It’s only the top of the second with many more innings to play

I was watching last night’s baseball game in which the Los Angeles Dodgers scored three runs in the top of the first and led the Houston Astros, 3-0, after one full inning. At that point in time, there was no evidence to suggest that the teams would go on to hit seven home runs, rally from big deficits to tie the score three separate times or go to extra innings before the Astros finally won, 13-12, in a World Series game for the ages.

Today, after former Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were arrested on indictments acquired by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the White House enthusiastically proclaimed that the indictments provided “no evidence of collusion” between Trump and the Russians to rig the 2016 election.

Welcome to the top of the second inning.

The White House may be right about the first indictments to come from Mueller’s probe of the Trump administration and its alleged ties to Russian involvement in the presidential election. On their face, they don’t present a case for collusion or point directly at faux President Donald Trump in any meaningful way.

There is, however, an apparent mountain of evidence that Manafort laundered money, worked illegally as an agent for a foreign government and lied on official government documents – all serious crimes in my book – and that Gates may have joined him in those endeavors.

That’s really all the arrests were intended to demonstrate at this point in time. There was no evidence to suggest that Mueller, at this early stage of the investigation, even tried to prove collusion or that the special counsel is now ready to pack up his briefcase and head back to life as a corporate attorney. The man known for his thoughtfulness, his thoroughness and his attention to detail, is only getting started.

The question now is, facing a 12-count indictment and some fairly serious charges, will Manafort tell what he knows about the campaign and/or lead investigators to other campaign staffers who might have a story to tell? What happens next? Only Mueller and Manafort may know.

I also noticed the White House had somewhat less to say about former foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his dealings with Kremlin agents during the election. Trump and his lawyers appeared to fall back on one of their favorite excuses by saying that Papadopoulos was an unpaid volunteer adviser who only attended a meeting or two and was not a key player in the administration.

That may or may not be true – you never really know with Trump – but one thing is certain: Papadopoulos did work for Trump and does know other people who were active in the campaign, and his guilty plea suggests to me that he might have plenty to say to investigators as well. Can you say "John Dean?"

Today’s news was certainly exciting and it’s likely to dominate the news cycle for several days (or weeks) to come. It was greeted like a special package that arrived in the mail a few days before Christmas and sat under the tree taunting us before we could finally tear off the wrapper. Now we’ll be watching eagerly for more shoes – and more indictments – to drop on members of the Trump team.

I mean, it occurs to me that we haven’t heard much recently from Mike Flynn or Carter Page or some of the other Trumpeteers who were targeted by this investigation. Are they talking? If so, which ones are singing and which ones aren’t? What do they know and when did they know it? Oh, and did anyone look at their emails?

And then there’s Jared.

These are questions for the second, third, fifth, seventh and other upcoming innings in the Robert Mueller Special Counsel World Series. There is no evidence to suggest that the serious stuff against Trump and others won’t continue to come down in its own good time.

So, batter up!

My senators are working hard for me…except when they’re not

Since I started sending letters and emails to my U.S. senators, they have both added my name to their newsletter mailing lists. Words can’t describe my excitement. Recently, both of them sent me their latest editions and I’m eager to share the news with you.

First, you should know that when I wrote to Senators Joe Manchin (D) and Shelley Moore Capito (R), I expressed my grave concern about issues that are critical to the health and welfare of my wife, myself and other people I know. For example, I pleaded with Mrs. Capito to vote against the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act because without its protections for pre-existing conditions, my wife can’t get health insurance.

She had promised West Virginians that she had our best interests at heart, announcing that she did not go to Washington to hurt people. Then, as near as I can tell, she voted in favor of every version of the “repeal and replace” bill that came to the floor.

I don’t know about every West Virginian, but that certainly would have hurt the two of us.

Then I asked both senators to please keep their hands off my Social Security and Medicare, which are essential to my wife and I if we are to keep on living. In another year, we will both depend on Medicare for our health insurance and Social Security accounts for a big chunk of our monthly income. Besides, I pointed out, it was our money to begin with and Congress has no moral right to steal it from us to award tax cuts to wealthy Republican donors.

That argument was apparently not sufficient to dissuade Mrs. Capito from enthusiastically supporting the latest Republican budget proposal which – last time I checked – would cut millions of dollars from Medicare and trillions from Medicaid, which again seems like something that would actually hurt people in West Virginia.

