Saturday, December 24, 2016

TRUMP TERREMOTO 2016

THE TRUMP TERREMOTO (EARTHQUAKE)

UNDERSTANDING THE TRUMP REVOLUTION

The airwaves, Internet and print media are alive with discontent over the Trump Revolution or what we may call the Trump TERREMOTO. Yes Mr. Trump's win has been like a massive political earthquake literally shaking the ground upon which the entire corrupt Washington establishment has been built upon for the last several decades. The Washington insiders, politicians, office holders, lobbyists, contractors, political hacks, and those holding powerful positions in the government are all disoriented and destabilized as the political landscape swirls about them as it responds to massive political change. The web of incestuous, corrupt, relations these insiders have built up over the last decades have or will soon be shaken to the breaking point. But the DC insiders and their facilitators and allies will do just about anything to hold on to the political power and access to money they have established for themselves, their spouses and their children. They won't leave quietly. They will stoop to any act to keep the cozy deals they have....all at the expense of the taxpayer on whose dime they depend and whom they think of and/or refer to as "deplorables"

As observers of the political scene we must understand that we are witnessing an earth shattering political revolution. The political insiders of Washington, the members of both parties, and the establishment have been turned out of office by the actions of A FREE PEOPLE WITH CONSTITUTIONAL ACCESS TO THE SECRET BALLOT.

Let's review who the People have decided were winners and losers:

WINNERS: The People. The average working-class American is the winner. Those who live and work in the vast "fly over" area of USA, the silent majority of the wide plains with waving wheat who just could not take the corruption, senseless wars, declining income, loss of security, and loss of hope for themselves and their children any longer---- they are the winners.

Also a winner is that oft misused and misconceived concept of American Exceptionalism. We are not exceptional in every way....far from it. But in this 2016 election we have proved our uniqueness. Our system IS exceptional in its peaceful response to the wishes of the PEOPLE which it claims to serve. This election was a peaceful overturn of the existing corrupt duopoly establishment 'which had lost touch with the people to whom it was pledged to serve. Only in America could the people have the actual voting POWER to turn out two deeply intertwined and ensconced political parties. Defeat an the opposition...represented by a well known and wily candidate with a billion dollar war chest, supported by a powerful political machine, a mortared-in-place establishment--a powerful media, connected and monied interests, the academy, a powerful entertainment industry, and even the sitting President and his powerful office.

LOSERS: The Establishment of both parties. Especially the Clintons and their allies and the Bush Family and their allies. Establishment figures like: Paul Ryan, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Senators John McCain and his Sancho Panza side-kick Senator Lindsey Graham; all the Washington elites, the inside-the-Beltway Crowd, the Big Donor Class, the Neocons, the powerful monied and politically active class like the Koch's, and the Adelsons; the entire corrupt, nepotistic, self-interested and incestuous ESTABLISHMENT, the Democrats and Republicans, the Washington political machinery---including the top cadre of the CIA, FBI.

The Main Stream Media, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post and the TV talking heads on MSNBC and CNN.

Academia; The pointy headed, politically-correct, impractical, business-hating, and self- absorbed professors of academe are losers.

Hollywood is a loser. The Hollywood "celebrities" who have the chutzpah to actually believe that their status as ridiculously overpaid manikins, mouthing words in front of a camera or on a stage, words others have written, have some special insight or a more valid understanding of the policies or workings of our government than the people who till our land, heal our people, teach our kids, build our cars or clean our streets. They don't.

Thus when we find it hard to understand the resistance of the both political parties, the media, our entertainers, our President, and the donor class of both parties to change, and the politicization of our institutions such as the CIA and the FBi...we must see these events in the light of the TRUMP TERREMOTO. The Trump Earthquake. Trump has ushered in a total collapse of the web of interactions within an established system. Be aware that the resistance of the institutional classes to such change is enormous. The cozy, self serving relationships these types created over decades is threatened. The lucrative deals at they had may not exist in the new order--and they are transfixed by fear.

