DANGEROUS TIMES
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Day 549

7/29/2018

 

SHAME
ON THE NEW YORK TIMES, WITH ITS PUBLISHER WALKING INTO TRUMP'S TRAP

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   “SHAME!”
   “SHAME on the New York Times!”
   Hearing that, Cat, came one the run, or the wobbly, stomach-swinging lurch that is the equivalent of running for the old cat. Cat, without knowing the particulars, knew that Donald Trump had wrecked another glorious summer afternoon.
    “Where are you?” Cat said.
    “Under the dining room table,” I said. “I just feel really low about what the Times just did to humiliate the media, including us bloggers, Cat.”
    “What on earth do you mean?” Cat said.
    I told him that I’d just heard that the publisher of the New York Times had met secretly with Trump on July 20, and he'd told Trump that his attacks on newspapers and other media were “dangerous,” not only in the United States, but elsewhere in the world, encouraging other governments to attack the press.
    “What’s wrong with that?” Cat said. “Sounds like A.G. Sulzberger was sticking up not just for the New York Times, but the entire news media.”
    “Really, Cat?” I said. “I’m not sure you or I have enough paws to count the ways that what he did was wrong, WRONG.”
    “Phoebe, you are yelling in capital letters and sounding like a Trump tweet,” Cat said. “Calm down. You’re safe here under the dining room table. Give me the complete picture. And use your indoor voice.”

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   CAT WAS BEING REASONABLE, so I filled him in.
   Trump had invited the Times’ publisher to the White House, saying that the meeting would be “private” in keeping with the nature of such meetings in the past.  
  But Trump, being Trump, cheated and tweeted a distorted account. Sulzberger then responded with his own statement.
    It went like this:
    Trump's tweet, in part:
    “Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times. Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, “Enemy of the People.” Sad!
    Sulzberger’s statement, in part:
    “My main purpose for accepting the meeting was to raise concerns about the president’s deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric. I told the president directly that I thought that his language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous. I told him that although the phrase ‘fake news’ is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists ‘the enemy of the people.’ I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence.”
    The result: Trump had Sulzberger right where he wanted him, in Tweetland, and the president launched yet another tirade, full of media-hate:
   “I will not allow our great country to be sold out by anti-Trump haters in the...dying newspaper industry. No matter how much they try to distract and cover it up, our country is making great progress under my leadership and I will never stop fighting for the American people…..”

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    CAT SAID HE understood the background, and wanted to know specifically why I was so ticked off at Sulzberger.
    Here, in summary, direct from under the dining room table, are my reasons:
     #1. You don’t politely suggest to a monster like Donald Trump: ‘Please, Mr. Monster, please stop being a monster.’ The absurdity. Proposing that Trump stop his war on the media is preposterous. It’s one of Trump’s major activities, destroying the credibility of the news, so Americans won’t believe what they read or hear when news outlets report about all that Trump does, his lying, cheating and betrayal of  the United States.
    #2. As a newspaper person, you certainly don’t meet with somebody like Trump in private. You do your business – the public’s business – in public. It’s not a publisher’s role to solve the world’s problems man-to-man. It’s a publisher's job to make sure his reporters and editors have the tools to put out the best news stories possible, then let the readers, the voters and the citizens decide what to do with the information.
    #3. What did Sulzberger expect to achieve? That Trump would suddenly come to “come to his senses,” because CEO to CEO, New Yorker to New Yorker, that he, A.G., could get D.J. to see the error of his ways? Or maybe emerge with a secret, backroom truce, in which the Times agreed not to use the word “liar” if Trump dropped the word “fake?”  Doesn’t Sulzberger believe what he reads in his own newspaper, that Donald Trump is a liar, a sadist, a traitor, a cheat an abuser who is tearing down his country and making the world unsafe? What did he expect?
    #4. Sulzberger walked right into the spider’s web, a humiliating trip in which he allowed Trump to break the “off-the-record” promise, so that Trump essentially scooped the New York Times about the story of the meeting. Plus, Sulzberger gave Trump the satisfaction that he now could count the Times' publisher among those in high positions that thought maybe they could talk sense to Trump, but who have been publicly made to eat crow.
    #5. Sulzberger also ignored the common sense example set by one of his columnists, Charles Blow. That was when Trump, before he was sworn in as president, met with the Times editorial board. But Blow refused to go to that meeting, saying it would be impossible to  have a polite, civil conversation with a provocateur of hate and racism. (Along those lines, why would anyone want to be within touching, smelling distance of such a repulsive creature as Donald Trump?)

