit this for his own political and national gain.  Donald Trump has shown that for the most part he is willing to give Israel what is seeks.  When he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem he did what no President wanted to do because of the status of Jerusalem being something that was always thought to be a negotiation in the development of a two-state solution.  Many Israeli and American Jews wanted this move.  Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel.  But international politics is often tricky but for Trump and some of his followers it should be simple and thus now the American Embassy is in a neighborhood in Jerusalem.  Another step for those seeking the end of days.  

The problem with the way our culture views Christianity in this country is always like a reflection in a carnival mirror.  Many people see it not in their daily experiences but in the mass media that helps define Christianity on a grand scale. This is true of both left and right political worldviews but in many cases the main focus has been on the right.    Be it the preachers on TV who call for their followers to send in money so that God will reward them or those who have used Christianity as a cloak to allow them to be more political operatives than ministers.  People listen because they want to.  When an admired preacher puts his arm around a man like Trump it gives them cover to support him.  The most recent choice of candidates for President is a prime example.  President-elect Biden has been a regular church goer for decades, a whose life experience gave him every reason to abandon faith, only had it strengthened over the years.  Yet people who identify as Christian have openly made fun of him for attending mass.  That is troubling but not uncommon.  But you should never let that subset of people define Christianity, even Evangelicals.  Too often that is why people ignore Evangelical voices in multi-faith conversations.  So the stereotype not only persists but is give validation.  

But the vast majority of people who are Christian are not like that, just a powerful subset that has become more politically active in the last 50 years.  They should not define what it means to be Christian for anyone.  If you are looking for examples of Christianity in the country, visit a food bank in the basement of a church, where ordinary people volunteer to make sure people are fed.  See the work on the streets of Christian groups that help find shelter or at least warmth for the homeless.  Look at organizations that driven by their faith act on behalf of the weakest, the abused and discarded in our society.  There are many.  Across all denominations, across all walks of life.  

Sometimes people think a great deal about their faith and wonder about and envy those whose faith is so easy for them.  They may even see them as ignoring reality for the sake of their faith.  That is a very human trait.  I think many times people do not want to wrestle with divinity.  It is hard and makes you question a great deal of what you may have at your core.  It is unsettling.  But doubt has been with us forever.  Simplistic world views are easier to cope with.  I found the best illustration of this in a scene from one of my favorite science-fiction television series, Babylon 5.  Created by J Michael Straczynski, the show told the story of humans and other races living on a diplomatic space station trying to prevent war between races while preparing to and eventually fighting a war against evil.  Well written and I think did what no other TV series did well, explores the faith deeply, in all its grand and frustrating diversity.  G'Kar, a leader of a race known a the Narn developed a following after writing a religious text, based on his experience and response to an earlier text.  He didn't want this devotion but needed to respond to it, though his personality was not set to it even if his spirituality was a magnet.  When ask what is truth and what is God this was his response: 

If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume that the light on the wall is god. But, the light is not the goal of the search. It is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it.

Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing.

What we perceive as god is the by product of our search for god. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us.  Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do. Or we turn to look at our shadow, and assume that all is darkness.  If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose, which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty, and in all its flaws, and in so doing, better understand the world around us.

His followers were impressed but didn't understand.  So they ask their question again, to which he said simply that truth is a river and God is the mouth of that river.  All were happy.

There are people who recoil to any answer like the first one, it is a chore to think of faith that way.  They prefer the river analogy.  When it comes to most things, President Trump gives the river answer, and it comforts them.  I suggest we always seek out the lamp answer.  It may cause you discomfort, but religion faith should always comfort the afflicted and afflict in some way the comfortable.  Thinking about one's faith is a holy act.  It makes the light brighter.  

Shots Fired

So the proponents of the fictional war on Christmas have taken out a new weapon this year.  In light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the record rise of cases and hospitalizations public health figures are suggesting that people shouldn't gather in large groups or travel for the holiday season.  Of course this is common sense as we are seeing the results this week of those who ignored this suggestion at Thanksgiving.  But leading Republicans, who seem to think that the pandemic and the nearly 300,000 deaths from the disease are some how not a public health issue but an attack on Christmas.  Matt Gaetz, a congressman from Florida, known as a simple-minded sycophant of the President gathered with young Republicans in New Jersey in violation of local public health regulations and Congressman Jim Jordan, another right wing member of the House who has a passing connection to reality suggested that Dr. Fauci, who is calling for Americans to take this recent surge in cases seriously, wants to stop people from saying Merry Christmas.  This is nuts.  

 For decades it seems there has been a fight over what a branch of government can do in terms of promoting Christmas using public land, money and schools.  Supreme Court rulings have created a still confusing patchwork of what can be placed on a courthouse lawn and in a classroom.  Too often people don't dialogue about it and litigation has been the answer.  Often causing unnecessary uproar in communities.  The issue is that as a culture we have come to understand the diversity of practice beliefs or lack there of and wanted to be more inclusive.  Christmas plays in public schools became holiday shows and that should be okay.  But for some that was some how a personal attack.  But what has been more idiotic to me is that attacks on private organizations.

It seems about a decade or so ago retailers discovered that not everyone celebrates Christmas and started to change their advertising to reflect this.  Some began using age-old phrases like Season's Greetings or Happy Holidays.  Some on the right called for boycotts of stores.  One of the most anger inducing changes was asking people not to say Merry Christmas, but to say another holiday greeting when a stranger was the customer.  This is common courtesy as well being aware of your customers.  The argument from the right wing noise machine and some elected officials has always been that it doesn't matter that people get offended, it is the Christmas holiday.  However, the only people I ever saw offended by an expression that time of year were people who hate to make room for others.  Starbucks every year create a holiday cup that often has the colors red and green, things that look like Christmas lights or bulbs for a tree.  However one year it was just a red cup.  The right went nuts.  People actually bought coffee and then dumped it out in the parking lot to stamp on the cup.  But my absolute favorite was the time I was in line at a grocery store that catered to the small Jewish community in the neighborhood more than any other.  At check out the cashier, a teenager if I recall correctly, said "Happy Holidays", the man checking out said, "In my house we say Merry Christmas".  Now it was a few years ago but I think I remember saying (as I stood there with my kippah on my head) "In my house we aren't rude to people wishing us well".  Maybe I just thought to say that.  I don't know.  But the fictional war on Christmas has been something that has bothered me for quite some time. 

So here we are, in the midst of a raging pandemic.  With leadership that is throwing rocks at the ship of state trying to navigate these waters and members of Congress and the Executive Branch are saying the public health measures that are easy to take (no large gatherings, stay in your bubble, and avoid unnecessary travel) are yet another attack on Christmas.  I am simply too tired to continue to listen to this nonsense.  I think it is criminal for elected officials to continue to repeat the idea that Democrats, or Liberals or Leftists or whatever they choose to call us are saying we hate Christmas, (some even said we hate Thanksgiving).  It is nuts and they should be forever questioned about this nonsense.  

While there is hope on the horizon, this holiday season is going to be a difficult one for many Americans.  By the time I finish writing this there will be 300,000 dead from Covid 19, over 100,000 who will be in the hospital maybe until the New Year, and over a million families who have had to deal with the disease, many with long-term effects of this terrible virus.  Let's stay away from each other for a few more months.  Let's keep the masks on in public and let's pretend it is March again and we sing our songs as we wash our hands, we buy cool mask to show off our style, we use the internet for more than just playing games, and we take into account that our country has had the worst situation of the developing world.  So when someone says that public health requests are an attack on a faith, or a holiday.  Remind them that there are hospitals who have Ipads on IV polls so loved ones can say good-bye as someone dies in isolation.  Remind them that doctors and nurses are stretched to capacity all over the country and the worst is yet to come.  Remind them that they have the power to slow the spread.  Celebrations can always wait when people are dying.  

Oh and if your congressperson is one of those who is flaunting the public health guidelines and saying that Christmas is under attack.  Work hard to vote them out.  They don't deserve to represent you. 

