Religious Right Praying Justice Ginsburg Dies

The Daily Escape:

Winter, Yosemite Valley, Yosemite NP, CA – photo via wallpaper studio

 This week Right Wing Watch, who follow America’s least attractive thinkers so that we don’t have to, had a column about how Evangelical Christians are circling around Ruth Bader Ginsburg like vultures. The article included this tweet from anti-abortion and anti-gay activist Matt Barber:

We know that RBG just had cancerous tumors removed from her lungs. Yet, what has been made public so far is that RBG was given a clean bill of health, and is expected to make a full recovery. That diagnosis seems to be a big disappointment to many on the Christian Right.

They were extremely happy with Donald Trump’s choice of Neil Gorsuch. They weren’t so thrilled with Brett Kavanaugh, preferring Amy Coney Barrett, who they saw as totally committed to overturning Roe v. Wade. And they want more. In addition to overturning Roe v. Wade, they want prayers back in schools, and they want same-sex marriage abolished.

Things get interesting when you consider just how much Evangelicals truly, deeply hate RBG:

  • In October, pastor Rodney Howard-Brown, who has prayed over Trump in the Oval Office, guest-hosted The Alex Jones Show on Infowars, where he said that Ginsburg should be shot for treason.
  • Lou Engle, a dominionist organizer of stadium-sized prayer rallies, urged Americans to engage in three days of fasting and prayer over the Supreme Court. Earlier, he led prayers asking God to “sweep away the judges” who support the right to abortion.
  • A few weeks ago, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagles re-distributed a 1993 Phyllis Schlafly attack on Ginsburg’s feminist philosophy.
  • Liberty Counsel President Mat Staver has argued that Congress should have impeached justices who supported Roe v. Wade and Obergefell vs. Hodges (the case that legalized same-sex marriage). (BTW, Liberty Counsel opposed the Senate’s bill that would outlaw lynching in the US because the bill extends the right not to be lynched to gays and transgender people.)
  • Earlier this month, former Trump campaign adviser Frank Amedia insisted that Chief Justice John Roberts has not proven to be sufficiently reliable to the Religious Right. That means God has to remove more justices so that Trump can fill Roberts’s seat with another justice whose “values and morality” reflect a “kingdom enlightenment as to what is required by God to change the law of this land now.”
  • Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow John Malcolm told the Daily Caller that Trump would be under pressure to replace Ginsburg with a woman, and named Amy Coney Barrett as a preferred successor.

You may not believe that God spends much time thinking about who sits on the Supreme Court, but these people are deadly serious. They think God is a “family values” Republican. They believe that they know who God wants on the Supreme Court.

America needs to look very closely at any group that argues for followers of a specific religion as a test of who is worthy to sit on the Supreme Court, or who should head our government.

Praying for the death of RBG ought to repugnant to all Americans, but sadly, it isn’t particularly surprising that some “Christians” exhibit such callous inhumanity. They, and their kind of thinking, should be repudiated by all Christians.

There’s some consolation in the fact that RBG has worked to make America a more fair and equitable place. She has made that her life’s calling.

Contrast that to these phony Christians who are working to make America a one-party political entity that follows Jesus Christ.

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Monday Wake Up Call – January 14, 2019

The Daily Escape:

We’re at such a low point, that quoting a racist White Governor at a KKK convention in 1924, doesn’t seem out of character with today’s politics.

“Build a wall of steel, a wall as high as Heaven” might have easily been said by Trump on the 2016 campaign trail.

From the NYT:

At midnight on Saturday, the shutdown entered its 22nd day, which makes it the longest gap in American government funding ever. That beats the previous record, under President Bill Clinton in 1995, of 21 days.

Of the 21 federal government shutdowns since 1976, nine of the ten longest occurred under Democratic presidents, where the obstruction was by Republicans.

But the current shutdown is a self-inflicted wound by Trump, so it’s also caused by a Republican.

Trump has help from Mitch McConnell, who is the most powerful man in DC. He has run our national politics since 2010. He was able to neutralize Obama, and now it’s his call how long this shutdown goes on. From the WaPo:

President Trump is not the only person in Washington who could end this government shutdown now.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) could bring a “clean” funding bill to the floor, free up his GOP caucus to support it and could quite possibly secure enough votes to override a presidential veto.

