Blog Archives

DAY 921

7/31/2019

A SUMMER NIGHT’S TALE WORTH TELLING THE NEXT DAY
What happened in one American home during the debate

WE'RE STILL TALKING about last night’s Big Story.
     You mean the first day of the second round of Democratic presidential debates, you ask?
     Nope.
    Our Big Story was The Invasion. And the definitive role I played in defending, if not the homeland, our homestead.
     I kid you not.
     It happened as the debate was coming to a close. I can’t tell you the exact time, because, even though politics is always the main topic of conversation here at Marble Steps, the Newport, R.I. un-mansion where Cat and I live with Our Humans, we’d all pretty well had lost interest in the debate.
     Maybe we weren’t paying attention because the debate was boring. Maybe because our focus is tonight’s debate, featuring our “purr-phuuuured” candidate, as Cat likes to call Jay Inslee, governor of Washington, the state, the second round of Democratic debates and hopefully not Jay's last time
.
     ANYWAY, I SEE SOMETHING DART across the living room and “fly” into the sun porch, which now is definitely not sunny, but scary, because it’s night. I scramble after it anyway, chasing it into the hall. Back it flaps to the porch. All this time, the Humans are NOT paying attention.
     The Nice One, who is the alert Human, in addition to being nice, says:
     “What is Phoebe doing?”
     “Chasing flies. She likes to chase flies,” says The Grouchy One, who is typing at our computer and not even watching the TV.
     “It’s something else,” Nice says.
     “Chasing flies. She likes to chase flies,” says Grouchy, who, once locked into a thought, isn’t exactly open to alternatives.
     So the “Thing” and I keep our flight-and-flight pursuit going. Living room to porch, to front hall, to sunporch. Meanwhile, Cat is sleeping. But you knew that
      “There’s a BAT!” yells The Nice One.
     “What?” Grouchy says in his grouchiest how-could-I-possibly-be-wrong growl.
     “There’s a bat! On the couch,” Nice Once says.
     Well, Grouchy comes on the run, and sure enough, clinging to the back of the living room couch is this mouse-sized thing with Big Ears.
     I’m pretty sure I can speak for all of us at Marble Steps in saying that none of us know anything about bats, except that in the middle of the night they come silently into your bedroom and suck all the blood from your body. And if that doesn’t finish you off, they inject you with a rabies' venom, probably an unknown variety that instantly paralyzes your entire body until their allies, The Snakes, slither away with you and bring you to their swamp, where they prepare your body for The Ritual.

WE SORT OF KNOW what bats look like because we have a tiny, bat-shaped clock in the living room, that doesn’t work, which is okay with Grouchy, who is getting really old and therefore likes it when time stands still.
     For my part, I let out a sigh of relief. My role is finished. In classic dog fashion, I raised the alarm and kept the intruder on the move until the Proper Authorities could be alerted.
     Not that these "Authorities" have the slightest idea of what to do.
     Grouchy, however, like all males, pretends to take charge and runs into the kitchen. To hide? He returns with a metal mixing bowl, which he tries to put over the bat.
     “I can see his Big Ears,” he exclaims.
      You can almost hear the bat laughing at the absurdity. "I’m coming back a second turn,” I think the bat is cackling, but I can't hear it clearly. When Our Humans turn the bowl over, no bat in the bowl.
     Massive bat- hunt ensues. Look under the couch, under the bookcase, the chair, etc. No bat. Get the flashlight.
     “It’s still on the couch!” Nice one announces.
     They move the couch forward. Sure enough, the bat has gone into a creepy, crouchy position. Grouchy slides a towel over the thing, and wraps it up into a ball. You can hear the bat squeaking. Was it scared? Vowing revenge: “I’ll be back…”?
     Nice and Grouchy take the towel out to the back deck, and Grouchy tries to shake it off. Instead, the bat clings to the cloth, stretching its wings, a span that to me looked like a full foot, but was probably less. Real scary, though. I now hear him clearly: “I’ll be back, for a second term!”
     And then he’s gone, into the still-warm darkness of the July night.

YOU'RE ASKING: Phoebe and Cat, isn’t this blog supposed to be about Trump, not bats?
     Our answer: You’re absolutely right. This posting has absolutely nothing to do with Trump.
     It's a reminder of how life used to be when the only excitement worth talking about the next day was having a bat fly into your house.
     And wasn't that great?
     It could be that way again.

