Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Andy Borowitz

Fox to Offer Twenty-Four-Hour Coverage of Bill Clinton's Impeachment



NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—Calling it a story "too hot for the other cable-news networks to handle," Fox News Channel announced on Tuesday that it would begin airing twenty-four-hour coverage of Bill Clinton's 1998–99 impeachment.

Fox anchor Sean Hannity announced the programming change, telling viewers that Fox would devote all its resources to reporting the Clinton impeachment to the exclusion of all other news stories.

"This story has everything: sex, lies, and misdeeds at the highest levels of our government," Hannity said. "We are planning to flood the zone to bring it to you."

Calling it "the story Bill and Hillary Clinton don't want you to hear," Hannity said Fox would be unstinting in its effort to get to the bottom of the impeachment.

"For years, this hushed-up chapter of our history has been shrouded in silence," Hannity said. "That silence ends today."


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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Something to See - 31 October

Old Tree Huggers Never Die



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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Monday, October 30, 2017

Andy Borowitz

Millions Disappointed It Wasn't Jared


Photograph by Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Amid the general jubilation over the arrest of Paul Manafort on Monday, millions of Americans reported extreme disappointment that the first person arrested from Robert Mueller's Russia probe was not Jared Kushner. Across the country, downcast Americans commiserated over the news that their choice for Mueller's first indictment had been overlooked.
"I know it makes me sound petty, since today is a day of national celebration," Harland Dorrinson, who had been holding a Kushner-arrest-watch party in suburban Toledo, said. "But for a lot of us who had had our hopes set on Jared, today is bittersweet."
Tracy Klugian, who watched news of Manafort's arrest from her home in San Jose, agreed. "Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that Manafort's being brought in," she said. "But he's no Jared."
Davis Logsdon, a clinical psychologist at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, said that he is counselling patients who are dealing with the "severe emotional letdown" of the first person arrested not being Jared.
"I'm urging them to see this disappointment as an opportunity for growth," Logsdon said. "It's true that none of the first three arrests was Jared, but we have to live with that reality. And, perhaps, if we are patient, the fourth, fifth, or even fiftieth arrest will be Jared."

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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Sunday, October 29, 2017

Something to Know - 29 October



Trump's Swamp has not been drained.  In fact, it is filling up with Toxic components provided by the chemical industry's lobbying money to his campaign.   Any simpleton with knowledge of high school chemistry would know that you don't put poison in or around your food.  But, Trump is Stupid, and he does Stupid Things.   His pals at Dow Chemical bask in easy profits because of his ignorance:  My apologies to those with smart phones who are unable to view this large format, but I have not as yet figured out how to transpose this document in the email to send out for you. Suggestions are welcomed.

BRAIN VOLUME
MORE INDENTED
MORE ENLARGED

Imaging by Bradley Peterson, via Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The pesticide, which belongs to a class of chemicals developed as a nerve gas made by Nazi Germany, is now found in food, air and drinking water. Human and animal studies show that it damages the brain and reduces I.Q.s while causing tremors among children. It has also been linked to lung cancer and Parkinson's disease in adults.

COMMENTS

The colored parts of the image above, prepared by Columbia University scientists, indicate where a child's brain is physically altered after exposure to this pesticide.

This chemical, chlorpyrifos, is hard to pronounce, so let's just call it Dow Chemical Company's Nerve Gas Pesticide. Even if you haven't heard of it, it may be inside you: One 2012 study found that it was in the umbilical cord blood of 87 percent of newborn babies tested.

And now the Trump administration is embracing it, overturning a planned ban that had been in the works for many years.

The Environmental Protection Agency actually banned Dow's Nerve Gas Pesticide for most indoor residential use 17 years ago — so it's no longer found in the Raid you spray at cockroaches (it's very effective, which is why it's so widely used; then again, don't suggest this to Dow, but sarin nerve gas might be even more effective!). The E.P.A. was preparing to ban it for agricultural and outdoor use this spring, but then the Trump administration rejected the ban.

That was a triumph for Dow, but the decision stirred outrage among public health experts. They noted that Dow had donated $1 million for President Trump's inauguration.

Lobbying Expenditures by Dow Chemical Have Increased Over Time

ANNUAL LOBBYING EXPENDITURES

$10

million

5

0

2000

2005

2010

2015

Source: Center for Responsive Politics

So Dow's Nerve Gas Pesticide will still be used on golf courses, road medians and crops that end up on our plate. Kids are told to eat fruits and vegetables, but E.P.A. scientists found levels of this pesticide on such foods at up to 140 times the limits deemed safe.