President-Elect Joe Biden

We need to keep repeating the Joseph Biden was elected the next President of the United States and is the President-elect by any measure used to declare that in the past.  Every day another state certifies their vote and setting the Electors who will vote for him in December.  On January 20th at 12:01 p.m. he will be the President.  The reason we need to keep repeating that is because the current President, Donald Trump, is lying and he and his lawyers holding meetings and going on television claiming that there was massive fraud, that the elections should be thrown out and he should remain President.  The attacks from these people included lying about the company who contracted with some states for voting technology, poll workers and elected officials administering the elections in various states and even Republican governors.  Most recently one of the lawyers, a partisan hack for sure, called for the killing of Chris Krebs, the cyber security official who was in-charge of elections who was fired by the President.  He was fired because he released a statement that this was a secure election and no attacks or software changing votes.  This is where we are.  

Now this is totally on brand for President Trump.  He has lied to people his entire life.  Since coming down the escalator 5 years ago he has been a fire hose of falsehoods that have flooded the American conversation.  So as you look at social media in the last three weeks you will see ordinary Americans repeating the falsehoods of the President as if they are fakes, even in light of evidence.  The most recent was the President's spokesperson, who has the title of Press Secretary but acts as a campaign spokesperson, responded to the announcement that Joe Biden appointed an all-woman Communication Department by saying the President already has that.  The White House website proves that to be a lie, there have always been men on that staff for Trump.  The Trump supporters simple dismiss that fact because they would rather believe Trump than reality.  I am not sure how that could ever change.  There will always be followers of someone who can see them doing no wrong.  It is easier to believe conspiracies when they help you feel important and right.  But that is dangerous for the country.  Creating election skepticism and de-legitimatizing the government can only lead to problems moving forward.  It will handcuff the Biden administration and either consciously or unconsciously will push policy in a direction. 

But what is most troubling is the Republican leadership who is bolstering the President's nonsense and creating a real sense of them living the same delusion gives support to the people who want to believe in the non-existent fraud.  People who even were re-elected in this cycle claim there was enough fraud to overturn the will of the people.  Lindsey Graham, a former critic of the President, tried to tamper with the process of counting votes in at least two states and when asked if Trump will attend Biden's inauguration said he hoped Biden would attend Trump's.  This is delusion but we have heard it from several Republicans since the election.  Members of the cabinet, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the man representing the US to the world, made a similar statement.  Most Republicans are hiding behind the Electoral College vote (suggesting that Biden didn't win until they vote) but they have never had that standard in the past.  Others are just not answering the question when asked if Biden is the President-elect.  Any member of the party who does stand up for reality is attacked.  So an entire party is putting American values in jeopardy to sooth a man who is either living in his own world or doesn't care about the country.  President-elect Joe Biden continues to move forward even with these feckless republicans trying to make it seem like it is in vain.  

So I have a suggestion for the media. If you have a Republican near a microphone, do not let them say anything unless they answer the question of whether Joe Biden is the President-elect.  If they have changed their position from the past, then don't let them speak about anything else.   

As for us, every Senator has a twitter feed.  Get on it and simple ask as a constituent  I want to know, do you see Joseph Biden as President-elect.  If not why not?

We need to get back to reality.  The President and his mouthpieces are lying and hurting our democratic standards and his party is too scared of him to stand up for the country.  It will take us to show them they are on the wrong side of history.  President-elect Biden needs the country to help him get through the pandemic, the economic fallout it produced and continues to, and to bring our country back to a good standing in the world.  Let's be the country that we aspire to be. 

Dear Republicans

Hello,

I know the current President was likely not your first choice for your party's nominee back in 2015, but as the others fell by the wayside, I watched as your party came together to make him your standard bearer.  I know that some of you voted for him because you didn't want to vote for Secretary Clinton for a variety of reasons.  I know you thought the office would change him.  I know you liked the fact that he gave you some of things you wanted, a more conservative federal bench, deregulation to help your stock portfolios, comfort that he would not move us further down the road to a changing country.  For some of you he opposed the same people you opposed.  He also said things that you wished you could say in public without repercussions.   I know you also felt you could ignore his Twitter rants and childish nonsense.  So often we heard "watch what he does not what he says".  So now we had an election and in an epic turn out of voters. Joe Biden beat President Trump with a record number of votes cast on both sides meaning there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the President, but it looks from other Republican wins that there was also as much against.  

We are a divided country and that is not new.  What is new that the President is showing that he doesn't care about the American values.  Those values have helped us heal even when we have been so fully divided.  But now the President has been pushing out nonsense about a rigged election, that fraud exists everywhere he lost and having lawyers put their careers in jeopardy filing frivolous lawsuits whose filings read like the rantings of a people with no connection to reality.  In the mean time he firing our defense and national security human infrastructure to no real purpose.  Quotes are that he wants to make the next administrations life harder to have real accomplishments.

Beyond the holding up of both the financial support and the critical coordination with departments in the Executive Branch by members of his team, including the highly classified briefings are criminal negligence on the part of all involved.  Joking about a potential Trump second term or saying they will wait until after the Election is certified defies not only logic but reality.  

But what is worse is that the President has been actively trying to overturn the election with frivolous lawsuits that have been literally laughed out of court.  Today Trump's TV lawyers had a nearly two-hour press conference where they weaved conspiracy theories about Hugo Chavez, 7 years dead, being involved in the fraud and that was the sanest thing they said.  Tonight members of the Michigan State Legislature are being summoned to the White House in an attempt to have them over-turn the vote in Michigan.  Legally they can't, there is a law in Michigan that determines how Electors are seated.  But the President is abusing the power of his office to try to undo the election he so clearly lost. This is not the first attempt.  After Wayne County certified the ballots in the largest county in Michigan he called the Republicans on the Election board and now they want to rescind their vote to certify.  (They can't do that).  This is, in my opinion, a ham handed attempt at sedition.  

All that said, the President is watching the country burn as Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths are reaching new heights.  While his personal medical advisor, a radiologist, is telling people to ignore state suggestions about keeping Thanksgiving small because your elderly relatives are going to die soon.  

So, Republicans, it is time to cut ties with the woeful failure in the White House.  I know it is difficult.  Republicans tend to fall in line.  I know that you want to believe the crazy nonsense of a fraud election.  I know you are hoping you won't have to see a Democratic President who will once again have to clean up a Republican mess.  But seriously, if you want a party a year from now you have to stand against the tyranny that is snowballing before your eyes.  Please come out and say in no uncertain terms:

1.  Joe Biden is the President-Elect 

2.  The President should release the information and funds for the transition.

3.  The President should make a public concession and which the new administration success.  

4.  The President should not fire anyone and replace them with unqualified sycophants.  

5.  The President should work with the Biden team on the roll out of vaccines and other measures to combat the Covid pandemic. 

At this point those still carrying the President's water will not be treated kindly by history but there is still a chance to save some of your legacy and frankly your dignity.  Stand up for the country you claim to love and took an oath to serve.  It may be a hard by it is what is right.  There is too much at stake.  Stand up.  

Thank you, 

A Fellow American who wants the country to remain a beacon of freedom and democracy.  

Liberals to Left of Me and Moderates to the Right.

I joined the Democratic party in 1983 when I was first eligible to vote.  While I flirted with the Liberal party in New York for a bit I was always in support of most Democrats.  (A couple of times I went off the board because of protest votes).  For the most part I saw the Republican party as not the party of the people.  In all those years little has changed, except now they have embraced the conspiracy wing full on and many who call themselves Republicans live on an Earth Two, where alternative facts include the idea that our Covid pandemic is over, the Courts decide elections and President Trump has been good for the nation.  

