#Trump addresses nation in shadow of Lincoln

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Where Are We Going?

It has been several days since I have written to this blog, and I sincerely apologize for that. I really appreciate your following my writing and hope you will continue; but, to be completely honest, some days my thoughts flow, and other days they do not. I, really, draw a blank. Again, I’m sorry. I hope you will “hang with” me in this endeavor.

One doesn’t have to look back too many years to see the future if they only care to take a look. History does repeat itself. In my final years of life, I do not want to see (or experience) it; but, looking at the direction in which our leaders are taking us and how they are managing the affairs of our nation, I foresee only a path of poverty, misery and servitude for our children and their descendants. Ignorance, greed, avarice, and incompetence abound; everyone thinks they are right, facts notwithstanding; no one will admit they are wrong; and our world (as we know it), our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is slipping away before our very eyes, arguably either (thru passive neglect and ignorance) forfeited by the people or stolen from them by an oligarchy of our nation’s corporate and power elite, the top one percent, if you will–our Shadow Government–those who take all the money. I can’t argue the distinction, as the latter could not have occurred without the acquiescence of the former. It’s sad, if not tragic. We have come to the point in our nation’s short history where (as I have said before) we not only have a “Shadow Banking” system (Reference the report of The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, published January 2011), but we also have a “Shadow Government”. We’ve come a long way, baby.

The question at hand is, what are we going to do about it, and when are we going to do it? Not all, to be sure; but, for the most part, the foxes (the power elite) are in control of the henhouse. You know they aren’t going to do anything; so, the ball is in your court. Let me suggest this. On November 8, 2024, we are going to have a national election for representatives to Congress, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. To the best of your ability vote only for those who represent the people of this country, the 99%, those to whom God gave this planet in the first place. Don’t forget. When Jesus came into this world, he came to the poor, the disenfranchised. Jesus chased the money changers from the temple because they were liars, cheats, and thieves. Accordingly, cast your votes for representatives of the people, populists if you will, rather than those who represent only the interests of the very rich (and their wannabes).

Let’s get the show on the road toward taking back our country for the people. We need jobs. We need to take money out of politics. We need to legally affirm that corporations are not people and do not have the rights of people. Only God makes people–not Mr. Trump or DeSantis or his gang of GOPs’. We need to insure open, honest, and fair elections, open and fair to all citizens and political parties–gerrymandering and discrimination be damned. We need to shore up Social Security to the extent we don’t have to argue the matter forever again. We need a single-payer healthcare system for all. As one great leader once said, “It doesn’t matter if the cat is white or the cat is black, the cat we want is the cat that catches mice”. We, also, need to amend our Constitution as needed to implement a government, as Abraham Lincoln said in his address at Gettysburg, of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We have a year left before the elections, folks. Please. Think seriously and deeply about what I have said. I urge you. Focus on our government being a Democratic Republic, representative of the people, as it was originally established in 1789.

rom: Steven P. Miller @ParkermillerQ, GatekeeperWatchman.Org Founder of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups Saturday, October 21, 2023, Jacksonville, Florida., Duval County, USA. #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO, #Ephraim1, #IAM, #Sparkermiller, #Eldermiller1981

[creepingsharia]

How to Steal an Entire Country

Biden “will make America weak again, dependent upon others again, full of Made in China again, and friends to jihadists again — it'll be Obama II...”

By Donald Finley

It's been over a month since the election, and all is not well in Mudville.  The home team fights round the clock to prove that the challenger cheated, and the challenger makes no effort to calm fears or address concerns — just continues naming cronies and planning not just to take over the ballpark, but to change the rules for the entire sport.

For those who care, the internet still exists, and there are more sites than Twitter, Facebook and news services out there where the truth actually matters.  So why does anyone have to search for the truth?  Investigations and impeachments have been blasted forcefully into our faces for years, thanks to the author of the MSM's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Joseph Goebbels, of Third Reich fame, who said, "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly — it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. ... A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth."  It appears he also wrote the SOPs for Facebook, one of which is clearly "propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will."

Now, all across the MSM, Biden's "victory" consequences are given the fait accompli treatment.  We should all just behave and accept reality.  It sounds and reads like this: "Trump is baselessly contesting the results."  "Trump campaign court cases have been thrown out due to baseless claims."  All the "doing" is from the Trump side, and it's wasting everyone's time.  The Democrats haven't done a thing, obviously.  They are the innocent victims, once again, of Trump's craziness.  "Meanwhile, President-Elect Biden saw his shadow again today."

There is nothing baseless about what happened.  It's clear the Democrats planned this for quite some time, focusing on the battleground states, and centrally synchronizing and executing their Transition Integrity Project war-gamed plan.  They prepped the battlefield with lawsuits all across the country to remove any teeth in election laws, thus making the commission of fraud much easier and its discovery much harder.  And here is what they did.  And here.  And here.  And here.  More here.  Just check it out.  I recommend getting a head start and caring now; otherwise, it will be a big shock when you care later, and you will certainly care later.

So there's a growing mountain of evidence that President Trump was re-elected.  If the election had been conducted according to existing laws, there would be no question.  If only legal ballots were counted, there would be no question.  If the Democrats hadn't fabricated so many illegal votes, there would be no question.  But there is a question, and it's this: how are we going to make this right?  This is no conspiracy theory; it's a real conspiracy, across many states, involving the highest levels of Democrat elected officials, down to hapless election volunteers just following directions.  It was a conspiracy to steal the federal election for Joe Biden or, in other words, to remove Donald Trump from office, something Democrats have been openly trying to do for at least four years.

All the guilty Democrats believe that if they act the propaganda out, it will actually happen.  Why don't they call for transparency?  Because they don't want it.  It will expose them for what they are.  Don't they want to eliminate the cloud of illegitimacy in the election?  No, because they built it; it's about power, not legitimacy.  What about their reputations in being associated with a fraudulent election?  They don't care what we think of them; they want their shot at wielding power and getting rich from taxpayer dollars, book deals, and speaking fees.  There is no MAGA in what the Democrats did, nor in what they plan to do.  If they are allowed to do it, there will be no America left to make great.

Like the home title theft commercials, this is entire country and cultural theft.  Every MAGA policy will be reversed if Biden is allowed to take the Oval Office.  He will make America weak again, dependent upon others again, full of Made in China again, and friends to jihadists again — it'll be Obama II, the narcissistic pronoun president again.  "I," "Me," and "My" will dominate every speech again, which will repeatedly lecture to us, "That's not who we are," as something we absolutely are is insulted in favor of some more egalitarian socialist-globalist replacement.  Under a Democrat administration, "we" real Americans who love "our" nation and don't want "our" prosperity given to China so Hunter Biden can get rich again will slowly watch "our" Constitution, freedom, history, democracy, tradition, and independence chip away.

Because the Democrats are so self-centered, they have framed the governance of the U.S. as them versus Donald Trump.  They have fought everything Trump because he has fought their corruption with his promise to "Drain the Swamp."  But this is much bigger than Donald Trump, and he has openly said so.  It's not whether he wins or loses this election; it's whether the U.S. ever again holds a free and fair election.  To the Democrats, it's "Donald Trump's investigations can destroy many of us in the next four years and we'll never win another election" versus "Donald Trump goes away, and so do his investigations of Democrat crimes (and as a bonus, Joe Biden will let us do whatever we want and we'll ensure we never again lose an election)."  In framing it in such a way, the Democrats' thirst for power at all costs created the circumstances whereby they couldn't succeed without doing grave damage to the country.  That's where we are, with our election system shattered, void of the electorate's trust, and those who did the damage potentially and ironically poised as the only ones who can fix it.  The epitome of "the fix is in."

In the end, it comes down to this: what does it mean to have right versus wrong, corrupt versus honest, truth versus lies, fair versus stolen all work out backwards?  The last place on Earth the rest of the world would have thought that possible is right here.  "Our" America.  Abraham Lincoln said, "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."  He was talking about slavery, an evil that needed to be purged from our nation, lest we lose our nation altogether.

There are many evils, but today the foremost evil we must address is the Democrat party's corruption of our national election.  We all know what happened, and what the right thing is.  We need to fix it.  Now.  The details and the prison terms can be figured out later.

Donald N. Finley is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel.

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image source: Transition Integrity Project

Go to https://stopthesteal.us/ to see how you can help in your state or nationally.