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    CAT STROKED HIS CHIN, thoughtfully, with a furry paw, brushing away his old-cat drool, and said: “But what would have been the right thing to do?”
    "From the git-go," I said, “Sulzberger should have turned down the White House invitation, or better still, not even have replied to it."
    “Then he should have gotten back to his actual job: putting out one of history’s greatest newspapers. And if, as a publisher, he felt the need to criticize the president, he could do it with editorials, on the front pages, if necessary."
     "It's comes down to humility," Cat said.
     "What do you mean?" I said.
     "Sulzberger,” Cat said, "forgot his purpose in life, just like you said. He's got an important job, but convincing a monster not to be a monster isn’t one of them. And he did shame his reporters and editors by ignoring the depth and import of what they’ve been telling the Times' readers, A.G. Sulzberger and the rest of us about the most vile president in history.”
 
       "Nicely put, Cat," I said.
      "So now you can come out from under that table," he said. "It's not your fault a publisher made a mistake. Nothing you should take personally."
      "I think I'll stay a while longer, if that's okay," I said.
       "Understood," Cat said.

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Day 543

7/16/2018

 


We may have an answer:
 
WHY WOULD A  PRESIDENT DISPLAY HIS TREASON SO PUBLICLY?

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   A LOT OF PEOPLE are wondering why Trump would meet with Putin, which, as today’s session demonstrated in high definition pictures and sound, is proof that our elected president is Putin’s Poodle.
   This is probably unfair to poodles.  In fact, close readers of this blog will recall that Cat and I try not to fall into Trump’s practice of comparing humans to other lifeforms, because his references to “animals” and “infestations” are meant to demean those he’s talking about.
   A more accurate description is that Trump is Putin’s Puppet, which is both alliterative and descriptive of the hold that Russia’s dictator-in-fact has over America’s dictator-in-waiting.
   Which brings us back to the question: Why would Trump participate – in fact, arrange - a photo op that would so starkly illustrate his treasonous relationship to Putin?

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THE TWO LIARS - Together again, doing what they do best, in perfect harmony. CREDIT - from the live broadcast by CBS News
   THE ANSWER DEPENDS on another question, and it's one that Cat and I have been batting around for a while: How does Trump get his instructions from Putin?
   Do they communicate by cellphone, email, UPS packages? Does the Russian secret service hide messages in golf balls delivered to Trump’s country clubs? Do the Russians run a flock of carrier pigeons?
   Whatever the means, it seems logical that both sides – Putin’s spooks and Trump’s traitors – probably worry about security breaches.
   There's always the possibility that the professional listeners at the National Security Agency, the CIA or Google will stumble on the president’s secret communications. Or, that a turncoat will leak an actual record of Putin’s instructions.
   So, what better forum than a personal, private get together, staged as a “summit” or “meeting” between two heads of state?

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   THAT PUPPETEER-TO-PUPPET meeting lasted two hours, which could mean a couple of things: that it took a long time for Trump to process Putin’s orders, because Trump’s famously fragile attention span required instructions be outlined several times before he could repeat them to Putin’s satisfaction.
   One of the things that Cat and I worried about is the fate of the translators, the only ones allowed in the room other than the “principals.”  Might they be disappeared in the near future to ensure that absolutely no one will be around to testify as to what was discussed?
   It’s possible, too, there were no verbal instructions, but that Putin delivered written puppeteer-to-puppet directions, specially tailored to Trump’s reading habits, meaning few words and many pictures. Which could mean that the translators had little to translate, so that perhaps they’ll enjoy ordinary life spans.

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   HERE'S WHERE Cat and I do disagree:
   Cat badly wants a transcript of today’s private meeting, as well as those of the earlier communications, made public. He thinks that the actual words will be convincing, even to Trump’s “base,” those voters whose opinions matter more than those of any other Americans. (When was the last time news reporters went to a local diner to find out what's on liberals' minds?)
    Frankly, I doubt that base people will ever change their minds, no matter how awful the deed and how authentic the proof. The base is a political cult. Anything Putin's Puppet says or does is fine with the base.
   "Take away our medical care. Promote racial division.  Impose tariffs that will screw my small business and raise prices of what I buy. Tax me more and rich people less. If you want to Make America Russia, we're here to cheer Putin’s tanks when they head down Pennsylvania Avenue and when the Russian helicopters land on the South Lawn."
   Further, in my opinion, we don’t need secret reports, more Mueller indictments or leaked hotel videos to know what the Puppet is up to.
   Trump’s treason is carried out in full view, just as was the case today, with the Puppet declaring Russia's misdeeds as reported by our intelligence agencies to be suspect, Russia's treachery to be a shared responsibility, and Putin to be a genuine leader and an admirable one at that.
   What terrifies me is that even with all of what is going on in public, that the public won’t care.
   After today's press conference, most of us just went back to regular programming, when we should have taken to the streets.
   It sometimes seems like the Trump catastrophe is just another scary TV series, not the real life Puppet Show leading our democracy over a cliff.
   We should be marching, not recapping the World Cup, or wondering about the deals offered by Amazon Prime, or reading reviews of the latest Netflix series. We should be demanding that Congress do its job, Republican toadies included. The radios should be playing solemn music.
  We should not be going to the beach, reading a book, dining out or otherwise trying to escape the nightmare of the Putin Puppet Show.
   We are under attack.
    And Putin's Puppet has just received new orders.

