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I put up this web site in the summer of 2017, during the wheat harvest.  I’ve talked about the cruelty of President Trump’s immigration policies and the repeated tragedies of mass shootings.  I’ve talked about racism a few times and called out some of President Trump’s apparently racist statements.  But I never talked about Trevon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile and others.  I never talked about systematic racism or the failures of our justice system regarding people of color.  I failed to do that.

As president, if I could, now, I would go to the site of George Floyd’s death and pray with his family and community.  I would talk about training police to de-escalate situations where there is no imminent harm to others.  I would try to remind a divided nation about the promise of our country, that all men are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights.  I would not be silent, I would do all I could to bring peace and healing.

I will have more to say about the rioting and looting.  For now, the above is enough.

Tuesday morning now after first posting this two days ago.  Living in a rural area, my community has not been caught up in the rioting and looting associated with the protests.  Terrance Floyd quoted this morning saying his brother, “would not want ya’ll to be doing this”, referring to violent protesters.  A simple statement so far beyond the “bitterness, combativeness and self-interest”  of President Trump.

As president I don’t have any problem with non-violent protestors on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House or Lafayette Park.  To all accounts the protestors swept from these areas yesterday by Federal Police were non-violent.  I don’t need to be talking about vicious dogs, weapons and “dominance”.  Although I am not a formally religious person, stopping to pray in these times is needed and I would ask the protestors to pray with me.  Prayers for George Floyd, prayers for our country, prayers for equality and justice.

(quote–Diana Butler Bass)

I  support the use of local National Guard troops, when requested by local government  to help stabilize these situations while police try to arrest arsonists and looters.  I am opposed to use of the Insurrection Act or the use of active duty military to contain or control protestors and I thank Secretary Esper, General Mattis and others for calling this out..  I commend statements by all past presidents acknowledging systemic racism and calling for change.

“As an Episcopalian, I was mortified by the use of one of my denomination’s churches as a backdrop for President Trump’s call for a military crackdown,” wrote author Diana Butler Bass. “As a Christian, I was shocked when he brandished a book of love to sanction violence against American citizens. As a person of faith, I was offended as he made God as a prop, seeking to further divide the nation into tribes of righteous followers versus heathen protesters. And, as a human being I was appalled to watch Trump — with his history of bigotry and racism — cloak himself in a mantle of faith.”

(quote–Colin Powell

“We have a Constitution. We have to follow that Constitution. And the president’s drifted away from it. I’m so proud of what these generals and admirals have done and others have done.”

“I think he has been not an effective president. He lies all the time. He began lying the day of the inauguration when we got into an argument about the size of the crowd that was there. People are writing books about his favorite thing of lying. And I don’t think that’s in our interest,” Powell said.

(quote–James Mattis

How many have given their lives to protect and maintain our country and democracy?  We remember and honor them all today.  “That this nation, under God, may have a new birth of freedom and the government of the people, by the people and for the people will not perish from this earth”  Abraham Lincoln.

This weekend President Trump appeared to order the reopening of churches contrary to Covid-19 restrictions in many states.  It is questionable that he can do so because he had previously ceded these authorities to the states, but that does not prevent political posturing.  A Federal Court in California ruled against a group of churches seeking to resume in person services, finding that the Covid-19 restrictions addressed all large gatherings and did not specifically discriminate against religion.

First I want to give a big shout out and thank you to those ministers and religious leaders who have found ways to conduct services which maintain social distancing.  Whether “on line” services or something as creative as renting the drive-in movies and placing church goers in every other parking place.  We are nearing 100,000 deaths from Covid-19 but for many Americans it seems distant.  If we were talking about something as lethal as the Ebola virus, we probably would not even be having this discussion.

My message to all Americans this weekend is do not let down your guard about Covid-19.  The virus is still out there.  It is still killing people.  It can be transmitted as easily as having a normal conversation with an infected person, even an infected person who is not showing symptoms.  Cases have jumped up again in some locations.  And I ask all Americans, if you are in an establishment that requires masks, take care of yourself and be considerate of others, wear a mask.

Speaking at the Ford plant in Michigan, President Trump declared that he would not shut down the country again even if there is a second wave of Covid-19.  More political posturing.  Again, he ceded that authority to the states, which is probably good since the individual states are very different and not equally impacted by Covid-19.  However his words are about leadership and minimizing the seriousness of this virus, as I mentioned previously, contains a calculus of death.  I urge all Americans to maintain your guard and shelter in place as needed, even as I work to safely reopen business and industry.