But today, as the dust settles from what was the most bananas election cycle we see a Democratic party that is yelling at each other.  Moderates/Conservative Democrats were defeated or nearly so in some districts having been painted with the brush of the social democrats, in particular Representatives Osacio-Cortez (AOC) and Omar.  They are made at the rhetoric of Medicare for All and Green New Deal.  Progressives are saying that they came over to a candidate for President that they didn't like and deserve a seat at the table, even suggesting they will fight President Biden unless certain people are in the cabinet.  Several people are calling for the party to reach out to the 70 million Trump voters to understand their concerns and address them.  And Black women, who drove this election in many ways are waiting for the acknowledgement from many more people in the media who continue to follow their fetish of the Trump voter in the suburbs who appear to have flipped.  Look for CNN's New Day to have panels on this for years. 

Here is the thing, our party has always been diverse and have had people like AOC and Joe Manchin and everything in-between.  We need to listen to all voices and find a way to bring everyone to the table.  

For one thing, while there are clearly issues with the far left Democrats' ideas for much of middle America, they seem to know how to message.  We as a party can no longer allow the pundits on Fox News and OAN to define our positions.  In fact, we should create a team that goes on news programs, much like Pete Buttigieg has on Fox, to give our message.  The Sunday shows have been dominated by GOPers and the cable channels have tons of Republicans who comfortably lie because they make a good foil for hosts like Jake Tapper.  But when the people we need to reach don't trust the media they believe the lies.  

We need to remember that for the GOP the campaign never stops.  Watch this week, leaders of the GOP are all over television talking about 2024, while at the same time promoting conspiracies that the President actually won this election.  Ignoring the fact that the way this election has played out, though taking a longer time than expected because of Covid and mail in votes, the same way every other election has done in the last 100 years.  Calls are made based on statistics.  Rarely wrong and if so only in a singular state.  But the Trump campaign has even produced a false image of the Washington Times with a Headline PRESIDENT GORE that the paper (which is a right wing paper by the way) said never happened.  Yet someone told me his friend has a copy.  While I hate the idea, we need to be on campaign footing all the time.  Perhaps the Vice-President-elect should call a press conference and using her Attorney General skills debunk the nonsense fully.  Then the DNC should create a regular rapid response team to continue throughout the transition, at least, to offset the lies.  

We do not need to be nice to the  Lincoln Project.  Yes they were Anti-Trump and ran some powerful ads during the campaign.  But let's remember who they are.  They are right wing people who will attack President-elect Biden as soon as he starts to work on something that falls out of their ideological box.  The enemy of my enemy can still be my enemy.  Think Europe in 1946.  While there are calls for a Lincolnesque cabinet with Republicans and no progressives.  That is just not okay, we can send Steve Schmidt a cake and invite him to the inauguration we don't have to put him or John Kasich in the executive branch.

The current political climate will not allow many Senators who might be good for cabinet posts to be appointed.  Republican governors would replace them with Republicans and tip the balance of power.  So discussion of Warren, Sanders, Manchin, and Brown are non-starters.  Our bench in the party is both deep and diverse and I am certain that there can be a mix of ideas without embracing the fringes.  

But it is clear, there is a change happening in our party.  Your people who are more comfortable embracing ideas and policies that some see as too socialist are coming out to vote, have heroes to look up to, and will be the voice of the party in a few short years.  In the mean time the money needed to get people elected at every level still resides in the older Democrats whose similar visions in the 70s and 80s were doused be 12 years of Reagan/Bush and the rise of Southern Democrats who brought us Bill Clinton (a moderate in many ways) and helped a young Senator from Illinois become President thinking he was the progressive answer and turned out not so much.  So the battle inside the party continues.  

I think that a President Biden will find a way to knit the party together enough to wear out in public but not enough for G-rated photo shoot.  But we have to try.  We need to stop talking about reaching out to the Trump supporter and find out who in our party we disagree with and look for common ground there. Even if we take the Senate in January, and I am not sure we can, there will still be in-fighting and votes not cast for things that bother some members of Congress.  Hell, the right wing noise machine is already calling for Joe Manchin to switch parties.  Let's find a way to be a party that can disagree and fight for the common goal, to bring our country back, to take care of the vulnerable, to defeat the pandemic and rebuild the economic structure that makes us the engine of the world economy.  Then, when we have taken care of our own house, we can work with the neighbors.  

It Is Election Day

Good morning.  Today we will have what I think if the 6th time we are having the most important election of our lifetime.  This is the first time I am not sure if this is hyperbole.  

For as long as I remember it seems I wake up at 4:00 a.m. (now in standard time 3:00 a.m.).  Sometimes my mind is so full that it is hard to go back to sleep.  I see more and more people saying that this election today is about getting a good night's sleep.  That we aren't going to have to think about the President so that it makes restfulness difficult.  I don't think it is the President that is waking me up all the time but I do often find myself checking the news to see what is going on.  What I do know I have found myself worried about his actions throughout the Presidency during my waking hours.  There are many things that have me questioning the ability of our institutions to survive another Trump administration.   

He has attacked and gutted so much of the Executive Branch it is going to take a while to rebuild them when a new President takes over.  I had great faith in the established government but from early on this President decided to undermine the function of so much of the Federal system, calling anyone who challenged his actions as part of the deep state and allowing the ignorant to buy into this disgusting attack on so many long-term public servants.  This dismantling of the pillars of good government is dangerous for many reasons, including leaving us vulnerable to foreign and domestics attacks.

Domestic attacks are also a big worry.  President Trump has empowered the radical fringe on the right who travel in white nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-Semitic and Anti-Muslim circles.  Our country has always had a festering wound of hate and the President continues to keep it open poking at it with the dirty tool of language that is heard by these terrorists as encouragement.  Recent attacks on the Biden campaign bus is a great example.   

As Election Day neared we see cities across the country board up their downtown stores.  Many people say their fear the left rioting if the President wins.  But for many others the concern is the Trump supporters attacking if he loses.  Imagine the tension of a country that has to worry about the destruction of property because of an election.  Like a developing nation new to democracy trying to vote out a dictator.  This is not who we are. 

Today we as a country have our last chance to say this and so much more is bad for our country.  During the last several weeks the President has tried to stop people from being able to cast their vote or have their legal votes counted.  Throughout the country he and the Republican party have tried to tell people only votes counted on Election Day should count (that is lie) if votes are counted after the polls closer that is unusual and open to corruption (neither of those things are true) and of course the lies about mail-in vote fraud which is rare.  We may not know the winner of the election for President until Friday and that is okay.  All votes should count.  It is up to us to decide the direction of the country.  

So, as election day starts, if you voted, thank you, if you haven't get to the polls, and be prepared for a long haul.  Stay strong and know, regardless of the outcome, America is strong.  We have survived a number of things just in the last century or so.  Two World Wars, The Great Depression, the rise of both Fascism and Communism, and so on and so on.  Have faith, but if you are concerned vote Blue all the way down the ticket.  The time is now. 

 

 

I Voted for Joe Biden for President

Friday I voted for Joseph Biden.  No one who knows me will be surprised by that.   While I know in January of 2017 that in the next election I would be voting against President Trump, that wasn't my motivation when I went into the booth to vote.  While there were other Democrats I supported in the primary I was not just voting for the lesser of two evils.  I don't think Joe Biden is a stand-in.  He is the real deal.   

Joe Biden, in the last several months, has shown he is ready to move the country back into the right direction.  Now I have been a fan of Vice-President Biden since the eighties.   I know his flaws.  He has made bad policy decisions during his time in the Senate.  Sometimes he compromises more than I would like.  But he has shown that he can lead when necessary.  He isn't the most articulate person either.  His stutter, that he has fought his whole life, makes his verbal expression uncomfortable for him and sometimes for those who are listening.  He also was often the odd man out in many situations so over the years he has tried to be cool.  That has led to many of his gaffes.  