1 Comment

DAY 919

7/28/2019

0 Comments

IF IT’S SUNDAY, IT MUST BE TIME FOR TRUMP TO TWEET HIS GOSPEL OF RACE AND HATE

I WAS ON THE PHONE Sunday morning from Vermont to Cat, who, as usual, was sleeping-in back home in Rhode Island and not appreciating a call, especially one that sounded more like a sermon than a cheery audio postcard from my Green Mountain vacation.
   “It used to be that Sundays were for going to church,” I said, “and it wasn’t unusual for the faithful to get up early to do so.”
   “How do you know that, Phoebe?” Cat hissed. “Isn’t that part of the American myth? I bet the majority of people spent their Sundays, way, way back Whenever, was to hang up the damn phone, or the phone equivalent, and go back to sleep!”
   “Well, I was driving around the Vermont countryside just yesterday with Our Humans, and practically the only thing we saw besides cows and grass and mountains were churches” I said. "It seems like every time you come to a

place where two road cross, there’s a church. I’m sending you a picture to prove it.”
   “Is there a message here?” Cat asked.
   “Sundays are special for Donald Trump, too,” I said. “He practices his faith on Sundays, and gets up early to do it.”
   “Pray tell,” Cat said.
   “Well, Trump preaches the Religion of Race and Hate,” I said. “He has absolute faith in the Power of Prejudice, believing voters are singing from the Trump Family hymnal - silently - and that when they get to the voting booth, they’ll say ‘Amen.’ ”
   “Good lord, Phoebe," Cat said, “enough with the religious similes.”
   I explained to Cat that Trump had taken to his Tweeter pulpit at 6:28 a.m. on Sunday to renew his attack on Elijah Cummings, the Maryland Democrat who heads the House of Representatives committee on oversight and reform, and whose district includes parts of Baltimore.

Someone please explain to Nancy Pelosi, who was recently called racist by those in her own party, that there is nothing wrong with bringing out the very obvious fact that Congressman Elijah Cummings has done a very poor job for his district and the City of Baltimore. Just take...
....a look, the facts speak far louder than words! The Democrats always play the Race Card, when in fact they have done so little for our Nation’s great African American people. Now, lowest unemployment in U.S. history, and only getting better. Elijah Cummings has failed badly!

    Trump’s congregation responded in typical Twitter call-and-response fashion, with 93,595 “likes” and 25,051 missionary-style‘’retweets.” (In between each of the president’s individual Tweets, a Trump antagonist, “Bishop Talbert Swan,” wrote: “REPENT RAPIST”).
    “This is all very interesting,” Cat said. “But am I missing the overtly racist parts?”
    “Like most things, you have- to have some context,” I said. “Trump actually began spreading the word on Saturday, so these were his follow-up shots after people came to Cummings' defense. You also have to know that Representative Cummings is African-American."

Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA......
....As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.
Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately.

“IT'S BECOMING CLEARER,” Cat said. “Many, many elements. Lies. Exaggeration. Animal references.   McCarthy-like Innuendo. Hypocrisy.
   “Cat,” I said, “how come this is like news to you? What have you been doing back home?”
   “Well, at least I’m not working while on vacation, like you seem to be,” Cat said disdainfully. “Why can’t you give this all a rest for four or five days? I thought you said Vermont is beautiful and very peaceful, all the more so because Sen. Bernie Sanders is away a lot campaigning. And all those mountains”
   “Because with Trump in the White House, there can be no vacations, no breaks, no rest, no normal. The man is not Normal, Cat. He’s un-normal. He’s immoral. A sociopath. Or a psychopath. Maybe both. And he’s the president of the United States trying to set off a race war.”
   Cat yawned into the phone, which then seemed to slip from his paws onto the living room floor back home. I could imagine him waddling to the edge of the couch, practically tumbling onto the floor, and resuming the conversation without bothering to pick up the phone, but breathing into the mouthpiece.
   “Two weeks ago it was the ‘Squad,’ the four first-term Congresswomen of color whom he said should ‘go back’ to where they came from, and that message got right through to his campaign choir, who began chanting “Send her home,” meaning Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the one with a headscarf.
   Here’s how those Tweets went two Sundays ago:

Why don’t they (the Congresswomen) go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how.... it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough ….

