National Day of Patriotic Devotion

[Haruo]

How a serious Christian can buy into this stuff is beyond me. If you plan to say anything that the Emperor doesn't want to hear, be sure you have a bomb shelter handy and withdraw all your bank accounts in small bills. I hope when William returns he will be able to dissuade me from my growing pessimism, but I doubt it. I think that government of the people, by the people, and for the people under the Constitution as amended is on its way out the door. A national general strike is in the offing, and I suppose I'll have to join it. Luckily, we live outside the city limits, so we will just be collateral damage when Seattle bites it. I'm sorry, I'm seriously worried at the moment, makes me sound like Jim's leftwing alter ego.

[William Thornton]

I'm not seeing where you get this. Economics optimism is up. Trump to s undoing some Obama's X orders.

[James]

Trump the chump is changing my life and not for the better. Our strongest friendship in this area may come to an end on Friday. They are republican we are democrat. I used to be independent. Now I can vote in any election without even knowing who's running. I just vote for the democrats on the ballot. Almost anything goes in trying to disrupt the republican monolith. Our friends will come to our house on Friday for an afternoon of bridge. The wife in this pair insists that we be calm and that everything will turn out all right.

I disagree. I had four events in my life when I faced being fired or forced to take another job. My right to communicate with my congressman and others won me a promotion and reassignment to a dream job and a better working environment. Trump's edict on communication would have stopped everything for me. The law that says any congressman that gets mad at me could reduce my salary to one dollar. This is absurd. This could happen to a civil servant who has 27 years of the highest possible performance appraisal. CS employees have no protection against the temper tantrums of an idiot. Also being talked about is the idea that the government can quit paying pensions to retired civil servants on the grounds that the gove has no legal obligation to continue paying the pensions. For people like me, there is the hope that those of us who are living on these pensions will be grandfathered. Our CSRS retirement trust will outlast those of us who depend on it. I was one of the last to retire on pure CSRS. All currently employed civil servants are covered by social security.

Trump is a beserker running amok. He reacts strongly to those things he should ignore and ignores things that could lead to violating the Constitution and bringing our nation to ruin. Some of you thing I'm taking things out of proportion. I do not.
Restricting communication by Government employees is just a step away from trashing "Free Speech" for all. Trump is already trying to control the press just like the Russians do.

I think I'll stop now. Those of you who think Trump will be a great president will not be convinced otherwise. But one last thought. I did not think anything, especially politics could destroy the friendship mentioned at the beginning of this rant. Now I know it can. **** all repubs and dems who have led us to this.

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

He says he would have won the popular vote if not for three to five million illegal votes cast. Even a hint of evidence? No.
He says part of the illegal vote problem is people registered in more than one state. As far as I can find that is only known to have resulted in one illegal vote. And his own top adviser Bannon is registered in two states (but only voted in one, this time).

The economic optimism is mostly motivated by eagerness to see regulations scuttled. Short-term idiot-type capitalism, mostly.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

Heck, God's hand was on several of the foreign kings who did dastardly things to the Chosen People. God's hand may be on everything (at any rate, we all know he's got the whole world in his hand). But that doesn't make worship of the State (which Donald appears to equate, à la Louis XIV, to himself) Christianity!

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

Nobody claims that the UN is perfect, but the right wing's efforts to link the UN with the anti-Christ (as in the Left Behind series) has caused a repudiation of the values of diplomacy. It's important to remember that the UN has prevented quite a number of international conflicts, has delivered relief in many desperate settings, and has offered a forum for developing a framework for diplomacy that has helped prevent more shooting wars. If you want to revoke it from the UN, William, I hope you will not complain about spending it on deaths.

[William Thornton]

Rather sunny view of the UN and I haven't heard a wing nut label the UN as the antichrist in decades.

[Stephen Fox]

Here is something deep and loaded for all

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/25/511507434 ... r-doomsday

Read the New Yorker piece in tandem with my blog of two days ago on Bama's gift to the Trump White House staff, communications strategist Cliff Sims of Yellowhammer News, FBC Gardendale, Church of the Highlands and 21 31 Arms, Faith Freedom and Firearms.