UPDATE II:
The New York Post, a newspaper that has steadfastly endorsed and supported Trump, seems to have finally felt the weight of the straw that is about to break the GOP camel’s back.
In a front-page editorial sugarcoated with lavish praise for Trump’s “accomplishments” and replete with attacks on Democrats, the Post suggests that Trump channel his “fury into something more productive,” urges him “to end this dark charade” and warns Trump:
If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match.
While focused on Trump’s “cheering for an undemocratic coup,” the Post’s allegorical references to “burning it all down” and “the anarchist holding the match” clearly apply to Trump’s latest “arsonist” capers discussed below.
UPDATE:
Just like the disturbed individual who puts out a fire he himself started in order to satisfy his egotistical need to be a “hero,” Trump tonight finally signed the COVID relief legislation passed by Congress almost a week ago. In doing so, he averted a crisis he himself would have been responsible for. A crisis that would have included the shutdown of the government and the lapse of an eviction moratorium.
Nevertheless, Trump’s shenanigans – his threat to blow up a deal negotiated by his own administration — “may still have consequences after unemployment benefits lapsed over the weekend.”
Trump’s sycophants of course immediately praised Trump’s disgraceful antics. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted:
I applaud President Trump’s decision to get hundreds of billions of dollars of crucial COVID-19 relief out the door and into the hands of American families as quickly as possible…
Original Post:
Having ranted enough throughout the year, I intended to refrain from doing more of the same well into the New Year.
That is, until I watched my usual Sunday morning news programs – one of them State of the Union.
The name of that show always reminds me of the now-traditional phrase used by every president –sometimes with slight variations – since Ronald Reagan introduced it in his 1983 State of the Union address: “The State of the Union is Strong.”
The “star” of today’s State of the Union was young Illinois Republican Representative Adam Daniel Kinzinger.
Of course, the subjects of discussion were:
• The “ grifting scam” peddled by the so-called president and his allies in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
• The “lurch” the Union and its people have been put in by the “switcheroo game” being played by the so-called leader of our nation with the COVID relief bill.
• The so-called commander-in-chief’s “nonsensical” veto of the critical national defense bill.
• How this master-in-chief of dishonesty and deception is “disingenuously” conflating the $900 billion COVID relief bill with the $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill.
Finally, how the Congressman is concerned about the irresponsible, dangerous talk of violence, martial law and the trampling of the Constitution fomented by the so-called leader of the free world.
Having seen how, just the day before, the Republican Congressman tweeted: “My God. Trying to burn the place down on the way out because you can’t handle losing. No evidence, nothing but your temper tantrum and crazy conspiracies. Embarrassing,” I turned to my wife and said, “Now, there is a true American hero.”
My wife was quick to correct me: “He is no hero. He is just showing some spine, speaking truth to power…something every Republican legislator should have been doing for the past four years.”
How right she is. How gullible, complacent and benumbed we have become when we call a person a hero merely for doing the right thing, for respecting the Constitution, for obeying the rule of law – for displaying a modicum of ethics and morality.
Yes, Kinzinger is a hero in his own right.
He served in the U.S. Air Force flying missions as a pilot in several theaters including the Middle East in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, reaching the rank of Lt. Col. In 2007, he received the United States Air Force Airman’s Medal for saving the life of a young woman who was being violently attacked. He was also awarded the National Guard’s Valley Forge Cross for Heroism and was selected as the Southeastern Wisconsin American Red Cross Hero of the Year.
Today, at 42, after winning six consecutive terms in the House of Representatives, Kinzinger is just doing his job and doing it well. For example, on CNN’s State of the Union Kinzinger told host Dana Bash: “We talk about the Constitution, and we have to follow it and I’m sorry if that doesn’t mean the outcome was what you wanted.”
More ominously, on the same program, Lt. Col. Kinzinger – who continues to serve his country in the Air National Guard — told Dana Bash: “As a Lieutenant Colonel in the military, I know I can’t follow through on an illegal order, even if it comes from the president.”
The fact that some of us would consider a legislator a hero for just doing his or her job and the fact that a decorated military officer — along with so many other present and former members of the military — feels compelled to express his concerns about obeying an illegal order from the commander in chief is prima facie evidence that the state of our Union is, to put it mildly, precarious.