    THE WORST PART, I explained, is that Trump appeared, as always, to be getting away with it. Now, the news analysts are discussing Trump’s racism matter-of-factly, as a campaign strategy. The Associated Press wrote:
   "Heading into the 2020 elections, the president is trying to tap into anxieties about demographic and cultural changes in the nation in the belief that the divided country he leads will simply choose sides over issues such as race."
   “You know the danger here?” Cat asked.
   “What?” I said. “That there’s not enough people speaking up about Trump’s racist incitements?”
   “No,” Cat said, “That maybe there’s too much feedback. Number One, rebutting Trump helps amplify his message, spreading it more widely, which works for him, just as long as the message reaches willing ears. And Number Two, it puts the Democrats into the non-racist box, so the bigots, secret or otherwise, will know who not to vote for.”
   “What’s the alternative?” I said. “The Democrats put up a candidate who’s slightly racist, signaling that they’re OK on the bigotry front? To say nothing, letting the nation know that it’s acceptable for the Man with the Nuclear Football to be triggering a race war? Is there anything worse than staying silent, not speaking out, not being outraged, not caring?”
   “I’m saying…,” Cat stammered.
   “Listen, Furball,” I yelled back at the top of my lungs, as if you cared about something enough, you didn’t need a telephone to be heard from Rhode Island to Vermont. “There are millions of voters out there who are not bigots, at least they don’t want to be bigots, who’ve had it with racism, their own and the racism that’s been part of American history from the git-go, and who want to change, to move on and to become better people, and who want their children to be even better. And just maybe there’s more of those voters than there are Trump’s.”
     “I’m just saying that the problem, when it comes to countering Donald Trump, is that there’s no obvious way,” said Cat, “You’re always damned if you do; and damned if you don’t.”
   “And you’ll only know for sure what is the right answer,” I agreed, “after it’s too late.”

0 Comments

DAY 912

7/22/2019

Our Endorsement
JAY INSLEE: THE RIGHT PERSON,
WITH THE RIGHT ISSUE:
STOPPING CLIMATE CHANGE

JAY INSLEE at the 2019 California Democratic State Convention. CREDIT: Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license

   JAY INSLEE is our choice for the Democrat candidate to run against Donald Trump – and win.
   We know: “Jay who?” Or to put it differently: “Who’s Jay?”
   Like you and millions of other Americans, we at the Tracking Trump blog (Phoebe and Cat) knew nothing about him until recently. But of all the 20-plus Democrats running, he’s our candidate.
   We’re not content to put off our decision, unlike so many fence-sitters who are engaged in magical thinking, hoping that by waiting long enough, maybe some candidate will suddenly catch fire.
   What’s the rush?
   First, it’s now clear that many Democrats and Independents believe that Trump has a good chance of winning a second term. It’s a realistic, but dangerous fear, since even common house pets like us know the mischief that defeatist thinking can cause. So, let’s get some positive focus going before it’s too late.
    Secondly, Friday, July 31, is the final session of the second round of TV debates, and to put it bluntly, it could mean curtains for Inslee, since he’s in what’s politely known as the “Second Tier” group of low-ranking candidates who could be forced out of the race for poor poll numbers and feeble fundraising.
   If that happens to Inslee, it will be a tragedy and a lost opportunity for democracy, for the country and for our planet.
   Why?
   There are two things you need to know about Jay Inslee:
   One. He's the governor of Washington. For those of us on the East Coast, that would be the Other Washington. It’s an actual state that you can find on most maps, in the uppermost left corner, fronting the Pacific Ocean and just below Canada. Inslee is a whiz at that job.
   Two. Inslee is the only candidate who’s made reversing climate change the centerpiece of his campaign. (“Oh, THAT Jay Inslee,” you're saying now.) He says climate change is the most important fight of the 21st Century, even more than the exorcism urgently needed at the White House.
   It’s so obvious a position that, as animals who are particularly sensitive about our environment, Phoebe and Cat are surprised that no other candidate sees the urgency of keeping the home planet habitable for man and beast alike. No Earth: no country, no Amazon Prime, no nothing.
   There’s a third reason Inslee speaks to us. It’s about an award that the governor made in 2015 to a …. But that's our closing argument, so we’ll get to it later.
   Early on, the Tracking Trump blog developed a short list of qualifications required of the challenger to the Sociopath, and Inslee meets them, although more so on some points than on others:

Political experience.
Administrative skill
Charisma
Youth – relative to Bernie and Joe
The Vision Thing

GOVDERNOR INSLEE delivering the Washington State of the State address earlier this year. CREDIT: Governor's Office

    Experience
   Jay’s got tons of the political kind. He’s served in the Washington legislature; in the U.S. House of Representatives; worked at a federal agency; and now is in his second term as governor of that Other Washington. And along the way, he lost a couple of races – excellent training for politician.
   Let’s get something straight. The Tracking Trump blog liked - loved - Barack Obama. He did an amazing, although hardly perfect job. And he had two dogs. But Obama hadn’t been in politics long enough to get the requisite basic training.
   He was late in recognizing the enemy, including contemporary Republicans, who really, really are different breed. Mitch McConnell and the boys must have laughed themselves silly - "A real knee-slapper" - when they heard Obama's stirring but totally wrong proposition that there are no red states, no blue states, only the United States of America.
   Also, Obama was so tied to his opposition to the Iraq war that he was too timid in using U.S. power, and he let Syria’s war crimes evolve into the humanitarian disaster that forced millions to flee, destabilizing European politics.
   Jay’s experience at every level of government and politics will help him think rationally and practically, and will get him safely through the inevitable bad times.

