The True Enemy of The People

The past few years of chaos perpetuated by demagogue Donald Trump will feel like child's play compared to the viciousness just on the horizon.

As America nears its mid-term elections in November, and myriad troubling and controversial issues intersect, be prepared for a firestorm of incivility, vitriol that will shake our democratic foundations.

The writing on the wall got larger and bolder yesterday during a scathing attack by Republican congressmen on FBI Director Christopher Wray and Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstien, in questioning designed to discredit special council Robert Mueller's Russia-Trump probe.

The message was clear. Trump's plutocratic loyalists are amping up their game to comprise Mueller who is expected to wrap up his collusion and obstruction of justice investigation sometime this fall, before the mid-terms.

In the meantime, a separate heated battle is brewing between Democrats and Republicans on when to vote on replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy -- before or after the elections.

That in itself is a distracting mess, as we learn that Kennedy's son, Justin, a Wall Street mover and shaker lent Trump $1 billion while employed with Deutsche Bank of New York.

Duestche was fined multi-millions of dollars by the federal government on a money laundering conviction just before Trump was sworn in as President.

On top of that, Vanity Fair recently reported how Russia's high-tech threats to manipulate our social media platforms and electoral systems are only escalating, with the mid-terms and 2020 elections as targets.

Connect the dots.

As the most divisive president in United States history attacks the press (as Adolph Hitler did) "as the enemy of the people" -- just days before a gunman kills five colleagues at the Capitol Gazette Newspaper in Annapolis, MD, the true "enemy of the people" has never been more plain. 

Trump and his "Companions of Thieves"

President Donald Trump and his loyal plutocrats have unmasked themselves completely through their immigration policy and agenda.

"Your rulers are rebels and companions of thieves; Everyone loves a bribe and chases after rewards. They do not defend the orphan, nor does the widow's plea come before them." Isaiah 1:23 NASB

Trump, his Republican apologists and his profit-minded corporatist pals indeed are "companions of thieves," chasing after "rewards" -- whether it's political points or lucrative contracts to build tent cities for kidnapped children.

Trump's "Zero Tolerance" immigration policy that has plucked some 2,300 children and babies from their parents at the Mexican border to cage them like animals, makes that clear. 

As does the lucrative deal his 2016 campaign supporters got to now build tent cities to house illegal immigrants, including lost and suffering children who may never see their parents again.

If Americans ever become okay with this, we are finished as a democratic, and more importantly, godly nation. 

Fireflies Arrive

How bout that? 

Lightening bugs came late this year. But tonight, June 18, is the night. I counted 12 greenish-yellow tiny flashes in a minute or so just as dusk fell over my tree-enshrouded cottage. And just in time. On summer's cusp. What would summer be without lightening bugs?

Dr. Evil's 'Space Force'.. Oooh

Donald Trump truly is Dr. Evil.

Now the delusional commander-in-cheat is promoting a really, super duper American "space force" of our armed forces.

Yeah, Baby Yeah.

Only thing missing is Trump touching the tip of his right pinky finger to the corner of his mouth.

Same old story. Anything to distract from justice closing in. Look up there. Look over here. Don't mind that wackadoo behind the curtain.

God please bless America.

American Patriotism or Facism? Let 'em Kneel

Telling National Football League players that they can't take a knee or raise a fist before the American flag during the national anthem, is like telling a man that he can't pray -- or that he must.

Contrary to reactionary cries, enflamed by a demagogic President, the protests, and the defense there of, have never been about disrespecting the flag or our veterans -- but honoring them both.

And NFL owners should have no say in whether a player decides to stand, sit or kneel during the anthem. Indeed, freedom isn't free. 

Hundreds of thousands of brave American men and women have fought and died on the battefield to defend our Democratic ideals of equality and justice, which were fundamental to the founding of this country 242 years ago.

By kneeling during the "Star-Spangled Banner," NFL players are exercising the very freedoms that same banner represents, and our war heroes died for -- purportedly, for all Americans. 

And any past or ongoing player protests (hence, the two Miami Dolphin players who took a knee on opening day) are demonstrating and preserving those treasured, professed values that our soldiers died to protect. 

One of those values is called free speech under the First Amendment. And one of the reasons "Old Glory" flies, is to protect that right.

Do we really believe in truth, justice and the American way?

What good are those Democratic ideals of equality that our American war heroes sacraficed everything for, if we, the people, just take them for granted? 

How can we Americans purport to embrace Godly values when standing before the flag, but then sit quietly by in the face of injustice? 

Now, more than ever, we should be treasuring those privelages spelled out in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights -- particularly in light of President Trump's clear autocratic agenda.

"Black Lives Matter" arose after several video-taped cases of cops shooting unarmed black man found exposure on social media.

In 2015, police killed at least 104 unarmed black men in the U.S. -- five times the number of unarmed white men killed by cops.

The Washington Post reported that 34 percent of the unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2016 were black males, which make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.

What the American flag represents is much bigger than the flag itself. Our fellow Christians should know this as well as anyone. The Bible instructs to be aware of "idols" or "false gods" that take the place of God. 

When honoring a flag becomes more important than defending the Godly values the flag is supposed to represent, it's an idol.

And the protesting NFL players kneeling in support of social justice aren't a bunch of spoiled rich kids. NFL players' salaries may be out of touch with most of ours, but it's not like they all were born with silver spoons in their mouths.

For many players, the NFL was their ticket out of the slums, where poverty, crime and drugs swallow up lives, daily. They know what racial profiling looks like first hand.

And if not high-profile citizens like the NFL players to give this crucial social issue a national platform at a time when much of America is watching, who will -- and when?

Do Americans truly stand behind the two most penetrating phrases of Francis Scott Key's 1814 "Star-Spangled Banner" -- "land of the free" and "home of the brave"? Many NFL players clearly do.

It's easy to go through the motions. It's easy to point an accusatory finger from the safety of the masses and ridicule a man whose heart has ached too long over blatant discrimination of his brothers and sisters.

Trump's periodic picking on mostly black NFL players for trying to shine the national spotlight onto one of the darkest, unresolved aspects of our country's past, should be concerning for the discerning.

United States citizens schooled in their history, should know that a country's flag can be a unifying symbol, particularly in war time, as well as a sinister means of control.

And the latter is how our 'so-called' President has been attempting to exploit the American flag and our anthem since his first attack on players and the NFL at the start of the year.

How many dictators have employed patriotism, and its accompanying symbolic flag, ultimately as a tool of oppression? The Furher Adolph Hitler's Nazi Swastika, in 1934, temporarily became the national flag of Germany, representing anti-semitism that would rally a war agenda and result in the Holocaust that killed six million jews.

America has an opioid epidemic, an unhealthy love affair with firearms and a long-entrenched lethal problem with systematic racism, particularly evident in cop's treatment of blacks.

Sticking our collective fingers in our ears and pretending that any of those societal woes don't exist, only exacerbates them. A disease first must be diagnosed, before it can be treated and eradicated.

Until we have a President that acknowledges that racism is running rampant, costing innocent lives across the homeland, our fight for equality and a social consciousness will only get more grating.

More people will needlessly suffer and die. And the bottled up, righteous anger of the oppressed will only build.

By demonstrating during the national anthem, NFL players are reminding us of who we are as United States citizens -- or, at least who, as "one nation under God," we are supposed to be.