"This was a chemical developed to attack the nervous system," notes Virginia Rauh, a Columbia professor who has conducted groundbreaking research on it. "It should not be a surprise that it's not good for people."

Remember the brain-damaging lead that was ignored in drinking water in Flint, Mich.? What's happening under the Trump administration is a nationwide echo of what was permitted in Flint: Officials are turning a blind eye to the spread of a number of toxic substances, including those linked to cancer and brain damage.

"We are all Flint," Professor Rauh says. "We will look back on it as something shameful."

Here's the big picture: The $800 billion chemical industry lavishes money on politicians and lobbies its way out of effective regulation. This has always been a problem, but now the Trump administration has gone so far as to choose chemical industry lobbyists to oversee environmental protections. The American Academy of Pediatrics protested the administration's decision on the nerve gas pesticide, but officials sided with industry over doctors. The swamp won.

The chemical industry lobby, the American Chemistry Council, is today's version of Big Tobacco. One vignette: Chemical companies secretly set up a now-defunct front organization called Citizens for Fire Safety that purported to be a coalition of firefighters, doctors and others alarmed about house fires. The group called for requiring flame retardantchemicals in couches, to save lives, of course.

1918763_127321509095_5183287_n.jpg
A photo posted on the Facebook page of Citizens for Fire Safety. Despite its name, the organization represented chemical companies, not concerned members of the public.

In fact, this was an industry hoax, part of a grand strategy to increase sales of flame retardants — whose principle effect seems to be to cause cancer. The American Chemistry Council was caught lying about its involvement in this hoax.

Yet these days, Trump is handing over the keys of our regulatory apparatus to the council and its industry allies. An excellent Times articleby Eric Lipton noted that to oversee toxic chemicals, Trump appointed a council veteran along with toxicologist with a history of taking council money to defend carcinogens.

In effect, Trump appointed two foxes to be Special Assistant for Guarding the Henhouse.

Some day we will look back and wonder: What were we thinking?! I've written about the evidence that toxic chemicals are lowering men's sperm counts, and new research suggests by extrapolation that by 2060, a majority of American and European men could even be infertile. These days we spew fewer toxins into our air and rivers, and instead we dump poisons directly into our own bodies.

A Dow spokeswoman, Rachelle Schikorra, told me that "Dow stands by the safety of chlorpyrifos" (I don't think the company approves of my branding it Dow's Nerve Gas Pesticide). Given Dow's confidence, I suggest that the company spray it daily in its executive dining rooms.

Look, it's easy to get diverted by the daily White House fireworks. But long after the quotidian craziness is forgotten, Americans will be caring for victims of the chemical industry's takeover of safety regulation.

Democrats sometimes gloat that Trump hasn't managed to pass significant legislation so far, which is true. But he has been tragically effective at dismantling environmental and health regulations — so that Trump's most enduring legacy may be cancer, infertility and diminished I.Q.s for decades to come.


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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Saturday, October 28, 2017

Andy Borowitz


Excited Crowd Outside Mueller's Office Awaits First Arrest

Photograph by David McNew / Getty


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands has gathered outside the office of Robert Mueller in eager anticipation of the special counsel's first arrest in the Russia probe.
Minutes after news was leaked that charges had been filed, Americans from across the country descended on Mueller's office to witness firsthand what many called the beginning of the end of the nightmare.
"I can't believe this day has finally come," Carol Foyler, who drove from North Carolina, said. "My husband is having surgery today, but I didn't want to miss this."
Although the gathering has been largely peaceful, isolated arguments have erupted over which member of Trump's circle the attendees would like Mueller to arrest first.
A faction shouting "Don, Jr." started pushing and shoving another group chanting "Jared" before police intervened.
One policeman said that law enforcement had been flabbergasted by the size of the crowd, which could reach a million. "We definitely didn't see anything like this at the Inauguration," he said.