AT THE WHEEL of an electric school bus in Tacoma. CREDIT: Governor's Office

Running things
   Somebody who wants to be president should first run something big, like a state and know how government works. Actual presidents, as opposed to psychopaths, have to manage Congress, make sure agencies do their jobs, create budgets and figure out, before anyone else, what’s important.
   Inslee’s campaign makes the case that he’s gotten a lot done in the Other Washington. Raised the minimum wage. Promoted strong unions. Backed paid sick leave. Adopted Obamacare. Instituted a moratorium on the death penalty. Increased money for schools to boost teacher pay, provide smaller class sizes. Enacted background checks for gun purchases. Championed reproductive rights.
   This is important, not only as job training, but to demonstrate that Inslee knows how to chew gum and fly around in Air Force One at the same time. Proving that, as, committed to climate change as he is, he’ll get the other things done, too.

Charisma
   Okay, Jay Inslee isn’t the next Barack Obama, Jack Kennedy, Oprah or Beyoncé. He doesn’t have star power. It’s why most of us don’t know that he exists.
   But he’s a solid public speaker. He can handle Trump on the debate stage, and he can inspire, educate, inform and communicate. He looks and sounds the part.
   You can imagine him giving a solid Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 2021, and you won’t be embarrassed when he delivers the State of the Union later You'll be proud when he goes to the UN, the G8 or presides over the opening of the new super-battery factory that may be part of his climate change program. If your team wins the World Series, the Super Bowl or the World Cup, you’ll be glad President Inslee will invite them 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
   It’s a good bet that Inslee won’t get much speaking time at this week’s Democratic debate on CNN. But if you want a sample of how he sounds, the New York Times has a nice site reprising video interviews the paper did with the candidates, and you can see and hear Jay for yourself. CLICK here.

WITH A YOUNG constituent at bill signing of a measure increasing age of smoking from 18 to 21. CREDIT: Governor's Office

   Not too old
   Come on, Man, we like Our Humans – the Nice One and the Grouchy One – who invited into their home, "Marble Steps," their unmansion in Newport, R.I. But by November, 2019, they’ll both be 77.
   So, trust Cat and Phoebe, we know what it’s like be around Humans who are running short of their allotted time. Simply put, you don’t want 77-year-olds operating heavy equipment or running Big Government.
   We’re not being cavalierly ageist. Phoebe herself is 9 years old (multiply by 7), and Cat is 13 and can’t remember the multiplier that compares a cat’s age to a human’s. We’re admiring of and grateful to the Notorious RBG for hanging in at the Supreme Court. And we cheer other “senior” Marathoners who defy the inevitable. We realize humans, and even pets, are living longer, better, happier these days, and that none of us age physically and mentally at same rate.
   But….
   Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., if he takes office Jan. 20, 2021, will be 78.
   Bernard Sanders will be 79.
   The National Disgrace will be 74 if he gets sworn for in a second term, although that will also be The Day the World Ends, so age won’t be a worry.
   By contrast, Jay is a mere lad at 69.
   So he makes the age cutoff.
   Phoebe and Cat implore you to take this seriously. We live the horror every day. Our Humans take naps during the day. Do you want the leader of the free world doing that? People in their 70s forget things; they get sick; they make weird sounds getting out of cars; hair grows out of their ears.
   Biden already looks and sounds like something a grave robber just dug up. Bernie seems spry enough – now. But two years into that commander-in-chief shtick?
   So our relative spring chicken, the Boy Who Would Be President, is young enough.
   Barely.
   But enough.

AT ELECTRIC vehicle charging station. CREDIT: Governor's Office

   The Vision Thing
   Inslee is both eloquent and spot-on in declaring climate change should be Job One.
   He puts it this way on his campaign website:
   We are the first generation to feel the sting of climate change, and we are the last generation that can do something about it. The science is clear – we have a short period of time to act. Whether we shrink from this challenge, or rise to it, is the biggest question we face.
   So, other than exiling Trump to Mar-a-Lago to keep an eye on rising ocean levels, there is no issue that comes close to climate change.
   Whether you want Medicare for All, or the public option; whether you streamline the asylum process, allow the Dreamers to stay put, get back into a no-H-bomb deal with Iran, recruit transgender soldiers, get rid of college debt, figure out what to do when robots take over every job – all of these things are immensely important and must be addressed, and fast. But nothing matches the devastation of climate change. In just a few years, we won’t have to worry about a mission to Mars, because we’ll be living (or not) the Mars-equivalent life.
   Inslee likes to say that he’s got a plan to tackle climate change and create 8 million jobs. His website spells out some of this:

