Having a "War Time President"

Contrary to what Donald Trump and Shawn Hannity say, we are not a nation “At War” and we don’t need a “War time president”.   If we were “at war” then perhaps we could discuss the curtailment of various civil liberties.  But Congress has not declared War since December 8^th of 1941 and until Congress is willing to exercise their constitutional authority, and perhaps renew the Draft while they’re at it, then all parties concerned need to just SHUT UP, and if all caps is impolite, well that’s just Tough!  We all know there is no “tipping point” where Donald Trump has said one too many things that are offensive.  The NBC news came down hard on Trump for his anti Syrian remarks and so did Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan of all people saying things like “What Trump advocates is not conservatism” and “Trump has non American values”.   Only Ted Cruz continues to not attack Trump.  You know it’s funny how we rallied around President Bush after 9 – 11.  We didn’t say “Oh, this happened on the President’s watch” or “Bush ignored numerous warnings he received”.  And when Bush went to war in Iraq the media didn’t play old campaign clips of the President saying “We don’t want to engage in nation building or be the policeman of the world” even though Bush was already planning to go to war with Iraq during the campaign.  Someone pointed out that if it were as hard to get guns as it is for women in the south to get an abortion, there’s be a lot fewer killings in the land.  Personally I’d like both fewer guns sold and fewer abortions performed.  That’s a consistent pro life stance.  Not only won’t the Republicans rally around this President in times of crisis- - they continue to blame virtually everything bad that happens, either in the economy or on the war front against ISIS or else lone wolf terrorist acts on President Obama.  President Obama’s tally on gun conthiscation is still at Zero.  He’s the first socialist president to appoint all Wall Street cronies to cabinet posts.  President Obama will not be on the ballot next November, much to all these republican’s dismay.

Now Stephanie is interviewing a former scientologist.  I guess I’ll listen. Perhaps my writings could be criticized over the years for not being hard enough on Scientology.  I have no problem with the basic philosophy of Dianetics and all but the Church of Scientology is a cult and steeped in cultic structure and recruitment practices and the walling off of new converts.  The whole connection with Hollywood celebrities is a mystery- - and I have a few questions in this area.  I guess is Donald Trump were claiming to be Christ he’d be bragging about his virgin parents and how riches followed him in his youth because look at all the gold he got upon his birth.  Isolated from any pre existant mental notions or “memes” - - religion looks pretty silly because it can’t survive in the sterile vacuum of pure objectivity.  I’ve heard that Cults like to probe you psychologically and find out what your secret Needs and Fears are and exploit these.  Someone has said that most of Trumps supporters are the old style “Reagan Democrats” who actually support Medicare and Social Security.  They are white and married and between 35 and 60 and have secure jobs and hate both the rich and the poor.  They mistrust the Federal Reserve and in this I agree with them.  Of course they hate racial minorities.  Some of them might even be in labor unions yet they will join in the mindless repeating choruses of union busting and “capitalist free market values”.  They buy into the axiom of “government involvement is an a priori evil”.   It's been pointed out that the educational level is rather low like just a High School diploma or maybe less, and these people are profoundly simplistic and anti-intellectual.  They think in rather crude, "fundamental" terms and seem to be seeking an all powerful authority figure.  They hate governmental laws but rather prefer a person who is somehow "bigger than the laws" and can rise up and be a one man hero.

 There was one small but significant victory for pro gun regulation people.  In Highland Park in Illinois the Supreme Court let stand a ruling that said the local entity had the power to pass gun legislation.  This is only true in seven states including New York, California, and Illinois.  In the other 43 the gun lobby got to the state legislatures and they passed a preemption doctrine saying that local and county entities could not “correct” an oversight of the state.  This unhappy state of affairs is also true for pollution regulation.  It’s a power grab that makes state legislatures so dangerous now.

Now the latest fad is to leave bloody, severed heads of pigs outside the doors of local Mosques.  I guess that's not as bad as Pompey in Ancient Rome sacrificing a pig on the Jewish alter.   Now they say that we may be entering a "Crystal Nocht" period.  Now Daniel and Shane on Freespeech are going to donate a dollar every time they employ the Billionair Blowhard's name.  The callers can bring his name up but not the hosts.  There are other items in the news today like President Obama giving a speech on the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, outlawing slavery in the US or it's territories.  

We are in an era when mental illness has invaded and pervaided our national political dialog.   You have the “Department of Judeo Christian affairs”, which is the latest government department John Kasech wants to institute.  You have the internment of Syrians in camps for national security reason.  Trump wants to exclude ALL Moslems from entering this country no matter the circumstances.  You have Republicans saying we should do major reforms in our Visa program.  And you have the “preemption” doctrine in state legislators where local entities can’t protect themselves with anti gun legislation or anti pollution laws.  All the while Hillary is still beating all these republicans in the polls, except we have the “red shift” phenomenon where even if a Democrat is leading, the Republican comes out victor on election day like for Kentucky governor.  Voter participation is in the low thirties now in many places.  Of course there was the move to institute a national database (registration) of Muslims, and also a move to keep Moslem mosques under constant surveillance.  These are the “greatest hits”.  It was only a couple months ago when even Judy balked at Donald Trump’s more extreme statements.  But now that Trump is around thirty percent in the polls, you don’t know.  Trump is directly attacked by less extreme Republicans such as Governor Christie or Jeb Bush.  But the opinions of candidates that are less than five percent in the polls probably won’t be listened to.   Back in the sixteen hundreds in Europe it was against the law to be anything but Protestant or perhaps anything but Catholic.  Japan kicked out all the Christians because Catholic and Protestent missionaries were fighting amongst themselves and the Japanese leaders said “Screw the whole thing!”

Today is the 35^th anniversary of John Lennon’s death at the age of forty.  It’s kind of a key demarcation line between the era of hope, and the “Ronald Reagan” era we have been in the past 35 years.  Milenials (under 35)  know nothing of the existence of any other era.  Every now and then you think “the pendulum can’t swing any further to the right”.  We all thought that in 2006 the Bushies were toast- - when democrats election.  But alas we were wrong.

I'm in general agreement with Washington's Blog who believes that Saudi Arabia is the greatest national sponsor of terrorism.  Shawn Hannity is right in saying that Saudi Arabia has repressive laws and hates women.  Yet Shawn and President Obama and former President George Bush all climb into bed with the Saudis.  The latest rumor of Washington's blog is that the United States wants "Moderate Jihadists" government installed in Syria.  I'm heard hints of this before.  I don't see why if it's true that President Obama doesn't repudiate this philosophy of having yet another extension of Saudi Arabian rule in a nation.