A Profound Sadness

"The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them again in our lifetime." 

- Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary on the eve of World War I.


Across the world, women and people of conscience have marched in protest to what they perceive as the election of a scoundrel and a liar, a narcissistic, misogynistic impresario of Orwellian dimensions. All hopes between the election and the inauguration of a change in personality, a more presidential and healing persona have already been dashed.  Republicans in congress have bent to the will of this force of darkness and pessimism.  Our hopes that the separation of powers will protect us from this aberration, a perversion of our democratic government, grow dimmer with each day.


The inappropriate cabinet picks, the angry dystopian inaugural address, the rancor and divisiveness pervading this pathologically driven man has already defined the direction in which he intends to take our country.  The Presidential powers conferred upon him are a threat to the tired, the poor, the dispossessed. Jobs that will never return, factories increasing the corporate bottom line with one-tenth the workforce, are the new reality, despite his promises. And the Republican congress is rushing to install vouchers instead of health care as a right of all Americans. You will have access and choice, they say.


Now, we are faced with how to chase this lying Caligula from office.  How does the congress stiffen its spine and do the work at hand? How does the Republican Party reclaim its dignity? Only by placing country over party. The jury is out. But with a proven liar in the White House, how will the world believe our government when a crisis arises? Policy will be the prevailing battlefield, and not one that tweets about the size of the crowds at his coronation.


In 1933 Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler were elected to office.  Both the United States and Weimar Germany were in dire economic straits. A world-wide great depression. The streets of Berlin suffered demonstrations of starving people, needing billions of marks to buy a loaf of bread. Germans, overwhelmed by French and English policymakers who devised war reparations unable to be paid, marched Unter der Linden.  Victims desperately sought to find a way out.  Hitler made promises of a one Volk, one Germany, one Fuhrer. He offered hope but a dark vision of the reasons Germany was suffering. He found his mantra, his dehumanizing of a whole segment of the German polity. Roosevelt, on the other hand, offered hope: "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." No scapegoat, but positive moves to revive the flagging American economy, marred by soup kitchens, starving veterans camping in Grant Park and on the Mall in Washington, chased away by troops commanded by Douglas MacArthur, unemployment reaching 25%. Grown men selling apples in the street, unable to feed their children.


Hitler offered scapegoats, the Jews, the Bolsheviks, the conjured enemies. Not unlike Vladimir Putin, the manifestation of a failed one-horse Russian democracy, now an authoritarian kleptocracy. Hitler was able to silence dissent by murdering his critics, and establish a climate of the legitimate fear of being killed or being sent to concentration camps.


Roosevelt offered a new deal to America, government jobs, WPA, TVA, CCC, infrastructure projects, public works projects and a hopeful, cheerful optimism, not unlike his successor; Ronald Regan did 50 years later. Hitler offered war, "lebensraum," expansion to the east, and the night of broken glass (Kristalnacht), racial hared and violence, the promise of conquest of other nations to alleviate German yearnings for prosperity and expansion, but through war, prodding internal economic growth.


Trump offers blame on the Chinese, immigrants, loose borders, Hispanics, Muslims and thinly veiled threats against minorities and people who are not as fortunate to have been born the scion of a real estate magnate. On the inauguration stage, we saw a white guy with children from three different wives in stark contrast to a dignified African American, the exemplar of class, fidelity, and integrity who became President of the United States. Great credit goes to our citizens for electing him. Did he make mistakes? Surely. But his decency, thoughtfulness and character was a credit to the Presidency and to his country. Throughout history we have learned that character is the hallmark of great leaders. Trump has none. And that is already being demonstrated.


When we think of America as exceptional, it is. Exceptional in the antiquity of its system of government and the gullibility of its people. We need to be able to issue a vote of no confidence rather than having an albatross hanging from our stretched necks for four years. The Constitution needs an amendment. And the interstate compact of awarding all the electoral votes of the individual states to the winner of the national popular vote needs to move ahead to abolish the anachronism of the Electoral College allowing a winner who claims a mandate though he received three million less votes than his opponent. This 18th century instrument, based upon slavery needs to be relegated to history's dustbin.