[yobaba30]

The most destructive, vile, corrupt man ever to darken America’s presidency has left the White House for the last time. He has disgraced himself, the office, his oath, and the nation in ways more profound and lasting than we can account. His incompetence, malfeasance, and evil shouldn’t be laughed off as narcissism or ignorance. He was surrounded by corrupt, wicked, cruel counselors and reveled in it. Emerson once said of Lincoln’s presidency “an institution is the lengthened shadow of a man.” He was right.  Trump’s cruelty, division, insurrection, treason and corruption are unrivaled in history. He is the nadir of presidential leadership. He was enabled by the weak, the venal, the desperate, and the compromised. It was empowered by voices normalizing and rationalizing his evils. His abuse of power should come as no surprise. There are no better angels in Donald Trump’s nature. There was never a bottom. There was never any maturation, self-reflection, or a “day he became president.” It would always end this way. A life free of consequence, accountability, justice, or moral reckonings put a man in charge of this nation with no guiderails, no boundaries, no ethical compass. The American carnage from his inaugural address was real, and he embodied every iota of it. The claque of his sycophants will haunt us for a generation. They will try to clean up his philosophy and embody his authoritarianism while wearing better suits and waving credentials from an Ivy. His cult will await the second coming and his spawn will run for office. For all that, he is defeated. A pariah, a failure, and a traitor the the Constitution and the country. Good won over evil. It’s that simple. Decency won over indecency. America checked a hard slide into the darkness, blessed by providence or luck. Enjoy this moment. There’s much work ahead.

The Rick Wilson

[viralhottopics]

On eve of inauguration, Trump addresses nation in shadow of Lincoln

Trump spoke at the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King Jr declared I have a dream, and told the largely white crowd: Youre not forgotten any more

Donald Trump staked his claim to Washington on Thursday by promising to make America great again while at the feet of the US capitals giant marble statue of Abraham Lincoln in a celebration of patriotic music, military pageantry and fireworks.

The president-elect delivered a brief speech from the Lincoln Memorial, close to the spot where in 1963 Martin Luther King Jr declared, I have a dream. Trump told the largely white crowd: Youre not forgotten any more.

On a cold night of heavy and sometimes heavy handed symbolism ahead of Fridays inauguration, Trump led thousands of supporters in chants of make America great again, saying: And Ill add, greater than ever before. A spectacular array of fireworks shot into the sky and spelled: U-S-A as the Battle Hymn of the Republic rang out.

Accompanied by his wife, Melania, and other family members, he then walked up the steps and spent the better part of a minute silently contemplating the seated Lincoln, the president who won the civil war and helped end slavery. His celebrated Gettysburg address and second inaugural address are inscribed on the chamber walls.

Supporters lined the pool at the National Mall, many wearing Make America great again baseball caps and other regalia, though the area was far from full and some left early as temperatures plummeted after dark. Nearby were the Vietnam war memorial and ghostly figures of soldiers at the Korean war memorial.

But it was the juxtaposition with Trumps fellow Republican Lincoln, the 16th and arguably greatest US president, that was most striking. Hollywood actor Jon Voight, a vocal Trump supporter, told the crowd: President Lincoln who sits here with us Im sure is smiling knowing we will be led by an honest and good man, who will work for all their people no matter their creed or colour. We will see a renewed America.

Some observers, however, found the choice of the Lincoln Memorial jarring. Keith Stiggers, 25, who is African American, said: When I saw that I was like, wow! Probably a lot of his supporters dont like Lincoln and his legacy for the country. Is he going to uphold that legacy or is he going to do what he can to step on it?

Stiggers, a law student, had come with his fiance to support democracy and feels that Fridays inaugural address will be crucial. I think he should definitely build bridges. He got a lot of support from the alt-right and now he should make it clear he is governing for all Americans. His speech is going to be very important; its going to dictate the pace of his presidency.

The free welcome celebration had begun just after 4pm with military marching, music and pageantry, including the national anthem, followed by a change of gear with drummer DJ Ravidrums (Ravi Jakhotia), who has served as a personal DJ for Hugh Hefner. Behind him giant TV screens flashed the names of every US state.

There were performances from soul singer Sam Moore and an improvised country music group, laden with patriotism. Eventually Trump and his wife, Melania, appeared to the soundtrack of The Rolling Stones Heart of Stone. The president-elect turned to give Lincoln a military salute before descending the steps to chants of Trump! Trump! Trump!

They joined other family members behind protective glass to watch artists including the Piano Guys Its time to put all our differences aside rock band 3 Doors Down, Lee Greenwood and country singer Toby Keith, who was introduced as one of the most popular artists in history. Trump is said to have had trouble attracting A-list stars to appear at the event.

Tom Barrack, president of the presidential inauguration committee, then introduced the TV celebrity and businessman turned politician. I would like you to pay tribute to the courage, to the strength, to the loyalty of this man, he said.

Trump, holding a microphone in his left hand, thanked his supporters and said: Im just the messenger … Its a movement like weve never seen anywhere in the world, they say … its something thats very, very special. The phrase, you all know it, half of you are wearing the hat: make America great again.

Trump reflected on the noisy rallies of his election effort, which few observers thought would lead to Fridays ceremonies 18 months ago. There was never an empty seat, like tonight, he said. We all knew that last month of the campaign … we knew that something special was happening.

The polls started going up, up, up, but they didnt want to give us credit. Because they forgot about a lot of us. When the campaign started I called it the forgotten man and forgotten woman. Well, youre not forgotten any more.

The crowd cheered. Trump promised to bring jobs back, and not let other countries take US jobs any longer, while also rebuilding the military.

Trump addresses a pre-inaugural rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

We are going to do things that havent been done in our country for many, many decades, I promise you.

Washington is a Democratic stronghold where Trump polled less than 5% in the election, but his supporters relished their time in the capital.

Chris Lehman, 55, a maintenance supervisor from Belmar, New Jersey, said: Its thrilling to be here today. This is a historic event. Weve got a president again whos proud of the country and will bring jobs back to the country. Its a good feeling. Hes brought jobs back even before hes taken the keys to the office yet. Unfortunately hell probably spend the first 20 days undoing the garbage President Obama did at the end to slow him down.

Lehman, 55, booked his hotel in nearby Baltimore before the election because he was so confident of Trumps victory. You dont become a billionaire by losing and not knowing what youre doing, he said. He speaks his heart and he speaks his mind. You know what hes saying is the truth, and youve got to love a president like that. He doesnt owe anybody anything. He can come in and do this right.

Shannon Wilburn, 48, who runs a Christian youth centre, travelled with a friend from Roby, Texas, for her first visit to the US capital. We just wanted to be here as patriotic Americans. Its a bucket list thing to see a swearing in of a president. I do believe Donald Trump is a Christian. One of the biggest things is his pro-life stance and, as a Christ follower, its very hard to accept someone whos not.

Wilburn said she doubted that Trump will be able to bridge the partisan divide in his inaugural address on Friday. Theyre not even going to give him a day. Look at the Democrats boycotting it. He cant get one day of grace. Thats a little frustrating, I think.

Nearly a million people are expected on the National Mall in Washington for a ceremonial transfer of power that will observe time-honoured traditions and pageantry but usher in profound political uncertainties.

Trump has promised to shake up the postwar liberal order, issued contradictory policy statements and, even before taking office, sparked anger in foreign capitals with his volatile approach. Questions have been raised over the character and temperament of a man who boasted about groping women and still picks fights on Twitter.

Protests are expected on Friday, and a huge womens march is planned for Saturday, as liberals dig in for four years of opposition to Trump, who enters office as the most unpopular of at least the past seven presidents at the beginning of their terms, according to opinion polls.

He also takes power under the shadow of Russias alleged meddling in the presidential election, which has led some Democrats to question his legitimacy. Up to 60 members of Congress will boycott the inauguration ceremony at the US Capitol.

At least 28,000 security personnel from 36 state, local and federal agencies will be deployed for inauguration events, reportedly costing $200m, divided between taxpayers and private donors. Parts of the capital are on lockdown, with steel barriers erected on normally busy streets, to head off disruptive protests.

Trump and his wife, Melania, will on Friday morning go to the White House for tea with Obama and his wife, Michelle, even as house movers work upstairs to swap their private possessions.

The inauguration ceremony will begin with performances by the Talladega Marching Tornadoes, the Rockettes dance troupe, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and 16-year-old singer Jackie Evancho.

At noon, in a scene not so long ago unthinkable to the political establishment, Trump will take the oath of office, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts. He will place his hand on his own Bible a gift from his mother in 1955 as well as a Bible used by Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration.

In an operatic tableau, standing nearby will be Hillary Clinton, the candidate Trump threatened to jail during the campaign. She received 2.9 million more votes than he did last November but lost the electoral college. Former presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Jimmy Carter will also be present.

Trump will become the first US president in the 240-year-old republic who has never served in the military or held public office. At 70 he will also be the oldest in his first term, eclipsing Ronald Reagans record.

Barrack said Trumps inaugural speech would focus on the issues that unite us and claimed that the divisions from the campaign would vanish. What youll hear in his address is a switch from candidate to president, he told the CBS This Morning show.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2jSdAoc

from On eve of inauguration, Trump addresses nation in shadow of Lincoln

[ruminativerabbi]

Listening to Lincoln

I am a huge fan of the writing of David S. Reynolds, historian of American ideas and professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. (Readers should be careful not to confuse him with Cambridge University professor David Reynolds—no middle initial—who writes books primarily about twentieth century foreign policy and international relations. And also not with the Australian racing driver of the same name, co-winner of the 2017 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.) The David Reynolds I wish to write about today, the one with a middle initial who doesn’t drive racecars for a living, has written several books that I’ve admired greatly over the years, most notably his 2009 book, Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson, but also the truly remarkable Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography, which came out two years later in 2011. And I also enjoyed reading his impressive 2012 volume, Mightier Than the Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America, which book I think helped me understand the cultural milieu of the years leading up to the Civil War more than any other single volume I can think of. (For those of you who haven’t read any of the above, you are in for a huge treat. The author is just five years older than I am, but seems to understand nineteenth-century America more profoundly, and more broadly and deeply, than any other author I’ve read—including authors who themselves lived in the nineteenth century. Sometimes you really do need a little distance to see clearly.) And now I’ve just finished reading his latest book, Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Time, published last fall by Penguin Press.

