Author Archives: John Flannery

TRUMPCARELESS! Sad!

Mr. Donald Trump and Speaker Ryan

Mr. Donald Trump and Speaker Ryan

Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump promised in September 2015 on 60 Minutes that when he got rid of Obamacare, “I am going to take care of everybody.  Everybody’s going to be taken care of much better than they’re taken care of now.”

Yet there’s Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s plan in the House of Representatives that won’t cover everyone – and Ryan is just fine with that – as are many members of the Republican caucus fine including Virginia Congresswoman Barbara Comstock – no matter that Ryan is prepared to leave millions behind without health coverage who have been covered under Obamacare.

Asked how many would lose coverage, Speaker Ryan said on CBS’s Face the Nation, “I can’t answer that question.”

Incidentally, Mr. Trump is lobbying Congress to support Speaker Ryan’s plan, to calm the fears of Republican members with a conscience.

Vice President Pence said they need the support of every Republican Member to pass the measure in the House.

Some will die without the health care coverage guaranteed by Obamacare.

Others will find health care unaffordable and do without and suffer for it.

For example, Lovettsville’s Eden Reck, 10 years old, reportedly has had 40 hospitalizations in her life, because of life-threatening genetic conditions.  Obamacare assures her family that she will continue to be treated.  The lifetime cap eliminated by Obamacare means her three siblings will now be at risk for the $1 Million lifetime cap she might exhaust for her care alone. Continue reading

Trump tap tweet – “SAD!”

The latest Trump pants on fire lie

The latest Trump pants on fire lie

Misdirection is the first considered refuge of a cornered politician or a guilty suspect.

Of course, some politicians and suspects have a core character that draws the line at lying once caught – and they face the music.

Mr. Trump is not, however, “that guy” who confesses to chopping down the cherry tree.

Mr. Trump charged President Obama wasn’t born in the United States without any evidence.

Mr. Trump claimed he would have won the popular vote last year if there hadn’t been voter fraud without any evidence of fraud.

Mr. Trump claimed to have had the biggest electoral vote since 1984 when President Obama bested Mr. Trump’s electoral total in both of Mr. Obama’s elections.

Mr. Trump lies about things big and small.

Afterwards, he walks his lies back, when the lies have had the desired effect that Mr. Trump contemplated, to gain tribute for himself (often) or, to misdirect public attention from his own misconduct (an almost daily occurrence now).

It is little wonder that Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with cabinet members and oval office staff who have trouble “recalling” their contacts with the Russians during or since the presidential election. Continue reading

The escape from freedom

Mr. Donald Trump and Mr. Steve Bannon, the despotic duo.

Mr. Donald Trump and Mr. Steve Bannon, the despotic duo.

Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm wrote in 1941 how individual freedom may invite feelings of isolation, powerlessness, and hopelessness, so strongly that one sacrifices individual freedom for authority and submission, to avoid the uncertainty of freedom, at the cost of independent thought.

Virginia Senator James Webb charged that there exists a compensation chasm between what largesse the billionaire “job creators” harvest and how much the “workers” earn.

This greed has created isolation and hopelessness among many working Americans.

Ironically, a Billionaire, realtor Donald Trump, gave “workers” hope though Mr. Trump has  appointed no one since his inauguration to represent the workers.

Mr. Trump’s program “guarantees” that America will be first, will reconsider our nation’s relationship with its long-time NATO allies, will build a wall along the Mexican border, encourage nation states to join the exclusive nuclear club, and will favor Russian President Vladimir Putin, who overran and occupied Crimea with military force.

Mr. Trump is indisputably authoritarian, surrounded by radical right wing acolytes, all in a rush to rule, and to overrun any one critical of his chaotic impulses.

By way of example, Mr. Trump late one Friday night executed a Muslim ban against documented immigrants from seven mostly Muslim states who had already been “extremely vetted.”

Mr. Trump broke his sworn oath of office to uphold the constitution as confirmed by several federal courts, finding his executive order was unconstitutional; Mr. Trump bragged he’d appeal; he has not. Continue reading

Traitor Trump

Benedict Arnold

Benedict Arnold

Mr. Donald Trump was for leaks before he was against them.