Expect the worst from these corrupt officials who will be turned out into the cold. They will do anything--imagine the worst---to keep the old order.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

PUTIN HACKING DNC PAYBACK FOR OBAMA-BROKERED COUP IN UKRAINE

RUSSIAN HACKING IS PAY BACK FOR TOPPLING UKRAINE PRESIDENT

OUR ACTIONS INCUR REACTIONS

In the last few weeks since the "Trump Terremoto" of 2016, the mainstream media have been obsessed with the Russian "hacking" of the DNC and the effects on the election of Mr. Trump. Did the Russian acts of cybersleuthing actually alter the outcome of the election? The Democrats seem to prefer to blame the Russians and are hanging their excuses for their shocking and (to them) depressing loss on that cause rather than the weaknesses of their candidate. All our US spy agencies appear to agree it was the Russians...though they have not released any actual evidence. Perhaps the evidence is too unsavory for the American public to swallow? Perhaps the idea that Russian hacking and impact on our elections was payback for the 2014 US involvement in the toppling of the Ukrainian president?

As in any detective story...the typical "gum shoe" detective looks for a suspect among those who had a motive--- and the means to perpetrate the act. No one --even the Russians--should ever get convicted on this type of weak circumstantial evidence, but it is often the means to a the trail of evidence to the culprit. Our FBI and CIA are surely aware that the Russians had the means to hack into the DNC and Mrs. Clinton's private server secreted in her basement. But what was the motive?

The Obama Administration attacked the Russian Bear on its sensitive nose when they conspired to topple the legitimately elected pro-Russian, Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych in 2014...in the Ukraine. This Obama Administration, CIA and State Department action was seen by Mr. Putin as an existential threat to the Russian nation. (See releases of recorded conversations between Victoria Nuland of the US State Department and G. Pratt then US Ambassador to Ukraine. Mr Obama also admitted subsequently in an interview with Fareed Zakaria of "brokering" the coup in Ukraine in February 2014). The US "brokered" coup led to the unrest in the Ukraine, the loss of thousands of lives in the so-called "Orange" Revolution which is still simmering in the eastern oblasts of that nation, and the occupation of the Crimea by Russia.

The "motive" as a factor in the FBI AND CIA calculations had to have weighed heavily in the spy agencie's "conclusions"...for there is little hard evidence in cybersphere cases. Our nation's sleuthing agencies have all been very closemouthed regarding "evidence". Perhaps these agencies don't want to underscore the fact that our actions and misdeeds have consequences. Our brokered coup of a legally elected government in the Ukraine had consequences. Newton's Third Law (every action has an equal and opposite reaction) is always is in effect, both in the physical and political world. The sleuthing agencies would, however, rather not speak of these "reactions" to our intervention in another nation's elections in public. They would rather that we ignore the errors of our leaders which lead to unfavorable and undesirable effects. Too bad.

Our press and our leaders too often portray world events in stark black and white..."good guy vs bad guy" scenarios acceptable to what they perceive is their elementary school level audience. In these scenarios the US is always the good guy and the others...are one of a Rolladex of national and constantly changing players---are the bad guys. But for a plain thinking unencumbered guy from the snowy Green Mountains, it seems pretty simple. If the Russians did it, (still a big if). they may have had a good reason---a powerful motive. Perhaps we might have avoided this entire disaster by a different and better thought our foreign policy.

This author believes that if the Russians did it...the hacking and release of damaging emails to Wikileaks---it was Putin's pay back to Obama for the Ukraine fiasco. The Ukraine brokered coup of the Ukraine was a major foreign policy blunder by the USA and its allies in which in retrospect the USA lost heavily. But now with the Putin's response: "You mess with me"---says Putin---"and there are consequences". I suspect the Russian comeback was very damaging to Obama, the Democrat Party, and the USA political system. The Obama Administration and its neocon State Department pro-NATO-expansion activists started it....the Russian hacking and release of Podesta emails and Clinton speech texts...was only pay back in kind. It may have helped to eliminate the Clinton presidency and what Obama hoped would be an administration that preserved his legacy...what ever that was. Was the intervention in Ukraine worth it? I think not.