But wait! Not according to her newsletter:

“The Senate took the first major step toward achieving comprehensive pro-growth tax reform by passing the budget resolution this week. This is great news for all West Virginians because it means we have an opportunity to grow our nation’s economy, create jobs and put more money in the pockets of middle-class families.

“Think about it this way: Would you like to have more money to spend on the things you and your family need? Well, this is exactly what we are trying to accomplish.”

Sorry, Mrs. Capito, but that’s just trickle-down economics all over again. Give major tax breaks to the top 1% of the population and cut business taxes for wealthy donors and a cornucopia of riches will trickle down to Average Joe, his wife and six kids back here in West Virginia. It works to perfection…except when it doesn’t.  (Note: It never has.)

So Mrs. Capito’s pledge to never hurt anyone is just as hollow as, well, anything Donald Trump has said since he started running for president. Thanks, Shel. You have proven to be everything that I expected … and so much Moore.  

Manchin is a slightly different animal. A Democrat except when he’s not, Joe did vote against repealing the ACA and against the Republican budget (thanks for that!) but is “proud” to support President Trump’s rollback of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan so that 20 more coal miners can keep their jobs while the environment goes to hell.   

"The EPA’s proposed rule to roll back the Clean Power Plan is long overdue and welcome good news for West Virginia,” Manchin’s newsletter boasts. "This reversal demonstrates the Trump Administration’s willingness to work with West Virginia, instead of against us, to prevent EPA overreach and utilize state-driven policies.

“I look forward to working with President Trump, his Administration and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in Congress to put partisanship aside and set our nation on a course to secure our energy future.”

Trump, Trump Trump… I’m sorry, Joe, but for a Democrat, you seem to have way too many Trump references in your newsletter. Frankly, I don’t want you working with President Trump on anything, unless maybe you could help guide him out the front door of the White House and into a waiting prison bus, and I really don’t want you bragging about him to your constituents.   

*     *     *

Ironically, another item in Joe’s missive advertises free black lung screenings by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in the coal mining towns of Matewan and Oceana. It’s like he was saying, “Go ahead and mine the coal, fellas, and when the coal dust makes you sick and you can no longer breathe, we’ll check your lungs out for free.”

Then, after they get checked out, those miners can receive treatment for their black lung disease by using their Medicaid benefits. Right, Mrs. Capito?

Wait! What?

Lying liars, Twitter wars, medical marvels

I haven’t written much lately, and there’s a reason for that. Watching the news over the past week or two has me shaking my head so much I think parts of it have broken loose. At the very least, it’s made me so dizzy I can’t focus on the keyboard.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know there are two things I can’t abide: stupidity and lying, which coincidentally happen to be the two main factors that made Donald Trump the faux president of the United States. He lied continually throughout his campaign and 62 million voters were too stupid to understand.

Stupidity aside, recently we have been observing a series of running feuds between the Trump administration and everyone from former presidents to members of Congress and the widow of an American serviceman killed in action. It goes something like this: In a series of speeches, comments and tweets, Trump the liar tells some lies and another liar lies to defend his lies, and yet another liar lies about why the liar lied in the first place, and finally the white nationalist who left the White House but still holds Trump’s leash admits that one of the lying liars lied…but finds a way to brag about it.

You try writing a coherent blog about all of that. I dare you.

Here’s a partial recap for those of you keeping score at home:

* Twelve days after four American soldiers are killed in Niger, Africa, Trump was asked at a press conference why he hadn’t said anything about the attack. Instead of answering the question, he claimed that former presidents like George Bush and Barack Obama never contacted the spouses of soldiers killed in action, which was a lie. Then he said he does call them when he gets the chance (another lie), claimed that letters had been written and were being sent to all of them as we speak (another lie) and swore that he’s been doing this since he took office in January (another lie).

We know these were lies because right after he said all of this, the White House had to scramble to get a list of all servicemen and women killed around the world since Trump’s inauguration in January. See? Not only did he not call or write to any of their spouses, he didn’t even know who the slain soldiers were.

* When he did actually call the widow of one of the Niger victims, she claimed that he insulted her. When a congresswoman who was with the widow backed up her story, Trump said that was a lie. He insulted the widow and the congresswoman, so they insulted him back, forcing him to insult them back, which meant they each had to go on TV to insult him back…you get the idea. Meanwhile, Trump trotted out his Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, to call the distraught widow an “empty barrel” and defend the president’s insults as basic military protocol.

