A Vengeful God!

I posted the following op-ed screed to my FaceBook page yesterday:

“So, for those of who may believe recent mass shootings in schools are because "We've banned God from schools" check out Genesis 32. Has there ever been a larger single mass killing than "God" ordered through Moses, his hit man? 3,000 killed in one day at the insistance of the "deity." Wow...and "he loves you!" Riiight.”

       My target audience, knowing me, “got” that it was a mix of sacrilege and irony. I believe most also understood that there was a kernel of truth hidden away inside. Apparently one reader didn’t. They styled it thus: “This has to be one of the most ridiculous posts I've read on Facebook!”

Allow me to posit that the writer has apparently read very little on Facebook if this is “the most ridiculous” post they’ve read. Hell, I have personally posted waaay more ridiculous stuff. 

       

       After reflecting most of today on this, I decided to do two things. The first, an act of charity, was to block the person in question to avoid hurting their feelings again, inadvertently. The second is to expand on what I meant and why I feel commentary such as mine is so offensive to people of faith. Having said that, let’s get to it.

        The idea that a deity (let’s specify, here; the deity in which they believe) exists is extraneous to some, honored primarily in the breach by most, and deeply ingrained in some.  My respondent is apparently of that last segment. What I pointed out is, that when we hear statement or claims such as “We banned God from schools and that’s why there are shootings,” we have essentially said that this god is subject to human approval yet has infinite power, loves humanity but is prepared to watch them kill each other.   If that is so, I pointed out, it is merely consistent with the recorded scripture so oft quoted by those who believe it to be the divinely inspired, word for word, spoken word of Gawduh!

        The instance in Exodus Ch 30 contains grossly contradictory statements from the same deity. Earlier (chapter 20) he spoke from some smoldering brush heap and ordered that “his people” obey a set of ten laws which he had the angels carved in stone on both sides! As a point of further ludicrosity, John Wesley’s personal exegetic commentary on this actually says, “probably the first writing.”

          Let’s park here a moment and reflect on just how ridiculous that statement is, even coming from the founder of Methodism and a college educated man.  If the Ten Commandments as “delivered” to Moses were the world’s first writing, who could read them? More troubling is  that while most scriptologists actually doubt that the events described in Exodus actually occurred, including Israeli archeologists who would desperately love to prove it did, the events, if they transpired, would have been in the mid-1400s BCE. The cuneiform and hieroglyphic writing systems had already been in use for about 2000 years  by that time! Hammurabi’s code dates to 300 years earlier than the Exodus s is dated.

        So; continuing along with the fable, Commandment number 6 is pretty specific regarding taking lives. Specifically, it says not to. Later, in Ch 32, apparently, God has second thoughts and either 3,000 or 30,000 (depending upon translation) are killed on his orders. Wow, some temper, huh? Now my pointing this out is what caused my young acquaintance to label it “ridiculous.”

         Later, however, as the Children of Israel blunder aimlessly, allegedly for 40 years, in the desert we have other cases of a vengeful and killer God. Jericho, dating to 9600 BCE had been continuously inhabited for millennia before the Hebrews show up out of the desert and tell the inhabitants that they’re lease is up and their god told them it’s to be their town now. Wouldn’t you think a benevolent God who controlled human destiny would have told the residents, to avoid many needless deaths among his “children?” Not so much.

        In fact this philosophy of “It was promised to us” is used to justify many killings by the Hebrews along the way to Canaan. This includes the astonishing  statement that God caused the sun and moon to stand still during a battle with the Amorites. Of course, for those who believe, and  I know several,  this really happened, for the rest of us with a brain, we can use what we know about the actual revolution of the spheres, and what would happen if the earth were actually to suddenly stop rotating. The fact that I’m writing this is proof that it just didn’t happen.

        Now to my conclusions: I realize that people come to states of belief (or disbelief) from many different directions and for many different reasons. For those who were either inculcated with fundamentalism from birth or who, like Mike Pence, converted for who knows what specific reasons, the result is similar. Anything which threatens the fundamental foundations of the faith by requiring actual thought is seen as not only threatening but immediately brands the questioner as, pick one, heretic, blasphemer, godless Atheist (a redundancy). Critical thinking simply has no place in any standard deistic belief system, because they all have one commonality in the light of reason – they all fail.