There are, of course, a lot of books about Lincoln out there, including many full-length biographies. And yet Reynolds manages to carve out space for a novel contribution to the world of Lincoln research, one in which he presents the man not so much in terms of his accomplishments (although that too) but more specifically in terms of the cultural milieu in which he grew up and flourished. It is, as noted above, a remarkable accomplishment and I recommend the book beyond highly. But I write today not merely to recommend an excellent book, but to tell you something that reading Reynolds’ helped me understand about our nation now by drawing me back into the story of our nation then.

One of Lincoln’s best known early speeches is the so-called Lyceum Address, which he delivered on January 27, 1838, at the Springfield Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, as a twenty-eight-year old member of the Illinois State Legislature. I noticed Bret Stephens writing about this speech in the New York Times a few weeks back (click here) and found what he had to say about Lincoln in light of the events in Washington of January 6 compelling. But that only drew me back to Reynold’s book, where that specific speech is dissected and analyzed masterfully and intelligently, and set into its larger context.

The nation was in dire straits in the late 1830s. The slavery issue was front and center, forcing people either to support abolitionism or to be pro-slavery. In many quarters, what Lincoln called a “mobocratic” spirit seized the day. An anti-slavery newspaper editor, one Elijah Lovejoy, had just been murdered by a racist mob in Alton, Illinois. In Cincinnati, pro-slavery thugs broke into the building housing an anti-slavery newspaper and hauled the printing presses to the banks of the Ohio River and threw them in. In St. Louis, a Black man named Francis McIntosh had just been chained to a tree and burnt to death after shooting a policeman who was harassing his friends. In our own New York, pro-slavery mobs demolished stores and churches deemed to stand for abolitionism. There were pro-slavery riots in Manhattan, as well as in Connecticut and New Jersey. Nor was the violence that had seized the nation rooted solely in the slavery issue: anti-Catholic rioters burnt a convent to the ground in Charleston, Massachusetts, and attempted to murder the nuns who lived inside. So that was the background for Lincoln’s address at the lyceum in Springfield: his big point was that the issue on the nation’s table was not about slavery or about religious pluralism; it was about the power of the mob and whether the nation would choose to reject “mobocracy” and be guided forward solely by elected officials sworn to uphold the Constitution. That, he submitted, was what the nation needed to decide. Is this starting to sound at all familiar?

Lincoln saw the matter clearly, too, writing that “whenever the vicious portion of the population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last.”

His second big point will also be resonant with modern readers. The nation was founded in revolution; the right to rise up against a despised central government and seek autonomy through independence is the foundation stone upon which the nation came into being. But what do we who live today do with that revolutionary spirit when citizens claim it as their justification for wanting to destroy the union, for refusing to accept legitimate election results, for seeking to accomplish with armed insurrection what they have failed to achieve through the normal instruments of self-expression that guide democracies forward into their own futures? It isn’t a ridiculous question at all—and it is one that Lincoln would eventually pay with his life for answering in the specific way he did.

The key for Americans in his day, Lincoln declares, lies in understanding that the sole way to honor the revolutionary spirit is to embrace the republican ideals upon which the founders founded the nation. “As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence,” Lincoln says clearly, “so to the support of the Constitution and Laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor.” To this single point, he returns again and again in his remarks in Springfield. “Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American,” he said, “[and] let it become the political religion of the nation.” And as far as the notion that armed insurrection is somehow the birthright of true patriots schooled in the founders’ ideals, Lincoln has this to say: “Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.”

Lincoln’s Lyceum speech was delivered just two years after one of the greatest of all American essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature,” was published. Did Lincoln read it? My guess is that he did. For one thing, Lincoln was extremely well-read, a point to which Reynolds returns again and again. And I can hear Emerson clearly in some passages of the Lyceum address as well. Emerson’s point was that God speaks to the world through nature itself, making point after divine point to humankind through the intricacy and beauty of the natural world. And so does Lincoln turn to nature to make his point even more grandly by seeing the insurrectionists and rioters of his day as enemies not only of the republic but of nature itself: he describes the Founders as “a forest of giant oaks,” but then notes that an “all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, there and there, a lonely trunk despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage.” America itself is identified with Eden: the United States occupies, Lincoln wrote, “the fairest portion of the earth as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate.” But now the enemies of democracy have despoiled paradise: instead of the trees of Eden dripping with luscious fruit, in Mississippi both white people and Blacks “were seen literally dangling from the boughs of trees upon every roadside,” a horrific sight almost as omnipresent as the “native Spanish moss of the country, as a drapery of the forest.

Reynolds himself draws the obvious conclusion, writing that “the natural world—oceans, trees, a quarry, birds, snow, sun, and so on—here solidifies Lincoln’s ideas. The earth yields a political message: rebuild the edifice of liberty on solid ground by obeying the law, or else the hurricane of revolutionary passions will tear it down.”

So these are the thoughts I bring to my contemplation these days of our American present. Each day brings new arrests of those who entered the Capitol on January 6. The Senate is gearing up to try ex-President Trump on charges of inciting insurrection. The political landscape President Biden will have now to negotiate is changed, and fundamentally so, from what it would or could have been even just two or three months ago. To compare the riot at the Capitol with the burning of the Reichstag sounds exaggerated, but even making that comment is unsettling: even just a month ago, who would even have understood it? Or been able to imagine it?

As we move forward into uncharted waters against a background of the pandemic politics, I suggest we look forward by looking back. And I suggest we start by reading and rereading Lincoln. David S. Reynold’s book is an excellent place to start and I recommend it highly. But even more important is encountering Lincoln through his own words, through the story of his own life. (You can buy a used copy of Maureen Harrison and Steven Gilbert’s Lincoln in His Own Words for less than $2 online.) Lincoln was president more than a century and a half ago, but he casts his shadow still across the land. And that, I think, is a very good thing indeed.

[multipleservicelisting]

A Call for Unity to a Nation Facing a Pandemic and Division

WASHINGTON — In the end, the inauguration triumphed over the insurrection.

President Biden’s plea for national unity in his Inaugural Address on Wednesday was rooted in a belief — born of decades working inside the fractious institutions of government — that America can return to an era where “enough of us have come together to carry all of us forward.”

It was a call for the restoration of the ordinary discord of democracy, with a reminder that “politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path.” The words were made all the more potent because they were delivered from the same steps at the entrance to the Capitol where a violent attack two weeks ago shocked the nation into realizing the lengths to which some Americans would go to overturn the results of a democratic election.

Mr. Biden’s inauguration was notable for its normalcy, and the sense of relief that permeated the capital as an era of constant turmoil and falsehood ended. Yet he takes office amid so many interlocking national traumas that it is still unclear whether he can persuade enough of the nation to walk together into a new era, to get past the partisan divisions that made mask-wearing a political act, to win acceptance from tens of millions of Americans who believed a lie that the presidency had been stolen in ways that were never made clear.

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is hardly the first president to take office in a moment of national desperation and division. Lincoln, whose inauguration amid fear of violence hung over this moment, faced a country fracturing into civil war. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was in his third term when Mr. Biden was born, faced a nation mired in depression, with “Hoovervilles” in the shadow of the Capitol.

While Mr. Biden does not face a single crisis of equal magnitude, he made clear — without quite making the comparison — that none of his predecessors confronted such a fearsome array of simultaneous trials.

He listed them: a devastating pandemic that in one year has killed more Americans than the nation lost during World War II (he could have added Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan), an economic downturn that brought with it “joblessness and hopelessness,” a crisis of racial justice and another of climate, and, for tens of millions of Americans, a collapse in their faith in democracy itself.

And finally, he argued, American healing would require an end to partisan self-delusion, and to the era of alternative facts.

He never referred to President Donald J. Trump, but he was clearly talking about him — and the more than 140 Republicans in Congress who voted not to certify the election results, despite an absence of any evidence of widespread fraud — when he said that “we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.”

Mr. Biden’s presidency is predicated on a bet that it is not too late to “end this uncivil war.” Even some of his most ardent supporters and appointees, a generation or more younger than he is, wonder whether his calls for Americans to listen to one another, “not as adversaries but as neighbors,” are coming too late.

“Like Lincoln, Biden comes to power at a moment when the country is torn between conflicting visions of reality and identity,” said Jon Meacham, the presidential historian who has occasionally advised Mr. Biden and contributed to his Inaugural Address.