Setting a bold national 100% Clean Electricity Standard, requiring utilities to achieve 100% carbon-neutral power by 2030, and all-clean, renewable and zero-emission energy in electricity generation by 2035. This builds upon and accelerates momentum toward 100% clean electricity – policy that has been adopted in Washington state, California, Hawaii, New Mexico, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and a target to which more than 100 American cities and counties are committed, from Concord, N.H., to Columbia, S.C.
Guaranteeing support for workers and community transition – following Washington state’s model to ensure that the creation of clean energy projects results in many good, family-wage jobs, and that all communities benefit in the transition to a carbon-free power future. Includes promoting projects with businesses owned by women and people of color; apprenticeship utilization; prevailing wages determined through collective bargaining; and community workforce and project-labor agreements.

   Are you bored yet? We are. Who wants to read that kind of thing? But if you want more, CLICK here to link to the site.
   The fact is that Inslee’s plan has enough detail in it, some based on stuff tried already in the Other Washington, to assure us that he’s serious and can hit the ground running. Like all things, the actual program will be far different as it plays out, because there will be better ways, new technology, smarter ideas.
   But it’s the vision thing at work. Jay Inslee has it. None of the other candidates do. Spread the word. Tell your neighbors. Invite strangers to dinner. Call the relatives. Phone 911. Assure your grandchildren that their planet will be alive and kicking when they are reading bedtime stories to their grandchildren, but insist that they must vote now.

INSLEE presenting Washingtonian of the Day Award to Tillie, rescuer of another "Phoebe". CREDIT: Ted S. Warren, AP

The Award
   Here’s the part that put Inslee over the top as far as us fur-bearing creatures at the Tracking Trump blog are concerned.
   As governor, Inslee has cooked up an award – Washingtonian of the Day. Instead of (or maybe in addition to) handing out patronage jobs and low-number license plates, a tradition here in Rhode Island, he hands out awards that make good people feel good.
   In mid-October, 2015,” Inslee presented the Washingtonian to Tillie, admonishing on-lookers and a larger-than-usual press contingent to celebrate her “bravery and loyalty.”
   Tillie who?
   Tillie, of Vashon Island, an Irish-setter-spaniel who wandered away from home with her basset-hound pal named – we are not kidding – “Phoebe.” This Phoebe, of the short legs, fell into a shallow cement cistern and couldn’t climb out. For about a week, Tillie tried to alert people to the crisis, rushing to civilization and back to her trapped friend again and again. Finally, someone alerted the all-volunteer Vashon Island Pet Protectors to Tillie’s pleas, and Phoebe was freed.
   We are not sure whether Cat would have been as diligent, had our own Phoebe experienced a similar problem. But both of us admire Governor Inslee's instincts.
   Animal stories are killer material for the media. Inslee received worldwide coverage on this bit of stagecraft – a lot more ink and clicks than his climate change plan has received so far, or for coverage of the .00003-seconds he was allotted during the last debate.
   Dogs are truly a politician’s best friend..
   FDR, in a famous speech, used his dog, Fala, to mock his rabid New Deal critics.
   Richard Nixon had Checkers, who saved his political life when he was running for vice president and been accused of taking improper gifts. Nixon gave a TV speech in which he noted that someone had sent a dog to the Nixon family:
   It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl—Tricia, the 6-year-old—named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.
   Of course, it might have been better for the country had Checkers been delivered to the wrong address, but that’s not our point.
   Jay Robert Inslee, like one of the greatest presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and one of the worst, Tricky Dick, understands politics and dogs.
   Donald Joseph Trump doesn’t have a dog, (lucky for the dog).
   In conclusion: It’s too early to throw away someone who may be one of the great presidents, simply because, with more than a year to go, his poll numbers are between 0.0 percent and 0.4 percent.
   We're not arguing that Inslee deserves to be the 46th president. It’s that the nation deserves his kind of leadership.
   If he makes it to the White House, we’re hoping Inslee will invite Tillie and Phoebe, maybe to award them the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
   Certainly, the duo will have earned that honor, having helped demonstrate that Jay Robert Inslee is the kind of leader that the nation desperately needs, and that he can be a president who knows a thing or two about what really works, and what’s really important - in politics, as in life.

