Get Your Resolution On

Peace, truth and justice are born of the light.
And that light shines brightest in the darkest of times.

So, life is about to get a little harder.

That's what the writing on the wall says.

We're about to board a train with an intoxicated engineer, who has a reputation for dozing off on the job.

On the surface though, you'd never know that danger lurks just around the first bend in the tracks.

The train is shiny and new, all polished up for the pompous and not so circumspect.

And the engineer is holed up in the cab of the locomotive. You don't see that guy. But he's there. A catastrophe in waiting.

And at any point, the conductor could doze. The train could become a runaway, swaying dramatically from one side, then to the other, threatening to derail at the next sharp bend.

Anyone who has paid attention for the past obscene year and a half, knows that the threat is gravely real. And we can't pretend it isn't.

But that doesn't mean we are bereft of hope. No, this is when we get our resolution on. 

We dig deep, find our better selves, reach out to the "other side" and unite to fight for what's right.

As the Trump train pulls out of the station after Donald Trump's inauguration Friday afternoon, we have to hold tight at every hairpin bend in the tracks and be ready to defend our country's Democratic ideals.

How long before his next Twitter tirade?

Which nuclear-armed nation will he piss off next?

How can he make conflict free decisions for the people with millions of dollars of debt and an entangled coarse web of business interests across the globe? 

How long before the honeymoon is over and he makes good on his threats against our first amendment rights to peaceful protest and free speech?

Will he attempt to muzzle the press, as he has hinted? Who will hold the president to account?

Which side is he on? America's? Or Russia's?

The questions are endless. This should never have gone this far. Everything about it feels wrong.

Absolutely, we must hope and pray for the best. But that doesn't mean we sit idly by in the face of blatant injustice.

We stick together. We find our faith. We listen. We look for ways to work together. We hold our new president and congressional representatives to account.

If they act in the interest of the people, great. If they don't, we let them know.

As congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) said on Martin Luther King Day, we must pay attention and then speak up when we see bad things happening. 

It's that simple. As much as voting on election day and paying taxes, it's our citizens' duty be vigilant and stand in defense of truth and justice, the underpinnings of America.

As a nation we have to make smart decisions about our security, but we can't tolerate demagogic fear mongering that fosters hatred.

Love does Trump hate. And the power is indeed with the people.  

Nothing worthwhile comes without effort. We may be headed for some turbulent, painful times. But it's always darkest before the dawn. 

A seedling has to push it's way up through the dark soil before it can embrace the nourishing warmth of the sun.The birth of new life is painful, but rewards are lasting.

The good news is that, in the two months since the controversial presidential election, the power of the people already has gotten results.

We saw the people's power get results when citizens bombarded House Speaker Paul Ryan's office with phone calls in wake of House Republicans' attempt to trash a House ethics committee by secret ballot.

Result: The House reversed course -- at least delayed the move.

We saw the result of the people's pressure on their elected representatives to push for an investigation of FBI Director James Comey's inappropriate "Clinton emails" announcement days before the election.

Result: The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month an investigation into Comey's suspect decision, which by the way promises new possible conspiracy revelations soon.

And most recently, a citizen's petition asking Democrats to boycott the inauguration in light of Russia's election meddling, gained steam after Trump's disrespectful tweets about civil rights era soldier Lewis. 

Result: More than 70 Democratic congressman decided to boycott Friday's ceremonies.

The lesson: The people do indeed have the power. Going forward, we are going to need it more than ever.

We can write letters to the editor. We can write and call our congress members. 

And as needed, we can make enough noise so as to demand that our elected representatives listen -- and act.

Object, Debate, Delay Trump Electoral College Vote

"Let no one decieve you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobediance." Ephesians 5:6

Rise up America-loving U.S. Congressional Republicans and Democrats in this last hour. Rise up and defend your country against an enemy attack.

In this afternoon's joint session of coungress on the Electoral College vote, object to Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States.

Make it a matter of record that you oppose the authoritarian take over of perhaps the most unqualified, reckless, power-hungry, dangerous man ever to be considered for the Oval Office.

If you truly love you're country make a stand. Object, debate and delay the vote until "We the people" have better a understanding of the role an enemy state Russia played in handing the presidential election win to Trump.