McConnell already did it once, when he believed he had Trump’s blessing. Before the holidays he allowed a vote to keep the government running until Feb. 8, to avoid a shutdown and buy more time to negotiate Trump’s demand for border wall funding. It passed easily.

After the past three weeks, it should be no surprise that, based on what we know, the GOP’s slogan is:

“Party over People, we really don’t care, do you?”

There are a few simple truths about American history. First, that racism is our worst legacy. Second, that we’re a nation of, and built by, immigrants. Except for Native Americans, we all trace our origins to places beyond our borders.

So why do White nationalists and White Evangelicals insist on saying that we have the right to shut out all immigrants except those from Norway? From NPR:

From 1870 to 1910 a quarter of Norway’s working-age population immigrated, mostly to the United States. You read that right — one-fourth of its workers left the country.

Why? They were economic migrants. Their average wages were less than a third of what they could earn in the US. It also turns out that the immigrants that Norway sent to the US during the 1870s were its poorest and least educated citizens.

According to Leah Boustan, an economist at Princeton University, compared to immigrants from the 15 other European nations that were part of the same wave of arrivals:

…the Norwegians held the lowest paid occupations in the US. They tended to be farm laborers. They were also fishermen. If they were in cities they were just sort of in the manual labor category — what today you would think of as a day laborer.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Twenty years after their arrival in the US, the Norwegian immigrants were still making 14% less than native-born workers. In other words, they have a lot in common with many of today’s immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Time to wake up, America! Trump doesn’t want to develop an immigration policy. We know that, because he only creates phony crises, while he wishes away real ones.

Trump has declared conflicts with Mexico, NATO, Australia, and Canada where none exist. He has tried to frighten Americans by fabricating emergencies that do not exist on the Mexican border.

He declares victories where there are none: saying he’s solved North Korea’s nuclear threat, and that he has beaten ISIS in Syria.

This isn’t just Nancy Pelosi’s problem to solve. Republicans in the Senate need to show moral courage, force Mitch McConnell’s hand, and pass a veto-proof funding bill.

The number to call is the Senate’s switchboard: (202) 224-3121.

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Can Trump Legally Declare a National Emergency?

The Daily Escape:

Waterton NP Alberta, CN -2019 photo by lostcanuck. Wrongo and Ms. Right visited Waterton in 2016, it’s a very beautiful spot.

Wrongo watched part of the two NFL wild card games on Sunday. Vectoring away during commercials, he saw a 2020 campaign ad by Trump on CNN that said in part:

Drugs, terrorists, violent criminals and child traffickers trying to enter our country — but Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer care more about the radical left than keeping us safe. The consequences? Drug deaths. Violent murder. Gang violence. We must not allow it…

Wrongo thought, “Wait! What?” Then a “paid for by Trump 2020” note appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Trump is setting us up. He’s now made his shutdown part of the 2020 narrative. And, locking out federal employees is now the official position of the GOP, not simply that of his Trumpitude.

This is part of Trump’s plan to lay the groundwork for his “National Emergency” special powers. The NYT had an interesting article by Bruce Ackerman, a Yale law professor, about the legality of such an action:

While it is hard to know exactly what the president has in mind, or whether he has any conception about what it would entail, one thing is clear: Not only would such an action be illegal, but if members of the armed forces obeyed his command, they would be committing a federal crime.

Trump is again hyping the dangers at the border, as he did with the caravan in the weeks leading to the midterm election. Now, his spokespersons, notably Sarah Sanders on FOX and Homeland Security head Kristjen Nielsen, at her private meeting with the House Homeland Security Committee, have falsely claimed that more than 4,000 terrorists were apprehended in 2018 along the southern border.

According to FOX, all of these “terrorists” were apprehended at airports, not at border crossings.

Sanders, Nielsen and Trump are implying that a wall will stop terrorists. There’s no question we need to be vigilant about terrorists and illegal border crossings, but a wall is not going to stop them, or really even deter them. We still need to have to have advanced cameras, drones, and personnel patrolling because determined people will find ways around the wall.

To continue the hype, Trump announced that he will address the nation on Tuesday night before traveling later in the week to the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump plans to address the nation from the Oval Office, in a “first” for his presidency.

All of this would seem ridiculous if not for Trump’s desire to win at any cost.

There is a chilling article by Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center in The Atlantic, in which she says that any president’s ability to evoke these sorts of emergency powers is practically unfettered:

The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—he is able to set aside many of the legal limits on his authority.

