Can We Still Save Our Republic?

Chris Cuomo's comments on his CNN broadcast of Wednesday, December 23 constituted one of the most accurate representations and characterizations of the Trump Presidency that I've heard.  CNN gets blasted by the extremist right for a liberal bias, though no evidence is ever offered to prove the allegations.  Certainly they're not perfect and they make mistakes but an honest evaluation of the facts will show them to be far less biased in any way than the extremist right wing outlets who only exist to promote the propaganda the Trump administration pushes.  You can't participate in this discussion if you hold the opinion that the mainstream media is biased because you won't be equipped with the necessary facts to provide an intelligent response or answer, sorry.  You go provide proof to back up your allegation first, then you can talk.  

The Worst President Ever to Serve in American History

Cuomo labelled Trump as the "worst President in history."  He's right.  We've had four years of actions from a President who cites conspiracy theories as done deals and facts, lies virtually every time he opens his mouth, and seems incapable of supporting his contentions with actual facts.  The ongoing tantrum since election night is evidence that the mainstream media's predictions about what a  Trump administration would be like and how difficult it would be to get anywhere near a peaceful transition of power underlines their accuracy, completely undermines the right wing propaganda and nails what's happening with true accuracy.  I can't explain why it seems that there are so many Republicans who don't have a clue, love the guy and hang on his very word,  They are ignorant and blind, have no concept of how a constitutional Republic works and care about their own political career, power and position far more than they do about serving the people.  Are there Democrats who do the same?  Sure but that's not the point here and it is no justification for anything.  

What were people expecting?  There's no justification to vote to put a despicable, dishonest and corrupt individual in the White House.  That's asking for trouble.  But win at all costs is the order of the day.  Trump is a pathological liar, a man with no moral compass who reveled in publicly humiliating the women he chose to marry and who built most of his fortune with entertainment businesses appealing to a lack of human character.  Evangelical Republicans completely sold out their integrity to support someone after vicious criticism of Bill Clinton for the same kind of character failure.  Trump can help them achieve their own political influence and power and that means more to them than anything God can do for them.  They are apostates as far as genuine faith is concerned. 

Trump has been an utter failure as a leader.  He clearly has no interest in the President's role beyond anything except how it helps him gain personal influence and power and stuff his pockets with cash.  He's ignored and trashed virtually ever constitutional principle when it comes to the balance of power.  He appointed a motley band of convicted crooks and criminals, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists to cabinet positions, all of whom promptly set out to consolidate their own power to support their own interests.  The fallout from the ensuing rivarlies which occurred led to the resignation of over 90 Trump appointees within months of the start of his administration.  Over 150 are gone now, including the level headed balances.  

The corruption and self serving boggles the mind. Beyond that, Donald Trump does not have the temperament, character, stamina or mental capacity to handle the Presidency.  I think he was a nut job before he ever got elected. It's only been the unconscionable protection of this demagogue by hard line partisan Republicans--to whom he is dishing out revenge even as we speak--that kept a legitimate impeachment from moving forward to what it should have done in removing him from office.  So yes, Chris Cuomo, you are absolutely correct.  Donald Trump will go down in history as the worst President in the History of the United States.  The worst.  And we still have 26 days to go in which more damange will inevitably be done.  

Can We Fix the Damage? 

The Trump Presidency is the largest constitutional crisis we have ever faced.  It's bigger than the Whiskey Rebellion, slavery and the Civil War.  It's a bigger crisis because the founding fathers were so incredibly careful in crafting the role of chief executive to prevent it from becoming what it has become under Trump.  It gave carefully proportioned powers to a President based on the fact that most people who would be able to win the trust of the people would have to be trustworthy people.  Up until Trump, with few exceptions, they were men who had character and spoke truth.  Trump is  a pathological liar.  He's too lazy to find evidence to support his contentions, as a result, no word he speaks can be taken seriously.  The result has turned the Presidency upside down and created a very distorted Presidency that no longer fits within the boundaries of the balance of power put in place by the founders and no longer able to function for complete lack of trust. 

We will see, in the coming days, just how strong our constitution is and whether there is enough will left in the rest of our government to get past these moments and restore America's democracy.  And don't you dare argue that we are not a Democracy.  That's proof of your ignorance.  We are a Republic which is a form of Democracy and government by democratic principles.  The authority the Republic possesses comes from the people, which is pure democracy.  

Solutions to the Problem

There is no other Democrat at this partcular point who has more experience and is better suited to putting our government back together than Joe Biden.  He loves this country, has committed himself to serving it, depends on guidance from God and knows the right people to put in the right places.  He's the right guy at the right time.  I would feel more confident if the voters of Georgia, fresh off a wonderful rejection of Trump, would give him a cooperative Senate.  The prospects for that look pretty good at the moment, judging by the efforts Republicans are making to suppress voter turnout and elect a couple of goofy, and corrupt, Trump worshippers.  The Democrats wasted no time adding to their voter registration pool for this special election and Trump's actions are driving sensible, free-thinking Georgians to Ossoff and Warnock in droves.  A favorable Senate that can pass Biden's agenda over the top of what has become a useless GOP will be an asset. 