Its too bad that this kind of information never appears in the press or on TV. The American citizen and voter would have a better understanding of the world, their leaders, and the effects of the actions the USA takes. Also if our leaders had only taken an elementary physics course they would know about Newton's Third: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

OBAMA GUILT IN ALEPPO--ATTEMPT AT REGIME CHANGE GONE WRONG

ALEPPO FALLS TO SYRIAN GOVERNMENT FORCES

AMERICAN PRESS AND MEDIA WRING HANDS OVER FALL OF ALEPPO

OBAMA CAN NOT BE FAULTED FOR "DOING NOTHING"

7 OBAMA'S "STUPID STUFF" IN SYRIA---ATTEMPTING "REGIME CHANGE"

OBAMA HELPED EXTEND AND EXPAND THE CIVIL WAR

Joe Scarborough of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC on December 14, 2016, began a session on the fall of Aleppo with photos of war devastated neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, which is in the last stages of being retaken by government forces. The visuals depicted streams of depressed, ragged Syrian refugees, WW II level devastation, gaping windows and shattered buildings. Over these images the Morning Joe staff replayed the comments of UN Ambassador Powers, who gave a speech to the UN on the situation in Aleppo on Tuesday. Powers attacked Iran, Russia and Syria, blaming these states for the carnage and accusing them of atrocities committed in retaking that city in eastern Syria. Joe attacked the Ambassador claiming that as a representative of the Obama Administration which was up until this UN speech "mute" about Aleppo she was an hypocrite making a speech at the fall of the city. He claimed President Obama "did nothing" all along, or worse he "backed down" when the US had a chance to do something. Presumably. "perennial war hawk Joe" was referring to "something" like a no fly zone or committing troops to fight along side of the Syrian thugs, al Qaida affiliates, and islamic terrorists who were aligned against the legitimate Syrian government and have held out in Aleppo since taking it from government control in 2012,

But Joe is wrong. The Obama Administration did not "do nothing". They were actively involved from the very beginning of the tragedy in Syria, Sadly they were always doing the wrong thing....making circumstances worse...extending and intensifying the unrest and the tragedy and the killing of innocents...all in an attempt to unseat dictator Mr. Assad.

Obama and his Secretary of State Ms Clinton were involved in Syria in another failed attempt at regime change in the Middle East---another one gone wrong, Apparently having learned nothing from the disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan and most their most recent disaster-- Libya where US intervention and regime change led to chaos, tragedy and death and generated another failed state with streams of desperate refugees.

As soon as President Obama learned of the civil unrest in Syria he and his neocon affiliated aids rubbed their hands in glee. With the cities and countryside of Iraq and Libya still smoldering, this leader actually moved to repeat the "regime change" agenda even again to add another failed state, with hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths to the history books. For the neocons holdovers and Clinton allies in the administration this was an "opportunity" again to change the face of the Middle East and create a more compliant Syrian regime amenable to US control.

To implement this ill conceived policy Mr. Obama immediately sent CIA operatives with bundles of cash to foment further unrest. With the active participation of US operatives stirring up demonstrations, providing promises of help, logistics and bags of US money the uprising expanded into a civil war. When the war broke out the Obama Administration continued its aim of destabilizing the Syrian state by sending arms, ammunition and covert "trainers" to aid the thugs, al Qaida affiliates, ISIS gangs and other terrorists who made up much of the resistance. The US indiscriminately armed and supported a mixture of Syrian political resistance fighters, Islamic terrorists, various elements of al Qaida, and other Sunni fighters from Turkey, Kurdish areas, and Saudi Arabia who were foes of Assad for religious and political reasons.

We continued our ill advised support even in the light of the emerging facts as the war progressed which indicted that Mr. Assad was weakened and in control of only the western regions of Syria, but still had the support of more than 63% of the population, and the infrastructure of the nation, and was alone in being able to prevent Syria from falling into a Libya-like chaotic state---and who alone had the chance to prevent the entire state and its infrastructure becoming another center of ISIS power.

When Russia entered the war to aid Assad regime in October 2015 they implored the US to end its aid to the ISIS affiliates and Islamic terrorists in the eastern portions of the state and in Aleppo. They offered to work hand in hand with the US forces to defeat ISIS. But the Obama administration was unable to alter its "regime change" policy and its history of opposition to the Assad regime. Obama could not make this leap toward a sane and logical policy. The US continued their policy of support of the rag-tag terrorist infiltrated resistance, the ISIS affiliates and Islamic terror groups. T

The end came on December 15, 2016 when Aleppo finally fell to Syrian government forces as was expected for so long. So no Joe, Obama should not be blamed for "doing nothing". He is guilty of doing "stupid stuff" from the very beginning. It was covert stupid stuff. This is "stupid stuff" he wants us to forget about. Obama is smart enough to realize that it was dumb to continue his stupid policies. So he did not add to his stupidity with more "stupid stuff" like "no fly zones", or boots on the ground that likes of war hawk Joe Scarborough, crotchety Don Quixote Senator Mc Cain and his Sancho Panza-like Lindsey Graham. But the tens of thousands of innocent Syrians who died as a consequence of Mr. Obama's failed polices of regime change for Syria will always be a blotch on the polished brass Nobel Peace Prize escutcheon that Mr.Obama will at long last tuck under his arm as he finally leaves the White House.