        When further confronted by the fact that somewhere around 6 million Jews, many observant and devout, died in the Holocaust, God apparently uninvolved or concerned, we see one of two reactions. One, and by far the easiest to refute, is to deny it happened. Dwight Eisenhower had the foresight to understand this in 1945, and ordered the Army photographers to document the atrocities they saw. The far lamer and actually more pitiful answers are similar to that proffered by the individual mentioned earlier.

       Here is it and I quote, “Prayer doesn't get rid of evil. That will exist no matter what... unfortunately.” And so? This is what the late Ben Bradlee called a “non-denial denial.”  It simply means that the answer is obvious but impossible for the individual to iterate because to do so threatens the entire foundation of his self-delusion. Isn’t it fascinating that some American Holocaust deniers also claim a muscular strident Christianity?  

If you lie, make it a big one (and he did!)

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/feb/26/ryan-zinke/ryan-zinke-wrong-gas-prices-are-down-40-under-trum/

If there’s a bigger lie than this, I can’t fathom what it might be. I mean, if you’re going to lie about history you better hope all your sycophant bitches have very short……memories. Case in Point: Interior Secretary Zinke, claiming Trump has “reduced prices of fuel 40%’ is so off the rails that a sane individual would consider having him committed. One of two scenarios is probable: the first, Zinke just said what he said knowing it was false, hoping the faithful wouldn’t notice, or The second and more probable, He’s such a devoted fan boy that he assumes that if Trump claims it, it must be true. Here is the data (Remember - Facts?)

Between 2008-2012, gas prices climbed to a high of (avg. nationwide) about 3:37 per gallon. (yeah, I know some places were higher, but some were lower as well.) As an aside, Newt Gingrich, for the brief period that any sane American considered him possibly presidential, claimed that, if elected, Barack Obama would “push gasoline prices to over $10 per gallon.” That is a direct quote. Michelle Bachman (equally unbalanced) claimed an Obama “stranglehold” on energy. Along the way she omitted to mention that gasoline was just over $3.00 per gallon average in 2008 while “W” was still POTUS.  

        In any event, for the first several years of the Obama Administration, gas was higher in price, but the big drop began in the first year of his second term and continued downward to just barely over 2004 lows by 2016. In fact, the average price of gasoline has increased by 10% under the current administration. Zinke credits the 40% Obama decrease to Trump. He is a liar.

        Now for a bit more real perspective, recalling, please, that I only deal in facts. In 1928, the price of gasoline, adjusted for 2015 inflation (a fair comparison) was about $ 2.45 per gallon. Since then average nationwide price per gallon has fluctuated above and below that figure. With a low in 1998 (again all these are adjusted to 2015 relative numbers) of about $1.50, G.W. Bush took office and (actually unrelated as gas prices really are) prices began to climb, reaching a high of around $3.60 per gallon in 2008.  Bush still at the wheel, the housing bubble collapse and petroleum industry efforts, albeit brief, triggered measures which dropped prices for the short term to around $2.50 once more.

         Economic woes continued, and gas prices crept back up to a high in 2013 of about $3.75, peaked and began a precipitous decline in Obama’s second term. By 2016, gas was at $2.16 a gallon, its lowest retail price since 2003 and actually in constant 2015 dollars, lower than at any time in the previous twelve years. For a different way of considering the saga of fuel pricing: In 2016, Gasoline prices, adjusted for CPI index (inflation) were about the same price as in 1927 and cheaper than during the Great Depression. Gasoline has actually been costlier during the following periods, 1932-41, 1979-86, and as mentioned above, 2004-2012. Gas has increased by about 10% during Trump’s first year, not decreased by the ludicrous 40% Zinke claims. What is troubling is the fact that there are those who read and believe without questioning and are impervious to reason and fact.  

A Really Bad Idea From Two Really Bad Individuals

       So, let me see if I understand. POTUS says we ought to pay a bonus to teachers willing to carry guns in school, because this will deter a “killer” (his words). In the most recent disaster involving such a person, the school resource officer(SRO), an armed deputy sheriff assigned to the school, cringed, outside, for four minutes after the shooting started. This is on video, by the way, not an allegation, not “fake news”, etc. The shooter continued his rampage for 6 minutes. Might early action by the SRO have saved lives? Probably. Would a non-uniformed teacher with a gun have acted differently?