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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





After a long absence, it has been difficult to find the initiative in passing on information and articles that spark interest and debate.   This particular article is interesting to me.   It speaks to the subversion of how the Truth is conveyed.   We have been dumbed down and enured to the acceptance of an erosion of our democratic principles, while hoping for change.  The Hoi Polloi accepts what George Orwell warned in his epic 1984.  Wars without end in the Middle East.   Truth no longer is clearly defined.  We are beset by a new enemy.  Our old enemy was/is the nuclear age, but we can manage that enemy because we have the technical knowledge to track the manufacture, storage, and location of the nukes.  We can even blast them out of the sky or crater them in their silos.  We do not now how to manage the invasion of the technology that perpetrates the spread of fraud, identity theft, and malicious information that causes people to advocate destruction.  We have no Walls or Star Wars technology to manage Cyber Warfare.   This enemy rides on the back of the First Amendment.   I am hopeful (yes, that is my antidote to tRumpy depression), that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's announcement yesterday of pending indictments will open the the door and close up the can of worms that has infested our democracy.   It will probably be a painfully slow, but deliberate process up the food chain to get to, and remove, the cancer which has been aiding and abetting the destruction of our 1st Amendment.
 

How Twitter Killed the First Amendment


You need not be a media historian to notice that we live in a golden age of press harassment, domestic propaganda and coercive efforts to control political debate. The Trump White House repeatedly seeks to discredit the press, threatens to strip broadcasters of their licenses and calls for the firing of journalists and football players for speaking their minds. A foreign government tries to hack our elections, and journalists and public speakers are regularly attacked by vicious, online troll armies whose aim is to silence opponents.

In this age of "new" censorship and blunt manipulation of political speech, where is the First Amendment? Americans like to think of it as the great protector of the press and of public debate. Yet it seems to have become a bit player, confined to a narrow and often irrelevant role. It is time to ask: Is the First Amendment obsolete? If so, what can be done?

These questions arise because the jurisprudence of the First Amendment was written for a different set of problems in a very different world. The First Amendment was ignored for much of American history, coming to life only in the 1920s thanks to the courage of judges like Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Courts and civil libertarians used the amendment to protect speakers from government prosecution and censorship as it was practiced in the 20th century, such as the arrest of pamphleteers and the seizure of anarchist newspapers by the Postal Service.

But in the 21st century, censorship works differently, as the writer and academic Zeynep Tufekci has illustrated. The complete suppression of dissenting speech isn't feasible in our "cheap speech" era. Instead, the world's most sophisticated censors, including Russia and China, have spent a decade pioneering tools and techniques that are better suited to the internet age. Unfortunately, those new censorship tools have become unwelcome imports in the United States, with catastrophic results for our democracy.

The Russian government was among the first to recognize that speech itself could be used as a tool of suppression and control. The agents of its "web brigade," often called the "troll army," disseminate pro-government news, generate false stories and coordinate swarm attacks on critics of the government. The Chinese government has perfected "reverse censorship," whereby disfavored speech is drowned out by "floods" of distraction or pro-government sentiment. As the journalist Peter Pomerantsev writes, these techniques employ information "in weaponized terms, as a tool to confuse, blackmail, demoralize, subvert and paralyze."

Our distressing state of public discourse stems from the widespread use of these new tools of censorship and speech control, including by the White House. The administration habitually crosses the line between fact and propaganda. Instead of taking action itself, it demands that others punish its supposed enemies. To add to the mess, it is apparent that the Russian government and possibly others hope to manipulate American political debate, as its exploitation of Facebook and Twitter in the last election shows.

What can be done? It is time to recognize that the American political process and marketplace for ideas are under attack, and that reinvigorating the First Amendment is vital. First, it is an imperative that law enforcement and lawmakers do more to protect journalists and other public speakers from harassment and threats. Cyberstalking is a crime. And as the Supreme Court has made clear, threats of violence are not protected speech. A country where speaking one's mind always results in death threats is not a country that can be said to be truly free.

Second, too little is being done to protect American politics from foreign attack. The Russian efforts to use Facebook, YouTube and other social media to influence American politics should compel Congress to act. Social media has as much impact as broadcasting on elections, yet unlike broadcasting it is unregulated and has proved easy to manipulate. At a minimum, new rules should bar social media companies from accepting money for political advertising by foreign governments or their agents. And more aggressive anti-bot laws are needed to fight impersonation of humans for propaganda purposes.

Finally, the White House needs to be held accountable when it tries to use private parties to circumvent First Amendment protections. When it encourages others to punish its critics — as when it demanded that the N.F.L., on pain of tax penalties, censor players — it is wielding state power to punish disfavored speech. There is precedent for such abuses to be challenged in court.