Goitein goes further:

The moment the president declares a “national emergency”—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him. While many of these tee up reasonable responses to genuine emergencies, some appear dangerously suited to a leader bent on amassing or retaining power. For instance, the president can, with the flick of his pen, activate laws allowing him to shut down many kinds of electronic communications inside the United States or freeze Americans’ bank accounts.

As an example, Trump could seize control of US internet traffic, impeding access to certain websites and ensuring that internet searches return pro-Trump content as the top results.

It isn’t possible for Wrongo to resolve the viewpoints of Elizabeth Goitein and Bruce Ackerman. There is a long history of judicial deference to the executive branch on national security issues. It will ultimately come down to whether the five conservative Supreme Court Justices think they have the power to step in and overrule a president who clearly concocts a fraudulent emergency.

Sorry to scare everyone, but it is absolutely unclear how this will be hashed out by the Supreme Court.

Don’t bet the house on them making the right decision.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 6, 2019

Trump threatened to declare a national emergency last week in order to build his wall without Congress’s approval. Had those words been spoken by any prior president, America would be in a panic. We’re discounting the extreme message, because of who is saying it. We are certainly in the middle of a national emergency, but it ain’t on the border, it’s in the Oval Office:

The Republican New Year’s kick off:

In case you missed it, Mitch and Nancy took their accustomed roles:

Republicans think all Dems dance alike:

There’s more than one wall under discussion in DC:

The misogyny in 2020 campaign begins:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 16, 2018

A seven-year-old Guatemalan girl died on December 6th in the custody of the US Border Patrol. She and her father were apprehended with a group of 163 migrants near Antelope Wells, NM.

Reportedly, she hadn’t eaten, or consumed water for several days. She began vomiting on a bus that was taking her to a holding facility at Lordsburg NM, a 90-mile trip. She was not breathing when she arrived at Lordsburg, and was resuscitated there by the Border Patrol. She was then helicoptered to a hospital in El Paso, Texas. At the hospital, the girl was revived after going into cardiac arrest, but died less than 24 hours later.

Asked if food and water were given to the child, DHS blamed the father for taking his daughter on the dangerous journey to the US. But, she didn’t die on the 3,000-mile journey. She died in the US and in Border Patrol custody. She died while she was the BP’s responsibility.

The government is responsible for the health and safety of migrants they detain. They have to do better:

Trump has promised either he gets a wall, or we get a shutdown:

Trump ran into a wall he could have avoided:

Finding what you deserve:

White House Christmas carols won’t be much fun this year:

Reality starts to dawn:

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Saturday Soother – December 15, 2018

The Daily Escape:

Outdoor market, Istanbul, Turkey – 2013 photo by Wrongo

As we cruise toward year’s end, we’ve received a political Christmas present in the form of Paul Ryan’s retirement from Congress. On Ryan’s heading into the Wisconsin sunset, newly minted House Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), had this take:

It’s pathetic how journalists and Republicans often say that Ryan is a thoughtful and principled member of Congress, a genius by some accounts. He is lauded for being elected to the House at age 28, and working his way up to Speaker. But he’s left few footprints on important legislation, except for the Trump tax cut in 2017.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to the House at 28 just like Ryan. Unlike Ryan, Ocasio-Cortez has been called out for everything from her wardrobe, to her active commentary on Twitter. Many of the same Conservatives who lionized Ryan say that Ocasio-Cortez is naĂŻve, undisciplined and unwilling to play by their rules. Freshman Congressman, especially young female Democrats are expected to keep their heads down, and speak only when spoken to.

But no one ever changed anything by going along to get along. She’s been outspoken, but she’s done so in a manner which spotlights legitimate issues. That tends to rankle the established power structure, who prefer the status quo, because it’s predictable, manageable, and largely male.

It’s far too early to know if Ocasio-Cortez will be a political force to reckon with, or a transformative legislator. But the fact that she’s willing to speak out and rattle cages is a good sign. Congress has needed new (and younger) voices for a long time. It will be interesting to see what sort of rabble-rousing she’ll take on, and if it will cause meaningful change.

Is there a chance that she’ll accomplish far more than Paul Ryan? Sure, but that’s a low bar. Ryan always played by the rules while working his way up the ladder. That’s great if you are ambitious, which is all that Ryan was really about. Oh, and Ayn Rand.