“Too many Americans have been shaped by the lie that the 2020 election was somehow stolen,” he said. “The new president’s challenge — and opportunity — is to insist that facts and truth must guide us. That you can disagree with your opponent without delegitimizing that opponent’s place within the Republic.”

Mr. Biden’s speech was about restoring that world, one that existed in the America he grew up in, from the arguments over civil rights and Vietnam to the culture wars that raged on through the most recent election. It is the argument of a 78-year-old who has endured tragedy after tragedy in public and who, in a reverse of the usual order, took on the manner of a statesman before he returned to the campaign trail as a politician.

But what millions of Americans hear as a heartfelt call to restore order, millions of others believe masks deep partisanship, or a naïveté about what has happened to America over the past four years, or the past 20.

In fact, beyond the call for unity, Mr. Biden’s speech was littered with phrases bound to reignite those arguments.

His references to the “sting of systemic racism,” to “white supremacy” and “domestic terrorism,” and his insistence that the climate crisis ranks among the nation’s top threats, were meant to signal to the progressive side of his party, which always viewed him as too conservative and cautious, that new priorities have arrived.

But they are also triggers to those who oppose him: Just on Tuesday, his last full day in office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a broadside on Twitter, where the president was silenced, against “woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they’re not who America is.”

Updated 

Jan. 20, 2021, 3:30 p.m. ET

Mr. Biden planned his inauguration to declare the opposite, that they are the modern America.

And his anticipated actions in his first days in office — rejoining the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization, vowing to find a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants and to re-enter the Iran nuclear agreement — are meant to reinforce the point.

He paired that with a warning to American adversaries, who spent the past four years, but particularly 2020, filling power vacuums around the world as America counted its dead and took to the streets.

Mr. Biden cautioned them not to mistake the din of the past four years for weakness.

“America has been tested, and we’ve come out stronger for it,” he insisted, promising to “repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.”

But he never once mentioned the country that poses the longest-term challenge to American pre-eminence — China — or any of the array of lesser challengers seeking to disrupt, to build nuclear weapons, to undercut the United States by manipulating its computer networks or exploiting social media.

And in the parts of the speech that sounded more like fireside chat than soaring rhetoric, he acknowledged that America’s diminished status can only be restored by ending the damage at home, and replacing an “America First” swagger with a dose of post-Covid humility.

The scope of that damage could be seen from the West Front of the Capitol. Gone were the throngs of hundreds of thousands who usually witness, and cheer, a ritual of American democracy that Mr. Biden was determined must look just as it always looks to the millions tuning in.

As long as the camera shots were tight, it did: the new president and vice president, the large family Bible, the chief justice, the former presidents. But the absence of Mr. Trump, the central, disruptive figure at the center of the nation’s four-year drama, the first president in more than 150 years to refuse to attend his successor’s inauguration, could not be erased. Neither could the prospect of Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial, an in absentia event that could start in days, perhaps reigniting the divisions that Mr. Biden came to heal.

When the camera shot widened, the “American carnage” Mr. Trump had vowed to end in his own inaugural speech four years ago was on full display, in ways that were unimaginable on Jan. 20, 2017.

The armed camp he had left behind was testimony to the divisions Mr. Trump left in his wake as he flew over the city one last time on Wednesday morning in Marine One, to the closest any American president has come to internal exile since Richard M. Nixon resigned in 1974. (Mr. Trump’s last words to his supporters at Joint Base Andrews, “Have a nice life,” seemed to underscore his own inability to find a way to process the damage done.)

It wasn’t the empty National Mall that struck attendees as much as the miles of iron fencing, topped with razor wire and surrounded by thousands of National Guard troops. There was no more vivid illustration of the state of the nation that Mr. Biden was inheriting.

Sometime in the next few days and weeks, that fencing will have to come down. Mr. Trump’s trial in the Senate, most likely a brief one, will have to end.

Then will come the test of Mr. Biden’s declaration that “without unity, there is no peace.”

And while an array of leaders from both parties flocked to the inauguration and clapped at the sentiment, it is far from clear that the country is truly ready to move on.

In a nation that cannot seem to share a common set of facts, agree on the utility of simple masks, on the safety of vaccines, or on whether a vote was rigged, fulfilling Mr. Biden’s dream of restoring orderly debate on policy may seem like the triumph of hope over lived experience.

“I am desperately grateful that the institutions of democracy have held, despite the damage President Trump and his enablers have inflicted these past four years,” said Kori Schake, a Republican who held positions in the Pentagon and the National Security Council and is now at the American Enterprise Institute.

“But for President Biden, the challenge won’t only be governing, but also restoring strength to the battered institutions of our democracy,” Ms. Schake said. “We Republicans have a responsibility to restore public trust in the integrity of our elections, because we’re the ones who called them into question.”

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[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: President Trump Stays Mostly On-Script and off Politics at Fourth of July ‘Salute to America’

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump celebrated “the greatest political journey in human history” Thursday in a Fourth of July commemoration before a soggy, cheering crowd of spectators, many of them invited, on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. Supporters welcomed his tribute to the U.S. military while protesters assailed him for putting himself center stage on a holiday devoted to unity.

Trump called on Americans to “stay true to our cause” in a “Salute to America” program that adhered to patriotic themes and hailed an eclectic mix of history’s heroes, from the armed forces, space, civil rights and other endeavors of American life. He largely stuck to his script, avoiding diversions into his agenda or re-election campaign.

A late afternoon downpour drenched the capital’s Independence Day crowds and presaged an evening of possible on-and-off storms. But Trump’s speech unfolded in occasional rain and the warplanes he had summoned conducted flyovers as planned.

By adding his own, one-hour production to capital festivities that typically draw hundreds of thousands anyway, Trump became the first president in nearly seven decades to address a crowd at the National Mall on Independence Day.

Protesters objecting to what they saw as his co-opting of the holiday inflated a roly-poly balloon depicting Trump as an angry, diaper-clad baby.

Trump set aside a historic piece of real estate — a stretch of the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the midpoint of the reflecting pool — for a mix of invited military members, Republican and Trump campaign donors and other bigwigs. It’s where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech, Barack Obama and Trump held inaugural concerts and protesters swarmed into the water when supporters of Richard Nixon put on a July 4, 1970, celebration, with the president sending taped remarks from California.

Aides to the crowd-obsessed Trump fretted about the prospect of empty seats at his event, said a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to be identified. Aides scrambled in recent days to distribute tickets and mobilize the Trump and GOP social media accounts to encourage participation for an event hastily arranged and surrounded with confusion.

Many who filed into the sprawling VIP section said they got their free tickets from members of Congress or from friends or neighbors who couldn’t use theirs. Outside that zone, a diverse mix of visitors, locals, veterans, tour groups, immigrant families and more milled about, some drawn by Trump, some by curiosity, some by the holiday’s regular activities along the Mall.

Protesters earlier made their voices heard in sweltering heat by the Washington Monument, along the traditional parade route and elsewhere, while the VIP section at the reflecting pool served as something of a buffer for Trump’s event.

In the shadow of the Washington Monument hours before Trump’s speech, the anti-war organization Codepink erected a 20-foot tall “Trump baby” balloon to protest what it called the president’s co-opting of Independence Day.

“We think that he is making this about himself and it’s really a campaign rally,” said Medea Benjamin, the organization’s co-director. “We think that he’s a big baby. … He’s erratic, he’s prone to tantrums, he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions. And so this is a great symbol of how we feel about our president.”

The balloon remained tied down at the Mall because park officials restricted the group’s permission to move it or fill it with helium, Benjamin said.

Protesters also handed out small Trump-baby balloons on sticks. Molly King of La Porte, Indiana, a 13-year-old Trump supporter in sunglasses and a “Make America Great Again” hat, happily came away with one.

“They’re making a big stink about it but it’s actually pretty cute,” she said. “I mean, why not love your president as you’d love a baby?”

A small crowd gathered to take pictures with the big balloon, which drew Trump supporters and detractors.

“Even though everybody has different opinions,” said Kevin Malton, a Trump supporter from Middlesboro, Kentucky, “everybody’s getting along.”

But Daniela Guray, a 19-year-old from Chicago who held a “Dump Trump” sign, said she was subjected to a racial epithet while walking along the Constitution Avenue parade route and told to go home.

She said she did not come to the Mall to protest but ended up doing so. “I started seeing all the tanks with all the protests and that’s when I said, ‘Wait, this is not an actual Fourth of July,'” she said. “Trump is making it his day rather than the Fourth of July.”

Weather permitting, Trump planned showcase flyovers by warplanes, aircraft in the presidential Air Force One and Marine One fleet and the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics team, as well as his remarks. A larger than usual fireworks display was assembled.

Trump had sounded a defensive note Wednesday, tweeting that the cost “will be very little compared to what it is worth.”

“We own the planes, we have the pilots, the airport is right next door (Andrews), all we need is the fuel,” he said, referring to Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews, home for some of the planes expected for the holiday flyover. “We own the tanks and all. Fireworks are donated by two of the greats.”

Trump glossed over the expense of shipping tanks and fighting vehicles to Washington by rail and guarding them for several days, and other costs.