Some might argue, based on the sophomoric premise that "more speech is always better," that the current state of chaos is what the First Amendment intended. But no defensible free-speech tradition accepts harassment and threats as speech, treats foreign propaganda campaigns as legitimate debate or thinks that social-media bots ought to enjoy constitutional protection. A robust and unfiltered debate is one thing; corruption of debate itself is another. We have entered a far more dangerous place for the republic; its defense requires stronger protections for what we once called the public sphere.

Tim Wu, the author of "The Attention Merchants: The Epic Struggle to Get Inside Our Heads," is a professor at Columbia Law School and a contributing opinion writer. This essay is adapted from a paper written for the Knight First Amendment Institute.


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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Thursday, October 26, 2017

Andy Borowitz


Trump Signs New Travel Ban Preventing Republican Senators from Fleeing


WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an emergency travel ban preventing Republicans from fleeing the United States Senate.
In a sombre Oval Office ceremony, a grim-faced Trump signed the ban, which he said would remain in effect "until we figure out what the hell is going on."
The executive order calls for the relocation of three hundred Border Patrol officers from the Mexican border to Washington, D.C., in order to form what Trump called "a human ring of steel" around the Capitol Building.
Under the travel ban, Republican senators will be permitted to leave their seats in the Senate chamber for meals and bathroom breaks but will be strictly forbidden from speaking to journalists in the building's corridors.
Susan Collins, of Maine, one of the Republicans affected by the ban, called attention to the growing humanitarian crisis inside the Capitol. "If you have a shred of decency, Mr. President, let us leave the Senate," Collins said. "Let us follow our dream of a better life."

In retaliation, Trump reportedly told Border Patrol agents that if Collins is caught trying to escape she should be returned to the Senate and forced to sit next to Ted Cruz.


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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Andy Borowitz



Trump Cancels Entire Schedule to Focus on Choosing Insulting Nickname for Bob Corker


Photograph by Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg via Getty
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald Trump cancelled his entire schedule on Tuesday to focus all his energy on choosing an insulting nickname for the Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, aides have confirmed.
Trump rejected his first attempt at a demeaning moniker for the senator, "liddle' Bob Corker," because he felt that he had used the "liddle' " construction too much in the past and feared that it was getting old.
"The President has very high standards for the insulting nicknames he uses," an aide explained. "He was not about to settle for 'liddle'.' " Trump thought he had a winner when he came up with "Corker the Porker," until aides pointed out that the Republican senator from Tennessee has an average physique, to which such an insult would not accurately apply.
At midday, Trump was reportedly "very excited" by the idea of calling the Tennesseean "Bob Mothercorker," until his daughter Ivanka begged him not to do so.
Trump's task was compounded later in the day, when it became clear that he would also have to figure out an insulting name for Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona. "All he keeps coming up with is 'Jeff Flake,' " an aide said

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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Something to Know - 24 October

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I am finding it very difficult to generate the enthusiasm I had before I went on vacation.  The outrage is still there, but the moron is also still there, and getting worse.   What is disheartening is the bricks in the GeeOpie Wall just don't move/  Still the same stupid white guys doing the same old stupid stuff, and they don't give a shit, because they are afraid of retribution.  Cowards are ruling the Congress.   Anyway, here is something that I found pleasing, in a way.   There is some blowback.  Corker, McCain, and Flake are talking back, and calling out the moron.   It's going to take more to get any of the bricks in the wall to fall out, but ....   or well.  

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/full-transcript-senator-jeff-flake-announces-he-wont-seek-reelection/543846/

Full Transcript: Senator Jeff Flake Announces He Won't Seek Reelection



Mr. President, I rise today to address a matter that has been very much on my mind, at a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than by our own values and our principles. Let me begin by noting a somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office. And there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.

Now is such a time.  

It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our—all of our—complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end.

In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order—that phrase being "the new normal." But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue—with the tone set at the top.

We must never regard as "normal" the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country—the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that that is just the way things are now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that it is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences, and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.

'I Will Not Be Complicit'

Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as "telling it like it is," when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.


And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength—because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness.

It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, "Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you speak up?" What are we going to say?

Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes the normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.

Here, today, I stand to say that we would be better served—we would better serve the country and better fulfill our obligations under the Constitution by adhering to our Article 1 "old normal"—Mr. Madison's doctrine of separation of powers. This genius innovation which affirms Madison's status as a true visionary and for which Madison argued in Federalist 51—held that the equal branches of our government would balance and counteract with each other, if necessary. "Ambition counteracts ambition," he wrote.