But Joe was much more than his public speaking and his image he has and has allowed to be defined by others.  Joe was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or the ranking member of the Democratic party because he had a great foreign policy mind and other great minds in the Senate agreed. There was a time when many sought the thoughts of he and Senator Richard Lugar, a giant in the Republican party, when dealing with tricky foreign policy issues.  I remember when President Bill Clinton spoke at Beth-El Zedeck a few years before the 2008 election spent the day with the motorcade.  I had one of Clinton's staff in the car with me going to the airport at the end of the evening.  We started talking politics and the possibility of Hillary running for President.  I will never forget that he said "we need a Democratic Dick Cheney as Vice-President".  I asked who and without hesitation he said Joe Biden.  So while we watch the right wing noise machine and the President of the United States try to say Joe is dumb, has dementia, or other things, for those people who aren't just about partisan attacks, we know that Joe Biden is up for the job.  

But it isn't about who Joe Biden was.  We can talk about his time in the Obama administration and his work saving the auto industry or helping to deal with the Ebola crisis.  But elections are about the future.  So what will a Biden administration do that will be good for America. 

1.  Joseph Biden will listen to the scientists when is comes to handling the Covid crisis.  Early, before infection rates skyrocketed, Biden penned an Op-Ed telling us how to handle and keep us safe.  He saw the potential of the spread and called for a response.  Now that we have failed as a country to contain the virus, Biden is looking to figure out how best to move forward.  He is clear he will work with local leaders in areas that are raging with virus to promote lockdowns when necessary, masks and distancing.  Ramp up testing in a way that tracks infection and work hard to create functional contact tracing.  He knows the people who helped respond in the past to pandemics and Ron Klain, his former chief of staff, was the person who kept the country safe from the Ebola outbreak while working with international organizations to contain the spread.  That is who we need in charge.  The attack on his approach is that the economy will tank.  But the economy can't grow in the wake of rising infections and hospitalizations.  You can open everything up but in areas where Covid is spreading people aren't going to feel comfortable going out in crowded areas, and when some people do we have seen infections widening and thus there is a cycle of opening and closing.  Attacking the spread of the virus head on is the only thing that brings us back to a growing economy.  

2.  Biden understands the stock market is not the economy.  A little over half the country is invested in the stock market, most through retirement accounts and a smaller percentage would be invested enough in the Dow companies that current rises would be a substantial windfall for them.  Stock prices make wealthy people richer.  The real economy is on the ground.  Jobs are important, good paying everyday jobs that can help bolster the economy.  Joe's vision for higher wages (through a rise in the minimum wage) and an emphasis on American made products for government contracts will help the manufacturing sectors and build more jobs.  Financial organizations like Moody's have said his program will grow more jobs than other plans available.  

3. Racial issues in this country have exploded as activists continue to shine a brighter light on injustice and rise of white nationalism.  Biden has had a difficult past when it comes to race.  He has said things that are insensitive and is getting hit with the fact that he wrote much of the 1994 Crime Bill.  While some of the criticism is legitimate, much is right wing nonsense.  But the thing is that Biden has, on several occasions, acknowledged his short-comings and bad decisions and says he has learned from them.  I think that we can see that in who has trusted him.  President Barrack Obama, the first African-American President chose him as his running mate and kept him on the ticket for a second term.  Senator Kamala Harris, joined his current ticket, even after being critical of Biden's past in the primary.  Why?  Because they know he either understands the racial issues facing America or will listen to people who do.  Recently answering a young man in a town hall Biden outlined his path for African-American wealth development, as well as combatting the sickening rise of hate.  I trust Joe Biden to move the country forward.

4.  Many progressives are upset with the Democratic party for choosing a more central figure as the nominee.  One issue that is important is Climate Change.  Joe, who recently said he wants to phase out fossil fuels, does not completely buy into the ideas like the Green New Deal.  While he won't end fracking for example, he will stop the spread of it.  Biden sees himself as a bridge.  We have seen the failure of trying to change these sorts of issues with a single pen stroke.  But Joe Biden is dedicated to the idea of combatting climate change and he can do it by promoting renewable energy sources while not simply shutting down others.  Companies, including energy companies, already know that in 50 years we will be using mostly renewable sources of energy.  They already have started to use renewable energy at their own facilities.  Biden may not be able or have the desire to be radical with climate issues and that is a problem.  But he will move us back to a place where being radical moving forward could happen still in my lifetime. 

5.  Another front and center issues is health insurance.  Biden, along with Obama created the Affordable Care Act after fighting with people within his own party and the opposition.  From the beginning they knew it wasn't a panacea.   But it helped millions get health insurance that didn't have it before.  Now he wants to build on it to make sure that people have access to good insurance and create something that was an idea that was taken out of the original, a public option.  A public option will be like Medicaid program that anyone can buy into.  Since it will not need to have a profit goal nor pay millions to directors and CEOs it can focus on providing a place people can use to help pay for their medical costs at a cheaper rate.  A public option does not end private insurance. It gives another possibility of access to insurance, thus health care.  It will also create a mechanism to check costs across the board.

6.  Overall Civil Rights is important to Joe Biden.  The right to health care for women, including abortions is something Joe has fought for his entire life.  It was him, in part, that pushed others to see the importance of marriage as a right for the gay community.  He clearly sees that disability rights must be talked about as that has been a civil rights issue that gets very little play.  Beyond police reform, the overall justice system needs to take a long, hard look at itself.  Too often an issue of mental health is dealt with as a criminal act, sometimes ending in tragedy.  While Joe is not a fan of defund the police he is in favor of funding them in a way that expands who answers the call, with people who know how to deescalate a crisis.  We can't expect police to be psychiatric experts but we can give them someone who is during a situation.    

These are but a few of the reasons I voted for the Biden/Harris ticket.  These are but a few of the reasons I believe a Biden/Harris ticket will be good for all Americans.  Not everyone agrees but that is okay.  This doesn't touch on foreign policy, which I could do a whole post on just on what I think the Biden administration will do to reinvigorate our relationships with allies.  It doesn't touch on several topics that might be important to you. I say go an see his stand on issues on his website.  It is time for a leader like Joe to bring our country out of the stagnation and pain we have due to the pandemic, racial strive and the subsequent economic crisis.  Let's give him our support and if needed hold him accountable if he fails.  We are a great country.  We are in pain, but we can make it through the pain to better days.  Join me, VOTE.  

I Don't Want This Anger That's Burning in Me

 Last week was a rough week so I am happy to enjoy a great weekend with my wife.  We hiked at Eagle Creek, got Smoothies and explored a local park in Westfield where we saw three Turkey Vultures enjoying the remains of a rodent of some kind for breakfast.  We watched the Irishman, which was amazing though an investment of times (3.5 hour movie).  Also cooking, cleaning, shopping and I made a killer brisket that I hope I can remember the ingredients I put in my rub. I am refreshed, but last week was tough. 

It was tough for a few reasons, the anniversary of Linda's death is always something that haunts me, less each year but the letter came that her murderer will again not be released a few days prior.  Tough because starting Religious School online meant being prepared for the various glitches that can occur when using technology, a technology on the first day of school for many failed.  Tough because the patterns of moving through the calendar have changed a lot and everything seems to be happening either at warp speed or a snail's pace.  And then there was the surprises. 

Saturday, August 29, I learned my Uncle Joe had passed.  He was 86, lived a good life, and while I no longer have a connection to my family since my mother's death, I remember him from my childhood.  He was a jovial man, married to my mother's more serious sister, my memory of him was of a big kid who truly enjoyed having us around as we would see them twice a year.  One thing I remember is he had a slot car race track that I loved to play with.  I may not be remembering that correctly, but I remember him teaching me how to slow down in the turns so my car didn't go flying into the living room.  I will always remember him as a working class kind of guy just having fun and getting along. 

Now our family back then was tighter.  On my dad's side there was my Aunt Mary, her kids were all adults, some as old or close to my parents age.  I called a lot of them Aunt and Uncle out of respect, but they were all cousins.  A lot of my second cousins were my age.  But I knew several of my dad's brothers as well, my real uncles.  If I didn't know them personally I knew of them.  Family reunions brought a few together.  