Not since 1951, when President Harry Truman spoke before a large gathering on the Washington Monument grounds to mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has a commander in chief made an Independence Day speech to a sizable crowd on the Mall.

Pete Buttigieg, one of the Democrats running for president, said: “this business of diverting money and military assets to use them as a kind of prop, to prop up a presidential ego, is not reflecting well on our country.” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a Navy Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2014.

Two groups, the National Parks Conservation Foundation and Democracy Forward, want the Interior Department’s internal watchdog to investigate what they say may be a “potentially unlawful decision to divert” national parks money to Trump’s “spectacle.”

Trump and the event’s organizers could be on the hook to reimburse the government millions of dollars if he goes into campaign mode, in violation of federal appropriations law and the Hatch Act, which bars politicking on government time, said Walter Shaub, who left the Office of Government Ethics in 2017 after clashing with the White House over ethics and disclosure issues.

Washington has held an Independence Day celebration for decades, featuring a parade along Constitution Avenue, a concert on the Capitol lawn with music by the National Symphony Orchestra and fireworks beginning at dusk near the Washington Monument.

Trump altered the lineup by adding his speech, moving the fireworks closer to the Lincoln Memorial and summoning the tanks and warplanes.

___

Associated Press writers Kali Robinson, Zeke Miller, Kevin Freking, Matthew Daly and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.

By Darlene Superville, Calvin Woodward and Lynn Berry / AP on July 04, 2019 at 07:44PM

[96thdayofrage]

In March 1969, at a grade school in Washington, D.C., an eclectic audience gathered to celebrate the inauguration of comedian Dick Gregory as the nation’s “president-in-exile.” The event was originally planned for American University, before the college’s president shut down proceedings, prompting a “hit and run occupation of campus buildings.” Gregory was unperturbed, completing his swearing-in ceremony with customary flair, before declaring to his raucous band of supporters that “whenever the occupant of the White House fails to respond to the just demands of human need, the independent army will bring their concerns to the Black House to their President-in-Exile.” According to Black weekly magazine Jet, Gregory informed spectators that his shadow presidency would be primarily concerned with ending the war in Vietnam and tackling issues such as bad housing, education, and ongoing discrimination.

Gregory’s “inauguration” marked the denouement to one of the more unlikely and entertaining presidential campaigns in American history. Over the previous eighteen months, the comedian had toured the country, focusing on college campuses and local events within Black communities, to promote his efforts to become the first Black president of the United States. While Gregory’s antics attracted considerable interest, he was just one of a number of Black activists and political campaigners who became direct participants in the 1968 presidential race. Alongside Gregory was pioneering Black feminist and labor organizer Charlene Mitchell, who ran as the presidential candidate for the American Communist Party, and Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, who parlayed his editorial role at Ramparts magazine into a New Left-backed presidential bid with the Peace and Freedom Party. Joining this trio was Paul Boutelle, the Socialist Workers Party pick for vice-president and former leader of the all-Black Freedom Now Party which had been founded during the 1963 March on Washington.

Over my next four posts on Black Perspectives, I will address each of these individuals in turn, detailing their participation in the 1968 presidential campaign and connecting these experiences to their broader political histories and trajectories. In particular, I am interested in their place within two distinct but overlapping traditions: Firstly, African American presidential politics – a term I use here in reference to both the specific efforts of Black Americans to gain access to the White House, and the historical and continuing significance of race (the way ideas about race and racial formation, as well as racial anxieties, resentments and animosities) in shaping American presidential politics; Secondly, the ways in which these individual Black presidential and vice-presidential campaigns provide an expression of and a window into what Robin Kelley and other scholars have described as the “Black Radical Imagination.”

If we needed any reminder, the potent mix of white anxieties and identity politics which propelled Donald Trump into the White House provided compelling evidence of the continuing significance of race in presidential politics. It has become almost passé to point out that Trump is a racist, something which can be traced in a straight line from his efforts to keep Black tenants out of his buildings to his role in the “Birther” movement which sought to delegitimize the election of America’s first Black president. As Ta-Nehisi Coates has argued, whiteness, for Trump, is “neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power…whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its eldritch energies.”

These same racial anxieties and animosities played a central role in the 1968 presidential campaign, most notably through the impact of third-party candidate and ardent segregationist George Wallace, whose message of racial hatred would carry him to more than 13% of the popular vote and victory in five Southern states. They also helped to shape the development of Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” – his racially loaded appeals to States’ rights and other touchstones for conservative white voters which underpinned the emergence of the New Right and focused the white backlash to the passage of landmark civil rights legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. As scholars such as Michael Cohen have noted, racial tensions helped to guide individual campaigns, exacerbating the politics of division which characterized the campaign.1

At the same time, the 1968 election was held up as a litmus test for increasing African American political representation and as further evidence of a fundamental shift in Black voting patterns. For generations after the civil war, African Americans had remained loyal to the party of Lincoln, with a popular adage contending that “The Republican Party is the ship, all else is the sea.” However, the shifting allegiances of Black voters from Republican to Democrat – something which began during the New Deal and which cemented during the decades following World War II – would become codified during the 1968 campaign. At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Black minister and civil rights leader Channing E. Phillips became the first African American to be nominated for president of the United States by a major political party, while Julian Bond became the first to have his name entered into nomination as a major-party candidate for the role of vice-president. These landmark (if largely symbolic) events served as a precursor to more serious Black presidential campaigns over subsequent decades, culminating in the electoral victories of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

And yet, the 1968 campaign also marked a moment of profound dissatisfaction with the two-party system among some sections of the Black community – something which has become more pronounced over the intervening years, as the limited ability of Black elected officials to change dominant political cultures within the two-party system has become increasingly apparent. At the same time, scholars such as Fredrick Harris, Michael Dawson, and Adolph Reed, Jr. have warned that growing Black political representation has been used of evidence of America’s supposed move towards a ‘post-racial society’, and a retreat from a politics aimed at challenging racial inequality head-on. Expressed in a different way by hip-hop artist 2pac Shakur, we might reflect on his contention that “although it seems heaven sent, we ain’t ready to see a Black president.” The tremendous backlash to Obama’s election and the rise of Trumpism has added further fuel to Harris’ question of whether the election of the first Black president was worth “the price of the ticket.”2

Rejecting the restrictions of the two-party system, Gregory, Mitchell, Cleaver and Boutelle instead embraced minor-party presidential campaigns as a vehicle for the expression of the “Black radical imagination.” In his 2002 book Freedom Dreams, Robin Kelley stressed the importance of imagination in the creation of Black political futures, arguing that “there are very few contemporary political spaces where the energies of love and imagination are understood and respected as powerful social forces.” Other scholars such as Robeson Taj Frazier have explored this notion with regards to Black diasporic struggle and the “philosophical shift from the pursuit of racial integration and reform within a liberal democracy to the attempt to build the prospective infrastructure for an independent Black nation.”3

None of the four candidates I discuss over the coming posts had any chance of being elected into the White House. Nevertheless, against the backdrop of the Black Power movement and the decolonization movement in Africa, their campaigns offer a window into the liberatory vision and political imagination of Black radical activists at home and abroad. Unshackled from the politics of the two-party system, Gregory, Mitchell, Cleaver and Boutelle offered distinct but overlapping visions of what a Black presidency, and Black freedom, might look like in a nation that appeared unwilling to accept either.

[maxtixx]

On eve of inauguration, Trump addresses nation in shadow of Lincoln

Read More - On eve of inauguration, Trump addresses nation in shadow of Lincoln

[quakerjoe]