Sunday, December 11, 2016

DEMOCRAT'S FAKE NEWS: RUSSIANS IMPACT ELECTION

DEMOCRATS LOSS; CLINTON DID IT--NOT THE RUSSIANS

This weekend (December 10-11, 2016) the MS media, TV talking heads, and the jabbering self- absorbed pundits are focused on so-called "fake news stories" and the supposed "Russian cyber hacking" which these Clinton supporters claim altered the election results. The truth is that the Democrats seem incapable of accepting the fact that they decisively lost this last election. What makes it so difficult to admit is that they lost to a political novice..who had no "donor class" support, who won while spending only half of the $1.2 billion dollars Clinton spent. They lost against a candidate who the mainstream media despised, who had to weather a storm of mud slinging, who had no newspaper editorial endorsements, no Hollywood supporters, and the active antagonism of a sitting President, two former Presidents, the powerful Bush family, the Clinton Political Machine and the entire establishment wings of both political parties. What the Democrats can not swallow is the fact that they fielded a horribly flawed, inept and unlikeable candidate, who ran a campaign without a message, who focused on coastal big donors and elites and divisive identity politics, and who was so overconfident of her win that she squandered valuable time and resources in the final weeks to make "show appearances" in states she could not win, and ignored a vast swath of potential Democrat voters in the Rust Belt where she might have changed the outcome. Sadly. the Democrats do not want to face up to their failures. They would rather blame their embarrassing defeat on the Russians and an aberrant news incident that was not news at all.

With the apparent prodding of the President, some elements within the CIA have come up recently with a "more palatable" story of the "Russian effect"for the Obama Administration to peddle to the press and meet its misguided need to delegitimize the incoming Trump administration. Sadly, this partisan misinformation effort of the Administration was met with a chorus from a few of the disgruntled old guard GOP who have been sidelined by the People's choice. These two aged and out of touch US Senators hubristically believe that they know better than the 64 million Americans who just voted. In this "new" CIA report the nation's sleuths apparently lay out more circumstantial evidence, further inferences, vague suggestions, and hypotheticals drawn from earlier inferentially based reports. But still there is no "smoking gun: and no actual proof that the Russians or Mr. Putin had anything to do with the cybersleuthing that revealed Ms.Clinton's embarrassing speeches to Wall Street audiences, the emails of Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Ms Brazile, and the damning remarks of Mr Podesta. Certainly, there is no shred of a suggestion that the Wikileaks revelations had any impact on the actual election process or its out come as the Democrats and their supporters continually try to suggest by illogically ]conflating the hacking incidents with the election results.

The hackers (whomever they were--Russian, Chinese, British, disgruntled Clintonistas, or some guy in Washington DC) exposed to the voting public the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, as well as the hubris, lies, and venality of the Clintons and their supporters. That information was valid and true. It did not compromise the election process. It only added to the information that voters could process to make an informed decision. It may not have helped Mrs. Clinton's chances. But the leaks were not fabrications--they were the actual utterances and writings of the targets of the hacking incidents, the candidate and her supporters. They were simply a window into what the candidate and others said or wrote. Mrs Clinton's speeches, Podesta's views about Catholics, Wasserman-Shultz's thumb on the scale against Sanders. Brazile's attempts to purloin debate questions, all of these exposed the character and the motives of the candidates and their supporters. Similar devastating, embarrassing and revealing tapes and recordings were released about Mr. Trump as well. They did not help him either. No one seems to mind that they were released.

So let us finally leave this vale of tears and gnashing teeth. The Democrats lost fair and square. It is best for them and our nation which depends on a strong and vibrant opposition party that they make an honest assessment of their failures and rectify them, rather than continue this charade of fake news and cries that-"it's the Russians fault".

