BE PREPARED

Trump puts Bannon on security council, dropping joint chiefs (BBC)

Trump has gone beyond bad and even immoral policy and worse tactics. 

He has threatened America's civic institutions - those things written and traditional - that make the US Constitution more than just a scrap of parchment.

He has questioned the legitimacy of THE VERY ELECTION THAT PUT HIM IN POWER.

He is assaulting the professional free press in favor of "Christian" news sources and alt-reality sites such as Breitbart.

He has made his General Flynn - someone who has trafficked in the "Hillary Clinton runs DC child sex ring" alr-right crap that caused a deranged Trump supporter to shoot up a popular pizza joint that allegedly fronted the conspiracy - his National Security Adviser.

He has ordered his agencies to STOP posting even FACTUAL uploads to their website and to STOP CONSULTING WITH CONGRESS.

And, after dabbling, he is seriously moving into the delusional. 

He is giving his alt-right, fake news buddy Bannon a permanent seat in the National Security Council with his Director of Intelligence and Joint Chiefs attending ONLY THOSE MEETINGS TO WHICH THEY ARE INVITED.

***************
President Donald Trump is reshuffling the US National Security Council (NSC), downgrading the military chiefs of staff and giving a regular seat to his chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Mr Bannon, formerly the head of the populist right-wing, Breitbart News website, will join high-level discussions about national security.

The order was signed on Saturday.

The director of national intelligence and the joint chiefs will attend when discussions pertain to their areas.
***************

We are WAY, WAY, beyond "give the guy a chance" territory AND IT'S ONLY THE FIRST WEEK.

He goes against everything the Scout Oath and Law has taught me to champion.

Trump Administration: An Illegitimate, Constitutional Failure

This is a pivot point in American history. ALL constitutional safeguards (separation of powers, the Electoral College as a hedge pure democracy run amok, the Bill of Rights (assaults on a free press) seem to have failed and a dangerously mentally ill, self-obsessed, tyrant - surrounded by sycophants and apparently deaf to what few reasonable, independent people he has - has been given command of the most powerful, nuclear-armed military power in the history of the world.

On the legitimacy of the Trump administration

3 a :  accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements
b :  ruling by or based on the strict principle of hereditary right
4 :  conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards

Legitimate (Merriam-Webster)

I thought this argument was going to be longer than it actually needs to be.

It is actually pretty straightforward.

Donald Trump’s administration will be legitimate in sense three: the appropriate paperwork will be filed and signed and the appropriate ceremony will be held.

Donald Trump’s administration will be highly illegitimate in the sense of “conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards.”

Because of respect for the Constitution and the rule of law we MUST accept the Trump administration’s legality UNTIL SUCH TIME as he is impeached by the House, convicted by the Senate, and removed from office. At that time, Vice-President Pence.

I expect this to happen within the first two years of his term and that it will be Republicans concerned with Trump’s foreign policy and decisions regarding the military who will spearhead the effort, using Trump’s enormous, conflicts of interest that will be unconstitutional as of noon on Inauguration Day - though they would never impeach him on that basis alone.

On the other hand, neither the citizenry nor the voters nor the Democrats nor SANE Republicans should EVER accept Donald Trump’s assault on good citizenship, norms of civil discourse, traces of which still exist even in politics, honest dealing, and respect for THE VERY CONCEPT of “fact” as normal.

Period.

Resources

What goes around, comes around: Donald Trump’s assault on President Obama’s legitimacy for political gain.

March 2011 – Donald Trump, the property tycoon and potential Republican presidential candidate, reignites the issue by saying he has “doubts” about Mr Obama’s account of his birth.

The Obama 'birther' conspiracy timeline (The Telegraph)


Donald Trump HIMSELF challenges the integrity of the election THAT HE WON.