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Day 531

7/4/2018

 

The Civility Debate:
 

MAYBE IT'S LESS ABOUT TRUMP,THAN WHAT WE'LL SEE IN THE MIRROR

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   "CAT," I ASKED, “What do you think of the ‘civility’ debate that the liberals are having?”
   “How about you just leave me the #!%^& alone! It’s 88 freakin’ degrees in the shade, Dog-breath. Scram.”
   Cat was camped out on the back deck, underneath a table with two flower pots that the Nice One had put out. By now, the shade line had moved far enough so that the entire deck was engulfed in shadow. But I think Cat believed if he spread out under the table, he would get double the shade effect. Brilliant”
   “I was just wondering what you thought about whether Democrats should be treating Republicans with at least some manners,” I said.
   “Somebody, save me from this flea-magnet,” Cat yowled. "Anybody? Call 911. Get someone from the NRA over here right now and see what a Good Guy with a Gun can do to stop a Dog Without a Brain. Easy target, guaranteed.”
   Cat by now was wheezing and gasping in the humid, hot air.
   Probably not a good time, I thought to myself.
   Manners, Phoebe, where are my manners? Poor Cat. He didn’t ask for hot weather, much less, a hot topic. Not nice to be mulling the finer points of political etiquette in the middle of the Great Heat Wave of 2018. What was I thinking?  

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   ON THE OTHER HAND, when the country is going to #!%^& in a hand-basket, should the defense of democracy take a holiday? I mean, it’s the freakin’ Fourth of July today, and Cat wants to sleep his way into tyranny? Not going to happen.
   “So a couple of days ago, the Nice One and the Grouchy One took me along to a demonstration at the State House…,” I began. But Cat cut me short.
   “How brave and wonderful,” Cat sneered. “Another demonstration. And another great week for Trump: a slew of Supreme Court decisions guaranteed to send Lefties racing to their therapists’ couches. Plus, Anthony Kennedy, the court’s most insincere moderate, timed his exit to hand Trump a chance to replace him with another Neanderthal.”
 
   “At least I went to a protest, which keeps Trump and everyone else on notice that a lot of people despise him,” I said. “It’s part of a process.”
   “And a very effective one,” Cat yawned.
   “There was a guy,” I said, “with a poster of Trump as a pig, dressed as a king. The guy said it was based on a painting by an accomplished local artist. The guy himself was wearing tee-shirt  with this slogan: ‘Cerdo Racista’ that means ‘racist pig.’ “
   “The kind of thing you’d expect to see at a rally,” Cat said.

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   "I THOUGHT SO, TOO, AT FIRST," I said. “But then I got to thinking that it was little more than artistic name-calling. I mean, we've been all over Trump for using dehumanizing words like ‘animals’ and ‘infestation’ to describe immigrants. But it’s okay for our side to paint Trump as a pig?“
   “Geeze, this is beginning to sound like another Sunday sermon from Pathetic Pastor Phoebe," Cat said, as he leaped to his feet, despite the temperature and humidity,  and hurried into the house, mumbling something about “Goodie-Four-Paws, self-righteous little snotty smug-mutt….”
   I’m not sure about the “little” part, since I weigh 56 pounds, compared to Cat’s 17, but it’s really hard to have a civil discussion with someone who's not even there.

   I WAS DISAPPOINTED, because I’ve been thinking about this civility thing since 15 Democratic Socialists ambushed Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of Homeland Security, last month in a Washington, DC restaurant and videotaped themselves harassing her about how she’s helping Trump separate immigrant children from their parents when they cross the Mexican-American border and chanting "Shame. Shame" and so forth.
   (Nielsen, if you can follow the symbolism, had the gall to be eating at a Mexican restaurant).

