FEAR - AND CONTEMPLATING THE FUTURE OF OUR REPUBLIC

 A TRULY GREAT LIFE - You know, I’ve had a really great life. Before I retired more than 20 years ago I had a very successful business career and I followed that with a successful second career writing political commentary about local events here and elsewhere.  Even though I’ve throttled that back, this blog has received more than 4.3 million page views and still gets thousands every month. I’m proud of the positive impact I’ve had on my community.

PARTNERS - And all of this has been shared with my wonderful wife, Susie.  For  more than 58 years she has been at my side, through thick and thin, through the many high points and those few low points that happen along the way. I’m a very lucky guy.

DEEP ROOTS - We’ve lived in the same home in the best neighborhood in Costa Mesa for more than 52 years. Our neighbors in this community are also our friends and we’ve helped raise three generations of happy, accomplished children.

I’M A PROUD COSTA MESAN - I’m very proud to live in Costa Mesa. Throughout its nearly three quarters of the century history my town has been a clean, safe place to live. Over the decades it has been guided by some very forward-thinking, dedicated, caring, elected officials and some outstanding city staffers. Yes, we’ve had some bozos who were trying to steer us off the rails a decade ago, but that changed when the voters realize what was going on and voted them out.  I helped with that.

THE PARALLELS ARE UNDENIABLE - But lately I have become very depressed. In the year since Donald J.Trump was inaugurated for his second term as President of the United States I have watched as he seems determined to abandon our hard-earned leadership role in the community of nations, destroy our democracy and turn it into a dictatorship. As a student of history I see the clear parallels between what he is doing and what Adolf Hitler did in the late 1930s. It is terrifying!

FROM DAY ONE IT WAS CLEAR - From the very first day of this term, when Trump pardoned more than 1500 convicted criminals, it was clear that our country was in big trouble.  His heavy-handed attempts to deport “3000 dangerous criminal illegal aliens a day" has resulted in the terrorizing of many of our cities as innocent American citizens are being swept up by the poorly trained thugs that have been hired to accomplish that unrealistic goal.

CHAOS IN MINNEAPOLIS - All this came to a chaotic crescendo in Minneapolis this month when first Renee Good was murdered by a federal agent and then, yesterday, when peaceful demonstrator, Alex Pretti, was murdered -  shot 10 times as he lay helpless in the street after having been pepper sprayed while attempting to help another demonstrator who had been knocked off her feet by a federal agent and pepper sprayed.  Gestapo Barbie, Director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, immediately attempted to paint Pretti as a “terrorist”, Intent on inflicting violence on federal agents who were “just doing their jobs”.  Nothing could be further from the truth. Video evidence clearly shows him recording events with his cell phone while calmly attempting to direct traffic through the turmoil those agents had created.  He then attempted to assist a woman, who had been knocked from her feet by one of those agents, regain her footing while both were being pepper-sprayed by agents. It was at that point that Pretti was dragged off his feet by an agent, surrounded by at least a half dozen other agents who began kicking and punching him. At one point, one of them removed the pistol from Pretti’s waistband and tossed it aside. Almost immediately thereafter we heard the first shot, followed by a very slight pause, then four more rapid fire shots, then at least five more bullets being pumped into his lifeless body. At no time had there been any visual evidence that Pretti had attempted to reach for his gun or, in any other way, threaten the agents. 

THEY WERE MURDERED! - I’ve watched videos of these two murders - one of a 37 year-old peaceful mother of 3 and the other a 37 year-old Emergency Room nurse at the local Veterans Administration hospital -  several times, trying to understand what happened and trying to see anything that made these two events make sense. I cannot and they do not. The senseless killing of Renee Good was bad enough,  but the slaughter of Alex Pretti, is incomprehensible. As we watch the videos, see him shot multiple times and hear the sounds of the gunfire echoing in the neighborhood, it leaves us aghast and terrified. Those lifeless bodies could be one of us!

IT’S ALL TRUMP’S FAULT - So, my friends, I’m very depressed. All this is happening as a direct result of one person, President Donald J. Trump. That vulgar, ignorant, deranged, vindictive, lunatic is destroying our country. In 12 short months, he’s managed to alienate every ally we have in this world. He invaded a sovereign nation, Venezuela, and kidnapped their president and his wife and dragged them to the United States for trial as drug traffickers. He has threatened to take over Greenland either by purchase or force, if necessary. He has made overt threats that perhaps Cuba and Mexico might also be on his conquest agenda.  He has consistently ignored the Constitution and made our country a much less safe place to live. My friends in the Latino community are terrified. Even brown-skinned American citizens are afraid to take their children to school or go to work or go shopping for food for fear of being swept up by the Gestapo-like federal agents that now infest our cities like some virulent cancer on our society.