"President-elect Donald Trump provoked a firestorm on social media with a series of tweets on Nov. 27 that questioned the integrity of the balloting that elected him president.
"In one tweet, Trump wrote, "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."
*****FollowDonald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrumpIn addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally3:30 PM - 27 Nov 201653,957 53,957 Retweets   163,324 163,324 likes*****
"He later tweeted, "Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California - so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias - big problem!""

Donald Trump's Pants on Fire claim that millions of illegal votes cost him popular vote victory (Politifact)

Congressman Lewis has witnessed and suffered physical assault from an Alabama State Police force that was clearly illegitimate in the fourth sense of Merriam-Webster’s definition and ultimately found to be legally illegitimate in the third sense.

“Asked whether he would try to forge a relationship with the president-elect, Lewis said that he believes in forgiveness, but added, "it's going to be very difficult. I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president."
*   *   *  “"I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton," Lewis said.”

John Lewis: ‘I Don’t See Trump as a Legitimate President’ (CNBC)

“Southern state legislatures had passed and maintained a series of discriminatory requirements and practices that had disenfranchised most of the millions of African Americans across the South throughout the 20th century. The African-American group known as the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) launched a voters registration campaign in Selma in 1963. Joined by organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), they began working that year in a renewed effort to register black voters.

 “Finding resistance by white officials to be intractable, even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended legal segregation, the DCVL invited Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the activists of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to join them. SCLC brought many prominent civil rights and civic leaders to Selma in January 1965. Local and regional protests began, with 3,000 people arrested by the end of February.”

Selma to Montgomery marches (Wikipedia)

I WILL NOT STAND FOR TRUMP!

I WILL NOT STAND for Trump's inauguration. I WILL NOT STAND for Trump's anti-Muslim bigotry. I bought a folding chair at Lowes because I'm going to an anti-Trump rally in Easton tomorrow.

And I WILL NOT STAND for that either.

On the cusp of 63, I don't stand for much anymore, other than the flag pledge, the national anthem, or when I'm introduced to someone. ☺

Christian Resistance

To be as brief as it is possible for me to be, there is a Christian Right (e.g., Tony Perkins, Jerry Falwell, Jr., James Dobson) and a Christian Left (e.g., Berrigan brothers, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Martin Luther King, Jr, Jim Wallis, Jimmy Carter).

By personal inclination, I would be of the Christian left.

Fundamentally, however, the gospel of God in Christ is neither left or right.

It recognizes that we ALL have ONE and ONLY ONE enemy and that is death's imagined threat to the meaning, purpose, and value of our lives - and that threat's ability to wield corruptible people and institutions (which is pretty much ALL of us) to do terrible things in a doomed attempt to carve out OUR OWN salvation from death.

THAT doomed attempt is the very definition of idolatry and THAT temptation is universal throughout time and culture and THAT temptation puts the gospel of God in Christ in PERPETUAL RESISTANCE to the reigning powers that be whether on the left or the right or corporate or demagoguery.

It is freely available to all (and is not for sale), it is not walled in by sectarian religion whether Christian or otherwise, nor is it in some sort of intellectual ghetto that requires it's own science, it's own journalism, it's own facts.

The gospel of God in Christ resists idolatry in ALL its forms, whether that be a leftist belief in government as savior or a rightest belief in theocracy and witch hunts.

Moving day is nigh.

After eleven wonderful years at my current address in west Bethlehem preceded by another eleven wonderful years with the same landlord in north Bethlehem, one of my current housemates has bought a house (again in north Bethlehem) and we are moving there in two weeks.

We were casting about for an appropriate name for the house and realized fairly late in the game that moving day is January, 20th - Inauguration Day.

We decided on "Canada." 😈

If I wanted baloney I'd have gone to a deli.

Sorry, but I've completely lost patience with those who reject peer-reviewed science, professional journalism, and reasoned argumentation from such evidence without even attempting to provide a counter-argument.

I'm 62 years old. I had a kick-ass public school education. The issues are too important. And life is too short.