Thursday, December 8, 2016

ELECTORAL COLLEGE MUSINGS

ELECTORAL COLLEGE DEVISED TO PROTECT US FROM TYRANNY OF ONE SORT CONTINUES TO PROTECT US FROM TYRANNY OF ANOTHER

The recent election results, in which one candidate has won the popular vote while the other has garnered the majority of the elector's votes, to win the Presidency has been much in the public media. Many pundits on the left have complained about the Electoral College system's short comings, how it puts an unwelcome stumbling block in the path of the voter, making the government less responsive...less "democratic".

The Electoral College was set up by the Founders to protect the Republic from one of their major fears---the tyranny of the masses. In this 2016 election the inherent wisdom of the College has become manifest...as a means of shielding the nation as a whole from the potential tyranny of a cultural and ethnic minority of coastal elites and their minions. It illustrates for us the value of this seemingly arcane, undemocratic system as a means to insure that all of our citizens--members of our physically vast, ethnically and politically diverse nation----urban and rural--- are represented and weighed fairly on the political scale in Washington. It also assures that the winner would have a broad mandate to govern...with substantial popularity over a wide expanse of the physical nation.

As a result of analysis of the outcome of this last election...it has now been revealed (Dec 8, 2016) in press reports that of the some three thousand (3,113) counties (and similar regions) which record election results as a unit, Mrs. Clinton, the Democrat candidate, won 487 counties, or less than 16% of the total. Those won by Clinton were primarily concentrated in a narrow band along part of the east and west coasts. Mr. Trump, the Republican, on the other hand carried more than five times as many counties (2,626) or 84% of the total. The counties he won stretched over an area comprising the wide central, southern and northern swath of the nation.

Some may claim that the votes of REAL PEOPLE count...rather than just empty territory. Indeed many of the counties Trump won ARE sparsely populated. But were the USA to simply decide our elections on the popular vote, Americans living in "fly-over country" would be effectively disenfranchised. Politicians would naturally focus on the dense concentration of diverse voters living in enclaves on the coasts. Small town issues, valid and urgent rural concerns would likely be ignored. Such a system would in effect disenfranchise the central core of the nation and its rural, small town inhabitants. It would also make it difficult for such a candidate to govern the nation should he or she win in such a way. Unhappily for the Democrats---this was the strategy ( a losing one) that the Clinton team followed. Using "identity politics" they targeted a handful of demographic elements in the densely populated cities and suburbs: single women, blacks, hispanics, the gay and lesbian communities, etc., etc. and as they have been doing all along---ignored the 70% of the population that is white, high school educated, underemployed and living in the nation's mid section. The Clinton team forgot about the Electoral College. They thought that they had the election sewed up with their handful of minority voters all concentrated in the coastal zone. The ignored the founders intentions and the Electoral College and lost.

Clinton did win more popular votes. The Democrat racked up a plurality of more than 2.5 million popular votes at last count. However, this plurality of popular votes were derived from large turnout in only TWO states: California and New York. If our elections were decided on only the popular vote one could see how these dense enclaves, with their distinctive populations, their particular economic, social, and physical needs and circumstances, would dominate the political agenda of a vast nation. That would not be wise or fair. Furthermore, how could such a candidate, popular in only a small though densely populated region, lead an entire nation?

It would not be true to state that our Founders were "wise" in setting up this election system for such a diverse nation....they could not have imagined what the weak, conflicted, squabbling thirteen colonies would become. Their concerns were of different matters. So it was just lucky happenstance that our Electoral College system...devised to offset the potential for one kind of tyranny...has come to be a protector of the rights of multitudes of rural, exurban, small town Americans who live scattered between the Appalachians and Rockies in what some call "fly-over" country.

So let us celebrate the fortuitous circumstances of history which we have inherited: the (yes) arcane but useful convention we call the Electoral College.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

TRUMP REVOLUTION OF 2016

The 2016 election made us all squirm. We had come to a point of flexion in our history...and we had to make a decision on which road to take. For the last eight years...we have experienced a stagnant economy, continued costly and ineffective foreign intervention, increasing hollowing out of the middle class, increasing wealth and income inequality, the growth of the super wealthy elite--insulated from the problems they spawned and secure that they would not be held accountable, uncontrolled immigration, and a generalized sense that all is not right with the nation and its elite governing class.