In another absurdity, President Trump this week claimed that states sending out absentee ballot applications were breaking the law and inviting massive voter fraud.  Voter fraud is very uncommon and the President, like the Russian bots, is pushing fear and lack of confidence in our election system.  The Republican Party is suing California to prevent voting by mail, Mitch McConnell is blocking vote by mail legislation, some locations are making it more difficult for people to vote in person (less polling places) and the continuing issue of redistricting.  Voter suppression is real and a political strategy.

In today’s witches cauldron of Covid-19 and partisan politics my thoughts are also with the families of Ahmaud Arbery, Calvin Monerlyn, the missing children in Idaho and countless other needless tragedies.

No one conspired to bring down the economy and cause massive unemployment but denial and trying to pretend Covid-19 is not still with us is a failure of leadership.  Avoiding more testing, not wearing a mask when others are asked to do so, refusing the reopening recommendations of the Center for Disease Control, firing inspectors generals, telling Dr. Fauci he cannot testify in the House of Representatives, the blame game with China, all a continuing and complete failure of leadership.

The Senate and House of Representatives are exactly the representatives of the people of the United States.  Refusing testimony and withholding information disrespects our nation, our people and is beyond failure of leadership.  President Trump and claimed executive privilege over the entirety of the Mueller Report, so how are we to know about the lies which Michael Flynn admitted.  What happened to John Bolton’s book?

Multiple states are trying to expand vote by mail options so people don’t have to risk Covid-19 by going to crowded polling places.  The Republican Party is spending millions to prevent this while Trump is claiming voter fraud.  We’ve had absentee balloting forever.  There is no widespread fraud, usually single digits if at all.  Voter suppression is part of the Republican strategy, to hell with democracy and encouraging people to vote.  And Mitch still won’t move legislation in the Senate to address foreign meddling in our election, which Trump still claims was a hoax.

There didn’t need to be any collusion, the Russians were doing the job for him anyway.  All he had to do was make nice with Putin.  His campaign staff knew it was happening, knew it might help them, did nothing to stop it while having multiple contacts with the Russians including Michael Flynn and the Russian Ambassador.

Yesterday former President George W. Bush called for a non-partisan response to Coronavirus, I’ve been trying to find the words.

Dr. Brix described the demonstrations at the State Capital in Michigan, with guns and Trump flags, as “devastatingly worrisome”.  It looked like a choreographed campaign rally to me and President Trump cannot or will not stop encouraging them while admitting this morning that Covid-19 deaths could go over 90,000.  Thank you George W for pointing out what presidential leadership should look like in this crisis.

Even if the assistance checks were enough, which they are not, the country cannot continue long with business and industry shut down. We have to find a way to gradually and safely move forward.  However the President cannot restrain himself and keep politics out of it.

This is a very contagious disease.  You can catch it just by talking to someone at a normal distance.  It can be spread by people who have no symptoms themselves.  It is not the flu.  65,000 have died in this country and not all have been old or infirm.  Some shake it off while others become extremely ill or die.

In Trump’s rush to reopen the country, there is a calculus of death, some of us will have to be sacrificed.  If we cannot stop more deaths we can damn well try!  Stop talking at cross purposes.

In order to restart the economy, we need to be able to quickly detect and stamp out new Covid-19 brush fires and that depends on widespread testing.  Otherwise we risk, almost assure, another widespread outbreak, hundreds of thousands of lives lost and further collapse of economic activity.  Even if the relief payments were enough to keep families going, which they are not, we cannot support our population on borrowed money, so the path forward requires we do two things at once, carefully reopen key businesses while keeping tight control of the virus.  The states need Federal funding for sufficient medical materials to do greatly increased testing.  We should not be arguing about this.  It is most distressing to hear, argument in some quarters that the economy is more important than increased loss of life.  Some groups are at greater risk from the disease, who should be sacrificed?  We must do both and we must come together as a nation to do it.  Childish blame gaming and political posturing don’t get it done.  As president, if I gotta eat crow, I eat crow but we get on with expanded testing to get Covid-19 under control until treatment and cure can be found.

A national shout out to all our hospitals and care providers, some working under difficult and dangerous conditions, treating cases of Covid-19.  A shout out to those research institutions working 24-7 to find effective treatments.

And lastly, blaming the Chinese and de-funding the World Health Organization is just senseless at this stage.  Human error is inevitable.  The World Health Organization is also working to prevent so many diseases in poorer nations.

The most difficult decision of his Presidency?  About reopening the country,  is this another one of these teasing games, who are we kidding here?  All 50 states have declared an emergency.  It is clearly too early to relax shelter in place requirements.  The curve may be flattening in New York and Seattle but Covid-19 is still expanding into rural areas.  And if the death toll is less that 100,000 he did a good job!! Who needs this garbage??