Consider one of Ryan’s final acts as Speaker:

By three votes, the House of Representatives advanced a farm bill, but not before the Republican leadership slipped in a provision that would turn off any possibility of the Congress’s fast-tracking an effort to turn off American aid to Saudi Arabia due to that country’s abominable war in Yemen.

As Charlie Pierce says,

Consider what Ryan and his majority did today. They made it impossible for the United States to swiftly extricate itself from accessorial conduct in a horrible ongoing crime-by-famine, and they did it by sabotaging a bill that helps get food to people in this country.

This is one of the last acts of Paul Ryan’s Speakership. He will richly deserve our contempt for playing partisan legislative games with starving children.

On to Saturday! Time to leave tree-trimming and shopping on Amazon for a few minutes, it’s time to unplug and land on a small island of soothing in the midst of all of the chaos. Let’s start by brewing up a yuuge hot cup of Baru Gesha coffee (1 kg/$100) from the Los Angeles-based Bar Nine brewers. The Baru Gesha tastes like dark chocolate, raspberry liqueur, frankincense, and almond brittle in aroma.

Frankincense! How seasonal.

Now, gaze out at the last few leaves on the trees and the dormant grass, and listen to JS Bach’s “Air on a G-String”, an arrangement for the violin made in the 19th Century from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major. Bach originally wrote the suite between the years 1717 and 1723. It found its nickname in 1871 when the German violinist August Wilhelmj (1845-1908) made a violin and piano arrangement of the second movement of this orchestral suite. By changing the key into C major and transposing the melody down an octave, Wilhelmj was able to play the piece on only one string of his violin, the G string.

Procol Harum borrowed from it for their hit, “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Gary Brooker of Procol Harum said:

If you trace the chordal element, it does a bar or two of Bach’s ‘Air On A G String’ before it veers off. That spark was all it took. I wasn’t consciously combining Rock with Classical, it’s just that Bach’s music was in me.

If you would like to hear the echoes of “Whiter Shade of Pale”, you can hear the Air played on organ.

But, here it is as intended on violin played by the Ukrainian violinist Anastasiya Petryshak with the Orchestra Cantelli at the Basilica Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, Italy in December 2015:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Saturday Soother – November 10, 2018

The Daily Escape:

Fall colors on the Katsura River, Kyoto, Japan -2018 photo by DillonCohen27

Larry King on Trump:

Trump is the story in America. I would bet that ninety-eight percent of all Americans mention his name at least once a day. And when it’s come to that, when you focus on one man, I know Donald 40 years — I know the good side of Donald and I know the bad side of Donald — I think he would like to be a dictator. I think he would love to be able to just run things. So, he causes a lot of this. Then his fight with the media and fake news. I’ve been in the media a long time….And at all my years at CNN, in my years at Mutual Radio, I have never seen a conversation where a producer said to a host “pitch the story this way. Angle it that way. Don’t tell the truth.” Never saw it. Never saw it.

I know, you weren’t sure that Larry was still alive. He is, and he’s not wrong. Here are more of King’s quotes:

So when CNN started covering Trump — they were the first — they covered every speech he made and then they made Trump the story. But, they covered him as a character. They carried every speech he made. They carried him more than Fox News, at the beginning. And so they built the whole thing up and the Republicans had a lot of candidates and they all had weaknesses.

Larry has a point. We spend waay too much time talking about what Trump talks about. People haven’t been addicted like this to the news before, and it isn’t healthy for us as individuals or as a country.

Sure, it would be terrific if people knew all the facts about issues before they voted, but social media, the internet and cable news no longer trade in truth. They’re in it for the money, not for the news.

We can’t uncover the truth without serious digging.

Think about the Jim Acosta affair at Trump’s Thursday press conference. Acosta confronts Trump, Trump wants to move on, but Acosta doesn’t think they are done, and wants to follow up with another question. A young female intern tries to take the microphone away from Acosta without success, and the WH says Acosta laid hands on the intern, then sends out a video to shame Acosta.

But, the video was doctored, according to the WaPo:

White House shares doctored video to support punishment of journalist Jim Acosta: https://wapo.st/2JPGGSA

And the press secretary, Sarah Sanders, defends releasing a doctored video.