Yesterday, our intelligence agencies testified to Russia's role in Democratic Party email hacking and fake news reports designed for Trump's advantage. Additional information will be released to the public in the next few comings days.

Delay the vote. Let's get some more clear answers on Russia's role on the election before we hand the White House keys to a guy who is swimming in controversy.

The president-elect's tangled web of business conflicts with foreign government-owned corporations, including many Russian businesses, should be deeply concerning to every American, particularly its representatives in Congress.

More important than paying taxes and voting your mind election day, it's your patriotic duty, fellow American representatives, to ensure by every legal avenue that this nation's Democratic ideals are protected.

Sure's it's a very long shot to change the electoral colleg vote, but it's a shot that truth and justice demanding taking.

Your objections are crucial steps to ultimately investigating, blocking or impeaching Trump, who by so many disturbing accounts is utterly unfit for the office president.

Speak up. Wake up. Now is the time. The stakes are too high.

Absent Truth and Civility, Trump Spells Doom

So, what happened to the truth and civility?

Five years ago, when the nastiness and lies spewed over the airwaves and in the media seemed to hit new lows, I wrote a commentary lamenting the absence of civility and truth in American society.

Truth and civility had been under attack for some time, of course. But it felt like a turning point.

Gabby Giffords had just been shot in Tuscon, AZ. The right and left were blaming each other. The ugliness only got worse from there.

Flash forward five years. We are a nation that appears to be morally bankrupt. And on the verge of war?

With Donald Trump as our president elect, the truth and civility no longer matter. In fact, they only get in the way.

Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale fact checked everything Trump said on 28 different days towards the end of the 2016 presidential campaign and documented 560 different falsehoods, for an average of 20 lies a day.

The next President of the United States lies publicly 20 times a day. Think about that. Think about all the devastating implications that holds.

And that, fellow Americans, is just one of the many deeply troubling aspects to this guy.

Now, he is threatening an escalated nuclear arms race. And he has yet to be sworn in as president. It's not going to get any better. He's becoming progressively emboldened.

If our representatives in Washington don't do absolutely everything they can to block Trump from the presidency, it will be game over for the United States of America.

Too soon for congressional censure, reprimand or expulsion?

We the people should prepare for war, perhaps in more ways than one. Certainly, we need to fight for our country to keep it out of the hands of the least qualified person on the planet.

Let your congressmen know how you feel. Make phone calls. Send emails. Write letters to the editor.

Just as important, as we celebrate the coming of mankind's savior this Christmas weekend, we should pray for peace and healing in our land. Have a Merry Christmas. Let's hope it's not our last.

For what it's worth, here's that opinion from January 2011, calling for truth and civility in ourselves and our leaders:

http://archive.knoxnews.com/opinion/columnists/rein-in-the-rhetoric-restore-civility-by-holding-politicians-accountable-ep-406564701-358148181.html

Electors Failed Us

Opinion (Dec. 19) in The Hill:

"His regular "Tweetstorms" at Saturday Night Live, the cast of Hamilton, theCarrier union boss; his talks with Taiwan, all feel like they are pointed attempts to not only test the limits of acceptable behavior for a democratically elected leader, but a signal to the electorate that he is in over his head and wants out. 

Can't you see it?"

thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/311094-why-the-electors-should-have-made-today-trumps

Trump Wants To Be Dumped

"Let no one decieve you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." Ephesians 5:6

As he recklessly lays siege to America, President-elect Donald J. Trump is daring us to stop him.

Trump is practically pleading with us -- we, the people, the state electors, lawmakers to keep him from the presidency.

He has yet to be sworn in as commander in chief, but already Trump is displaying the disturbing markers of a fascist dictator, testing the limits of Democratic societal norms in alarming ways.

As Trump, smiles smugly and recklessly flouts American principle, degrading, dividing and conquering, there's something else going on.

The tweeter-elect is covertly sending out an S.O.S.

Secretly, deep down in his conflicted, very much alive and unwell inner child, and in ways that Trump himself may not fully comprehend, the impetuous Donald ernestly is begging us to say "enough!"

Can't you see it?

Way down deep,Trump is still the spoiled, bratty, impulsive child seeing how far he can push us, before we bring the hammer down.