Trump's raised fist, his anger, his ego, belies his fragile character, his inability to withstand criticism, and his ad hominem attacks on his critics, rendering him unfit to occupy the White House.  He is a boy-man, a privileged, spoiled, tweeting, grotesque caricature and a humiliation to our country.


And now, people who did not bother to vote are realizing that they should have. 

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Why the West is allowing Ukrainians to Bleed and Die

November 21, 2025
During his “wilderness years,” Churchill understood Adolf Hitler’s ambitions, presciently shouting to a deaf world the dangers ahead. The Rhineland. Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia gobbled up while appeasers twiddled. England and France could have sent Hitler packing. Instead, they gave him three more years to arm. It was too late. Fifty million died. Stalin, double-crossed by his former Poland-dividing German friend, decided too late that he had to fight. Millions of Soviets soldiers and civilians died because of his dithering. FDR had to contend with America Firsters and could have entered the war sooner; he had third term political considerations in in 1940; but he knew he had to fight, too. Eventually. WE RELIVE THE MISTAKES OF HISTORY AT OUR OWN PERIL, LIKE WILEY CAYOTE CHASING THE ROAD RUNNER. PUTIN INVADED A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY. STOP HIM, GERMANS. STOP HIM, FRENCHMEN. STOP HIM, NATO. STOP HIM, AMERICA. UKRAINIAN CHILDREN ARE FREEZING AND STARVING. 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Wars start slowly but inevitably spiral out of control; aid the west provides the Ukrainians resembles aid the US gave to England in 1940, followed by exponential materiel increase from the great American “arsenal of democracy.” It was not enough. Not in 1940 and not enough in 2022; it will not be enough in 2023, 2024, 2025 as this war drags on. Too many Russians, too much manpower. Too much time. Victory requires a credible threat of NATO mobilization—an army ready to do battle. And an ultimatum. But that will not happen, I fear. Billions of dollars for weapons in a proxy war with Ukrainians fighting Russians has been impactful. Americans can watch Netflix war movies while Ukrainians bleed. They can watch Tom Hanks storm the beach at Normandy. Much less dangerous. Let’s just ship some more rockets to Ukraine instead. Yellowstone is on. Even so, it was heartening to see the bipartisan support for Ukraine in the Congress. Military planners in the Pentagon and in Western European capitals should be preparing for a wider war. It would be malfeasant for them not to do. We just don’t realize it yet. NATO is obliged to tell Putin to get out of Ukraine or face an allied army to evict him. Putin must be given an ultimatum to get out or face military force. Germans and French, British and American, Canadian and Australian. Putin understands naked power. The west must mobilize. He does not understand anything else. Lenin said, “push forward the bayonet. If you find soft flesh, push. If you find steel, retreat.” Putin learned Lenin in school; Lenin is in his DNA. He learned it in the KGB. He learned it in Mother Russia. He wants it all. He is Czar Nicholas, Comrade Stalin, Comrade Lenin all rolled into a painting in the Hermitage, his hometown museum, where he went as a schoolboy, where his parents took him, where he learned of the greatness of Russia. Where the Czar had palaces. 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Ukrainians under siege. Massive Russian armies. Possibly being defeated. World economic disruption. Continued war crimes. A war of attrition, cold and misery. I hope I am wrong about this.  Western ambitions about this outrageous war ending through negotiation are delusional. If Putin sees that we are serious about the sovereignty of nations, he must face a serious military threat-- mobilization of NATO forces. Only then he will likely back down. Until then brave Ukrainians will bleed, freeze and die bearing the brunt of our fear.

Thank Goodness the Election is Over

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George Bush has His New Book Out.....

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