* Of course, spokesmen for Presidents Bush and Obama took issue with Trump’s lies, and a little research showed that they were telling the truth, which meant that Trump was, well, you know, lying.

* About the same time, both Bush and Obama made speeches at separate events unrelated to the whole Niger thing in which they strongly criticized the Trump administration for its “nationalism and bigotry” (Bush) and the “social, economic and racial schisms that are dividing American society” (Obama). Neither former president mentioned Trump by name.

* That prompted White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to proclaim that Bush and Obama were not talking about Trump when they said those terrible things. She didn’t say who they were talking about, however, apparently leaving us to decide on our own. Perhaps it was someone named Ronald Trump who is president of a small eastern European country named Alterno Factovenia, which only appears on maps made available to Trump and his cabinet members.

Or maybe she was just lying…again. You be the judge.

* To top it off, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon – who was exiled from the White House for being too bat-shit crazy to have security clearance but who still controls Trump’s brain – seemed to dismiss Sanders’s lie by saying that Bush was in fact talking about Trump, but it doesn’t really matter because Bush didn’t know what he was talking about…just like when he was president.

That all happened over two or three days…and I haven’t even gotten into Trump’s twitter wars with Republican senators who refuse to kneel and kiss his ring. Here’s a small taste:

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake: “We must never regard as ‘normal’ the…personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions; the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, [or] the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.”

Trump: “Jeff Flake, with an 18% approval rating in Arizona, said ‘a lot of my colleagues have spoken out.’ Really, they just gave me a standing O!”

Tennessee Senator Jeff Corker: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center.”

“I don’t know why (Trump) lowers himself to such a low, low standard and debases our country in the way that he does, but he does.”

Trump “has great difficulty with the truth.”

Trump: “Bob Corker…couldn't get elected dog catcher in Tennessee.”

By my count, there are six Republican senators who have recently stood up to Donald Trump: Corker, Flake, John McCain, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Rand Paul. Flake and Corker are retiring and McCain has cancer and probably won’t run again. The two women have bigger balls than all of their male colleagues and Rand Paul is opposed to everything.

That leaves 46 Republicans in the Senate (and 240-some in the House) who seem willing to keep riding the Trump Train whether it carries them to glory or destruction. I find it remarkable how these medical marvels can stand erect without a spine.

Sociopath or psychopath? I like presidents who aren't 'paths'

I never imagined that, while writing commentaries and essays about the president of the United States, I’d have to research the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, but here we are in late October in the year two thousand and seventeen…and these are strange days indeed. 

In previous comments here and on Facebook and Twitter, I may have, er, hypothetically described our current president as a “psychopathic narcissist,” only to be, umm, hypothetically corrected by my wife, who majored in psychology in college. “You mean ‘sociopath,’ she hypothetically told me, ‘not psychopath.’”

At the same time, I’m watching a Netflix series called “Mindhunter” about the origins of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit that features the following exchange about Richard Nixon:

FBI Agent Holden Ford: “How do you get to be president of the United States if you’re a sociopath?”

Psychology Professor Dr. Wendy Carr: “The question is, how do you get to be president of the United States if you’re not?”

So anyhow I looked it up and here’s an excerpt of what WebMD has to say:

You may have heard people call someone else a “psychopath” or a “sociopath.” You won’t find the definitions in mental health’s official handbook, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Doctors use a different term instead: antisocial personality disorder.

Most experts believe psychopaths and sociopaths share a similar set of traits. People like this have a poor inner sense of right and wrong. They also can’t seem to understand or share another person’s feelings. But there are some differences, too.

A key difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is whether he has a conscience, the little voice inside that lets us know when we’re doing something wrong. A psychopath doesn’t have a conscience. If he lies to you so he can steal your money, he won’t feel any moral qualms, though he may pretend to. He may observe others and then act the way they do so he’s not “found out.” A sociopath typically has a conscience, but it’s weak. He may know that taking your money is wrong, and he might feel some guilt or remorse, but that won’t stop his behavior.

Both lack empathy, the ability to stand in someone else’s shoes and understand how they feel, but a psychopath has less regard for others. Someone with this personality type sees others as objects he can use for his own benefit.