       In Trump/NRA world, of course the answer is, “Yes. Of course. These highly (un)trained small arms experts (Wayne LaPierre uses the term “gun adepts”) would disable the shooter, SEAL style, and save the children.”

       What’s missing here is that neither Trump (bone spur, diagnosed by the family doctor. Yeah, right!) or Wayne LaPierre (draft deferred somehow, now NRA talking head at $970,000 annually) ever has been in harm’s way. Neither did military service, and neither has the actual experience to truthfully evaluate the validity of their statements. 

       We as a nation have been fed for well over a century and a half, a myth about guns and the ability of the “good guys” to overcome the bad guys in the name of truth, justice and the American way, going all the way back to the American frontier where all this started. Zane Gray, Owen Wister and other originators of the dime novel western hero prototype good guy with a gun and a white hat furthered the myth, and movies almost immediately picked up on the American West’s particular version of noble knights on white horses. We have the ludicrous spectacle of the Lone Ranger (intentionally) shooting the pistols out of Butch Cavendish’s hand. All the gun toters with black hats eventually lose to their white hat counterparts. Of course, it really wasn’t like that. The fair fast draw gunfight in the street between the Sheriff and the bad guys while the kiddies watched, is a myth. What happened at the OK corral is a lot closer to the bone and to the truth. In fact, Bat Masterson, one of the better known (and romanticized) western “lawmen,” preferred a shotgun and that, frequently, in the back.

       In like manner, those men who got there first and claimed the most land (not paying, mind you, just claiming) in many cases then used gun violence or threats of same to deter others who might have thought that the land was theirs to graze on as well. In fact, the early western cattle barons were an oligarchy onto themselves, and sheep man or small rancher beware. “Back East”, men like Rockefeller used economic dirty tricks to vanquish competitors, but in Montana, cattle barons hired killers like Tom Horn to simply kill the competition or even those small homesteaders who dared to fence the land they bought.

       However, the biggest lie of the gun lobby re: armed teachers is borne out by real Law Enforcement’s almost unanimous opposition to the concept. Why, you ask?

It’s simple, really. What professionals who are paid to be armed and expected to be proficient with those arms all know is this: It is almost irrelevant how many hours on the pistol range or how many rounds you’ve pumped through that handgun, when someone begins shooting at you. There’s a reason that snipers have such a high success rate. No one is shooting at them. Hand guns are different.

       Every so often, a relative of someone killed by law enforcement will ignore the fact that their late cousin, brother whoever) was a felon, resisting arrest, armed and shooting at the police and focus instead on how many rounds he was shot with. This is almost (I said “almost”, ease up) amusing. Not because someone is dead, but because dead is dead. Period. The reason that so many of these instances occur is that in a real crisis situation, much of that “on the range” calm, cool, shit evaporates, and the survival urge kicks in. This usually manifests itself by emptying one’s clip in the general direction of the other shooter. This is true, even with training and refresher training for military and civilian sidearm carrying personnel. What is amazing is how often many of these shots miss. The same has proven true for trained military personnel, some of whom, in actual WW II combat situations, never even fired their weapon. Now we are to believe that it is different for teachers?

As long as the shooters continue to have access to semi-automatic or automatic weapons and banana clips with numerous rounds of ammo, the teacher with the handgun is just another target.

Classroom teachers have enough on their plates in dealing with the responsibility of helping children learn respect for others and themselves, curriculum content, critical thinking and most importantly, to respectfully question what seems wrong. Expecting any of them to add “armed guard” to that task is ludicrous. What is so troubling to me, as a former side arm qualified armed watch stander indoctrinator for security forces in a foreign port, is that those who buy into the Trump/La Pierre rhetoric have, apparently lost, or have never had, the ability to either think critically or question their fearless leaders

Venality Personified

Understand this, Floridians. Rick Scott, the governor who has signed more pro-gun and positive gun related legislation than any other, is now holding the FBI responsible for the most recent school shootings? He is now demanding that the FBI Director resign.  