AT RESCUE SITE: Tillie, left, winner of Washingtonian Award, and Phoebe. CREDIT Amy Carey, Vachon Island Pet Protectors

DAY 888

7/3/2019

Exclusive
JULY FOURTH FRACTURED:
A NEW I HAVE A DREAM,
FOR A NEW KIND OF KING

EXCLUSIVE!
   Phoebe and Cat have obtained what appears to be an advance copy of the speech President Trump is to deliver at the Lincoln Memorial on the Fourth of July.
   While they haven’t had time to examine it closely, it seems to borrow heavily from the historic “I Have A Dream” speech that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered from the same place five decades ago.
   In fact, the text is so fresh that it shows where Trump’s lazy speechwriters have apparently edited King’s talk, with some words eliminated (you can see the actual cross-outs in underlined italics and smaller letters, and new words changed or added , as indicated by the CAPITAL LETTERS.
   As far as they can tell, if it is taken from King’s 1963 speech, it’s not the whole thing; which is not surprising, since the president’s writers probably left out huge chunks, knowing their boss’ short attention span and disdain for history.
   Is this really a doctored Dr. King?
   Or is it another example of the new, bold and personal stamp that Donald Trump is putting on the American story.
   As journalists, and a mere dog and cat at that, they can’t answer those questions, just present the facts as slipped under their door and presented for you to judge.
   - The Editors, On Trump's Trail
                                 * * *

THE PRESIDENT:
   I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation AND THE WORLD.
   Five score years ago, IT SEEMS ONLY YESTERDAY THAT a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous MONSTROUS decree came as a great beacon light of hope DISAPPOINTMENT to millions of Negro slaves TO THOUSANDS OF SLAVE OWNERS who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice KNOWN AS THE ‘LOST CAUSE’ OR, MORE COMMONLY, THE CIVIL WAR.
                                     * * *

    In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence - THAT SLAVES WOULD BE COUNTED AS THREE-FIFTHS OF THE REST OF THE POPULATION - they were signing a promissory note to which every WHITE American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

   We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy TYRANNY. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation INTEGRATION to the sunlit path of racial justice INJUSTICE. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice FAIRNESS to the solid rock of brotherhood UNFAIRNESS. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all SOME of God’s children.
                                    * * *

   I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men SOME men (AND NO WOMEN, NO PUSSIES) are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will NEVER AGAIN be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
                                    * * *

   I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice CLIMATE CHANGE THAT DOESN’T EXIST, sweltering with the heat of oppression FAKE SCIENCE, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice INJUSTICE.
   I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not ONLY be judged by the color of their skin but AND NEVER by the content of their character, IF THEY HAVE ANY.
   I have a dream today.
                                       * * *

   I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious RESURGENT racists – ROY MOORE, WHERE ARE YOU? I SEE YOU THERE. COME UP HERE, ROY – A GREAT AMERICAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN - with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” AND “NO ABORTIONS, NO EXCEPTIONS.”
   One day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able AGAIN FORBIDDEN to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
    BOB BARR, YOU BETTER BE TAKING NOTES, BECAUSE I HAVE IN MIND SOME CIVIL RIGHTS ‘REFORMS.’ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE GREATEST, MOST LOYAL, MOST OBSEQUIOUS ATTORNEY GENERAL IN HISTORY!
    I have a dream today.
                                     * * *

     I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted FRACKED, every hill and mountain shall be made low BY STRIP-MINING AND THE PROMISE OF WONDERFUL, GREAT COAL, the rough places will be made plain TO STAY JUST AS THEY ARE, and the crooked places will be made straight REMAIN AS CROOKED AS MY CABINET, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed WITH THE EXCEPTION OF MY TAX RETURNS.
                                       * * *

    This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood BIGOTRY.
    With this faith, we SOME OF US will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle, to go to jail BE PARDONED together, to stand up for freedom OPPRESSION together, knowing that we MEN will be free one day.
    This will be the day, this will be the day when all JUST A FEW of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty TYRANNY, of thee I sing. and where my fathers died, the land of the pilgrim’s pride THE LAND THE PILGRIMS STOLE FROM THE NATIVE AMERICANS, from every mountainside, let freedom DESPAIR ring!”
                                       * * *