The American political system was not devised by our founders so as to represent the wishes and needs of the masses or of the nation as a whole...The founders formulated their political concepts from the philosophers of the Enlightenment and the anglocentric precepts of government prevalent at that time in the English speaking world. Perhaps one can glimpse the sense of their times by reading Gibbon's, 1776, "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire". Englishmen in the mid to late 18th Century formulated their political concepts and ideals based on the misguided view, anglocentric, monarchist, elitist views derived from a romantic reading of the texts off the ancient Roman Republic and Empire---in my view too much of Ciciero. Their goals, like the ancients, were to ignore the masses, keep power in the hands of the wealthy, the elite, the few, and arrange a system of "checks and balances" not to further democracy, but to protect the Republic from the potential ascendency and conflicting interests of competing cliques of the connected, the powerful, the wealthy landowners and of that period. Our Constitution spoke of our aspirations for a more representative government. but also acted as a straight jacket and stumbling block limiting their implementation. And so we have, as a people, struggled on into the 21 Century...stumbling and inching--now forward and a now to the rear aspiring for a more responsive, representative system, but seemingly never able to get there.

In the second decade of the 21 Century, by the 2016 elections, the dangerous weaknesses of this ancient and creaky system had become all too apparent. The meager government safety nets which had become part of our system in mid 20th Century were under attack or already abolished. These laws had been put into place in response to the Great Depression, the threat of Communism and to offset the natural tendency of raw capitalism to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few. But by 2016 these laws had been compromised, undermined and bypassed or replaced by successive misguided leadership----of both parties Democrat and Republican. The US voter was faced with a political system dominated by massive amounts of corrupting cash donated by powerful and wealthy elites, Wall Street bundlers, major banks and swarms of lobbyists. As a result of the fact that this infusion of corrupting financial support for politicians and parties came from essentially one demographic element of the citizenry--the wealthy---both parties had almost identical political philosophies. Both Republicans and Democrats supported and advanced platforms acceptable to and often agreed to by the "megadonor class". Their agenda? Cut taxes, cut spending, cut entitlements, open foreign markets for US business (by fiat or diplomacy and when that did not work by war and invasion), encourage (or ignore) the open wound of immigration and uncontrolled borders, advance "free-trade" and globalism, and sing on to "trade deals" advantageous to the the multinational corporations, banks and Wall Street. Voters were faced with a choice between two parties...neither one of which cared about or represented the needs of a vast swath of the middle class, of working men and women, or indeed, of the well being of the nation as a whole.

Both parties were in the grasp of a few hundred individuals known as the "donor class"---wealthy elites like the Koch brothers and the single issue Adelsons who as multi billionaires could buy and sell candidates at will and set the political agendas of their political puppets. These few wealthy men and women had the finances to dominate the political story, pick the candidates, control the issues and the platforms. Their continued and growing dominance of our political system was assured to bring the nation into a form of oligarchy common in the banana republics of South America in the 19th and 20th Centuries. There seemed no savior on the political scene of the right or left that could alter this trend away from our stated democratic goals and toward political disaster.

Change was desperately needed...some exclaimed another revolution was necessary. "1776" saved us from the oligarchy and tyranny of the British monarchy and now we needed another uprising to rescue us from the cancerous growth of a powerful oligarchy within our own nation.

Revolution came in the form of candidate Donald J. Trump. He is an imperfect savior...but in 2016 he alone overturned the sinister hold of the megadonors. He shattered the power of the establishment Republicans and their obeisance to the monied power brokers, he finally ended the Bush dynasty, he poked holes in some of the establishment sacred cows, he smashed the power of the elites and their media facilitators. He eliminated the corrupt and corrupting Clinton machine, and its embarrassing "slush fund" Clinton Foundation engaged in machinations only to expand the wealth and power, of one family, and by a devastating political upset, even forced the Democratic party to rethink and perhaps revise their "right of center" and divisive "identity politics" policies.

In the greatest irony of all, the sinister forces which were moving our government toward decline have been brought to an abrupt halt on November 8, 2016 by a blustering, bloviating, energetic, multibillionaire, novice-politician from Queens, who has great difficulty with standard syntax, but also has the ability to think out-side of the box, to grasp a political opportunity, to communicate effectively and emotionally to the voters, and to lead.

Revolutions are tricky. They make renewal, regeneration and redirection possible. They provide opportunities for needed change, but require our close attention. Now that the political pieces are shattered we must all work toward putting them back together in a better, more just, more democratic and more responsive way so as to serve all our citizens, Moslem, Jew and Christian, rich and poor, black and white, urban and rural, poet and farmer.