'Times Like These'

It’s times like these when the true character of women and men are measured.

We can see from the reactions in the GOP blaming Biden for the heinous terrorist attacks on Israel from Hamas that there is no moral low the right-wing of American politics will not sink to in defense of their authoritarian desires and con man-grifter-godhead, Donald J. Trump.

A man who sent his son-in-law and Treasury Secretary to the Middle East in the waning days of his administration to fill the Trump family coffers in a last minute effort to cash in should the coup d’etat he was planning fail.

It did fail but not without a fiery, feces-flinging rampage inside the U.S. Capitol first while Trump watched on TV and shoveled meatloaf into his mouth, and Jared Kushner, fresh off a plane from Saudi Arabia showered with the smugness of a hairless cat, then joined the clan for the festivities and its aftermath.

The two men, Kusher and Mnuchin received two billion and one billion in investments respectively in a matter of weeks after leaving Washington, D.C..

The former having no previous institutional investment experience.

He was however, wily enough to shield who was investing in his hedge fund from scrutiny from the SEC.

The talking points that rolled out from Trump and the rest of the GOP minions as America awoke to the awful news coming out of Israel seemed suspiciously well-timed and coordinated.

It was an outright lie, that Iran had used the six billion in funds released by the Biden Administration in exchange for American citizens being held hostage for years, to fund the attacks.

The money is, in fact, being held in an account in Qatar and is earmarked for humanitarian aid only with oversight from US State Department.

Not a dime has been spent yet, a fact that was known to all those who repeated a lie designed to hurt a political opponent - at the request of Donald Trump - in a moment of great geo-political peril and trauma.

There was a time when even the stanchest conservative wouldn’t sink so low during such an event and both Democrat and Republican alike would stand with the current Commander in Chief on the world stage.

The days, weeks and months after 9/11 come to mind - Trump was the only one treasonous enough to make those early fraught moments of horror about himself and his gaudy over-inflated real estate empire - and practice some knee jerk anti-Muslim sentiment accusing his fellow Americans of celebrating the attacks.

Yesterday, almost to a person, the Republican party chose to elevate and spread disinformation and lies in a time of outright war declared on one of our strongest allies to benefit themselves politically.

They have chosen to align themselves with the terrorists in an attempt to stand in the way of true democracy - in favor of authoritarianism and chaos.

This is not to mention there is currently no Speaker of the House, a position that is second in line to the presidency and the US Congress may not be authorized at this moment to release funds needed to support Israel.

A mess on the world stage is what the Republican party has become and they will spend the next week in-fighting over who gets to drive the clown car.

It may in fact end up being Jim Jordan, a man who hasn’t authored a single piece of legislation since being elected in a gerrymandered district in Ohio in 2007.

Jordan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Donald Trump five days after the January 6th attacks for his role in aiding MAGA and protecting the Trump family in their efforts to overturn a free and fair election.

He spent the next two years defying a congressional subpoena to answer questions about his phone calls with Trump on January 6th and his involvement with planning and coordinating their attempted coup.

A weasel’s weasel if ever there was one.

If Jim Jordan becomes Speaker of the House we won’t just be in uncharted waters - we may be adrift on fifty foot seas without a rudder.

Which is exactly what Donald Trump wants, to destroy the functioning of our democracy so he can return to power and absolve himself of the various crimes he committed while in office the last time.

It was almost greeted with a shrug when we learned Friday that he had given out the highly classified secrets of our nuclear submarine program to an Australian billionaire, Anthony Pratt, who is a member of Mar-a-Lago.

Pratt then shared the top secret info with dozens of friends and colleagues.

It’s no secret that Trump would harbor an affinity for Australian billionaires.

Rupert Murdoch, after all, made Trump’s political career possible by strategically dumbing down huge swaths of red state USA by feeding them a steady diet of xenophobia and race-based fear delivered by smarmy frat bros and bow-tied, neofascist nitwits from fish stick fortunes.

It was also Rupert who provided mentorship to the young Jared Kushner long before he was a budding Middle East expert and jack-of-all policy trades, son-in-law scion of the former POTUS.

Murdoch’s ex, Wendi Deng Murdoch was also a frequent vacation travel companion of Ivanka Trump and the rumored one time paramour of Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s favorite president (besides himself) was Andrew Jackson.

He famously chose his portrait to display in the Oval Office.

This was no accident: the man who said this week that, ‘immigrants were poisoning the blood of our country’ knew exactly what he was doing.

Real leadership is hard, it requires empathy, foresight and the ability to compromise, things that Donald Trump is constitutionally incapable of.

Power to Trump and the GOP/MAGA base he has built up around him is one in which ignorant men and women apply brute force to achieve their goals.

We have seen how extreme rhetoric and depravity can metastasize into terrorism - and cause suffering and horror for all those swept up in it.

These are no doubt dark and dangerous times and they are of a complexity that requires serious and sober leadership, not chaos and self-serving corruption.

We must all reject the insanity being whipped up by nefarious forces, whether on social media platforms with antisemitic, immature billionaires allowing people to tweet disinformation for profit and from GOP trolls looking to become stars on the conservative PAC circuit by fanning the flames of hate.

Seek out the folks who lead from a place of empathy and compassion.

Stay safe and remember in the end, love always wins.