What was special about that generation of men and women that came of age in the middle part of the 20th century was war.  Reading his obituary I learned my Uncle Joe was a decorated soldier from the Korean War.  I knew my dad, who served for 25 years in the army and fought in Europe and shipped to the South Pacific in World War II and later was wounded and captured in Korea served.  Last year to prepare for our trip to Normandy I reread the story of my Uncle Bill , my dad's brother, who helped clear the beach as his battalion was charged to do.  Given a citation by General Eisenhower, my Uncle, my Dad and two other uncles, the two who I was named after, fought in the war.  As I stood in one of the cement pill boxes last year and thought how brave those men must have been as they cleared the deadly obstacles from the beachfront, I wondered if I would have been brave enough to do what so many people did to save the world from the tyranny of fascism.  

So when The Atlantic published their article about how President Trump sees veterans and members of military as losers and some how dumb for fighting for the country I had a visceral reaction.  I have never been a fan of war.  I don't romanticize the fighting as in Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori I find myself more in Wilfred Owen's camp on this.  But people died, some came home wounded, many came home changed forever and it didn't stop.  Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror have all lead to more and more people who have lost their lives, lost their limbs and some lost their souls to the horrors of war.  So when the President doesn't see them for what they are, heroes, we must questions what is important to a President who wraps himself in the flag and claims liberals want to end America. 

Now some might say the whole story is made up.  The original story was sources with 4 different people making the accusations and then confirmed almost immediately with two independent sources and later more news agencies found sources willing to confirm parts of the article.  It is common that people working in government will talk to reporters anonymously.  In fact we have discovered many scandals that way, including Watergate.  While all those sources could be making up the same story, sharing it among themselves, and telling reporters that would be incredibly risking for them.  How would it come up?  How would Pentagon and former government officials do that without at least one breaking ranks?  What would be the upside?  Also reporters don't tend to make up stories like this and then get it confirmed by rival media, in this case including Fox News.  In fact, when reporters have reported distorted or made up facts they created, they are often caught in the process of others trying to confirm.  

Trump has a history of being anti-military and through his own words or people close to him we have learned that he has called the late Senator John McCain a loser on many occasions.  He disparaged Senator Tammy Duckworth referencing her limbs lost fighting in Iraq.  He said he knows more than the generals in relation to the war on terror and he has offended Gold Star and Blue Star families several times.  The story trends with who Trump has always been.  

What is interesting to me is how it is framed.  That the people who join the military or those who couldn't get out of being drafted are losers and stupid is similar to the depiction of Don Corleone's reaction to his son joining the military in the book about the mob family in The Godfather.  The Don, like Trump, sees no upside to military service and when his son makes Life Magazine as a hero, he says "he does those miracles for strangers".   President Trump's bottom line has always been like Don Corleone, he will do things only if he sees a return for himself personally.  But unlike the Don who was motivated, in part, by love of family and culture.  Trump is motivated by himself.   Since the 1980s, Trump has always appeared to be trying to live up to the Hollywood version of a tough guy and thus used mob bosses as a template.  It is how he would operate in business, trying to find ways to cheat the people he hired.  His charities and other businesses, now apparently including his campaign and inaugural committees were just another way for personal gain.  So it makes sense he would see a selfless act like joining the military as a foolish one.  

We will see if people go on the record with this.  We will see if people will further confirm his alleged disgusting attitude toward veterans and active duty members.  We will see if it may change his behavior moving forward.  Or conversely we will see if people who serve or did serve the government made this up (because there is no way at this point that a single reporter did).  The thing is all those things are bad for the President.  But worse for our country.  

  

Blinded to the Science

 Whenever I read about science in any of the main stream media outlets I have to look to find the research article or original interview that the piece is based on.  Newspapers, magazines and television shows have always been terrible about translating scientific information to the press for the public.  Maybe the New York Times used to do it well as I recall but even then there were many necessary grains of salt to get through some reporting.  The reason science is a language free of emotion in most cases.  It often states facts with evidence that when dug through we find the story is less about the headlines that they generate.  Headlines are to bring you in.  In today's electronic media it is about clicks that generate ad revenue.  So a story for example about a near earth object might have a headline that screams:  "Scientists Find Asteroid Will Pass Close By Our Planet This Fall", when in fact the close part is defined in terms related to the entire universe and could mean 100,000 miles.  Close is a relative term and this case it is easy to see the sensationalism of the headline while the real story can be easily obtained.  There will always be people who read the headline and maybe the lead and start digging a fallout shelter.    However, during a pandemic the science reporting is not so cut and dried.  

If you follow the reports in many media and social media outlets you will find that reporters and thus the general public are often under informed because of ignorance of how the scientific process works.  Much like those who say things like evolution is just a theory because they don't know what the word theory means in a science context, we find people throwing around words like "peer-reviewed" as if that means it is factual. We also see reporters talking about how the information coming from public health agencies changes over time and some how we should trust them.  Again, when the science changes the results and recommendations based on science changes.  During the development of nuclear weapons the belief was that certain distances from a blast site would be perfectly safe, based on the results of earlier blasts.  However, the  materials and how the blasts were performed created different variables not fully understood.  In the end nuclear blasts, that people held parties to watch and soldiers were stationed to observe ended up making people ill and killing some.  From that new guidelines were created as more knowledge was obtained.  That is science.

So today we are struggling to get a handle of the spreading of Covid-19 and for some it has become a political issue.  This contributes to the nonsense reporting on the science even more.  The Center for Disease Control, a government public health agency, released information about Covid deaths in US.  They concluded the upwards of 94% of the deaths were people who had other co-morbidity factors, or conditions that were that made the results of the infection worse.  While the study clearly says it was Covid that killed these people as they would likely still be alive today without the infection, many people are reporting that only 6% of the people in the figure of deaths (183,000) were deaths from Covid.  In part this is due to the politicization of the this whole crisis, some thinking Covid isn't even real.  Now they wave a piece of paper from an agency and say "see we don't need masks if we are healthy, we don't need to shut down".  This is dangerous and I see no way to undo the long standing damage done to our collective knowledge by the lack of a voice out there to help understand what is happening, not only with Covid, but with all science.  People who don't like facts, ignore them and claim to have a different opinion.  Facts are not set aside because of opinion.  A guy named Greg could find a frog whose call sounds like Greg, but that doesn't mean the frog called his name, even if he believes it.  We cannot let opinion replace facts.  

Climate Change,  Disease, Pollutants, and Food processing have all fallen prey to opinion over science.  We will always be able to find someone with an advanced degree to make statements against the prevailing science because people are people.  That too is the problem.  Reporters will report on a the person who is contrary to everything the scientific community says about a particular subject without researching further into why that person might be saying.  Currently, the new doctor with ear to the President on Covid is talking about herd immunity and letting Covid run its course.  He has no background in epidemiology or virology, he is a radiologist.  We recently saw Dr. Ben Carson, a brain surgeon, touting a dangerous supplement that is untested to cure Covid.  The CDC has fired people over a recent treatment suggestion by the director that the media ate up, only to find a few hours after a briefing that the numbers were inflated.  

Some media outlets are trying.  They bring in doctors who have studied the spread of viruses and other diseases and understand the papers being written.  But often even they sound agenda ridden, looking more for gotcha moments that providing true explanations.  It is a growing concern that we will have a country who can be easily manipulated by someone with letters after their name on an opinion show pretending to be news and cause us to make bad decisions.  That is one reason that presidents need science advisors who will challenge their beliefs with facts and have the self-awareness to listen to the scientists.   Most of Congress doesn't seem to even care about the science.  The media, that is suppose to be an arbiter of facts, seems to spend time trying to look balanced and the people are lost.   I keep seeing on social media platforms that the quote "If one person says it is raining and the other that it is sunny, the media's job is not to report what they said, it is to look out the window and describe what is going on".  That is not happening.