The article goes on to say that psychopaths and sociopaths are usually not violent, but use manipulation and reckless behavior to get what they want. Others are skilled at climbing their way up the corporate [or political] ladder, even if they have to hurt someone to get there. Does all of this sound like anyone you know?

If you’re really interested, read the full story under the link above or do your own research of other sources. I’m sure there are many. I found out what I wanted to know, which is that neither psychopaths nor sociopaths exhibit a set of traits that I want my president to have. Unfortunately, when I was asked that question last fall, they only gave me one vote.

When you don’t want to look at the wreck but can’t help yourself

(Click the highlighted links for source material.)

Some days, so many things happen that it’s hard to know where to look. It’s like you’re driving down the highway and see four traffic accidents – all in the same location. Maybe you really don't want to look, but your brain says you must. So you do look but your eyes tend to jump from one to another and before you know it, you’ve passed them by.

Wednesday was that kind of day.

All of these things came to light on Wednesday, and looking back, I’m not sure which of them I find to be more disturbing:

(1) Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow with the non-profit progressive research organization Media Matters, studied the relationship between the right-wing morning talk show “Fox and Friends” and the tweets that fly off the fingers of Donald Trump. He found that many times, whatever is discussed on the Fox News program is regurgitated by our faux-president, usually within a half-hour or so of the broadcast. In other words, American foreign and domestic policy could well be influenced by such luminaries as Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt.

In addition, The Washington Post reported that Trump has tweeted to, or about, Fox News nearly 130 times since he was elected president, and frequently repeats views and topics he has heard on the network.

(2) Trump once again demonstrated that he can’t maintain a policy position on any important issue for more than, say, six hours in a row without changing his mind several times. He then forgets whether he’s for something or against it, so he changes the subject until someone reminds him to bring it up again somewhere down the road.

He did this Wednesday with regard to a bi-partisan bill proposed by two senators to temporarily fix the damage Trump did to the Affordable Care Act, when he reduced the funds used to promote the program and cut off altogether the government subsidies that make the ACA “affordable.” Trump was for the bill before he was against it before he wasn’t sure about it before he was taking credit for it before he was probably against it again.

Never mind that this is exactly the kind of across-the-aisle collaboration that Trump said he wanted after the famous John McCain “thumbs down” defeated the last of the Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. But instead, Trump was on and off so often Wednesday that I got a stiff neck from SMH.   

(3) Next, Trump showed us how he feels about communicating with the families of American military members killed in action overseas. Instead of acting as Consoler-in-Chief – a sad, solemn but necessary responsibility of his office – he instead turned the deaths of four soldiers in Niger into a competition among himself and former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush to see who could make the most phone calls to grieving families.

Then, when he actually did start making phone calls – albeit nearly two weeks late – he botched the whole operation by insulting a Gold Star family as well as other veterans around the U.S. with his lack of empathy and his inability to speak directly to adults unless they’re waving Confederate flags and shouting “lock her up” at his rallies.

(4) And finally, Trump reinforced the notion that the pain and suffering of other Americans means very little to him unless he can find a way to turn the spotlight on himself. People are still dying in Puerto Rico, California’s wine country has been burning for days, millions of people are on the verge of losing their health insurance and North Korea is still taunting us with nuclear missiles, yet Trump still finds time to be pissed off at the National Football League because it won’t demand that its players stand for the Star Spangled Banner.

I guess he’s still hung up on that whole United States Football League thing when he tried to take on the NFL and failed miserably. Even so, the USFL folded way back in 1986. It seems to me, after 31 years, it’s about time to give that grudge a rest and get on with the business of, oh, I don’t know, insulting John McCain?

Woke up, rubbed my eyes, heard another pack of lies…

Another day, another pack of lies from the Prevaricator-in-Chief.

Apparently, everything Donald Trump said yesterday was a lie. Well, probably not everything. If he said he wanted toast for breakfast that was possibly true. If he said he wanted to wear a long red tie, or a blue one with white stripes, that could have been true. And he did say that everything bad that has happened to his administration was someone else’s fault.

That last statement, in and of itself, is also a lie, but then he added, “We're not getting the job done. And I'm not going to blame myself, I'll be honest." So Trump announced that he is not getting the job done and he is not blaming himself for his own failures. Now that, my friends, is the truth.

But back to the lies. Keep in mind, this was all in one, uh, day in the life.

(1) In a cabinet meeting, he said the Affordable Care Act is dead. It is not.