Trump doesn't want the job as president. He never did. Not really.

Sure, he coveted the presidency as any megalomaniac would -- akin to the way a 6-year-old wants to be Superman or a king.

But actually do the work? Nah. Intelligence reports? Who needs 'em? He's smart. Don't mess with his tweeting time.

In his lost soul of souls, Trump can't help himself. He's still that kill joy kid who demanded the spotlight and delighted in demolishing majestic sand castles other kids spent hours at the beach building.

So, let's just pretend "The Donald" isn't 100's of millions of dollars in debt. Okay?

Presently, absent any authoritative voice to tell The Donald "No!" -- the nation's most undisciplined, lethal home-bred terrorist is only becoming more emboldened.

He's sticking out his tongue, wiggling his tookus, taunting us, "nah, nah, na-nah nah," daring us to smack his greedy, grubby little hand away from the cookie jar, now nearly emptied of American ideals.

Hey, if he's the new boss, why cash in, or cut ties with the innumerable Trump business interests around the globe? Conflict of what??

The spineless Republican Party leadership and the ratings-minded corporate conglomerate-owned cable news, only condoned Trump's inexcusable, bizarre behavior from the get-go.

And if we allow him, the child-like Trump will destroy our country in much the same way he leveled sand castles as a punk kid.

Where will that voice of authority, ordering The Donald to "stop," come from?

A voice unbound by pathetic political party allegiances that have only stagnated and strangled progress, leaving America, not since the Civil War, so divided.

Esteemed State Electors, you are that desperately needed voice of authority. Forget party. Think country.

You, and then likely the House of Representatives, are America's last visible hope of saving our beloved country from disaster.

In the past month since Trump was declared the president-elect, truth and justice have been under attack in America like never before.

Consider:

Trump has challenged our God-given, First Amendment rights to free speech, a free press, peaceful protests and fair elections.

Like Adolph Hitler, Trump has labeled the press as liars and threatened to jail and strip of citizenship, government protesters who burn flags.

He's broken security protocol, increased international tensions (China and Russia), and fluffed off his numerous, extensive business conflicts around the world.

Through his crony, elitist insider administration appointments, Trump is endangering the people's social security, Medicare, environmental protections and racial harmony.

The problem with comprehending Trump's myriad blatant, past and present violations of human decency, is that they are seemingly endless.

By virtue of his multitude of conflicts, Donald J. Trump is arguably the least qualified person on the planet to be the next president of the United States.

Despite all the knocks against the Electoral College as being antiquated, the system was designed by our foreseeing Founding Fathers for dire times such as these.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the college was meant as a check and balance against an unqualified person, one with state enemy ties, from being elected commander in chief.

It's almost as if Alexander Hamilton had Trump in mind when he wrote number 58 of the Federalist Papers in March of 1788, explaining the  purpose of the Electoral College.

"The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications," wrote Hamilton.

Virtually every day brings a new impulsive tweet from the president-elect, responding to a percieved slight or challenge to his
Authoritarian values.

Additionally, Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers:

"Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.

"These most deadly adversaries of Republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils."

Think of Trump's increasingly troubling ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which our intelligence agencies tell us ordered the hacking of our voter registries to rig the presidential election in Trump's favor.

Republican Electors, there's perhaps never been a more burning call for justice in America.

Your country needs you to uphold your duty under the Constitution.

Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. You must exercise your trusted authority over "cabal, intrigue and corruption" and vote against Trump.

The public record also shows that Trump has constructed his suspect illegitimate empire by trampling over lives and bilking others of their slice of the American dream.

Whether you are an Atlantic City contractor, a "Trump University" student, an New York City investor or a farmer in Aberdeenshire, Scotland -- where Trump destroyed environmentally sensitive dune lands to build a golf course for the rich, you mean squat to Trump. (Watch the documentaries "You've Been Trumped" and "You've been Trumped Too.")

Trump may be telling his adoring fans at his victory rallies just what they want to hear. So what?

On what basis can anyone trust a word the man says? 

A Toronto Star reporter who recently fact checked Trump daily for 43 consecutive days, reported that the president-elect lies 20 to 37 times a day.

This is the next leader of the free world. Our world is about to be placed in the hands of a narcissist with the fragile ego of a child, who by all accounts isn't as thrilled with the prospect of leading, as he is with self empowerment.