Reduce the GOP to Minority Party Status by Beating Them Into the Ground in 2022  

Democrats need to start preparing now to beat the GOP into the ground in the mid-terms.  Raise the money, register the voters, a bigger and more overwhelming blue wave needs to knock the GOP out of the government for the foreseeable future.  The GOP has shown itself completely unworthy of the trust of any American.  Vote them out and keep them out until they have demonstrated that they have learned their lesson, say sometime around 2040 or so, if then. 

Expand the Court and Limit the Terms

Expand the Supreme Court to 13 members and let Biden appoint the first four of the new expansion.  Limit the terms of justices from lifetime to 20 years and stagger the terms.  Limit any single President's appointments to just two justices in eight years.  Put a similar calendar into the federal judiciary, limiting terms and appointments.  

A Presidential Qualification Commission Must Approve Party Nominees

Individuals like Trump, with fraud charges, bankruptcies and a train of legal and tax  issues should never be permitted to run for President.  Candidates must be qualified on character by a bi-partisan commission before they can file for party nomination.  The vetting would be backed by the law. The qualifications would include having a working knowledge of how the government works, of the Constitution and of how the executive branch of government functions.  No criminal record, no fraud and every candidate must reveal their last 20 tax returns without exception, otherwise they are not eligible to run.  

Lame Duck Limitations

Presidential powers become limited when there is officially a President Elect following the state certification of vote totals.  At that point, the sitting President is required to concede.   If they fail to do so, they are removed from office and the Speaker of the House fills out the remainder of the term.  I'd suggest that a President who fails to participate in the peaceful transfer of power be arrested and tried for treason but that might look like the kind of political revenge Trump is taking now.  

Following the concession and certification, the lame-duck President gives up command of the military, any veto power or judicial appointments, does not replace personnel who are exiting the administration and is required to attend the inauguration of the President Elect.  The President  Elect, in turn, gets control of the military.  He gets the "football" with the nuclear codes and is briefed by intelligence daily.  The White House must be vacated a month before the new President moves in.  

A Final Requirement

Every American student in any school, public, charter or private, must have both a Social Studies course and a civics course every year from Kindergarten through 12th Grade.  Social Studies would require a full year cycle of American History every other year with a two-year course in high school following a year in middle school.  No American student will be ignorant of their history.  I don't really care about World History, that can be worked in.  Geography is a necessary skill.  But every year, students will also have a course in Civics, focusing on the operation of the American Republic.  It will be interactive and participatory and students may not get a high school diploma unless they pass the course.  

Our schools have been lazy about this.  The time needs to be invested and the kids need to learn this so if it means a longer school day, or additional graduation requirements, so be it.  It wouldn't hurt to require a course in interpreting current events and media interpretation, either, so that liars like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson can't fool the weak minded.  The difference between propaganda and truth should be something a sixth grader can figure out.  Undermining the press because you don't like what it reports is part of the problem.  If more Americans are able to think for themselves , no one will listen to Limbaugh or Hannity.  

The ignorance we are seeing among voters is inexcusable.  No intelligent, informed person should be unable to see what a disaster this President is, and how he has worked to destroy the constitution and constitutional rule of law.  

God bless America.  And we're going to need it.

Corrupt Expectations: I Appointed You, Do What I Want!

 What's happening as the Trump Administration goes through its final days is providing all of the evidence needed to prove that the "left wing liberal media" has been right on target and one hundred percent accurate about the mind-boggling corruption of the Trump Presidency.  Partisan politics is doing exactly what George Washington warned us about in his farewell address.  It has produced a blindness that is coming as close to achieving a destruction of the American Republic that our enemies have never succeeded in doing.  

The leftist, liberal, mainstream media that conservatives so despise predicted that Trump would resist leaving the White House if he were to be defeated in the election in 2020, and they were exactly right.  It wasn't hard to predict how he would resist, since he's been vocal about it ever since he got into office.  But they've been right about everything they've said about Trump from the very beginning.  

Deceiving the Faithful:  Trump Thinks His Base of Supporters are Ignorant Fools 

What Trump supporters point to as "evidence" of widespread voter fraud, mainly the anecdotal stories provided by mostly paid witnesses in the right wing media--and even Fox News has backed away from using most of the sources provided by Giuliani and the Trump Campaign because they are so obviously paid and hence, completely lacking in credibility--is not what his lawyers are arguing in front of the courts.  If they brought that motley collection of kooks and their alleged "evidence" into a courtroom, the attorneys would be disbarred for malpractice.  They are using those stories as a means of raising the money from their gullible followers in order to pay off a relatively large campaign debt and the legal debt they are piling up.  They're selling that to their supporters to get money, but that's not the "evidence" they're taking to court. 

But if Trump supporters think that's the evidence that is being presented in court, they are being deceived.  The lawyers on Trump's legal team know that none of that evidence is credible.  They have to deal with the facts as they exist, one being that this 2020 election has produced the most accurate, verifiable vote count in history, the other that under the Constitution, states make the laws which govern their own elections.  The state officials who were in charge of the election, most of them Republicans themselves, have showed up in court with the evidence that proves and certifies the accuracy of their vote counts and that the rules under their state laws have been followed.  It's hard to argue against the facts.  