It's true that Trump has done everything he could through Executive Order to kill Obamacare, including withholding funds to advertise the enrollment period, frightening insurance companies out of the marketplace and now cutting off funds to pay government subsidies for enrollees, but the ACA lives on. Premium rates are already established for 2018, open enrollment starts in two weeks and millions of Americans are lining up for health insurance that they couldn’t otherwise obtain.

Lawsuits have been filed against the Trump order, members of Congress are weighing options to reinstate the subsidies and other suggestions are being kicked around, so the ACA is alive and…well, it’s not alive and ‘well,’ but it’s alive all the same.

(2) He claimed that former presidents never called the families of slain American soldiers, making Trump the first one to ever do that. This is so blatantly not true that after he said it at a press conference, he had to walk it back before the same event had even concluded.

Presidents all through history have communicated with the families of our slain warriors as part of their solemn duty to America. Note the use of the words “through history,” which explains why Trump didn’t know that. Within minutes after Trump said this, the sister of a soldier killed in action talked about President Bush hugging her as she cried, and reports came out that President Obama not only communicated with families but also visited the graves of lost soldiers in secret and alone because he didn’t want to call attention to himself.

(3) Trump told reporters that Puerto Rico’s electrical grid had been a shambles before Hurricane Maria, and the storm further destroyed all of the power plants on the island. Again, not true.

Maria brought down power lines and damaged poles and transmission towers – and much of the island is still without electricity – but all of the power plants survived with little or no damage. It’s probably true that Puerto Rico’s electrical grid was not the finest in the world before the storm, but everything Trump said after that is a lie.

(4) Next, Trump announced that his relationship with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “is outstanding” and “has been outstanding” for many years since before Trump was a candidate. This is the same Mitch McConnell that Trump spent all summer criticizing for dropping this ball and that ball and who is now being targeted for overthrow by Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon.

And finally:

(5) Trump proclaimed, “With the exception of a few – and that is a very small few – I have a fantastic relationship with the people in the Senate, and with the people in Congress… Just so you understand, the Republican Party is very, very unified.”

I’m just going to leave that right there, but if you want to read a bunch of other lies, google "Trump press conference." There's some more doozies in there.

When will Trump start dismantling Lady Liberty?

Donald Trump continues to chip away at everything good about America. Before long, I expect him to send confederate flag-waving white supremacists with hammers and chisels to start chipping away at the Statue of Liberty. Then, the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore and the statue of Martin Luther King Jr. won’t be far behind.

Last night, when he thought no one was looking, he carved another huge chunk out of the Affordable Care Act. That was two large chunks in a single day, so badly dismantling the law that elderly, poor and sick people who depend on the ACA are almost certain to die, just so Trump can continue to try and make Barack Obama’s name disappear from history.

Trump isn’t smart enough to craft his own health care legislation, even though he claimed during the campaign that he already had one and would roll it out on Day One. (Who knew health insurance was so complicated?)  And he isn’t influential enough or politically savvy enough to convince a Republican-controlled Congress to pass a better version of the law.

So, the only option left for him is to cripple Obamacare with executive orders that break off major portions of the law – a law, by the way, that enabled millions of low- and middle-class Americans to have health insurance for the first time in their lives.

I tried to think of a word that describes a person who would do this to millions of people for his own gratification, but “vile,” “despicable,” “evil,” “wicked,” “deplorable” and “heartless” just don’t do it for me any longer. I’m going to call it “Trump-a-psycho-narcissistic-paranoia-phrenic” until something better comes along.

I suppose I could expand this essay by listing all of the pieces of America that Trump has chipped off and discarded, but I’m just too tired and weary to look them all up. Off the top of my head are:

• The environment,
• Immigrant rights,
• Women’s rights,
• Workers’ rights,
• All other basic human rights,
• Public education,
• Fair housing,
• Government ethics,
• Protection of our natural resources,
• Protection of endangered animals,
• Protection of our national parks,
• Our relationship with our allies,
• Our participation in treaties and agreements designed to strengthen and protect America, and
• Our standing among other nations in the world.

Oh, and there’s also failure to uphold and defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, failure to respect the office of president and failure to recognize the respective authority of the three branches of government. I apologize if I left out something important...oh, wait! Let's add his failure to condemn neo-Nazis and white supremacists or to adequately support the brown people of Puerto Rico.