We musn't placate ourselves, thinking that if the unruly Donald doesn't behave himself in the Oval Office, he'll be impeached.

And all bets are off if Trump is sworn in as president. He's already changing the rules. And he's just getting warmed up.

Christopher Suprun, a Republican member of the Electoral College from Texas, sets the example.

He refuses to support Trump, for numerous reasons, not the least of which is Trump's strange and concerning defense of Russia in the face of the CIA' and FBI's conclusion that Putin meddled with the 2016 presidential election.

Hear the voices of nearly 5 million Americans who have signed a petition, calling on you, Electors, to vote for Democratic presidential  candidate Hillary Clinton, who won the national popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. (Electors and citizens visit Change.org).

Again, we're talking about a man with no experience in public office or the military -- someone who knows he's unfit for the White House and is defiantly acting out, crying for help.

Defend America, Electors. Give Trump what, in his heart of hearts, he's looking for -- a way out.

If we fail to act, with the alarm bells sounding as loud as they are, we are only inviting whatever evil befalls us.

Facist in Waiting?

Have you seen and heard enough America?

We, the American people, must pressure our state electors to take a stand in defense of our beloved country -- and block Donald Trump from becoming the next president of the United States.

Trump has yet to be sworn in as commander in chief, but already is displaying all the disturbing markers of a fascist dictator, testing the limits of societal norms in an alarming ways.

It's more abundantly clear than ever, that Trump is not only unfit for office, but a very present and severe threat to our Democracy.

The president-elect is surrounding himself Keith Washington insider and Wall Street elites, despite his promises to "drain the swamp."

With his administrative appointments, Trump is targeting social security, Medicare, the environment, racial harmony, human decency, peace, truth and justice.

He's also increasing international tensions, breaking security protocol and ignoring his assorted business conflicts of interest -- all of which significantly jeopardize American safety.

Evidence that Russia hacked elections for Trump is irrefutable.

And so, the U.S. Constitution allows state electors to change their votes before they actually submit them to Congress on Dec. 19.

In fact, the electoral college system is designed as a check and balance against  an unqualified person, particularly one with state enemy ties, from becoming commander-in-chief.

Trump fits that bill and then some. Alexander Hamilton in March 1788 wrote in The Federalist Papers No. 68:

"Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.

"These most deadly adversaries of Republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils."

Think of Trump's troubling ties to Russia, which mounting evidence suggests did in fact hack our voter registries and helped rig the presidential election -- in Trump's favor.

Admittedly, it's a long shot that enough avowed Republican electors, some 37 needed, would change their votes to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton (or a Republican candidate other than Trump.)

But it's a shot more than worth pursuing. This has been a year of the unexpected.

More than 4 million Americans have signed a petition, calling on state electors to vote Clinton into office. (Visit Change.org)

A handful of the 538 electors (including those from Colorado, Wisconsin and California) calling themselves the "Hamilton Electors," have already vowed to vote against Trump.

The writing is on the wall. Do we really want a thin-skinned narcissist with access to the nuclear codes?

Forget party. Never mind red state allegiances. Think country! We, the people, need to save this country.

Despite Republican roadblocks we need to continue to pursue recount efforts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which have already uncovered serious discrepancies.

Hamilton also wrote in the Federalist Papers No. 68:

"The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications."

Virtually, every day brings a new tweet and a fresh concern with the president elect.

We can't fluff off his daily tempestuousness with, "Oh that's just Donald being Donald," as if petty tweet storms were somehow becoming of the most powerful man on earth.

And enough already of comments like: "Trump doesn't really mean the things he says."

Clearly, it would be a good idea if he did, so world leaders could take the man at his word.

Just remember what British statesman, Edmund Burke, said many years ago:

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

David Defeats Goliath

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's victory in North Dakota yesterday is a model and inspiration for the American people facing their most monumental injustice ever with the looming threat of a President Donald Trump.

After months of protests, enduring barbaric opposition from authorities, the Department of the Army yesterday decided to block the multi-billion pipeline from invading Standing Rock territory and risking future contamination of the sacred reservation.

The message? If the people rise up against a blatant injustice and stand together, no earthly power can thwart them.