Some of the mistakes and gaffes made by Giuliani in particular, but also other members of Trump's legal team, have underlined just how ridiculous this effort has become.  The Four Seasons Landscaping debacle is one of the most laughable errors.  The claim that more people voted for Biden in Detroit than actually live in Detroit failed to take into account that precincts in Michigan are organized by county, not by city, and the official vote total that includes Detroit came from Wayne County, population 1,749,343 with plenty of registered voters to account for the 597,000 votes Biden received, as well as Trump's 264,000 with plenty of registered voters and residents left to spare and then some.  Votes are not reported separately out of Detroit, nor does the city government there have anything to do with the election or the vote count, as incorrectly asserted by Giuliani.  

Corrupt Expectations

Judges in the American federal court system are appointed by the President for the sole purpose of upholding the law.  That is particularly true in cases which interpret the Constitution.  Trump is complaining that federal judges he appointed do not seem to be returning any favors in their rulings against his election challenges.  What is amazing about that is that he clearly expected the favors.  You can't really get more corrupt than that.  Ignore the law and rule in my favor because I appointed you?  What is sickening is that most of his supporters are perfectly fine with his corruption, as long as they get their way.  Seriously?  If you're just OK with that, or pass it off as just politics, you have just trampled on the Constitution and thrown out the rule of law on which this country is founded.  You're clearly no patriot, you're an extremist. 

Trump himself stated that one of his expectations of the newest Supreme Court justice was that she appeared likely to rule in his favor when it came to election challenges.  He planned this out in advance.  Apparently, she is not as corrupt as he thought she was because she, along with the other eight justices, joined in turning down, without even a simple acknowledgement, the first case that came their way regarding the election.  

And what kind of message is being sent by the lawsuit brought by the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, himself an indicted crook?  Eighth graders who have to pass Constitution and Government know that no state can interfere in the election activity of any other state.  Of course, Paxton is doing this to get Trump's favor and attention in order to get a pardon for the crimes he's committed.  Other states are joining in because there are some state officials who still need Trump's favor to win elections and raise money.  It is one of the most disgusting displays of ignorance and, well, frankly, outright stupidity that I have ever witnessed as an American.  I joined the GOP as a college student right before the 1980 election.  I would not vote for a Republican now for any office, not so much because of a political disagreement with their policy, though there are plenty of their positions with which I disagree, but because they have enabled the corruption of the American Republic for their own pocket-lining benefit.  

Republicans With Integrity Are Rare

John McCain is at the top of my list.  Yes, he could be a stubborn bulldog but if he were still alive, you wouldn't see the kind of going along with corruption that characterizes what it means to be Republican in America today.  One of the most heartwarming aspects of this election was the gift that the voters of Arizona gave to his memory, putting their 11 electoral votes in Biden's column following his widow's endorsement.  Yes, Trump lost Arizona because of John McCain.  

Mitt Romney is also at the top of the Republican integrity list.  He's a loyal and very conservative Republican but he has never bowed at the Trump altar.  Next to McCain, he's been the most consistent Republican critic of Trump.  He missed his shot at the Presidency by running four years too soon, though I think he still could have secured the nomination in 2016 before the Russians were able to give much help to Donald.  

I've not really been surprised by the way Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey has stood up against Trump.  Toomey is definitely Republican and conservative, but he's a politician who functions in accordance with the law and understands the importance of serving his constituents by working across the aisle.  He's got a backbone.  

And in spite of what they've done politically since being elected to office in Georgia, you have to admire Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.  Under withering pressure, they stood up to Trump and upheld both the law and the integrity of the voting process in their state.  It hasn't been that long ago that Georgia was a place of terrible voter suppression and the turnaround has largely been due to individuals like Stacey Abrams and Keisha Lance Bottoms.  But in spite of pressure, Kemp and Raffensperger held the line, producing evidence of a clean election, canvassing, auditing and recounting ballots not just once, but three times, and producing documented evidence of an election that represents the voters.  

Is There Hope In the Future? 

I sincerely hope that the one thing, perhaps the only positive thing, that comes out of the most corrupt Presidency in American history is a lesson learned.  By the time the next election rolls around in 2024, I sincerely hope that laws will be in place that will prevent criminal frauds like Donald Trump from even being eligible to run.  

To be honest, I don't think Trump would get nominated by the GOP if he did run again in 2024.  Once he's gone, I think many GOP leaders will find a way to make sure he stays that way.  He's unhealthy and when 2024 rolls around, will be 78.  He's already suffering from dementia, visible when you watch him speak in public and particularly if you ever have the desire to watch one of his rallies all the way through.  While it appears that Biden plans to follow Washington's rule of letting action speak for itself and will likely not push the criminal investigations against Trump further, I do hope that there are others who decide that no one is above the law.  He's corrupt, but he may not be able to count on very many, if any, of his judicial appointees to help him out.  Their job no longer depends on his favor. And they don't want to be labelled as corrupt.  

Good-bye, Donald.  It was not a pleasure.