Mr. Trump is strong in the truth because so little of what he says is true – and we all cherish what is rare.

Mr. Trump “won” an election by suppressing the truth and now he hopes to give flight to his lies by suppressing the press that would tell the truth about his lies.

Mr. Trump favored leaks in his public bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they compromised former Secretary Hillary Clinton.

It’s a different “story,” however, when the leaks uncover how Mr. Trump’s adviser, Michael Flynn, may have been undermining the Obama Administration’s sanctions against Mr. Putin’s Russia for interfering in our nation’s presidential election.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Sally Yates found the taped conversation that Michael Flynn had with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in late December “highly significant” and “potentially illegal” because Mr. Flynn discussed the Obama sanctions against Russia. Continue reading

The liberals are coming

The first offending sign posted by Warner Workman in Lovettsville

The first offending sign posted by Warner Workman in Lovettsville

Some folk walking up to Lovettsville’s Bonnie’s for their morning coffee this past Friday were taken aback at the large-lettered sign outside the popular eatery, posted by Warner Workman, the owner of “Minutemen Arms,” a gun dealer, because the sign proclaimed, “Liberalism is evil[,] Arm [N]ow.”

On Facebook last Friday, Ashley pushed back, “I’m so tired of him polluting the town with his [Mr. Workman’s] crap.”

Warner Workman responded, “xoxoxoxo Listen Snowflake .. my current sign is for you.”

Anjel objected to Mr. Workman’s sign for “[t]hreatening harm against those who you are labeling ‘evil.’  Real patriots don’t threaten the opposition with death.”

John said, “He fancies himself a [James] Bond type;” Mr. Workman does state he formerly worked for “the agency” – the CIA.

“This goes so far beyond being simply offensive,” said Susan, “Our children are seeing this …a local [Mr. Workman] implying that arms should be taken up against their liberal parents.  I am sickened.” Continue reading

Alternative law

“Alternative Facts” – we all know now – means to lie to confound and manipulate the public.

The Courts declare what is law and what is constitutional, not the White House

The Courts declare what is law and what is constitutional, not the White House

Instead of accepting the facts, when they are plainly evident, Mr. Donald Trump lies, for instance, about how many folk attended his inauguration.

If journalists don’t accept the lies Mr. Trump tells, Mr. Trump hounds and ridicules journalists and anyone else in tweets and sets upon the press his mad dog press secretary who performs like a thoughtless school yard bully you would have popped in the mouth when you were a kid.

Another great whopper, viral on social media, told by the conning Ms. KellyAnne Conway, a Trump adviser, was that there was a “Bowling Green Massacre” by mid-east terrorists when, in truth and fact, no massacre ever occurred.

Ms. Conway claimed this “imagined” massacre justified Mr. Trump’s unlawful and unconstitutional ban on Muslim immigrants from seven mostly Muslim nation states.

George Orwell in a spectacular essay, “Politics and the English Language,” warned that “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier to have foolish thoughts,” and, when published, such “language can also corrupt thought.”  Continue reading

Trump betrays the American promise

Protest at the Dulles Airport, VA

Protest at the Dulles Airport, VA

The nation and the world recoils from the Tyrant in the West Wing, Mr. Donald Trump, who issued an illegal and unconstitutional executive order, universally decried at home and abroad as discriminatory, for barring legal immigrants with visas and green cards, without any advice beforehand from the Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection.

This executive fiat targeted predominantly Muslim nations, namely, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen, while excluding other Muslim nations including those where Mr. Trump has business interests.

Mr. Trump knew that he was usurping existing immigration law passed by the U.S. Congress, and fundamental constitutional standards of fairness, targeting Muslims he had every reason to believe presented absolutely no threat to this nation because they had already been vetted and found to present no threat to the United States.