Hold that thought. On Friday, Trump says that he doesn’t know Matt Whitaker, the guy he just appointed as Interim Attorney General. That sounds strange, no executive appoints a person that he/she doesn’t know. So, here are two quotes from Trump about Whitaker. They are both as uncomplicated as a statement can be:

“I know Matt Whitaker.” –October 10, 2018
“I don’t know Matt Whitaker.” –November 9, 2018

The truth is that he clearly knew Matt Whitaker when he said he didn’t know him. The sad part for America is that he has no guilt, and no shame, when he contradicts himself on something knowable.

There is little truth from Trump, or in his administration, so why does the media cover him so slavishly?

Wrongo recommends that the Main Stream Media immediately reduce their coverage of Trump by 50%. By cutting it in half, two wonderful things will happen:

First, the country’s obsession with his lies will weaken. People’s stress levels will be reduced.

Second, it will drive Trump crazy. He will say even bigger whoppers to try and get America to reconnect, and mainline more Trumpiness.

Both outcomes would be completely acceptable to Wrongo.

Enough for today! Time for Wrongo to heed his own prescription. Let’s all take a few deep breaths, and relax. Poke around in the pantry, find your favorite coffee, and brew up a nice, fresh cup, just the way you like it.

Station yourself near a big, south-facing window, and take in the natural world. Here in the northeast, it’s raining for the third weekend in a row, so we’re staying inside once again.

Now, listen to “Spiegel im Spiegel for Cello and Piano”, written by the Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt in 1978. Wikipedia says that since 2010, Pärt has been the most performed living composer in the world.

This is a beautiful, although minimalist piece. It is said that Keith Jarrett once said classical music showed him how to play fewer notes and make more music.

This piece proves Jarret’s point. It should calm you down, because it’s so pleasing to the ear:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Monday Wake Up Call – October 29, 2018

The Daily Escape:

Fisherman on the Housatonic River near Cornwall, CT – November, 2017 photo by Mike Jacquemin

The World Series is on, and it may actually be over by the time you read this. Wrongo lived in Brooklyn as a young boy, and got to go to Ebbets Field twice to see games. He grew up on Mays, Mantle, Berra, Koufax, Drysdale, Hodges and Snider, each were legends and heroes.

But in 2018? The only baseball Wrongo watches is the World Series, and that’s only with clicker in hand, vectoring to other entertainment. And he certainly doesn’t stay up until the game is over. Let this sink in: In 2018, for the first time in baseball history, there were more strikeouts than hits: 188 more to be exact.

So today, who watches these games from start to finish? It’s doubtful that those under the age of 30 do. Particularly if someone like Wrongo who was a baseball fan 60 years ago, is too disengaged to watch it in real time.

But the weekend’s news wasn’t dominated by sports, but by yet another mass shooting. This time, at The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 mostly elderly people died at the hands of an anti-Semitic, hate-motivated gunman. He leaves behind waves of grief.

It’s a sorry commentary that this killing, along with the attempted bombings of 14 Democrats, obscured the hate killing of two African-Americans in Kentucky last Wednesday. Maybe it’s because only two Black murder victims at the hands of a white supremacist doesn’t garner attention anymore.

To those crying out after a wave of pipe bombs and another mass shooting, that this is not who we are, sorry, this is exactly who we have become as a people. The MAGA-bomber and the Synagogue murders are the tip of the spear: Alt-right fellow travelers blatantly acting out, seemingly without fear of reprisal, is the world we live in now.

And yet, at a time when America sorely needs moral leadership and unity, consistent reminders that we are one people, that we’re all in it together…we have Trump.

From James Fallows in the Atlantic:

Donald Trump has never once, in his life, spoken…as bearer of the whole nation’s grief, as champion of its faith and resolve–so there is no reason to expect that he could possibly do so now.

More from Fallows:

America has almost always had someone able to play that role….Harry Truman did so, after he unexpectedly became the leader of the post–World War II world. George W. Bush did, in his early remarks after 9/11. Even Lyndon B. Johnson, who fit no model of a natural orator, recognized what the country needed from him after history-changing assassinations: of the Kennedy brothers, Jack and Bobby, and of Martin Luther King Jr. Like his predecessors, he recognized what was expected of him, and he tried his best.

Donald Trump cannot and will not do any of this, and the absence of such a voice in national leadership is palpable.

We know that Trump has consistently stoked hatred. He has occasionally encouraged violence. This isn’t simply a personal moral failing, if he acts like a fellow traveler with alt-right types, racists, anti-Semites, and misogynists, the worst that our society has to offer.

