Saturday, May 27, 2017

Roger Ailes’s Dead at last!



Roger Ailes was a misogynistic ratings whore with a righty agenda. He set off an explosion "of cyberbullying and chyrons, trolls and tweets" and fake news. He showed no empathy for his many victims and could care less about accuracy. The following opinion piece is a very personal insight that should be read by all! 

It's Time to Get Rid of Donald Trump

Trump has transformed the United States into a laughing stock and he is a danger to the world. He must be removed from the White House before things get even worse. - 

- A DER SPIEGEL Editorial by Klaus Brinkbäumer






Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor the tasks associated with it. He doesn't read. He doesn't bother to peruse important files and intelligence reports and knows little about the issues that he has identified as his priorities. His decisions are capricious and they are delivered in the form of tyrannical decrees.

He is a man free of morals. As has been demonstrated hundreds of times, he is a liar, a racist and a cheat. I feel ashamed to use these words, as sharp and loud as they are. But if they apply to anyone, they apply to Trump. And one of the media's tasks is to continue telling things as they are: Trump has to be removed from the White House. Quickly. He is a danger to the world.

Trump is a miserable politician. He fired the FBI director simply because he could. James Comey had gotten under his skin with his investigation into Trump's confidants. Comey had also refused to swear loyalty and fealty to Trump and to abandon the investigation. He had to go.

Witnessing an American Tragedy

Trump is also a miserable boss. His people invent excuses for him and lie on his behalf because they have to, but then Trump wakes up and posts tweets that contradict what they have said. He doesn't care that his spokesman, his secretary of state and his national security adviser had just denied that the president had handed Russia (of all countries) sensitive intelligence gleaned from Israel (of all countries). Trump tweeted: Yes, yes, I did, because I can. I'm president after all.

Nothing is as it should be in this White House. Everyone working there has been compromised multiple times and now they all despise each other - and everyone except for Trump despises Trump. Because of all that, after just 120 days of the Trump administration, we are witness to an American tragedy for which there are five theoretical solutions.

The first is Trump's resignation, which won't happen. The second is that Republicans in the House and Senate support impeachment, which would be justified by the president's proven obstruction of justice, but won't happen because of the Republicans' thirst for power, which they won't willingly give up. The third possible solution is the invocation of the 25th Amendment, which would require the cabinet to declare Trump unfit to discharge the powers of the presidency. That isn't particularly likely either. Fourth: The Democrats get ready to fight and win back majorities in the House and Senate in midterm elections, which are 18 months away, before they then pursue option two, impeachment. Fifth: the international community wakes up and finds a way to circumvent the White House and free itself of its dependence on the U.S. Unlike the preceding four options, the fifth doesn't directly solve the Trump problem, but it is nevertheless necessary - and possible.

No Goals and No Strategy

Not quite two weeks ago, a number of experts and politicians focused on foreign policy met in Washington at the invitation of the Munich Security Conference. It wasn't difficult to sense the atmosphere of chaos and agony that has descended upon the city.

The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue of DER SPIEGEL.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Donald Trump (Republican Nominee) can win the Presidency

Everyone is making predictions these days about politics. One undeniable truth is that Donald Trump is steaming towards...

Posted by Robert L. Leonard on Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Islamophobia Has No Place in the USA!

I took a picture of this poster in Cairo in March 2015.
It continues to disturb me that so many of my fellow countryman lump all Muslims into the same category. The people who identify as Islamic fundamentalist practice a perverted form of Islam that has no resemblance to the genuine Muslim faith. I compare the perverted Islamic fundamentalists to the phony Christians of the Klu Klux Klan. The facts are:  the phony Muslims of groups like ISIS have killed more genuine Muslims than any other of their targeted groups. More importantly, the most effective fighters putting their lives on the line against ISIS are Muslims themselves.

