The American president has shut down his government until he gets from Congress the money to build The Wall he promised those who voted for him. You know, that Wall that Mexico would pay for? The one that would keep out that army of drug dealers and terrorists that keeps trying to invade our southern border, with their children and small packets of shabby belongings. (And apparently without their guns. We can only assume they'll buy guns when they get here with all that money they've swallowed and will presumably, well, you know ....) At year's end, he had alienated and fired or driven away several West Wing's worth of operatives, and fired many of his key government appointees. He has undermined whatever support he might have had in the Pentagon in one fell swoop with his decision to remove troops from Syria and turn his back on the Kurds, who have risked all by joining with the U.S. against ISIS an Iran. By Dec. 31, 2018 he will have managed to tell multiple thousands of proven lies, and misrepresented hundreds of events and situations to make himself look better and his enemies (who are now legion) look bad.
The president's first official opponent for the 2020 presidential race announced yesterday. She's clearly a kinder, and probably less unbalanced alternative to our current top guy, and as a woman, she'd be in a position to write a much delayed and much welcome new chapter in history. But ... she's also the one who maintained for years in her position as a graduate level instructor, and against vicious opposition from detractors (led, of course, by the current President) that she is of Native American lineage. Yes, she released her official DNA test findings recently, which concluded, at least reasonably certainly, that she does have Native American heritage. She waved the result triumphantly, noting that this, finally, should silence her critics (particularly the one in the White House) and settle the dispute once and for all. Problem is, that heritage turns out to be about a 1/1000th or so share in the gene pool. If that's the standard, I might be Native American as well. And it did not silence the critics. They had a field day with that one. This has got to give us pause. She got the teaching position, she says, entirely without reference to her heritage, but the position actually did depend on her heritage, or she wouldn't have gotten it. This sort of double talk is just the sort of thing we're being asked to put up with in the current administration. So how do I justify doing for her what I will not do for the current King of Double Talk? America can never be great when this is the standard for a leader's personal character.
The Democratic Party is preparing to field a host of alternatives to the GOP's current rascal. (One has to wonder if the GOP is yet regretful they helped put the current farce in motion. I suspect they are, but like their Guy, they'd rather die than admit it.) But if they think for one minute that they can send a rascal of their own — someone who cannot simply admit they've been wrong, bent a rule, miscalculated, or just made a simple mistake, for God's sake ... and get my vote, they need to think again. Not happening.
I'm truly weary of hearing folks who support the president excuse his "excesses" — or what they variously describe as his "temper," "unusual methods" (how's that for a weak euphemism), or glowingly refer to as his "tough-guy attitude" — by pointing to one or two positive items that have occurred. They delight, for example, in showing you the Stock Market performance, which is largely the result of economic rebuilding efforts led over two terms by his predecessor, by the way. But ... whoops! Last two weeks, it's registered its worst performance since 2008 (remember the Great Recession, anyone?). And how about better relations between North and South Korea? Yep, nice thing, what happened in the Olympics. The president "fell in love." But not one actual thing of substance has taken place in terms of dismantling the North Korean nuclear program. Not. One. All smoke and mirrors. The Art of the Deal, anyone?
My New Year's resolution is to withhold support from any candidate, anywhere, who cannot answer a simple question from a reporter with a straight-up, honest answer. That may mean I don't vote in 2020. But that's the way it's going to be. I have a bit of hope around Beto O'Rourke. But a lot of that might be because I don't yet know enough about him to have heard the downside. (Trying to be a realist, here.) The rest of the field just doesn't excite me. Biden is a good fellow, but he's Old School. We need New School. Hillary? I'd like to hear her own up to the lie she told about the gunfire when she got off that plane. Self aggrandizement. She was busted, and yet she played games. It's just got to stop.
In the year 2019, I will have to see a big turnaround in the character of those who wish to represent me if I'm to have any confidence that things will improve in the U.S. political landscape. And while we're at it, let's try to find candidates who know something about the issues that our country faces. It would be great to elect someone, again, who can actually write his/her own books and speeches. (Present guy can't, but Obama could and did do both. Hell, and someone who can read. Word is, the current guy can't get through a couple of pages without getting distracted. And don't you believe for one moment that he personally wrote the answers to those questions by submitted to Mueller. Didn't happen. Did not happen.) Oh, and please, someone who isn't a game show host, or a casino owner or some other kind of flashy, shallow showboat, whose wife's main deal seems to be clothes, who gets written up every week for some outrageous new outfit and has more shoes than Imelda Marcos. And how about someone who is smart enough to know they need to listen to the experts in the DOJ, the Pentagon and elsewhere, and make decisions as the head of a knowledgeable team. Make America Great Again? First, you need great people.
Waiting ....
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