And so it begins. Of the nearly 20 inaugurations I can remember, there has never been one that felt like today. Not even close. Never mind the question of the small size of the crowds, or the boycott by dozens of lawmakers, or even the protest marches slated for tomorrow across the country. Those are plays upon the stage. What is truly unprecedented in my mind is the sheer magnitude of quickening heartbeats in millions of Americans, a majority of our country if the polls are to be believed, that face today buffeted within and without by the simmering ache of dread. I have never seen my country on an inauguration day so divided, so anxious, so fearful, so uncertain of its course. I have never seen a transition so divisive with cabinet picks so encumbered by serious questions of qualifications and ethics. I have never seen the specter of a foreign foe cast such a dark shadow over the workings of our democracy. I have never seen an incoming president so preoccupied with responding to the understandable vagaries of dissent and seemingly unwilling to contend with the full weight and responsibilities of the most powerful job in the world. I have never seen such a tangled web of conflicting interests. Despite the pageantry of unity on display at the Capitol today, there is a piercing sense that we are entering a chapter in our nation's evolving story unlike one ever yet written. To be sure, there are millions of Donald Trump supporters who are euphoric with their candidate's rise. Other Trump voters have expressed reservations, having preferred his bluster to his rival's perceived shortcomings in the last election, but admitting more and more that they are not sure what kind of man they bestowed the keys to the presidency. The rest of America - the majority of voters - would not be - and indeed is not - hesitant in sharing its conclusions on the character and fitness of Donald Trump for the office he now holds. The hope one hears from even some of Donald Trump's critics is that this moment might change him. Perhaps, as he stood there on a grey, drab, January day, reciting the solemn oath of office demanded by our Constitution, as he looked out across what Charles Dickens once called the "city of magnificent intentions", he would somehow grasp the importance of what he was undertaking. Perhaps he would understand that he must be the president of all the United States, in action as well as in word. Perhaps, but there has already been so much past that is prologue. There is usually much fanfare around inaugural addresses. They are also usually forgotten - with some notable exceptions. I think today will be remembered, not so much for the rhetoric or the turns of phrase but for the man who delivered them and the era they usher us forth. Mr. Trump's delivery was staccato and there was very little eye contact as he seemed to be reading carefully from a teleprompter. His words and tone were angry and defiant. He is still in campaign mode and nary a whiff of a unifying spirit. There was little or nothing of uplift - the rhetoric of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan. We heard a cavalcade of slogans and one liners, of huge promises to "bring back" an America - whatever that really means to many who look at our history and see progress in our current society. The speech started with a message of an establishment in Washington earning riches on the back of struggling families across the country. It was an odd note, considering the background of many of his cabinet picks. President Trump painted a very dark picture of the current state of our nation, beset by gangs and drugs and violence, regardless of what the data shows. His words swelled with his economic populism and the nationalism of "America first." The applause was sparse, and I imagine many more being turned off, even sickened, rather than inspired by what our new President had to say. President Obama looked on with an opaque poker face. One could only imagine what he was thinking. It bears remembering that one never can predict the arc of a presidency. It is an office that is far too often shaped by circumstance well beyond its occupant's control. Those challenges, wherever and however they may rise, now will fall on the desk of President Trump. We can only see what will happen. We hope, for the security and sanctity of our Republic, that Mr. Trump will respond to the challenges with circumspection and wisdom. Today's rhetoric was not reassuring. Our democracy demands debate and dissent - fierce, sustained, and unflinching when necessary. I sense that tide is rising amongst an opposition eager to toss aside passivity for action. We are already seeing a more emboldened Democratic party than I have witnessed in ages. It is being fueled by a fervent energy bubbling from the grassroots up, rather than the top down. These are the swirling currents about our ship of state. We now have a new and untested captain. His power is immense, but it is not bestowed from a divinity on high. It is derived, as the saying goes, from the consent of the governed. That means President Trump now works for us - all of us. And if he forgets that, it will be our duty to remind him.

Dan Rather

[beingbreannaleigh]

A piece from Dan Rather

“And so it begins.

Of the nearly 20 inaugurations I can remember, there has never been one that felt like today. Not even close. Never mind the question of the small size of the crowds, or the boycott by dozens of lawmakers, or even the protest marches slated for tomorrow across the country. Those are plays upon the stage. What is truly unprecedented in my mind is the sheer magnitude of quickening heartbeats in millions of Americans, a majority of our country if the polls are to be believed, that face today buffeted within and without by the simmering ache of dread.

I have never seen my country on an inauguration day so divided, so anxious, so fearful, so uncertain of its course.

I have never seen a transition so divisive with cabinet picks so encumbered by serious questions of qualifications and ethics.

I have never seen the specter of a foreign foe cast such a dark shadow over the workings of our democracy.

I have never seen an incoming president so preoccupied with responding to the understandable vagaries of dissent and seemingly unwilling to contend with the full weight and responsibilities of the most powerful job in the world.

I have never seen such a tangled web of conflicting interests.

Despite the pageantry of unity on display at the Capitol today, there is a piercing sense that we are entering a chapter in our nation's evolving story unlike one ever yet written. To be sure, there are millions of Donald Trump supporters who are euphoric with their candidate's rise. Other Trump voters have expressed reservations, having preferred his bluster to his rival's perceived shortcomings in the last election, but admitting more and more that they are not sure what kind of man they bestowed the keys to the presidency. The rest of America - the majority of voters - would not be - and indeed is not - hesitant in sharing its conclusions on the character and fitness of Donald Trump for the office he now holds.

The hope one hears from even some of Donald Trump's critics is that this moment might change him. Perhaps, as he stood there on a grey, drab, January day, reciting the solemn oath of office demanded by our Constitution, as he looked out across what Charles Dickens once called the "city of magnificent intentions", he would somehow grasp the importance of what he was undertaking. Perhaps he would understand that he must be the president of all the United States, in action as well as in word. Perhaps, but there has already been so much past that is prologue.

There is usually much fanfare around inaugural addresses. They are also usually forgotten - with some notable exceptions. I think today will be remembered, not so much for the rhetoric or the turns of phrase but for the man who delivered them and the era they usher us forth.

Mr. Trump's delivery was staccato and there was very little eye contact as he seemed to be reading carefully from a teleprompter. His words and tone were angry and defiant. He is still in campaign mode and nary a whiff of a unifying spirit. There was little or nothing of uplift - the rhetoric of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan. We heard a cavalcade of slogans and one liners, of huge promises to "bring back" an America - whatever that really means to many who look at our history and see progress in our current society.

The speech started with a message of an establishment in Washington earning riches on the back of struggling families across the country. It was an odd note, considering the background of many of his cabinet picks. President Trump painted a very dark picture of the current state of our nation, beset by gangs and drugs and violence, regardless of what the data shows. His words swelled with his economic populism and the nationalism of "America first." The applause was sparse, and I imagine many more being turned off, even sickened, rather than inspired by what our new President had to say. President Obama looked on with an opaque poker face. One could only imagine what he was thinking.

It bears remembering that one never can predict the arc of a presidency. It is an office that is far too often shaped by circumstance well beyond its occupant's control. Those challenges, wherever and however they may rise, now will fall on the desk of President Trump. We can only see what will happen. We hope, for the security and sanctity of our Republic, that Mr. Trump will respond to the challenges with circumspection and wisdom. Today's rhetoric was not reassuring.

Our democracy demands debate and dissent - fierce, sustained, and unflinching when necessary. I sense that tide is rising amongst an opposition eager to toss aside passivity for action. We are already seeing a more emboldened Democratic party than I have witnessed in ages. It is being fueled by a fervent energy bubbling from the grassroots up, rather than the top down.

These are the swirling currents about our ship of state. We now have a new and untested captain. His power is immense, but it is not bestowed from a divinity on high. It is derived, as the saying goes, from the consent of the governed. That means President Trump now works for us - all of us. And if he forgets that, it will be our duty to remind him.”

- Dan Rather

[writersrandomramblings]

Dan Rather Just Went Viral Shredding Trump’s Inauguration Speech

Comments

Dan Rather, former CBS Evening News anchor, has released an elegant, tragic statement about the Donald Trump presidential inauguration that occurred today at noon. He sums up the collective anxiety that is gripping the majority of Americans as we enter into the great unknown. Rather elucidates the reasons why the American people are faced with so much uncertainty heading into a presidency, when normally the incoming president is transparent.

And so it begins.

Of the nearly 20 inaugurations I can remember, there has never been one that felt like today. Not even close. Never mind the question of the small size of the crowds, or the boycott by dozens of lawmakers, or even the protest marches slated for tomorrow across the country. Those are plays upon the stage. What is truly unprecedented in my mind is the sheer magnitude of quickening heartbeats in millions of Americans, a majority of our country if the polls are to be believed, that face today buffeted within and without by the simmering ache of dread.

I have never seen my country on an inauguration day so divided, so anxious, so fearful, so uncertain of its course.

I have never seen a transition so divisive with cabinet picks so encumbered by serious questions of qualifications and ethics.

I have never seen the specter of a foreign foe cast such a dark shadow over the workings of our democracy.

I have never seen an incoming president so preoccupied with responding to the understandable vagaries of dissent and seemingly unwilling to contend with the full weight and responsibilities of the most powerful job in the world.

I have never seen such a tangled web of conflicting interests.

Despite the pageantry of unity on display at the Capitol today, there is a piercing sense that we are entering a chapter in our nation’s evolving story unlike one ever yet written. To be sure, there are millions of Donald Trump supporters who are euphoric with their candidate’s rise. Other Trump voters have expressed reservations, having preferred his bluster to his rival’s perceived shortcomings in the last election, but admitting more and more that they are not sure what kind of man they bestowed the keys to the presidency. The rest of America – the majority of voters – would not be – and indeed is not – hesitant in sharing its conclusions on the character and fitness of Donald Trump for the office he now holds.

The hope one hears from even some of Donald Trump’s critics is that this moment might change him. Perhaps, as he stood there on a grey, drab, January day, reciting the solemn oath of office demanded by our Constitution, as he looked out across what Charles Dickens once called the “city of magnificent intentions”, he would somehow grasp the importance of what he was undertaking. Perhaps he would understand that he must be the president of all the United States, in action as well as in word. Perhaps, but there has already been so much past that is prologue.

There is usually much fanfare around inaugural addresses. They are also usually forgotten – with some notable exceptions. I think today will be remembered, not so much for the rhetoric or the turns of phrase but for the man who delivered them and the era they usher us forth.