And continued firing of career civil servant Inspector Generals for doing their jobs.  The intelligence IG who reported suspected wrong doing (Ukraine) to congress.  The Department of Defense IG with oversight over virus relief spending.  The HHS IG who surveyed hospitals across the country to determine their needs.  None of this makes any sense other than vendetta and a desire to avoid any oversight or criticism.

Wisconsin and the primary election, the decisions of our Supreme Court seem to me more and more removed from the people on main street.  Surely they could have found some way to extend vote by mail balloting in this time of national emergency.  There is no widespread voter fraud or threat of such fraud.  Only very small numbers of people try to cheat and seem to get caught.

We need to redouble our efforts at social distancing until Covid-19 is clearly under control.  The disease can be passed just by talking and associating with other people, even people who have no symptoms.   I am thankful for religious leaders all over the country to have found ways to conduct Easter Services on line, or on television in order to maintain the social distancing needed to protect the country at this time.

President Trump has doubled down on his belief that Hydroxychloroquine is effective against Covid19.  There appears to be no proven medical data to support his belief.  Hydroxychloroquine is used to treat Lupus patients.  The drug has serious side effects for some people and at least a couple have died taking too much or without a doctor’s prescription.  Just learned the FDA has issued emergency approval for doctors to prescribe Hydroxychloroquine for Covid19 patients.

We’d all like to find a quick cure for Covid19 and numerous drugs are being evaluated with the plasma treatment, based on blood from persons who have recovered from Covid19, being tried on a few actual patients.  I have a close relative with terminal lung cancer and we have tried some off-label drugs.  I understand the desire to try unproven treatments.

So what of Presidential leadership in this situation?  How to provide hope without raising unrealistic expectations?  I would talk, or better ask those with more knowledge to talk, about all the research being done to find a cure and ask that research be accelerated.  I cannot place my personal belief about a silver bullet above that of all the medical professionals.

Also in the news this morning, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly has said the captain of the aircraft carrier was “naive or stupid” in asking for help with a Covid19 outbreak on his ship.  Sailors live in very close quarters with specific duties that do not allow social distancing.  Chain of command is very important in the military but the captain was not wrong in concern for the health of his crew.  At most, some corrective discipline after the fact might be appropriate.  The Navy is removing all the sailors from the ship.  In my opinion Secretary Modly is more concerned about how this is playing in Washington.

From a thousand points of light to near darkness, a trial is supposed to search for truth but only Mitt Romney and Susan Collins were willing to do so.  And one other glimmer of integrity, Chief Justice Roberts would not read a trick question to expose the identity of the whistle-blower.

I can’t say now if the Democrats were right or wrong to bring Articles of Impeachment.  I was worried about more inflamed division of the country but no one wants foreign countries interfering in our elections.  But Mitch McConnell is still sitting on the legislation that would address Russian interference.

The truth will come out.

Iran has admitted that in fear of an attack by the United States, they accidentally shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner.  That they admitted this is good but since it took three days, was it the overwhelming public evidence, internal political struggle or something else?  Russia has still not admitted the shoot down of the Malaysian airliner, flight 17, even after the Dutch investigation found shrapnel from the rocket in the bodies of the crew.  And don’t forget the shoot down of an Iranian airliner by the USS Vincennes in 1988 and Korea airlines flight 007 shot down by Russia in 1982.  In all these cases there was plenty of coulda-shoulda about precautions that might have been taken.  In the end it is the insanity of war.

No one in the Trump administration has been able to provide evidence of an imminent threat to justify the assassination of the Iranian general which brought us to the brink of war with Iran and indirectly the death of one hundred and seventy-six innocent people on a civilian airliner.

As president, I don’t want to kill anyone and will do my best to avoid the need to do so.  If we are attacked, defend against the attack and punish the immediate attacker.  The Middle East is complicated and we cannot tolerate attacks by proxies.  However President Trump is making it worse though the extreme economic sanctions and campaign of maximum pressure on Iran.  It will take generations to repair the damage done and the historic animosities in the region.  Our effort should be directed to getting all involved to live within the boundaries of their individual nations.

Regardless whether one believes the Iran nuclear deal was badly crafted, the Iranians were keeping their end of it.  A foundation of trust in one area can be used to address other problems.  I last discussed Iran in my “The Morning News” post last June.  In my view the Trump administration has been trying to bait Iran into a conflict with extended sanctions and Iran has been conducting, directly and through proxies, asymmetric attacks on U.S. interests and allies.  Overnight President trump ordered the assassination of the highest ranking Iranian general with a rocket attack on his motorcade at the Bagdad airport.  So two questions, plenty of opportunities to kill this guy before so why now?  And, supposedly he was planning some wider attack on U.S. interests, so if we knew about it, why not act against the attack rather than assassinate a high ranking leader?  A sound defeat is a far greater deterrent to future attacks than making a martyr.