This is by no means new.  The media and politicians have fumbled over science for my entire life time.  Think of the number of times in movies where the science advisor is seen as being hysterical until the catastrophe hits and they beg him or her for a solution.  This is based on real interactions between science, politics and the media.  We see this play out in many ways.  

It isn't just the right that does it.  In recent years we have seen massive media campaigns related to Alar on apples which turned out not to be a big problem and meat glue being used in processing of food, which is not only safe but something that makes sense.  Both driven by organizations and thinkers on the left. 

The problem with all this is because we don't have good information flow about scientific things every thing is valid and facts are just reduced to someone's opinion.  When people stop listening to those actually working in a particular field in favor of an opinion that confirms their bias we can't set good policy or act in the best interest of ourselves or others.  We are simply lost.  We must get back to a time when we value solid information, education, and expertise in matters of science and beyond.  We must be willing to allow that same science to learn and grow with more and new information moving forward.  We must not let political or religious ideology stand in the way of science progressing.  We must do it as if our lives depend on it.  Because for 184,000 Americans and growing it did and we as a nation failed.  

Where We Go 1 We Go All Down the Rabbit Hole

In the darkness of the right wing internet  there grew a new form of hate and division.  Q Anon, an anonymous (that's the anon) poster who claims to have high level security clearance (the Q) and weaving a web of ridiculous and scary content that seems unbelievable to any rational thinker.  But the thing is that there are times when many people lose being rational as part of their daily lives.  Anons are not new and nor are people who claim to have inside knowledge that they share on the internet.  This kind of stuff occurred long before the internet.  Now it is just easier to make a connection to people because a typical internet post can go around the world if just a few right people want to promote it.  And this is what happened.  That which has lived in the dark corners of places on the web most people would never go, is now retweeted by the President and running for Congress and other offices as Republicans embrace it.  

It is hard to describe the Q entire conspiracy.  Like many the connections are amazing complex and while the original postings have grown more vague over the years, the supporters conclude very specific things.  I will get back to that.  But the over-arching theory of Q is that there is a world-wide child trafficking ring being run by prominent Democratic leaders and Hollywood celebrities.  Q has convinced the followers that Donald Trump is the savior of the children as he is working in conjunction with others to unmask this ring and bring people to justice.  Among those he is working with is James Comey, surprised?  Yes the entire Russian conclusion evidence was a set up to get Comey the power to ferret out the real criminals and thus was the start of finding the members of the ring.  Yes, but wait for it.  The other leader of the movement is John F Kennedy Jr.  Yes the son of our 35th President.  A man who tragically died in a plane crash in 1999.  The theory is that he has been hiding in Pennsylvania  and will emerge this summer to public life to run along side President Trump as his Vice-President.  They even have identified him at rallies pointing to a man who they say is him in disguise.  Now if you think that is bananas you are right.  It is.  But we are merely scratching the surface of this conspiracy.  

Maybe the most famous story was that of Comet Ping Pong.  The Q followers who saw John Podesta's emails seemed to think they were code for planning Satanic Sexual rituals with children.  Podesta often referenced pizza from Comet, a Washington DC pizza place.  The Q crowd saw pizza as a symbol for kids and that there were all manner of horrors going on in the basement of the family pizza place that involved up to and including cannibalism of children led by Hillary Clinton.  Even as I type this I find it hard to believe that very many people could believe this.  But one man took it seriously enough to drive to the pizza place with a gun demanding to see the basement.  The building has no basement.  How easily this could have ended more tragically than it did.  The man was arrested but the pizza place still suffers the aftermath.  Other incidence include someone who stormed a Cement company site, the blocking of Hoover Dam, and assassination attempts on Joe Biden.  More recently the internet was on fire for a couple weeks because the online discounter Wayfair has a handful of products whose prices seem outrageous.  The main one was an industrial cabinet that cost $10,000 which in their mixed up minds must have meant that it wasn't the cabinet that people were buying but a trafficked child.  The fever swept through the Q world and finding pillows and housewares with higher than normal prices were found.  A set of pillows with feminine names became a focal point and someone linked them to the actual names of missing children.  They were off to the races.  But, other retailers have similar cabinets at similar prices and one of the missing children named posted on social media that she was home and fine and that they are hurting the efforts of helping real missing children.  However, weeks later, you still see this pop up.  Facts don't seem to work with these people and the danger is that when you can't educate someone there is little hope.  What is worse is they have the ear of people who have actual power. 

A recent primary in Georgia promoted for the Congressional seat a woman who is deep into the Q conspiracy and promoting a variety of conspiracies including the death of Seth Rich and 9-11 being an inside job.  While at first the GOP supported her primary opponent they are now welcoming her to the party.  This is dangerous.  Even the current President is willing to embrace her and the ideas that she is vomiting all over the Republican party.  

Q is a lot like a cult that follows a central figure who cannot be wrong.  There are many times Q has made serious predictions about what is going to happen in this fantasy world and when they didn't come true the response was that it was purposeful misinformation to keep the perpetrators guessing.  And the followers believe.  This self-sealing model means if often used by those telling their followers the world will end on a particular date or some other fantastic failure.  It is an inoculation against criticism.  It is not new, it is an old trick to fool those that want to be fooled.  It is remarkable how many people are that foolish.  

You may like President Trump for the things you agree with that he has done.  You may be a good Republican who can't find a way to vote for Vice-President Biden I ask one thing.  Purge your party of this disease.  It clearly shows that the President's far from normal behavior is not the only problem that is hurting our country.  A cult with political aims, a lack of interest in reality and an anonymous leader or leaders who manipulate their followers like a well honed conman is not only a danger to your party but to the republic.  Stamp it out, it won't be long until they come for you. 

Prayer Outside the Box, Inside the Box

This is a speech I gave to Heartland Unitarian Universalist Church last week.  It is always an honor to speak to this congregation:

I really do enjoy coming into your space to share with you. The coziness of the room, the way this community hugs and hold hands in prayer, and of course the baked goods and conversation in fellowship afterwards. We don’t have that today but I hope me coming into your homes through technology will bring a spark of thought and joy.

When Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer known as the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, saw that the Jewish people were threatened by tragedy, he would go to a particular place in the forest where he lit a fire, recited a particular prayer, and asked for a miracle to save the Jews from the threat. It is said that the miracle would come and the crisis averted.

Later, when the Baal Shem Tov’s disciple, the Maggid of Mezrich, had to intervene with heaven for the same reason he called out to the heavens “I do not know how to light the fire, but I can find the place and know the prayer and this must be sufficient.” The miracle was accomplished.

Later still, Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sasov, in turn a disciple of the Maggid of Mezrich, went into the forest to save his people. “I do not know how to light the fire,” he said, “and I do not know the prayer, but I can find the place and this must be sufficient.” Once again, the miracle was accomplished.

When it was the turn of Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn, the great grandson of the Maggid of Mezrich who was named after the Baal Shem Tov, to avert the threat, he sat in his armchair, holding his head in his hands, and said to God: “I am unable to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, and I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story. That must be enough.” And it was.

And it was enough. As we come together in prayer today we are like Rabbi Israel, we are in a new landscape, but we still trust in who we are as a community.

Someone once said the invention of the Jewish prayer book stifled prayer for the people. Indeed as we canonize what prayer is and put it in writing we lose a piece of what it is to be in the moment of prayer. When I lived in the south I envied my Christian friends who could be asked on the spot to offer a word of prayer and riff on the thoughts of the day with the eloquence of a poet. But often when I am asked to give an invocation I run to my bookshelf to find the appropriate language. It is something we lost, like that of generations of Hasidic Rabbis in the story. But in every generation we can tell our story while still keeping faith with our past.