   Later that month, national liar-in-chief Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia  restaurant called The Red Hen, whose owner told Sanders she didn’t much like how Sanders was being the mouthpiece for Trump’s falsehoods and anti-transsexual and other cruel policies.  
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CREDIT: The Red Hen restaurant's Facebook page
   Which prompted California Congresswoman Maxine Waters to urge Trump opponents to do this sort of thing whenever and wherever they find cabinet and other presidential lackeys at restaurants and other public places, a sort of No Justice, No Peace approach.
   Which prompted timid-as-ever Democratic Party leaders to chastise Waters’ approach, saying it could backfire by making Trumpites seem like victims, meaning that the entire midterm elections are now imperiled.
   Which prompted pundits and experts to come up with all sorts of op-ed arguments that boil down to this point: If Good Guys Are the Rude Guys It's OK, because the future of the Free World is at stake, and  being nice to Trumpites hasn’t really worked, has it?
   Also, what would you do if Hitler walked into your restaurant?
   “Pee in his soup?” Cat called out from inside the house. I guess he’d been listening all along while I was thinking out loud about civility.  I went on, just talking to myself.

    What makes me uncomfortable about this restaurant stuff is that part of the civil rights movement in the '60s was about ending discrimination in public places. If you are in business to serve the public, you serve customers regardless of their race. I'm thinking that we don't want to encourage a new sort of segregation, based on politics: Red Only, Blue Only and No Opinion Only restaurants.
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   Secondly, Trump can't be outclassed when it comes to being rude. He’s always going to come up with the most demeaning insult, the worst racial slur, the cruelest nickname. He’s spent a lifetime scrawling on  restroom walls of American civilization. We can’t outmaneuver him. And why would we want to?
 
   CAT INTERRUPTED my civility musings again: “So, Meathead, you just want us to be polite while the low vote-getter destroys America?”
   “Well, Cat,” I said, "if you really want to discuss it, there's other ways of going about all of this."
   "Turns out, a couple of days ago, Planet Destroyer Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was eating in a Washington restaurant.”
   "A school teacher was there, too, along with her husband , their 2-year-old son and some others, and when they realized Pruitt was nearby, the teacher couldn’t help herself. She jotted down a couple of talking points on a scrap of paper, snatched up the kid and marched over to Pruitt, who was not only so oblivious to eat in public during these Troubled Times, but apparently was under the impression that two of his fans had just stopped by.”
    "The teacher, Kristin Mink, had something else in mind:
   'I just wanted to urge you to resign for what you are doing to the environment in our country,' she said, adding that her kid likes clean water, clean air and animals. Then she left Pruitt and a fellow diner to chew on all of that."
   “I thought you wanted us to treat the Trump crowd politely,” Cat said.
   “I do,” I said. “I thought Ms. Mink did it just right. She didn’t chase him out of the restaurant, ruin his meal or make a fuss. She just had a polite word or two with an environmental outlaw and left him to enjoy the rest of his lunch.” 

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THE NICE WAY - Kristen Mink, holding her 2-year-old, suggests EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt step down. CREDIT: Video on Mink's Facebook page
   "SEEMS TO ME that you are splitting hairs,” Cat said. “What if some Trump devotee finds Michelle and Barack Obama eating in a restaurant, and marches  over to their table to say that his 2-year-old is really proud that he won’t have to grow up with Affordable Health Care?”
   “If the Trumpite wanted to say something stupid, it's fine by me,” I said. “Just as long as he didn’t chase them out, spoil the evening or treat them disrespectfully. It's a matter of style.”
    Cat still seemed skeptical.
    “Let me put it this way,” I said. “There are lots of ways to go about fighting Trump and his cultists, and no matter what we do, including using end-justifies-the-means tactics, the outcome isn’t guaranteed. But what will matter in the end is what we will become."
    “Will we become ill-mannered, lying, lawless, racist, women-abusing, child-hating bullies, bent on turning America into an evil dictatorship and transforming Earth into a Martian desert?"
   “Or will we look into a mirror and like what we see?'
   “Will the face in the mirror be a sadist, with weird hair?
   "Or a handsome, all-American alley cat?”
   “Will it be a Sweet Dog?
   "Or a monster?”
     
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THIS?
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OR THAT?
    A "sweet dog" and a smart opossum consider a nation at risk.

    The writers

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    PHOEBE, a "sweet dog" who came to Rhode Island in 2010 as a stray puppy from Missouri, was a political agnostic until Trump's catastrophic election. She tracked his presidency in a blog, which she decided to resurrect it this year  when it became obvious that Republicans are committed to Trump's destructive policies
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    MR. O, an opossum, showed up in Phoebe's backyard somewhat mysteriously. He turned out to have genuine insight into political matters, and he agreed to assume co-author duties of the blog after Phoebe's previous writing partner, Cat, a cat, died.
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    CAT

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