At left is what Bernie Sanders says about Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela.

It sure would be good if the U.S. president winds up at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

 

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Hilton Hotels cancelled reservations that the Department of Homeland Security had booked for ICE agents in Minnesota, causing a considerable ruckus in the Trump administration.

Predictably, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem had a meltdown, demanding to know why Hilton is siding with murderers and rapists, which apparently, Hilton has not dignified with a response.

True Americans resent the use of military personnel against our citizens and violating our rights to due process.

 

 

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One of the most important externalities of the consumption of fossil fuels is the cost of war.  By that, we mean a combination of the hard costs of operating (by far) the world’s largest military, but also the horrific loss of life.

 

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There have been many attempts to inform our society that consumerism is a choice, but so is a more minimalist lifestyle.  “The Story of Stuff,” founded by environmentalist Annie Leonard, is perhaps the best example.

I once met Annie at a conference and told her that I write about her organization.  I can’t describe the smile I got in return.

We’re all familiar with the refrain: “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.”  There is a reason the “reduce” comes first, and that is that if we use less to begin with, we won’t have to spend resources to reuse and recycle.

 

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What is most amazing about this entire deal with Trump is that there seems to be no limit to the pure idiocy of what his base will accept as fact.

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Heads of states have nearly complete power over their country’s citizens, which means that an unscrupulous leader can be extremely difficult to expel.

A couple of hundred years ago, an armed uprising may have been possible, but certainly not in modern America, where the U.S. president controls 1.3 million law enforcement personnel and a military whose annual budget is approaching $1 trillion.

There are ways that Trump can be removed: a military coup, or the 25th Amendment/impeachment.  Note that both of these mechanisms are out of the hands of the individual citizen.  We have to hope that our leaders do the right thing.

 

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Here’s a good reminder of how the United States is regarded today.

No, it’s not like it was just a few years ago when we were a land of laws, and we had allies all around the world that admired our democracy.

Now, the leaders of Canada, Panama, and Greenland all fear for their safety, and the world lives in fear of the insanity into which the U.S. has descended.

 

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We’ve all read what the great 20th Century American engineer “Bucky” Fuller said here at least a hundred times, but maybe it’s time to explore its truths and its limits.

If we want to replace landline telephony with cell phones, we all get it. Maybe you want to invent the automobile that will replace the horse and buggy. Excellent.

If we want to address the fact that our planet is being taken over by sociopathic criminals, you have a thornier issue.

Perhaps you’re concerned that this planet is in the process of baking itself, due to nothing other than human greed.

If Fuller were still here, I would have liked to speak with him about this.

 

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Pete Buttigieg, always on point, brings clarity to the matter.

At home, we have tax cuts for billionaires while children starve, stagnant wages for the working class, homeless veterans, the National Guard in our streets in an effort to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist, the catastrophic decline in our educational system, the abdication of our duty to prevent environmental collapse, and the most disgusting display imaginable of corruption and other forms of criminality in the Trump administration.

Most people wouldn’t trust you to walk our dogs, let alone run another country.

 

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As the author of the words at left suggests, the Founding Fathers probably did give us too much credit.

But to be fair, they couldn’t have possibly imagined that the descendants of their countrymen would have, 250 years later, devolved into a nation in which criminal thugs would be held in the highest regard by a country full of ignorant and hateful people.

When we Boomers were growing up in the last half of the 20th Century, crime bosses were viewed as scum, even when they somehow avoided dying in prison. Now they have taken over the country, and the greatest of all time lives in the White House.