Praying is a singular act we share with others. How we reach out to that which is beyond us is a highly personal thing. How it is received is too quite personal but too often we have created professionals to tell us how to pray and with what words. I know, I kinda am one of those guys. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A shepherd spends his day in the field. Every day he praises God saying things like “Dear God, if you were cold I would give you my robe, if you were hungry I would share my lunch with you.” Or “Dear God you have given me such blessing, if it rained you could borrow my hat”. He didn’t know the traditional prayers but he felt a closeness with God. One day a great scholar and rabbi was walking down the path and heard the shepherd say, “Oh God, you give me such abundance, if only you could come to me and share in my joy and meet my family”. The rabbi was outraged. He told the shepherd that was no way to pray to the Holy One. He took his prayer book and went page by page reading and explaining all the daily prayers the shepherd should recite to pray to God. Hours passed and the day near ended. He gave the shepherd the book and walked away telling him to pray with that. The shepherd couldn’t read so he stuffed the book in his pack and took his flock home. The next day in the field he went to praise God but found he couldn’t remember how the rabbi had taught him. He looked at the book and saw lines and circles that made no sense, so he remained quiet. Days went by and God wondered why the shepherd was silent and sent an angel to investigate. The shepherd told him the story of the rabbi and the angel whisk him away to the heavens where a chorus of angels were praising God says, “Dear God, if you were cold I would give you my robe. If you were hungry I would share my lunch”. The angel returned the shepherd to his field. The next day God was thrilled that the shepherd again began his prayer.

There may always be a right way to do things in our minds. Prayer may be one of them for you. But today we cannot fully embrace the comfort of what things were like just a few short months ago. So now here we stand or sit, at computer screens, struggling to stay connected while continuing the seemingly unending practice of distancing. Our prayers feel different, we are not in the room, and we do not fully experience the joy or angst  in those who would normally be near us. The small boxes are barely enough to stay fully connected in this space, but we can do it. It will be different and we may even be getting use to this. A joke going around the net is that of a congregant texting with their clergy who asked if they were worried that we would lose people the longer we do services online. The response was:

Pastor, I can get up an hour later, I can stay in my pajamas, I can drink coffee on my sofa, and I can mute you.  I think this will only increase attendance. 

Throughout Jewish history we have often changed the way we interact with God, The Tanakh (Bible) teaches God spoke directly to individuals who shared the message with the people.  Later, following God's direction, people sacrificed in many places then one central location.  Later, after the Temple was destroyed, sacrifice gave way to prayer as a means of reaching God.  Our homes replaced the Temple and symbolism allows us to stay connected with our past but blaze our own future.  We see God differently than our ancestors and make meaning of our relationship in our own way.  

When the pandemic hit we were flummoxed by the way we had to change the pattern of daily life. Our screens became a lifeline to family and friends who we normally would gather with, we shopped online and had groceries delivered, we tried to figure out what is safe and what isn’t as we learned to wash our hands like surgeons and avoid showing embarrassing art work on our walls during work meetings or maybe that was just me. 

And praying as a community had to change. But there is hope, you see, look into the eyes of the people on your screen, as they share their homes, sip their coffee and maybe even show off their PJs or workout clothes. This community has stories to tell and words to recite that are lifted up, alone and together. We do not have the room, we do not have the hugs and the hand holding and we do not have the great baked goods to share in fellowship, but we have each other and we have the stories. That will be enough!

The Fire From His Pants is Burning Down the House

 The current President of the United States is a pathological liar.  This all men know.  Some of us have known it since the 80s.  His early fame was based on the lie of his business acumen, his television show was a lie about his ability manage and his political career was based on racist lie about a functional President.  Now, as he fumbles through a collapsing economy and a raging pandemic, he makes wild claims all the time. But two lies this week are dangerous on a level.   

When the explosion in Beirut occurred the other day, there was a great deal of speculation of what caused it on the internet.  Silly speculation was that it was a small nuclear device or a MOAB (Mother of All Bombs).  It was clear from every video that it wasn't a nuclear device because the shock wave would have vaporized those who filmed the blast.  The MOAB which actually stands for Massive Ordinance Air Blast is a bomb the size of a city bus that is dropped from a C-130 and explodes over the target not at grown level.  Since there was always a fire already raging at the port many were filming the area when it blew up.  No one saw an airplane drop a giant bomb at the time.  The current story is that a massive amount of explosive material was being stored at the port and when the fire from a fireworks warehouse reached it the ammonium nitrate it went up.  

But the President a few hours later speaking in front of reporters said that it looked like an attack.  When asked about it in a follow up he said that he spoke with the generals and they said it was an attack.  He has since doubled down.  The problem is that there is no evidence it was an attack and so now it feeds the rumors that are part of the culture in that part of the world.  Lebanon is a country whose government is already in trouble because of failures on many levels but it also sows the seeds of conspiracies.  So when rumors are out that it was an attack there are few suspects in the minds of the people and the main antagonist is Israel.  In fact, there are those in the reason who blame Israel for losing a sock in the wash.  While Israel was pleading to allow then to come help with the aftermath, our President is feeding the notion that Israel may be responsible for this horrific accident.  This helps the government of Lebanon avoid their own culpability in the explosion because they see calls for revolution in the streets today.   This was not only an irresponsible statement, referencing the generals made it a lie that drags our military leaders into it.  They, the generals, however have stated that they can't figure out who said anything to the President.  

The other lie was dangerous to our own citizens.  In an interview with Fox News, the President said children are immune to Covid-19.  This was part of his effort to have schools open for in-person instruction around the country.  This is simply not true.  Children get Covid-19, children die of Covid-19, children spread Covid-19 to vulnerable family members, and children should not be treated as canaries in coal mines.  This lie will feed the ridiculous people who see the virus as a hoax, a Democratic ploy or some other nonsense.  I have already seen this lie repeated by the anti-mask, anti-lock down crowd.  They take what the President says as fact.  While reality doesn't care what you think, the actions of those who believe these falsehoods can be deadly to many.  The President shouldn't make these kinds of statements that are not only false they drive actions that put people at risk.  To me it is clear that he doesn't care about the people he could hurt.

The President lies easily and sometimes for no reason.  It seems to be the way he interacts with the universe.  Some of his lies are laughable.  Some of his lies are hurtful.  Some of his lies are dangerous.  But he lies so often that he is rarely held accountable because by the time anyone speaks on the first lie his next one is in the wild.  But we must stop and analyse these kinds of lies because if we don't who knows what will come next.  

You Can Beat Covid-19.......But it Means Being Humble

Last week at a Congressional hearing on the Corona virus response we saw members of the House of Representatives all Republicans try to smear Dr. Fauci and of course spread wild and nonsensical conspiracy theories all to impress the President.  It was gross but it further extended the the supply of nonsense that is driving the people on the street who are not following public health orders and extending the now ridiculous rise in Covid-19 cases and the coming deaths.  As other countries continue to squash the rise of cases we see the US exploding and spreading of cases and more and more people saying they have had enough and not following the simplest of guidelines to help slow the pandemic.  We have become a rogue nation whose citizens are not allowed to travel to many other countries.  It is getting clearer every day that if we had had a nationwide shutdown and a real testing plan in March and April we could be closer to normal.  Now we are still having to worry about what we might encounter at a grocery store or even a park.  The President and his enablers have failed us and yet they still spew asinine things and retweet lunatics.  So here are a few things.

1.  Masks work, they help slow down the spread.  They will not make you sick.  They will not stop you from getting oxygen.  You won't breath in your own CO2 or bacteria.  Yes masks aren't perfect and help others if you are sick and don't know more than they help you as a wearer but Covid-19 is a disease you can have with few or no symptoms and still spread it.  If we all wore masks when we can't remain physically distance it will go a long way to stop the spread.  

2.  Kids can get it.  I am tired of people telling me kids are immune or don't suffer with this disease.  Kids have died.  Not just kids with serious medical conditions.  But even those that haven't they have suffered greatly.  We don't know the long term effects of this virus on the system.  We have to remember to keep our children safe.

