How will you fulfill your oath to the Constitution, Cliff?
I wrote to my Republican congressman, Cliff Bentz, this morning. This is the second of the two messages I sent:
Last week President Trump and Vice President Vance attacked Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office. President Trump went to great lengths to suggest that it was Vladimir Putin who has been unfairly treated by the United States, and on at least on occasion prior to the Oval Office confrontation, President Trump said that Ukraine, not Putin, had started the war. Then this week President Trump said that the funding congress had committed to Ukraine for their defense would be withheld. This is an illegal action by President Trump, and a direct assault on the constitutional order. What are you planning to do to reverse this illegal action and how will you fulfill your oath to uphold the constitution?
Whenever I write to the congressman, which is fairly often, I get a boilerplate response that never actually addresses the issue or answers my questions. But I live in hope that one day Rep. Bentz will have an awakening of conscience that will inspire him to do the right thing.
In the first message I asked him what he planned to do about Elon Musk gutting the staff and closing offices of the Social Security Administration. I doubt he will have a satisfactory answer for that question, either.
Posted 4 March 2025 by Mark ·
They were right
Back in late October I posted a link to writings by Heather Cox Richardson and Rachel Bitecofer that predicted the consequences of electing Trump. I am reposting that post here in its entirety because their observations take on new significance after the last 6 weeks.
Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American is something I read every day. The October 21 edition, points to similarities between Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler, and is a must read column. Cox Richardson references another article, by Rachel Bitecofer:
In a searing article today, political scientist Rachel Bitecofer of The Cycle explored exactly what that means in a piece titled “What (Really) Happens If Trump Wins?” Bitecofer outlined Adolf Hitler’s January 30, 1933, oath of office, in which he promised Germans he would uphold the constitution, and the three months he took to dismantle that constitution.
Bitecofer’s full column is also worth your time. Here are her concluding thoughts:
My four year study into totalitarianism generally, and fascism specifically, has taught me two valuable lessons. The first is that the common thread among democracies that collapse into dictatorship is that no one panicked until the threat was already in power and it was too late. That is why I have continued to pound my Paul Revere-style “the fascists are coming!” campaign.
The second thing I learned is that the constitution/law can only protect you if all parties agree to adhere to it.
All you need to end a democracy is a leader willing to suspend or end the Constitution and a supporting cast large enough to allow him to do it.
Republicans have both.
Posted 3 March 2025 by Mark ·
Trump's Dumb Tariffs
I don’t often agree with the Wall Street Journal opinion page, but they nailed this:
We’ve courted Mr. Trump’s ire by calling the Mexico and Canada levies the “dumbest” in history, and we may have understated the point. Mr. Trump is whacking friends, not adversaries. His taxes will hit every cross-border transaction, and the North American vehicle market is so interconnected that some cars cross a border as many as eight times as they’re assembled.
In their editorial titled Trump Takes the Dumbest Tariff Plunge the WSJ calls out Trump’s stupidity with the enthusiasm one might expect of an MSNBC host.
Posted 3 March 2025 by Mark ·
