Politics: Wishful Thinking Department: Treason?
It is time for our military,
in the personage of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to disregard the orders of their
Commander in Chief. He might call it
treason, but it is he who is the traitor. For no good reason other than being out-negotiated by Turkish President
Erdogan in a night-time phone conversation with no advisors present, he has
betrayed the honor of the United States, exposing tens of thousands of Kurds to
murder. That is an act of treason far
greater than our military leaders disobeying him would be.
A President, unless in times of war and true
imminent danger to the nation, is not empowered to make such decisions. This is
a time for the American military to stand up and defy the President and return
American troops to their positions, protective of our Kurdish allies in
northern Syria. The Joint Chiefs should
advise the Congress of their intention to disobey the Commander in Chief. Their
defiance would not be an act of treason.
It would be an act of honor. And
if it amounts to a “constitutional crisis,” if you haven’t noticed, we already
are there!
This would be only a part of
the constitutional crisis the President has brought upon the country by
disregarding and denigrating the role of the co-equal Legislative branch of our
government, just as he has attacked anyone even in the Executive branch who
disagrees with him. This is why so many
have resigned, been fired and so many positions left unfilled. This is why subpoenas are defied by our
insolent President.
Inevitably, this
constitutional crisis will come before the Supreme Court where the President
will find that his two appointees, while agreeing with the conservative policies
of the Federalist Society, will not tolerate his disregard for the
Constitution. Nor will the Chief
Justice, who will preside over the Senate portion of the impeachment
process. Donald J. Trump’s presidency will go down in
history as evidence that democracy must be carefully nurtured; failing to do so
can have disastrous consequences.
It has been said that the
impeachment process is unnecessary since the Constitution provides for getting
rid of a president through its election process. That makes sense, and should the Senate not
convict the President and complete his impeachment, that is the course the
nation will follow. Nevertheless,
because his very corruption of that election process itself would be one of the
issues involved in the President’s impeachment, it would be better if the
process were carried to completion in the Senate. Sadly, the Republican majority there is
dominated by cowards who put their dying party over nation. It’s a stretch, but that too is treason of a
sort. Senators take an oath to defend
the Constitution, not the President nor their Party.
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| George Will ... From the Right, always. |
At this point, don’t take the
word of progressive Democrats, like me, but listen to the words of a
conservative, old-line, traditional, right-wing Republican columnist like
George Will. Here’s his Washington
Post column of the other day. Copy
and paste this on your ‘browser line’ :
And then feel free to pass it
on you your Republican friends, who may have missed their dose of “Kool Aid” on
Fox this morning.
Jack Lippman
* * * *
Those of you who use Gmail may
have noted that when you’re composing an email message, the system sometimes
jumps ahead and suggests in a gray, not black, typeface what you might
say. This is based on the system’s
familiarity with your prior writings, with those of others like you, and uses a
kind of artificial intelligence to think ahead for you. You can ignore the suggested wording (in
gray) and type whatever you want to type, or if you want to go along with the
system’s suggestion, just hit the tab key and the gray wording automatically
becomes your work in black (or in whatever color you are typing). This feature of Gmail, incidentally, is known
as “Smart Compose.” (Another similar Gmail
feature is “Smart Reply,” which again based on the nature of the email and its
sender, sometimes gives you a selection of very brief responses which you can
send such as “Thanks,” “Got It,” or “Really?” without bothering to compose them
yourself.)
Check out John Seabrook’s
article on this in the October 14 issue of the New Yorker. He cites an email he was sending to his son on
which he had just typed in “I am so p” with the intention of continuing
“pleased with you,” but Smart Compose thought “proud of you” would be
better. He decided that it indeed was
and went along with the suggestion. So
now, it appears machines are thinking for us, and improving on our thoughts. It started when you allowed your computer to check
your spelling, but as its “artificial intelligence” expands, it begins to get
frightening.
There are NOT Always Two Sides to Every Story
It is not a legitimate
struggle between those who believe the impeachment inquiry process going on
right now in the House is proper … and those who believe it is not. One side is filled with law breakers, whose
positions courts are repeatedly overruling.
Some are even in prison for their acts.
That is not true of the other side, which the courts and the Constitution support.
Even those running around with their MAGA hats are beginning to recognize
this and turning to conspiracy theories (like the Dark State) to justify their
beliefs. They have no other place to go when the evidence is on the table.
* * * *
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