For a more complete (and very impressive) list, google “Amy Siskind” or go to her Facebook page and read her weekly summaries. She’s been doing an amazing job of keeping track of Trump's authoritarianism since before the inauguration.

Spoiler alert: After you read what Amy has compiled, you’ll begin to wonder what – if anything – is left of the country we used to have. Sadness and depression may follow. You’ve been warned.

Who opposes equal rights under the law? Part 2.

The organization leading the campaign against Fairmont’s Human Rights Commission ordinance is the Family Policy Council (FPC) of West Virginia.  An article posted on the FPC web site reads as follows (the typos are FPC's):

“Breaking News! The Department of Justice just sided with the Colorado cake baker and against the proposed Fairmont ordinance, and against the other nine cities’ ordinances in West Virginia that allow men into ladies’ rooms!!! (1)

“In a surprise legal brief in defense of the First Amendment rights of Jack Phillips, a private business owner, President Trumps Department of Justice filed legal document arguing that the Supreme Court in November, (2) must find in favor of freedom of speech.

“The very good news for West Virginia is that is virtually signals that (3) such ordinances are unenforceable. It would be foolhardy for any additional cities to push forward with similar ordinances now.”

Oh, geez, where to begin?

(1) First off, what the DoJ actually did in the Colorado case was to file a brief that will be included among the comments when the Supreme Court takes up the issue later this year. This brief has absolutely no bearing on Fairmont's Human Rights Commission ordinance, which isn’t even a law. The FPC is conflating two cases, which the Trumpsters are prone to do. The DoJ is not weighing in on a City of Fairmont policy ordinance that only asks people to treat others fairly.

(2) The Department of Justice DOES NOT tell the Supreme Court how to rule on any case, as this implies. Trump would LIKE for that to be true, but it is not. Their brief will be considered with all of the others, some supporting the baker who refused to serve a gay couple and some supporting gay rights. Making anything more out of this at this time is a misrepresentation of facts.

(3) Fairmont's ordinance cannot be ruled “unenforceable” because it's not a law to be enforced. It's a policy guideline designed to encourage Fairmont citizens to treat each other fairly. Why would anyone oppose fair treatment for all citizens? You decide. I think the answer is clear.

Some might argue that the policy council's platform is a basket of misstatements, misrepresentations, conflations, assumptions, speculation and diversion wrapped up with a ribbon of lies. It's no wonder some of his followers have nicknamed themselves "Deplorable."

I can’t think of a better name.

Why would anyone oppose freedom and equality for all? Oh, yeah…

There are organizations going around Fairmont, W.Va., with petitions telling citizens that a new Human Rights Commission ordinance would allow men to dress up like women and enter women's rest rooms to expose themselves or do whatever -- and do it legally -- because the ordinance extends rights to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.

They claim these men would not be arrested because the ordinance would protect them. This is not only untrue, it's ridiculous on its face.

In fact, if a man wanted to do something like that, he doesn't need an ordinance to give him “permission.” He could do it today and no one would stop him at the door, but ordinance or no ordinance, such activity is against the law.

I hate to use the term "fake news" to describe these petitioners, but if the shoe fits....

I had hoped that people wouldn’t be conned into believing something as preposterous as this. (Of course, 62 million people were conned into voting for Donald Trump, so there’s that.) I had hoped that my fellow Fairmont residents would actually read an ordinance before signing a petition to repeal it, because it doesn’t say what some people claim it says.

Apparently, however, the opponents of fairness have found enough kindred spirits to submit their petitions to City Council. So much for self-study and awareness of issues.

For the record, the ordinance reads:

“It is the public policy of the city to safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to be free from all forms of discrimination, whether as a result of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, blindness or handicap, and to provide for an inclusive community for all residents, businesses and visitors. The denial of these rights (to those groups) is contrary to the principles of freedom and equality of opportunity and is destructive to a free and democratic society.”

It's a policy, not a law. It's what the city fathers believe to be fair. It doesn't tell anyone to do anything; it just asks everyone to do the right thing. 

I only know of one reason why anyone would knowingly choose a side that opposes freedom and equality for everyone. If that describes you, maybe you should ask yourself, "Is that what I want to be, or is that who I really am?"

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you probably already are.