Mr. Trump’s delivery was staccato and there was very little eye contact as he seemed to be reading carefully from a teleprompter. His words and tone were angry and defiant. He is still in campaign mode and nary a whiff of a unifying spirit. There was little or nothing of uplift – the rhetoric of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan. We heard a cavalcade of slogans and one liners, of huge promises to “bring back” an America – whatever that really means to many who look at our history and see progress in our current society.

The speech started with a message of an establishment in Washington earning riches on the back of struggling families across the country. It was an odd note, considering the background of many of his cabinet picks. President Trump painted a very dark picture of the current state of our nation, beset by gangs and drugs and violence, regardless of what the data shows. His words swelled with his economic populism and the nationalism of “America first.” The applause was sparse, and I imagine many more being turned off, even sickened, rather than inspired by what our new President had to say. President Obama looked on with an opaque poker face. One could only imagine what he was thinking.

It bears remembering that one never can predict the arc of a presidency. It is an office that is far too often shaped by circumstance well beyond its occupant’s control. Those challenges, wherever and however they may rise, now will fall on the desk of President Trump. We can only see what will happen. We hope, for the security and sanctity of our Republic, that Mr. Trump will respond to the challenges with circumspection and wisdom. Today’s rhetoric was not reassuring.

Our democracy demands debate and dissent – fierce, sustained, and unflinching when necessary. I sense that tide is rising amongst an opposition eager to toss aside passivity for action. We are already seeing a more emboldened Democratic party than I have witnessed in ages. It is being fueled by a fervent energy bubbling from the grassroots up, rather than the top down.

These are the swirling currents about our ship of state. We now have a new and untested captain. His power is immense, but it is not bestowed from a divinity on high. It is derived, as the saying goes, from the consent of the governed. That means President Trump now works for us – all of us. And if he forgets that, it will be our duty to remind him.

Rather’s final two sentences are a reminder that we need to maintain hope for our great nation’s future and not be beaten down by Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric. Like it or not, Trump is our president and we are not going let him act otherwise.

[romanoffsbite]

“And so it begins.

Of the nearly 20 inaugurations I can remember, there has never been one that felt like today. Not even close. Never mind the question of the small size of the crowds, or the boycott by dozens of lawmakers, or even the protest marches slated for tomorrow across the country. Those are plays upon the stage. What is truly unprecedented in my mind is the sheer magnitude of quickening heartbeats in millions of Americans, a majority of our country if the polls are to be believed, that face today buffeted within and without by the simmering ache of dread.

I have never seen my country on an inauguration day so divided, so anxious, so fearful, so uncertain of its course.

I have never seen a transition so divisive with cabinet picks so encumbered by serious questions of qualifications and ethics.

I have never seen the specter of a foreign foe cast such a dark shadow over the workings of our democracy.

I have never seen an incoming president so preoccupied with responding to the understandable vagaries of dissent and seemingly unwilling to contend with the full weight and responsibilities of the most powerful job in the world.

I have never seen such a tangled web of conflicting interests.

Despite the pageantry of unity on display at the Capitol today, there is a piercing sense that we are entering a chapter in our nation's evolving story unlike one ever yet written. To be sure, there are millions of Donald Trump supporters who are euphoric with their candidate's rise. Other Trump voters have expressed reservations, having preferred his bluster to his rival's perceived shortcomings in the last election, but admitting more and more that they are not sure what kind of man they bestowed the keys to the presidency. The rest of America - the majority of voters - would not be - and indeed is not - hesitant in sharing its conclusions on the character and fitness of Donald Trump for the office he now holds.

The hope one hears from even some of Donald Trump's critics is that this moment might change him. Perhaps, as he stood there on a grey, drab, January day, reciting the solemn oath of office demanded by our Constitution, as he looked out across what Charles Dickens once called the "city of magnificent intentions", he would somehow grasp the importance of what he was undertaking. Perhaps he would understand that he must be the president of all the United States, in action as well as in word. Perhaps, but there has already been so much past that is prologue.

There is usually much fanfare around inaugural addresses. They are also usually forgotten - with some notable exceptions. I think today will be remembered, not so much for the rhetoric or the turns of phrase but for the man who delivered them and the era they usher us forth.

Mr. Trump's delivery was staccato and there was very little eye contact as he seemed to be reading carefully from a teleprompter. His words and tone were angry and defiant. He is still in campaign mode and nary a whiff of a unifying spirit. There was little or nothing of uplift - the rhetoric of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan. We heard a cavalcade of slogans and one liners, of huge promises to "bring back" an America - whatever that really means to many who look at our history and see progress in our current society.

The speech started with a message of an establishment in Washington earning riches on the back of struggling families across the country. It was an odd note, considering the background of many of his cabinet picks. President Trump painted a very dark picture of the current state of our nation, beset by gangs and drugs and violence, regardless of what the data shows. His words swelled with his economic populism and the nationalism of "America first." The applause was sparse, and I imagine many more being turned off, even sickened, rather than inspired by what our new President had to say. President Obama looked on with an opaque poker face. One could only imagine what he was thinking.

It bears remembering that one never can predict the arc of a presidency. It is an office that is far too often shaped by circumstance well beyond its occupant's control. Those challenges, wherever and however they may rise, now will fall on the desk of President Trump. We can only see what will happen. We hope, for the security and sanctity of our Republic, that Mr. Trump will respond to the challenges with circumspection and wisdom. Today's rhetoric was not reassuring.

Our democracy demands debate and dissent - fierce, sustained, and unflinching when necessary. I sense that tide is rising amongst an opposition eager to toss aside passivity for action. We are already seeing a more emboldened Democratic party than I have witnessed in ages. It is being fueled by a fervent energy bubbling from the grassroots up, rather than the top down.

These are the swirling currents about our ship of state. We now have a new and untested captain. His power is immense, but it is not bestowed from a divinity on high. It is derived, as the saying goes, from the consent of the governed. That means President Trump now works for us - all of us. And if he forgets that, it will be our duty to remind him.” - Dan Rather

[cleverwordsandotherstuffilike]

And so it begins. Of the nearly 20 inaugurations I can remember, there has never been one that felt like today. Not even close. Never mind the question of the small size of the crowds, or the boycott by dozens of lawmakers, or even the protest marches slated for tomorrow across the country. Those are plays upon the stage. What is truly unprecedented in my mind is the sheer magnitude of quickening heartbeats in millions of Americans, a majority of our country if the polls are to be believed, that face today buffeted within and without by the simmering ache of dread. I have never seen my country on an inauguration day so divided, so anxious, so fearful, so uncertain of its course. I have never seen a transition so divisive with cabinet picks so encumbered by serious questions of qualifications and ethics. I have never seen the specter of a foreign foe cast such a dark shadow over the workings of our democracy. I have never seen an incoming president so preoccupied with responding to the understandable vagaries of dissent and seemingly unwilling to contend with the full weight and responsibilities of the most powerful job in the world. I have never seen such a tangled web of conflicting interests. Despite the pageantry of unity on display at the Capitol today, there is a piercing sense that we are entering a chapter in our nation's evolving story unlike one ever yet written. To be sure, there are millions of Donald Trump supporters who are euphoric with their candidate's rise. Other Trump voters have expressed reservations, having preferred his bluster to his rival's perceived shortcomings in the last election, but admitting more and more that they are not sure what kind of man they bestowed the keys to the presidency. The rest of America - the majority of voters - would not be - and indeed is not - hesitant in sharing its conclusions on the character and fitness of Donald Trump for the office he now holds. The hope one hears from even some of Donald Trump's critics is that this moment might change him. Perhaps, as he stood there on a grey, drab, January day, reciting the solemn oath of office demanded by our Constitution, as he looked out across what Charles Dickens once called the "city of magnificent intentions", he would somehow grasp the importance of what he was undertaking. Perhaps he would understand that he must be the president of all the United States, in action as well as in word. Perhaps, but there has already been so much past that is prologue. There is usually much fanfare around inaugural addresses. They are also usually forgotten - with some notable exceptions. I think today will be remembered, not so much for the rhetoric or the turns of phrase but for the man who delivered them and the era they usher us forth. Mr. Trump's delivery was staccato and there was very little eye contact as he seemed to be reading carefully from a teleprompter. His words and tone were angry and defiant. He is still in campaign mode and nary a whiff of a unifying spirit. There was little or nothing of uplift - the rhetoric of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan. We heard a cavalcade of slogans and one liners, of huge promises to "bring back" an America - whatever that really means to many who look at our history and see progress in our current society. The speech started with a message of an establishment in Washington earning riches on the back of struggling families across the country. It was an odd note, considering the background of many of his cabinet picks. President Trump painted a very dark picture of the current state of our nation, beset by gangs and drugs and violence, regardless of what the data shows. His words swelled with his economic populism and the nationalism of "America first." The applause was sparse, and I imagine many more being turned off, even sickened, rather than inspired by what our new President had to say. President Obama looked on with an opaque poker face. One could only imagine what he was thinking. It bears remembering that one never can predict the arc of a presidency. It is an office that is far too often shaped by circumstance well beyond its occupant's control. Those challenges, wherever and however they may rise, now will fall on the desk of President Trump. We can only see what will happen. We hope, for the security and sanctity of our Republic, that Mr. Trump will respond to the challenges with circumspection and wisdom. Today's rhetoric was not reassuring. Our democracy demands debate and dissent - fierce, sustained, and unflinching when necessary. I sense that tide is rising amongst an opposition eager to toss aside passivity for action. We are already seeing a more emboldened Democratic party than I have witnessed in ages. It is being fueled by a fervent energy bubbling from the grassroots up, rather than the top down. These are the swirling currents about our ship of state. We now have a new and untested captain. His power is immense, but it is not bestowed from a divinity on high. It is derived, as the saying goes, from the consent of the governed. That means President Trump now works for us - all of us. And if he forgets that, it will be our duty to remind him.