3.  Which leads me to this, opening schools in many places is just dumb and dangerous.  In places the virus is not under control the opening of schools for in-person classes will cause problems.  We know this from a day care center in Arizona and an overnight camp in Georgia.  And now we know as schools began to open last week for the fall and students and staff at different schools had positive tests.  How are we going to keep kids safe in an environment that is not designed for it and that are already so underfunded in many places.  

4.  Sports can be a way to do things like the NBA and NHL with sequestering of players and regular testing and contact tracing.  (if only we could do that everywhere)  but the Major League Baseball which is not using a model where players stay in one place has already in the first week of play had to cancel games because the virus is spreading in club houses.  This is a tale of two models and while it is the worst of times for both we are going to see how best to proceed.  

5.  THERE IS NO CURE.  Hydroxychloroquine does not cure Covid-19.  It doesn't.  Studies have shown it.  Those studies that have suggested it does help were highly flawed.  The people promoting it are people who have no real background in the area of study and have lied about their practice.  The recent video that caused a stir because the President of the United States decided to retweet it and the right wing noise machine tried to amplify it was a goulash of gibberish.  The doctors (some of whom don't even practice medicine anymore) are part of a right wing organization that sounds like a medical society but really is just a repository of the ridiculous like HIV does not cause AIDS or that vaccines cause autism.  One of the doctors promoting this so-called cure believes that demons have sex with people at night and cause disorders and that a woman got pregnant from fantasizing about a celebrity and prayed the baby away.  Maybe it became a spirit baby and killed Renly, I just couldn't follow after a few minutes.  

6.  This is not a simple flu.  This is at least 10X more deadly than the flu and spreads a lot more easily.  And no you didn't have it in November so stop trying to tell us you had it then and you were fine.  You may have had the flu or a cold or just didn't feel good.  Who knows.  This is a deadly disease that will kill between 1-4 percent of the people who get it.  

7.  There is no conspiracy to take away your rights.  People keep telling me mask requirements and shut down orders are part of a grand conspiracy to take away our rights.  The masks show who is compliant with orders and the shutdowns are to make us see government as the savior.  They also say things like the vaccine that is coming is part of a way to put a chip in each one of us to trace our movements and monitor what we eat and do all day.  They posted this from their cell phone that they use to order take out that the company records so you can quickly order again.  The same phone that the OS will watch to target ads to you for things that you enjoy.  You know the phone whose GPS data is stored in the cloud for you for easy access from you smart home system.  The one where you log you heart rate and blood pressure while you trace your exercise routine that is sent to ap database to tell you when and how hard you should workout.  Here is the thing, the nanotechnology costs involved in creating a chip that can injected with the vaccine is unnecessary since you carry it with you everywhere you go already.  Why bother.

This is just a little of the stupidity that has become the norm under a President who loves to tell us he is the smartest person in the room and is fooled by the nonsense that is out there.  Who attacks people smarter than he is because they become more popular.  So a few rules:

1.  Go out only when necessary and if you must visit with people take care to physically distance.

2.  Wear a mask everywhere in public there are people, especially strangers.

3.  Stop trying make excuses why the virus is won't hurt you.  It can and if you don't take it seriously it likely will.  

4.  Listen to the voices of real researchers in the field and to the doctors treating real patients not metaphysical ones.  

This disease is terrible but many places around the world have shown we can beat it back.  Use common sense and act accordingly.  Wear a mask, wash hands regularly, and maintain distancing whenever possible.  It won't be magic if it disappears, it will be the effort of patriots and humans with empathy to slow the spread and help us find a way to use science to defeat it.  Our country did this 100 years ago, let's not let the sacrifices that they made in their pandemic go to waste.  

Justice Should Be Blind

On Friday, July 23 the Supreme Court, for the second time in recent months, sided with a Governor's pandemic safety order over the objection of a church.  In this case a Nevada church was asking to be allowed to have 90 worshipers at a time to conduct services instead of being limited to 50 at a time.  This restriction is much stricter than that of casinos who can operate at a higher rate of capacity.  This case follows another court decisions weeks ago where a southern California church challenged a shut down orders that would not allow in-person services at houses of worshipers.  Now in the California case the suit brought was nonsense, at the height of a pandemic there are broad powers to stop mass gatherings and of course there were other ways the or church to serve the congregants.  The Nevada case was trickier because, on its face, the discrimination against Houses of Worship seemed more clear.  In the decent, Justice Gorsuch called into question the ability of a theater with 10 screens to house 500 people, but a church that is large and can distance and use masks can't have more than 50 worshipers at a time.  Beyond that the casinos can be fairly packed and people gathering close by many without masks.  But the decisions of the court not to change a lower court's ruling on this said that those industries are highly regulated and easier to totally shutdown and punish over Houses of Worship.  In both these cases Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the so-called liberal wing of the court.  

Now for me I think the Nevada case could have gone either way and I would have been fine with the ruling.  While a general shutdown of large gatherings is something I think I am comfortable with in crisis situations, the idea that we make separate rules for Houses of Worship and other businesses needs to be carefully watched.  However, it appears the court has decided to give a good deal of power to local officials on public health and keep the court out of it.  Now if the church itself was forced to his number while synagogues or mosques were allowed more worshipers I would assume the court would have ruled 9-0 in favor of the church. I hope that as a culture we never get to that.  But what was amazing was the reaction not only of the right wing noise machine and the ignorant masses, but of elected officials to Robert's vote.

Senator Ted Cruz, once thought of as a potential Supreme Court Justice, tweeted that Roberts was a traitor.  When asked to what he didn't respond.  But that message was echoed around the internet and escalated to calling for his impeachment and that he must be a Democrat or part of the Deep State or some Q-Anon fever dream or such.  It is a terrible thing to see this.  There have always been people who don't understand how government works, recent calls to impeach Nancy Pelosi are a sign of that.  (you don't impeach a member of the House of Representatives).   But this kind of talk about a traitor on the court begs the question of a traitor to what?  The Constitution?  Certainly not in this case, a well reasoned argument shows that there is no infringement on worship and that in fact it protects the church in this case from a much more severe situation if they were to become an epicenter of spread.  So one can only assume that the conservative voices calling the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a traitor meant that he was a traitor to their ideology.  That is a dangerous thing for the average person to think, SCOTUS (The Supreme Court of the United States) should never be partisan.  But when it comes from elected officials, including the President, that is in fact bordering on a Constitutional crisis. 

The Right Wing has tried and recently have succeeded at creating a Federal court system that is highly partisan.  Senator McConnell held up many appointees of President Obama including maybe the most qualified person in the country to serve on SCOTUS, Merrick Garland.  Then when President Trump was in office pushed through many nominees, including some so woefully unqualified that in a few cases it was laughable even for Republican members of the Senate.  For them they want to have their conservative positions validated beyond what the Constitution says or even implies.  Members of Congress or the Executive challenging the faithfulness of a Justice is just not what we value in this country.  It is scary.  But in recent years these kinds of things have become so common that not a lot is said about it.  

Throughout the history of the court SCOTUS members have voted in favor of the Constitution even if it goes against the ideology of the person who appointed them.  In fact if they never did that would be a clear sign that they might not have been the best pick for the country.  Even the most conservative Justice of my lifetime, the late Anton Scalia, was criticized by some on the right for following his vision of the Constitution which sometimes butted up against the right wing desires.  

The normal structure of American government is crumbling and we don't have the time to focus on every thing that is in trouble.  Today the Attorney General will be questioned in a Congressional Committee about his role in the administration and his influence on various investigations into people close to the President and circumventing justice in cases that have already been to court.  The President went on a Twitter rampage last night attacking the one person the country trusts on Covid.  The President has lied about simple things and big things.  We are easily distracted.  But we must keep an eye on the courts and those who want to twist it toward their political positions instead of the Constitution.  This is where the battle will continue even after President Trump leaves office, even after the Republicans lose their Senate majority, even after most of the government returns to normal.  Call this out.  Remember the one thing that can keep us a Democratic-Republic is a fair and free judiciary.  Keep your eyes open.