   And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom OPPRESSION ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire – RUSSIA, I HOPE YOU ARE STILL LISTENING.
    Let freedom REPRESSION ring from the mighty mountains of New York VALLEYS OF WALL STREET.
     Let freedom CYNICISM ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania THAT CROOKED HILLARY FORFEITED IN 2016.
     Let freedom ring WARRANTS ISSUE from the snow-capped POT- CLOUDED Rockies of Colorado.
     Let freedom FEAR ring from the curvaceous slopes SANCTUARY CITIES of California (WHICH WE’LL TAKE CARE OF IN THE 2ND TERM.
   But not only that: Let freedom REGRESSION ring ROLL DOWN from Stone Mountain of Georgia AND FROM THE RESTORED MONUMENTS TO STONEWALL JACKSON.
    Let freedom NOTHING ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
    Let freedom THE SOUND OF SHOTGUNS ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, WHERE GOOD PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES DISCUSSED CIVIL RIGHTS.
    From every mountainside, GOLF COURSE, CASINO, AND HOTEL OF AMERICA, let freedom CASH REGISTERS ring.
                                  * * *

    LET ME END HERE WITH A TWEET. PLEASE FOLD YOUR THUMBS AND KNEEL.
    TODAY, I HAVE SIGNED AN EXECUTIVE ORDER INSTRUCTING THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE TO MAKE SURE THE PICTURES OF TODAY’S GREAT GATHERING COME OUT RIGHT, SO THERE WILL BE NO DISPUTE ABOUT THE VAST, GIGANTIC CROWDS GATHERED HERE TODAY, WHICH HAVE NO PARALLEL IN HUMAN HISTORY!

   NOW, I INVITE YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN TO GATHER AROUND THE NEWEST, MOST POWERFUL, MOST DESTRUCTIVE ARRAY OF SHERMAN TANKS EVER ASSEMBLED ON THE NATIONAL MALL, JUST A SYMBOL OF WHAT I HAVE IN MIND FOR MY 2ND, 3RD AND 4TH TERMS. SO APPROPRIATE TO MENTION THE 4TH TERM HERE, ON THE 4TH OF JULY. SO APPROPRIATE.

   LASTLY, I - AND ONLY I – CAN LEAVE YOU WITH THIS THOUGHT:
   THIS IS NOT A DREAM.
   BUT IT IS A NIGHTMARE.

Day 886

7/1/2019

DEMOCRATS: BEWARE THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

“PHOEBE! What were you thinking?”
     Cat was practically screaming, his voice shaking with an uncharacteristic warble.
     “What do you mean?” I said.
     “You were in the middle of the road!” Cat yowled. “You could have been run over, squashed, instant road-kill. What were you thinking, you fool!”
     I looked to see what he was up to, and Cat was staring into the screen of our laptop, reviewing the set of photos I had assembled for use in our next blog posting.
     “They are just pictures, Cat,” I said. “But I’m glad to see you got the point.”
     “The point?” he yowled.
     “That middle of the road is a dangerous place to be,” I said.
     “So why just wander out into the middle of the street, like you are waiting for the next 18-wheeler to turn you into something even more disgusting than you are already?” he said.
     “Precisely the point I’m suggesting to all the pundits, know-it-alls, chin strokers, columnists, panelists and analysts, who have been singing the same song, pretty much in unison, running down the Democratic candidates who took part in the TV debates last Wednesday and Thursday.”
     “And that song is what?” Cat asked.

"THAT THE DEMOCRATS are throwing away their mid-term election victory that won them the House, and, instead, they are thoughtlessly helping Trump to win a second term,” I said.
     “Their reasoning?” Cat asked.
     “That the Democrats are so left-leaning, so impractical, so fringe, that they are going to frighten away all the ‘moderate’ voters who aren’t thrilled with Trump, but will be turned off by elitist, crazy, impractical and selfish socialists.”
     “Like who?” Cat said.
     “I think you mean ‘Like WHOM?’ “I said.
     “Don’t play Goody Grammar Cop with this voter,” Cat hissed at me. “That’s exactly the kind of coastal, snotty-face attitude that will turn this common sense pussy into a crazed, unpredictable tiger when he hits the voting booth. Who, whom are you hooting about?”