Catch 23

In Joseph Heller’s book, Catch 22, the pilot Yossarian is tired of flying dangerous missions and wants to be grounded. The doctor tells him he can be grounded if he’s crazy. Yossarian knows he’s got to be crazy to keep flying missions, but if he asks to be grounded, that means he knows it’s crazy and therefore he won’t be crazy anymore, so he has keep flying.

That’s “Catch 22.”

In the real world, it has just come out that faux-president Donald Trump keeps doing and saying crazy things because he wants foreign leaders to think he’s crazy. That way, he thinks they’ll be afraid of him. But only a crazy person would do what he’s doing, which means he really is crazy and everyone should be afraid of him, including everyone in America.

I’m going to call that “Catch 23.”

Want a gun? Show us your militia membership ID

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” – Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution.

I’ve often said that any gun owner who wants to hide behind the Second Amendment to legitimize owing a military-style assault weapon should be required to show which “well-regulated militia” he or she belongs to. That’s not a joke. I’m serious. It’s what our founding fathers had in mind when they attached this amendment to our Constitution.

There’s a reason why the National Rifle Association leaves out the first part of the amendment when it displays the rule on the wall of its headquarters. They have perverted the intent of the Second Amendment to support their own political agenda, and twisted its meaning into what they want it to be. That can only be done by ignoring that whole pesky “regulated militia” thing.

One of the current crop of political memes notes that when the Second Amendment was adopted, guns could only fire one bullet at a time, and citizens were required to join militias to help kick the British out of the 13 colonies. Of course, things have changed drastically since then, so I suggest that the government today issue official membership ID cards to authorized militias, and that members be required to present these cards when they show up to buy an assault weapon and the large capacity magazines that go with them.

Now let me step back for a minute and qualify my position on gun control. After 241 years of virtually unrestricted gun rights, I’m not stupid or naïve enough to believe that we will ever totally eradicate gun violence in America. I’m afraid we’ve come too far for that to occur. I do, however, believe that we should immediately start taking steps in that direction to accomplish whatever measure of good can be achieved.

I endorse the following steps:

1. Ban assault weapons except for police and the military, which are currently the only “regulated militias” we have.

2. Enact a longer waiting period to buy a gun and more extensive background checks focusing on, among other things, mental health issues. (Incredibly, our current administration thinks that the mentally ill should be able to buy guns. That may be because their leader is crazy himself.)

3. Place severe restrictions on buying guns at gun shows or, if possible, ban guns shows altogether.

4. Protect the right of people to buy handguns for personal protection as well as hunting rifles, but do everything possible to investigate and educate the purchasers of these guns and make gun safety training a mandatory requirement.

5. Enforce tougher laws and enact stiffer penalties for any crime in which a gun is involved and for unlawful sale of guns.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

Listen:

I get a flu shot every year that’s effective against some types of flu but not all of them. Why bother? Because I just might catch a strain that it is effective against, and the shots don’t cause me any side effects, so there is no good reason not to do it.

Similarly, I can see no logical reason to oppose a ban on assault weapons but there is a logical reason to support it, because it might prevent one person from pulling off one mass shooting in the future. There is no logical reason to oppose expanded background checks for responsible gun owners, but there is a logical reason to support them because they might find something that keeps a whacko from getting guns.

To say that we don't need to do anything to address the gun issue is like saying we don't need flu shots because they don't work on all strains of influenza, and then sitting at home and suffering with a strain of flu that the shot could have prevented. In other words, the best argument against reasonable gun laws seems to be, “We can't save everybody, so why would we want to save anybody?” Tell that to the victims in Las Vegas, who probably would have preferred to be saved.

While it’s true that stricter gun laws may not stop gun violence, saving a few lives is better than saving no lives at all. If you want to walk from your house to the corner pub, you’ll have to take the first step and then the next. Otherwise, you’re just sitting at home thinking about going somewhere and wishing you were already there.

Here’s one last point:

Reacting to the shootings of a U.S. congressman and others at a baseball field in Virginia last June, House Speaker Paul Ryan took to the House floor to say that “an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us." I submit that the December 14, 2012, shooting murders of 20 innocent school children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was not just an attack on those little children, but an attack on all of our children. You could say the same thing about any of the mass shootings in America, but Sandy Hook seemed somehow different because it was little kids.

Another thing I say often is this: “If Sandy Hook didn’t make us want to do something about gun violence, then probably nothing ever will.” In the wake of Las Vegas, if you feel the need to offer thoughts and prayers about anything, I suggest you pray that my previous statement isn’t true.