Dan Rather

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a52446/dan-rather-facebook-inauguration/

[burnlist]

THE TOP SEVEN REASONS WE ARE DOOMED AS A NATION AND A DEMOCRACY BECAUSE OF THE PRESIDENCY OF DONALD J. TRUMP

1.   There is reasonable and credible evidence that Trump and his campaign were either passively aided or acted in collusion with Russian intelligence agencies and leadership during the 2016 presidential election. Trump may be beholden to Putin and Russian state actors due to blackmail or massive financial obligation. “The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow—the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”

           Joint Intelligence Statement

 “American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said.

 The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or stop at least some of these efforts”

          NY Times

 2.  Trump is a liar

He has lied, exaggerated, misinformed, mislead, and just plain bullshitted more than any other POTUS in history.

 “Never in modern presidential politics has a major candidate made false statements as routinely as Trump has. Over and over, independent researchers have examined what the Republican nominee says and concluded it was not the truth — but “pants on fire” (PolitiFact) or “four Pinocchios” (Washington Post Fact Checker).”

LA TIMES

  3.  Trump is a bully

He has demonstrated over and over his willingness to use his power, wealth and influence to lob personal attacks to get what he wants, often at the expense of people who are powerless to respond.

-He attacked a disabled reporter, mocking his illness

-He attacked an iconic civil rights leader for speaking out against him

-He has routinely used the practice of not paying or underpaying vendors and contractors on his projects, knowing that they don’t have the legal resources to fight back.

-He is using Twitter and his position as a club to attack his perceived enemies.

-He attacks people as opposed to policy

  4.   Trump will attack and severely restrict our free press

His assault has already begun on longstanding, well respected media outlets, calling them fake news and what he has referred to as the dishonest media because he does not like fact-based and generally unbiased stories written about him.

Without an unrestricted, free and fair press the country will fall, unchecked towards authoritarianism.

This is an intentional and premeditated attack on the Constitution and the First Amendment.

 “While Jefferson brilliantly argued that a free press is a vital guarantor of all other freedoms, Trump like Putin treats the free press with scorn, derision and contempt. Jefferson was right and Trump is wrong. The free press is not an enemy of the state that should be delegitimized and destroyed. It is the essential ingredient to inform the citizens of free nations.”

The Hill

 5.  Trump is a denier of climate change

Climate change is an existential threat to the U.S. and the world. There is almost universal scientific consensus that the use of carbon based fossil fuels is the main contributor to global warming.

2016 was the warmest year in recorded history.

Trump will end US leadership in the global effort to reduce CO2 output.

He has promised to end publicly funded scientific research for climate science at a time when American leadership is crucial.

 “Less than an hour after President Trump took the oath of office on Friday, the White House’s webpage on climate change disappeared, the latest sign that the new administration will divert resources – and attention – from the issue.”

The Hill

 6.  Trump will be the most corrupt President ever elected

Within days of his election Trump settled a lawsuit accusing him of running a fraudulent “university” for 25 million dollars.

He promised, but did not, to release his tax returns.

Trumps financial holdings and interests are massive, global, and almost entirely unknown to the American people.

He is already violating the terms of his lease of his Washington D.C. hotel.

NBC

His attempt at distancing himself from his business is laughable and unacceptable.

 Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of Exxon, will be negotiating sanctions with Russia while Exxon is partnered with Russian energy interests and both of those parties will benefit from the removal of sanctions.

 Betsy Devos, who is an active and vocal advocate for privatizing public schools will be Secretary of Education.

 “She has ardently supported the unlimited, unregulated growth of charter schools in Michigan, elevating for-profit schools with no consideration of the severe harm done to traditional public schools. She’s done this despite overwhelming evidence that proves that charters do no better at educating children than traditional public schools and serve only to exacerbate funding problems for cash-strapped public districts. We believe that all children have a right to a quality public education, and we fear that Betsy DeVos’ relentless advocacy of charter schools and vouchers betrays these principles.”

WaPo

 Trump has appointed FIVE former Goldman Sachs employees after loudly and repeatedly attacked Hillary Clinton for her ties to Wall Street and Goldman Sachs.

Bloomberg  

 7.   Donald Trump is unfit for the Presidency.

This is a piece from Dan Rather which I believe sums up the feelings, frustrations, and fears of the majority of Americans on this dark day.

 And so it begins.

 Of the nearly 20 inaugurations I can remember, there has never been one that felt like today. Not even close. Never mind the question of the small size of the crowds, or the boycott by dozens of lawmakers, or even the protest marches slated for tomorrow across the country. Those are plays upon the stage. What is truly unprecedented in my mind is the sheer magnitude of quickening heartbeats in millions of Americans, a majority of our country if the polls are to be believed, that face today buffeted within and without by the simmering ache of dread.

I have never seen my country on an inauguration day so divided, so anxious, so fearful, so uncertain of its course.

I have never seen a transition so divisive with cabinet picks so encumbered by serious questions of qualifications and ethics.

I have never seen the specter of a foreign foe cast such a dark shadow over the workings of our democracy.

I have never seen an incoming president so preoccupied with responding to the understandable vagaries of dissent and seemingly unwilling to contend with the full weight and responsibilities of the most powerful job in the world.

I have never seen such a tangled web of conflicting interests.

 Despite the pageantry of unity on display at the Capitol today, there is a piercing sense that we are entering a chapter in our nation's evolving story unlike one ever yet written. To be sure, there are millions of Donald Trump supporters who are euphoric with their candidate's rise. Other Trump voters have expressed reservations, having preferred his bluster to his rival's perceived shortcomings in the last election, but admitting more and more that they are not sure what kind of man they bestowed the keys to the presidency. The rest of America - the majority of voters - would not be - and indeed is not - hesitant in sharing its conclusions on the character and fitness of Donald Trump for the office he now holds.

The hope one hears from even some of Donald Trump's critics is that this moment might change him. Perhaps, as he stood there on a grey, drab, January day, reciting the solemn oath of office demanded by our Constitution, as he looked out across what Charles Dickens once called the "city of magnificent intentions", he would somehow grasp the importance of what he was undertaking. Perhaps he would understand that he must be the president of all the United States, in action as well as in word. Perhaps, but there has already been so much past that is prologue.

There is usually much fanfare around inaugural addresses. They are also usually forgotten - with some notable exceptions. I think today will be remembered, not so much for the rhetoric or the turns of phrase but for the man who delivered them and the era they usher us forth.

Mr. Trump's delivery was staccato and there was very little eye contact as he seemed to be reading carefully from a teleprompter. His words and tone were angry and defiant. He is still in campaign mode and nary a whiff of a unifying spirit. There was little or nothing of uplift - the rhetoric of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Reagan. We heard a cavalcade of slogans and one liners, of huge promises to "bring back" an America - whatever that really means to many who look at our history and see progress in our current society.

The speech started with a message of an establishment in Washington earning riches on the back of struggling families across the country. It was an odd note, considering the background of many of his cabinet picks. President Trump painted a very dark picture of the current state of our nation, beset by gangs and drugs and violence, regardless of what the data shows. His words swelled with his economic populism and the nationalism of "America first." The applause was sparse, and I imagine many more being turned off, even sickened, rather than inspired by what our new President had to say. President Obama looked on with an opaque poker face. One could only imagine what he was thinking.

It bears remembering that one never can predict the arc of a presidency. It is an office that is far too often shaped by circumstance well beyond its occupant's control. Those challenges, wherever and however they may rise, now will fall on the desk of President Trump. We can only see what will happen. We hope, for the security and sanctity of our Republic, that Mr. Trump will respond to the challenges with circumspection and wisdom. Today's rhetoric was not reassuring.

Our democracy demands debate and dissent - fierce, sustained, and unflinching when necessary. I sense that tide is rising amongst an opposition eager to toss aside passivity for action. We are already seeing a more emboldened Democratic party than I have witnessed in ages. It is being fueled by a fervent energy bubbling from the grassroots up, rather than the top down.

These are the swirling currents about our ship of state. We now have a new and untested captain. His power is immense, but it is not bestowed from a divinity on high. It is derived, as the saying goes, from the consent of the governed. That means President Trump now works for us - all of us. And if he forgets that, it will be our duty to remind him.

-Dan Rather

1-20-2017