Mr. Donald Trump issued his fiat last Friday, in the late afternoon, ironically enough on Holocaust Memorial Day, guaranteeing the inhumane chaos he plainly hoped to create.

From last Friday through the weekend, our nation’s airports were in disarray with government agents offering no resistance to Mr. Trump’s lawless fiat.  Continue reading

Womens march on Washington – the Lovettsville buses

The Womens March on Washington

The Womens March on Washington

Many of your neighbors from Lovettsville, and not just women, felt it was necessary to March on Washington the next day after the Inauguration this past Friday.

They were doing what many other communities were doing across the Commonwealth.

One local woman said, “You know how a woman speaks at a meeting and is ignored.  Then a man repeats the very same thought he just heard her say – and then it’s treated by the men as if it was the man’s idea all along.”

“Worse than that,” she said, “is when a woman enjoys the right of privacy to control her own body – and that’s not respected.”

This latter observation relates to what was plainly a defining moment in the recent presidential election for very many women, when it was widely disclosed, what Mr. Trump thought about women.

Mr. Trump said, “You can do anything … Grab them by the pussy, you can do anything.”

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Mr. Trump said.

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful [women],” Trump said, “I just start kissing them.  It’s like a magnet, just kiss.  I don’t even wait.”

In other words, a woman said, “a woman’s consent is irrelevant to this guy.”

Trump confided to a like-minded male that he tried to have sex with one woman the two were about to join, knowing she was married.  He said, “I moved on her like a bitch.”

Mr. Trump favors tic tacs “just in case I start kissing…”

In the recent campaign, it is undisputed that Mr. Trump, by word and conduct, was transparently intolerant of persons by their gender, race, color, religion and place of origin.

Mr. Trump, however, reserved his special abuse for women, no matter whether the woman was a Fox anchor or an Oscar-winning actor.

Contradicting Mr. Trump invited slander, lies and relentless trash talk.

Women the world over saw in Mr. Trump’s November election the danger of sexual discrimination going forward in his Administration, impermissible incursions into the sanctity of the person, of the constitutional right to be let alone, of access to medical records, of equal pay for equal work, of their dignity – meaning shame for being a woman. Continue reading

Not my President

John Lewis (far right) with Martin Luther King, Selma

John Lewis (far right) with Martin Luther King, Selma

Congressman John Lewis is a civil rights icon, famously known for marching in Selma with Martin Luther King, for being beaten and arrested, for having never stopped fighting for equal rights before the law for every person in America.

Congressman Lewis was asked in recent days what he thought about the imminent inauguration of the man who would be President.

Congressman Lewis declared that this man is no legitimate president, and he would not attend his “Inauguration.”

Nor shall I.

Nor will I watch or listen to a word of what this man from the golden tower on Fifth Avenue has to say at his so-called Inauguration.

But I’ll be in Washington the very next day afterwards.

I will join women from across the nation who shall protest this man’s legitimacy as President and how he hopes to mislead a nation from this nation’s promise of equal rights for all and the constitutional obligation to promote the general welfare. Continue reading

How many gun dead does it take?

The Florida Shooter – Esteban Santiago

The Florida Shooter – Esteban Santiago

When you can’t use your mind, you may only act physically.

Guns empower true physical violence, wielded at a distance from the human target, who is unarmed, unsuspecting, innocent, a truly one-sided “fight,” with surprise on the side of the assailant, that reduces his risk of harm.

Guns are easy to get in America no matter how little you know about handling weapons, no matter how unhealthy mentally you may be.

A troubled Iraq vet, Esteban Santiago, 26, upon his return stateside, according to his Aunt, lost his mind in the mid-east and was hospitalized.

Last November, Estaban told the Anchorage FBI that there was a CIA plot against him, and related a tale of paranoia that would be hard to imagine.

Esteban surrendered an ammunition clip to the FBI.  The FBI confiscated his gun.  Esteban was admitted to a hospital.  Shortly afterwards, he was released from the hospital, his gun returned, and Esteban flew from Alaska to Florida, to kill five people with the very same gun the FBI returned to Esteban. Continue reading