America the Violent

Lyrics by Paula Lawrence Sparks and Scott Shields

Thoughts and prayers and moments of silence

Tragically won't deter gun violence

Not if you bow your head to pray

To Wayne LaPierre and the NRA

Good guys with guns can't stop your worries

When the bullets fly from 32 stories

Not when the only break in sound

Is the gunman loading another round

Chorus:

Man-da-lay

Was a killing ground today

They will never walk away

From Mandalay Bay

Open carry, no permit required

So the shooter sat in his room and fired

His view of the victims easy and clean

For his large capacity magazine

So the bodies fell like fish in a barrel

Hundreds running and hiding in terror

Cops found his room and burst inside

To discover he’d committed suicide

Chorus:

Man-da-lay

Was a killing ground today

They will never walk away

From Mandalay Bay

Now liberals cry for more stringent rules

To protect us at night clubs, concerts and schools

But if Sandy Hook couldn’t bring about reason

Then nothing will save us from open gun season 

Is your heart in the right place if you don’t really have one?

When it comes to issues of race, Paul Ryan thinks Donald Trump’s heart is in the right place – except when he doesn’t. He also thinks Trump is working hard to bring the nation together.

“I’ve had some candid conversations with him about this,” the House speaker said this past Sunday on Face the Nation. Never mind that Ryan was critical of Trump’s response to a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., or the fact that last year, Ryan called Trump’s attacks on a Mexican-American federal judge the “textbook” definition of racism.

This week, apparently, Ryan has seen the light. Or, rather, he’s seen the heart. Or, more likely, he’s seen the donor contributions starting to dry up since Trump made happy face with Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. Ryan needs for Trump to be a Republican and the Uniter-in-Chief.

So…let’s explore:

First off, there's the “heart” thing. I suppose I have to concede that anatomically, Donald Trump does have a heart. Otherwise, he’d never get in 18 holes every weekend at Bedminster or Mar-a-Lago. However, he doesn’t have the kind of heart that recognizes the needs, wants, desires, problems, fears, anxieties, struggles, handicaps or vulnerabilities of any living human except himself. His heart may be physically located in the right part of Trump’s body, but it certainly isn’t communicating with his brain.

Second, Ryan says Trump is working to unite the country. Yes, I can see that, and here is how he's doing it:

Step 1 is to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. That will reduce the number of them here. Then we can harass the hell out of those who remain until, hopefully, they will all get tired of the abuse and go back home to reunite with their families. Muslims gone, Step 1 accomplished.

Step 2 is to get rid of the brown people. You know, the ones who sneak in from Mexico and Honduras and Guatemala and whatever else is down there where it’s hot all the time. We deport the ones who are here illegally, including parents of DACA children, so the kids have to follow their parents. Then we use Sheriff Joe Arpaio's method of targeting the legal immigrants by stopping them for traffic violations, broken tail lights and DWB – driving while brown – to give them a criminal record of some kind. Then we deport them, too, because we can't have criminals here. Brown people gone, we're moving right along.

Step 3 involves getting rid of “the blacks.” We can’t actually deport them because we kidnapped their ancestors to begin with and dragged them over here in chains, but we can start chipping away at their ability to vote. We continue to gerrymander them out of new white voting districts and pass voter suppression laws to make voting so hard it breaks their spirit.

We also have our Justice Department bring back “stop and frisk” and any other racial profiling technique we can think of to get them into prisons where they belong. Black people? Not gone, but locked away. We’re really cookin’ now!

That will leave only white people and Asians from the Pacific Rim. (Well, there’s “the Reds,” too, but we took care of them decades ago.) The Asians get to stay because they understand computers and stuff…but they all have to live in Seattle and the greater San Francisco area and they are never allowed to leave.

Finally, Trump will get the nation of white people his little heart desires, but we won’t quite be united just yet. The only hitch will be that some white people have been to college, so Trump and his jackboots will have to ensure that the others – the Alt-Right, the Neo-Nazis, the other Deplorables and the Poorly Educated – are so heavily armed they can easily keep those pesky elitists and intellectuals in line.

And that will be how Donald J. Trump, faux-president and reality TV star, unites all (true) Americans into one pure master race and makes this country great again.

(Funny, but I just keep thinking I've heard that somewhere before.)