"LIKE THE ALWAYS INSUFFERABLE David Brooks, who plays the Nice & Friendly & Smiling & Reasonable Conservative on pubic TV’s ‘NewsHour,” and is presumed to have magical powers of insight and reason because he writes columns for the New York Times, which are just as vapid.”
     “Really?” Cat asked. “What was he saying about the debates?”
     “Here’s the headline,” I said.
     Dems, Please Don’t Drive Me Away
     “Well, you can’t judge a columnist by a headline,” Cat said
     At this point, I knew Cat was toying with me like one of the mice in our house that he never catches.
     I explained that Brooks starts off the column this way:
     I could never in a million years vote for Donald Trump. So my question to Democrats is: Will there be a candidate I can vote for?”
     And then, to convince the reader that he’s done original research, Brooks cites a recent poll that shows that liberals are only 26 percent of all American, whereas 35 percent are conservatives, and moderates are also 35 percent.
     “That doesn’t add up,” Cat said.
     “Never does,” I said. “Maybe the pollsters reached an amazing 4 percent of American who have no opinion, even in The Troubled Times of Trump. Brooks babbles on:
     The party seems to think it can win without any of the 35 percent of us in the moderate camp, the ones who actually delivered the 2018 midterm win. (Emphasis added).
     And ends with this self-pitying complaint:
     The debates illustrate the dilemma for moderate Democrats. If they take on progressives they get squashed by the passionate intensity of the left. If they don’t, the party moves so far left that it can’t win in the fall. Right now we’ve got two parties trying to make moderates homeless.
     “Pathetic,” Cat agreed. “But you don’t like Brooks in the first place, so why get worked up over him?”
     “Because he’s not alone,” I said. And I read Cat some more headlines (Brooks isn’t the only one who does his homework):

     A Wretched Start for Democrats (that’s another Times’ guy, Bret Stephens).

    Unhappy With Their 2016 Coronation,
    The Democrats Start a 2020 Circus (Tim Alberta, Politico)

   The world needs Trump out –
   But are the Democrats up to the task? (Robert Reich, one-time labor secretary, writing in The Guardian)

"I COULD GIVE you more...,” I said.
     “Please, don’t,” Cat said. “But what’s with the middle of the road pictures?”
     “Because the middle of anything – a road, a policy, a slogan, a campaign – is exactly where you don’t want to be. Do you remember a book written in the last century by a Texas liberal, Jim Hightower?”
     “I may have missed that one,” Cat said.
     “Well, the title was There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos,” I said, “and I think that pretty well sums up the problems of alleged 'moderates: 'hang out in the middle of the road, and you’ll be killed by what’s coming at you from both sides.”
     “But all of these people, Brooks included, mean well,” Cat said. “They don’t want Trump to win any more than we do, so it’s important for a Democrat to be able to get lots of voters. Some of the candidates said they wanted healthcare-for-all by replacing people’s current insurance; they all seemed very welcoming to undocumented and other immigrants; they wanted an economy that narrows the gap between the few that are rich and the many who/whom aren’t.”
     I looked at Cat with a frown.
     “I’m just saying, maybe the critics are right to be scared,” Cat said.
     “Look, Furbrain, when was the last time you ran into anybody who began the conversation ‘I love my health insurance company?’ ” I asked Cat. “And it was refreshing to hear candidates speaking with compassion and welcome for immigrants fleeing their countries in fear of their lives. And climate change is frightening.”

"DO YOU WANT to lose the election?” Cat countered.
     “We aren’t going to lose the election by being neutral,” I said. “The election will be a referendum on Donald Trump, the cruelest, meanest, most dangerous president in history. So you don’t want a middle-of-the-road candidate with a slogan like:
Vote for me. You can sleep nights knowing that I won’t change anything. I won't do anything. I won't go forward. Or backward. And, what's more: I don't really care; do you?’”
     "What's more, Cat, issues count," I said..
     “You can’t go half-way to stop climate change in the 10 years that we have left. You can’t have health care for some us, but ask the rest, who also have cancer, broken hearts and misfiring brains, to be patient, but not patients. You can’t go halfway in keeping the Russians out of our elections.”
     Cat yawned: “Sermon’s running a bit long, My Girl, and it’s not even Sunday. Besides, we agree on at least one thing.”
     “What’s that?” I said.
     “The middle of the road isn’t a safe place to be, especially this year. Not safe for Middling Moderates, Far Left Lefties, Yellow Dog Democrats, Blue Dog Democrats, Red State Hounds; and it’s certainly not safe for Preacher Dogs, who/whom lack the common sense NOT to pose for pictures on the yellow lines."
      “That’s quite sweet of you, Cat,” I said. “I’m touched, after all these years.”
     “Don’t let it go to your head,” he said. “I may be old, but I’ve still got claws on my Right-side paws, and the ones on the Left.”

A "sweet dog" confronts the catastrophe of the Trump presidency

The Tracker

PHOEBE might have remained a “sweet” and apolitical dog but for the Trump crisis. Now, like millions of Americans, she wrestles daily with the challenge of what to do about it. With no illusions about the impact, she founded and is the principal writer of the Tracking Trump blog.

In Memoriam

CAT, a cat and Libertarian was Phoebe's co-author. He died Nov. 14, 2019. His self-described role was to leaven Phoebe’s naiveté and idealism with “common sense." He is remembered and missed.