Largely, he hates those who the alt-right hate; he also supports those who have no issue with using violence.

He draws angry crowds precisely because he reflects his followers’ inner darkness. So, when violence that is aimed at his enemies occurs, he can’t even fake compassion, much less accept that his words could have inspired the violence.

After dividing us and pandering to hatred for the past two years, what he says now is too little, too late.

America is about to find out what happens when morality and common decency are abandoned for political gain. If we don’t get Trump out of office, and bring the Republicans to heel, it’s frightening to think about what may happen, where we could be a few years.

So, it’s time to wake up America! The first step on our long road to national recovery begins on November 6th.

Get yourself to the polls, and take a neighbor or two with you.

To help you wake up, listen this morning to the main theme From “Schindler’s List“. John Williams composed the score for Schindler’s List, and played the main theme on piano. Following Spielberg’s suggestion, he hired Itzhak Perlman to perform it on the violin:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 28, 2018

Having a vanifesto doesn’t mean Trump had anything to do with it:

From the cartoonist Clay Jones:

This guy was at the rallies with you. He was standing among you chanting “lock her up,” and “build the wall.” He believes all the conspiracy theories Trump sells. He thinks the media is “fake news” and the “enemy of the American people.” He believes Mueller is on a witch hunt. He believes Trump got something from North Korea and Putin. He believes we’re winning the tariff war. He believes there were millions of illegal voters in 2016. He believes there’s an impending invasion from a caravan of refugee women and children that’s a national “emergency.”

A toxic recipe:

Trump’s iPhones aren’t secure, but there’s no irony:

When you need it scarier, think Mexicans:

MAGA men think of themselves as “tough” when maybe they’re not:

Mitch’s plan to gut social security and Medicare depends on winning the midterms:

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Saturday Soother – October 27, 2018

The Daily Escape:

Autumn, near Hopkinton, MA – October 2018 photo by Karen Randall

There’s been lots of talk this week that the bombs delivered to Democrats were a “false flag” operation, designed by Democrats to make Republicans look bad just before the mid-terms. Rush Limbaugh said: (emphasis by Wrongo)

There’s a smell test that this stuff has to pass, and, so far, a lot of people’s noses are in the air, not quite certain of what to make of this…. Republicans just don’t do this kind of thing.

Well, it’s early in the investigation, but the guy they arrested has a van with Trump stickers on it, and news sources say he’s a registered Republican.

Some will claim its fake news. Some on the internet are already minimizing the Trump influence, saying he’s “just another crazy guy, nothing really links him to Trump”. Except those stickers on the MAGAbomber’s van.

Can you imagine what Trump would be saying if Republicans had been targeted by a Democrat?

We live in a world filled with hate, mistrust and anger that was hand-built by Trump, for Trump. This is your first view of what might result from that. Every GOP politician now needs to speak up, saying that their political opponents are not an enemy who is deserving of death.

We’re founded on the belief that we can disagree, that we can be part of our own tribes, but we belong to a super-group: we’re Americans. This incident should impress on the public that angry speech and rhetoric have consequences way beyond partisan political positioning.

Kudos to the DOJ, the FBI and the postal service for bagging the suspect. Notwithstanding recent comments from the president denigrating them, it is a job well done by law enforcement.

Just another week that jangled the nerves! Time to sit out the Nor’easter we’re feeling here in New England. Start by brewing up a hot cuppa Luke’s Coffee, from Kent Coffee and Chocolates, in Kent, CT. The fine people at Kent Coffee have adopted a dog named Luke from a local shelter, and 100% of the proceeds from the sale of Luke’s Coffee goes to The Little Guild Shelter in Cornwall, CT. Here’s a picture of Luke:

(iPhone photo by Wrongo)

Luke is Kent Coffee’s third adoption from the Little Guild. They also make spectacular chocolates.

Now, unplug from your devices, (except for Wrongo’s site), and think about the end of autumn, which is just around the corner. Here, the rain and winds are taking down most leaves, except for those on the Oak trees, which will hang on for quite a while longer.

Settle back and listen to Ed Sheeran sing his song “Perfect Symphony” live at Wembley Stadium in London on June 14, 2018. He’s joined on stage by Andrea Bocelli, and it’s magic. Most likely, this will be the first dance song at weddings for the next decade:

Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

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