But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, we Republicans—would we Republicans—meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course we wouldn't, and we would be wrong if we did.


When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do—because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseum—when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions and our liberty, we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.

"The anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy."
Now, I am aware that more politically savvy people than I will caution against such talk. I am aware that a segment of my party believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect.

If I have been critical, it is not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe it is my obligation to do so, and as a matter of duty of conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters—the notion that we should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.


A president—a Republican president—named Roosevelt had this to say about the president and a citizen's relationship to the office:

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole." He continued, "Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile." President Roosevelt continued. "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by a President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing—until the accommodation itself becomes our principle.


In that way and over time, we can justify almost any behavior and sacrifice almost any principle. I'm afraid that is where we now find ourselves.

When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it goes to look for somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to first look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops. Humility helps. Character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly or debased appetites in us.

Leadership lives by the American creed: E pluribus unum. From many, one. American leadership looks to the world, and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have been at our most principled. And when we do well, the rest of the world also does well.

These articles of civic faith have been central to the American identity for as long as we have all been alive. They are our birthright and our obligation. We must guard them jealously, and pass them on for as long as the calendar has days. To betray them, or to be unserious in their defense is a betrayal of the fundamental obligations of American leadership. And to behave as if they don't matter is simply not who we are.

Now, the efficacy of American leadership around the globe has come into question. When the United States emerged from World War II we contributed about half of the world's economic activity. It would have been easy to secure our dominance, keeping those countries who have been defeated or greatly weakened during the war in their place. We didn't do that. It would have been easy to focus inward. We resisted those impulses. Instead, we financed reconstruction of shattered countries and created international organizations and institutions that have helped provide security and foster prosperity around the world for more than 70 years.


Now, it seems that we, the architects of this visionary rules-based world order that has brought so much freedom and prosperity, are the ones most eager to abandon it.

The implications of this abandonment are profound. And the beneficiaries of this rather radical departure in the American approach to the world are the ideological enemies of our values. Despotism loves a vacuum. And our allies are now looking elsewhere for leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do we as United States Senators have to say about it?

The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity.

I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit or silent.

I decided that I will be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself from the political considerations that consume far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles.

To that end, I am announcing today that my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019.

It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party—the party that has so long has defined itself by its belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment that we have given in or given up on the core principles in favor of a more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

"This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better."
There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal—but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle. The impulse to scapegoat and belittle turns threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.

We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorifying in the things that divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.


This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better. Because we have a heathy government, we must also have healthy and functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue our positions fervently, and never be afraid to compromise. We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that days comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it. Because it does.

I plan to spend the remaining 14 months of my senate term doing just that.

Mr. President, the graveyard is full of indispensable men and women—none of us here is indispensable. Nor were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks in this very chamber to shape the country that we have inherited. What is indispensable are the values that they consecrated in Philadelphia and in this place, values which have endured and will endure for so long as men and women wish to remain free. What is indispensable is what we do here in defense of those values. A political career does not mean much if we are complicit in undermining those values.

I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today. I will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in his time, and are now no less so in ours:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break the bonds of our affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely as they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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Juan
 
Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
- Adlai Stevenson





Proposal

I have a confidential deal for you, please contact me for more details via this email immediately.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Andy Borowitz

Trump Says He Is Only President in History with Courage to Stand Up to War Widows

Photograph by Pete Marovich / Pool / Bloomberg via Getty

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Calling himself "unbelievably brave," Donald Trump said on Monday that he is the only President in U.S. history with the courage to stand up to war widows.

"You look at guys like Obama and Clinton and the Bushes, when it came to war widows, they all blinked," he said. "For years, we weren't winning at widows."

In contrast, Trump said, he has made defeating war widows one of his top priorities as President. "Forget about Iran and China and Little Rocket Man," he said. "This country has been pushed around by war widows for far too long."

Trump said that Senator John McCain, who has mocked the President's draft-dodging during Vietnam, has "never shown an ounce of courage when it comes to fighting war widows."

"McCain can talk about what he did in Vietnam all he wants," Trump said. "But the guys who have gone toe to toe with a war widow, contradicted her version of events, and refused to back down—we are the true heroes."