Read More On This Subject:

Americans Against Islamophobia

The Web's Comprehensive Islamophobia Newspaper: Islamophobia Today 


Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic lllusion of an Islamic State

Monday, September 21, 2015

Republicans Fear Pope Francis Bombshells May End Their World Thursday



Since 1964, when what we now think of the Religious Right set out to take over the Republican Party, the line between religion and politics have become increasingly blurred on the Right. We have seen conservative Christian theology legislated into law with damning frequency, whether it is related to abortion or contraception or marriage, or any of a number of other areas.

So when Indiana Republican Sen. Dan Coats says of the pope’s address to Congress Thursday, “I’m always concerned about those who are bringing spiritual messages that step too far over the line in terms of political issues,” you have to laugh.

Republicans have no shame when it comes to utterances like this.

Coats thinks Pope Francis should not be able to say the sorts of things Evangelicals say every day. Republicans like Coats want Pope Francis to stay out of politics, even though Evangelicals not only cross the line every day into politics, but control a major political party.

You want to know how much Coats hates mixing politics and religion? Check out this tweet:

Jeb Bush told voters in New Hampshire, “I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals.” No indeed. He gets his policy from the largely Protestant Religious Right, like every other Republican candidate.

Ben Carson tweeted last week,

Apparently, only Republicans can speak for God, even when the pope is in town.
Pope trickle downBut then, this is the same group that thinks Christians are being persecuted in this country even as they impose their religious views on the rest of us on abortion, contraception, marriage, thetreatment of the poor, and so forth. And it’s not just religion, as when Francis said when asked of gays, “Who am I to judge?”
The pope has really riled up Republicans since he began to address the threat of climate change. After all, hell hath no fury like a Republican whose income is threatened. Never forget these men are not employed by the American people; their real employees are the fossil fuel industry.
“I think it’s totally inappropriate that the pope is weighing in on all the real sensitive, far-left issues,” Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe, said. “I’m not a Catholic, but my Catholic friends in Oklahoma are not real pleased with it.”

What is amusing is that Inhofe can insist the pope remain silent on “far-left issues.” If he was saying there was no climate change, Inhofe would be urging him to speak up. If Pope Francis was a big supporter of capitalism, Inhofe would be beside himself with joy.
I think in a court of law that would be hearsay. The only relevant part of that statement is that Inhofe is against it. I’m not a Catholic either, and I think it’s great. Unlike Republicans from Donald Trump to Ted Cruz to Ben Carson, the pope is not running for elected office in the United States.

Trump tweeted the other day,

But the pope is talking Jesus talk, not capitalist talk, and certainly not fossil fuel industry talk, or even the Religious Right’s culture war talk. And this is a problem for all those Republicans in Congress who cringe at the thought of the things Pope Francis might say when he addresses them Thursday.

The worst part, from their perspective, is undoubtedly that Francis will have a huge television audience. Things might be said that Republicans don’t want Americans to hear. Things that undermine the Right’s idea of an AR-15-armed white Anglo-Saxon Jesus who hates poor people and immigrants.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) isn’t even going to show up, for crying out loud. “When the pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one.” If you listen, you can still hear the echoes of his feet stomping, a sound that will echo through eternity.
Gosar is going into hiding while the pope speaks, and is probably in search of a suitable happy space to curl up in a fetal ball until it’s all over, hoping when he comes out, some semblance of the Republican world still exists.

It is funny also that the pope has finally made the Right realize there is a difference between religion and politics after decades of Republicans actively combining the two.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie complained to CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” that “The fact is that his infallibility is on religious matters, not on political ones.” If there is a difference, then we must ask why all these Religious Right figures are pretending to speak for God on such openly political matters.

Certainly if they are free to do so, then so is the pope.

Obviously we don’t know what Francis is going to talk about, or what he will say. What is critical right now is that it is only conservatives who fear the Pope. You don’t see Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders fretting over the pope’s appearance, or Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid.
Bernie Sanders is even tweeting the pope’s message, because as it happens, his message is identical:

The Hill opined this morning that, “The pope has become a political football,” but I would suggest here they have it all backwards. This Pope is nobody’s football. He is not the guy who is kicked, but rather the guy who does the kicking.

Thursday, the pope can say anything he wants, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop him.

And that’s why Republicans are so afraid.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014