Washington, DC – Back in the day, the CIA was very active. Governments were sabotaged. Elections overthrown. Those 1950’s were a fun time. The nominee for head of the CIA wants the agency to be stronger. The CIA is an intelligence agency whose task it is to ferret out threats to our beloved (benighted) country. They are not tasked with doing anything about said threats except to inform those agencies whose job it is to act on them. That is their job description. They are, by law, restricted from actively investigating US citizens although occasionally they do pick up an American citizen on a call or message with someone they are tracking. Then they are supposed to tell the FBI, whose job it is to investigate citizens of this country.
Now, the FBI has a mandate to investigate in the US, but occasionally, well, see above. When these two agencies overstep or, for that matter, understep their mandates, bad things often happen. Sadly, information often gets lost in inter/intra-agency rivalries. See 9/11. One can only hope that the new folks coming in will rise above these problems and perform their jobs according to their job descriptions. Now, that would be novel.
The new president may think he can do what he wants, but the fine print in the Supreme Court decisions says he’s immune when performing the duties of his office, which does not include chasing down folks he wants to screw over. Technically, he can give Putin all our national secrets, but once he is no longer president, the courts may consider that treason. Of course, that would mean he doesn’t issue an executive order making him president for life, which might arguably be construed as within his presidential duties. However, Mr. Yoon has discovered that being president doesn’t preclude being perp-walked out of the Blue or White House.
The sky is falling, or at least a lot of pink stuff is falling out of the sky in an effort to control fires in a State that Trump and his MAGA cronies don’t like much. While Biden promised to bail the state out, the new bunch can and will likely short-circuit that. It’s a sad day when disaster relief depends on whether or not the right party runs your state.
As a nation divided against itself, we cannot stand. Just ask Lincoln. It is way, way past time for preachers to reread the New Testament and actually teach what Jesus taught. And, way way past time for politics to stay out of pulpits. That’s true for every religion everywhere all the time. Admittedly, I use “pulpits” in ignorance of what that position may be referred to outside of Christianity.
The harm done by folks portraying themselves as purveyors of one or another faith has been and continues to be profound. The Mathers plumbed the depths of scripture to support slavery. Currently, Putin is trying to buy his way into heaven by helping the Russian patriarch spread his influence by defeating and undermining the Ukrainian patriarch. A cabal of Roman Catholic Cardinals are actively undermining the Pope because they don’t like his “progressive?” approach and would much prefer women know their place and gay folks realize they are an abomination. Putting and keeping women in a secondary status has been a male sport for millennia.
Trump has been consistent in one thing, at least. He likes to have enemies. Everyone is either for him or against him in a game of intimidation and threat. For him, anyone who in any way at any time even slightly disagrees or insufficiently adores him will find themselves in nasty diatribes on Truth(?) Social until they bow and kowtow to remind him of his royalty. Zuckerberg is just one pathetic example. As the Potemkin hearings for Trump’s cabinet drone on, we can see a lot of rear ends up in kowtow position. It’s a sorry sight indeed.
M.A. Callahan
- M.A. Callahan#molongui-disabled-link
- M.A. Callahan#molongui-disabled-link
- M.A. Callahan#molongui-disabled-link
- M.A. Callahan#molongui-disabled-link