CONGRESS MUST ACT - Members of Congress can fix this by invoking the 25th Amendment and removing Trump from office. That, alone, would not be enough, though. It would require sweeping most of his boot-licking sycophants in charge of federal agencies out, as well.  And, I don't know if Vice President J.D. Vance is up to the challenge.  Will he flip again, and return to the guy who articulated what he thought about Trump a couple years ago, repudiate what he's done and provide the necessary leadership to right the ship of state?  Repairing the damage done, both nationally and internationally, seems almost insurmountable.  I just don’t know how that happens peacefully. I feel helpless and, quite honestly, hopeless. Something needs to be done, but I can’t do anything to help.

HOPING FOR DISTRACTION - Today I’m going to watch two football games to try to distract me from what’s going on in this country. I’m not sure it’s going to help. God save us all.

A CONFESSION, AN APOLOGY AND A RESOLUTION

EPIPHANY - To all my "friends" - Facebook friends, old friends, new friends, real friends, pretend friends, wannabe friends and those of you who just wandered into this space - here's a New Year's message for you.

SOME HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE - As some of you already know, two decades ago, following my retirement of my consulting practice,  I began paying attention to events - political and otherwise - and wrote the occasional note to the local newspapers, which published them.  That got the juices flowing, so I began this blog because I thought I had more stuff to say than space to say it.  As a result, between this site and it's earlier predecessor, I've produced more than 3,400 posts, have more than 4.2 million page views (which, inexplicably, continue at the rate of more than 10,000 per month) and have many loyal, patient readers.  Thanks for that.  I've semi-retired the blog - I spend most of my energies posting stuff on my Facebook page these days, which leads us to the point at hand.

A CONFLUENCE OF EVENTS - The distasteful political turmoil of this last year has generated LOTS of stuff on the internet.  There are many clever memes shared plus many short and long screeds infesting many social media sites to the point that it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.  This morning I read an excellent Wall Street Journal commentary by author Christopher Mims entitled "Your Key Survival Skill for 2026: Critical Ignoring", addressing the current state of affairs with our unhealthy addiction to internet activities.  I'd link to it, but it's protected by a paywall.  You may be able to access it elsewhere.  AND, recently some folks have taken serious, nasty umbrage to a few things I shared on my page - stuff, quite honestly, I had not independently vetted for accuracy.  Most of those were, in fact, accurate but my critics just didn't like them.  A couple others turned out to be fabrications.  I'll try to do better.   

GIANT SLAPS IN THE FACE - These things, all of a sudden, got my attention like a couple whopping slaps in the face.  I realized that I had disappointed folks who had, for more than 2 decades, relied on what I wrote to be accurate, factual with a strong dose of my personal opinion based on how I perceived events.  It was quite an awakening.  I CONFESS to being lazy lately - to not reading something others contributed, then vetting them for accuracy before sharing them broadly.  My bad!  I APOLOGIZE for that shortcoming.  I can blame it on a lot of things - the sheer volume of negative stuff we see every day combined with negative things we actually KNOW to be factual and the expectation that ALL negative stuff we see and read about the Trump regime is factual.  None of that excuses my slothfulness.

I RESOLVE - Although I almost never make New Year's Resolutions because I almost always fail with those things, I'm going to do my very best to verify the source and the validity of the claims on important issues before I just blindly "share" them.  Although some of you have recently been very caustic in your accusations on these kinds of issues - to the point where I actually blocked a couple people recently because they were not just accusatory, but really nasty doing it - I will honestly try to do better.

HOWEVER - This is NOT a commitment to be kinder to Trump and his sycophants.  If you expect that please just stop following me, because it's just not going to happen.  As I have said many times, on many posts, I believe Donald J. Trump is the WORST president in the history of our country and, perhaps, in the top five WORST humans ever to inhabit the planet.  Since he took office again almost a year ago he has demonstrated, on an almost daily basis, that he is supremely unqualified for his job and is a clear and present danger to the perpetuation of our republic.  And, yes, as a student of history, I DO believe his actions are a direct parallel to those of Adolph Hitler as he began his rise to power in Germany.  Don't take my word for it - look it up.  Trump's actions since last January are those of a power-mad, ignorant, vicious, vindictive dictator-wannabe.  I cannot possibly list all of his transgressions here because just contemplating them makes my head hurt.  Others have done so - look it up.

WE WILL PERSEVERE - So, please bear with me, my friends. I will TRY to do better. Together, I honestly believe we can get through this.  It's unlikely Trump will complete his term because of his health, both physical and mental, and/or the legal challenges that he now faces that may, in fact, disqualify him from his post.  Please do continue to be aware and speak out when you feel it's appropriate.  I accept all criticism when honestly offered without the unnecessary vitriol.  In the words of our Buffoon-In-Chief - "Thank you for your attention to this matter."