        Should the FBI have investigated the tip? Maybe, even probably. I don’t know, and neither does Rick Scott. It depends of what the boots on the ground thought re: it's validity. Did the Director know of the tip prior to the actual incident? No, It was a local field office decision and that is simply factual.

         What’s missing here, is that Scott is saying is that if some underling failed, even if he was personally not appraised of the situation, the FBI Director, as the man in charge, should be held accountable. What a noble statement.

       But isn't this the same Rick Scott  who used the diametrically opposite defense in the case of his (he was CEO) healthcare company bilking the US Government of what was, at the time, the largest Medicare fraud ever?  The fines, which were much less than the fraudulent charges, amounted to $1.7 billion! Meanwhile Scott played the “I was out of the loop” card, pleading the fifth over 70 times. Even his defense attorney has since admitted that he knew better.

        Apparently, in Scott World, the man at the top is only accountable if someone dies. Even worse, and this should be a red flag to any and all who still, inexplicably, think favorably of the man, Rick Scott waited just a few days to politicize the deaths of schoolchildren in a personal attack. 

       Forget the pro-gun/anti-gun argument, this was the chance to attack Donald Trump’s thorn in the side, the FBI. Period!  And he wants to be your next Senator? 

Michelle Malkin - Tasteless & Irrelvant

        In modern media, truth is now, too frequently, a casualty while hyperbole and outright lies have become, sadly, the new normal. Michelle Malkin, whose scribbles appear weekly in the Villages Daily Sun (and, sadly, far too many other national newspapers) has set the bar at a new low, however.

First a sampling of her work. Over the last year she has:

       Claimed that the Brooklyn Bridge was built by John Roebling using private funds, alleging to show the superiority of private enterprise. In fact, the “Great Bridge” (The title of David McCullough’s superb book on the subject) was built with public bonds sold by the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan. The completed bridge belonged jointly to both boroughs.

       Publicly attacked Julia Louis-Dreyfus because she “allowed” her son to attend Northwestern University. “Huh?”  Yes, there was a questionable rape allegation at that school, and Malkin apparently believes most rape accusers are either deserving victims, liars, or simply sluts. The fact that Louis-Dreyfus’ son attends the University is irrelevant, as he was uninvolved, in any case.

       Most recently, Malkin singled out one DACA (“dreamer”) participant out of a conservative estimate of just under 800,000, who is, inarguably by any standard, a bad guy. In fact, he is a felon and committed a particularly brutal murder. Naturally, in Malkin world, this now becomes the label for all dreamers. This, of course ignores the fact that there are 900 dreamers in the military, countless others in numerous public service sector jobs, EMTs, Firefighters, etc. Malkin’s allegations make about as much sense as saying that since Jeffrey Daumer was a white, single, male, all white, single, males are cannibals.

        In an effort to provide a rational,data driven, argument on behalf of DACA, here is some simple data, uncolored by opinion.

1. Nine hundred, more or less, DACA applicants are serving honorably in various United States military forces.

2. 91% of Dreamers are employed; while concurrently, no undocumented persons are even eligible for welfare. Critics claim, broadly, that dreamers are burdens on the public teat in all areas. In truth, it is a fact that many dreamers currently in public school or having graduated from them, receive or have received, free or reduced lunch and the states' cost share for their education. In fact, however,  in six states the percentage of students receiving free lunch reaches over 60% of all attendees, with 18 states over 50%. These are, vastly, not dreamers, but children of poverty, most for generations.  A high end, likely exaggerated, cost figure for these services for "dreamers" (from an arch conservative source) comes to around $30 billion in state and federal funding. 

       What is not mentioned by those bemoaning this support of those in need, however, is that at the same time, Federal Farm Subsidies cost taxpayers more than $20 billion annually. Unlike working class, low paid, dreamers' and other families (not dreamer graduates, who do far better, as I’ll show later) farm subsidies go to such "poor, working class folks" as Senator Chuck Grassley, three Walton (Walmart) heirs, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Ted Turner, and many more. Among the members of the 112th Congress who collected payments from USDA were six Democrats and 17 Republicans. The disparity between the parties was far greater in terms of dollar amounts: $489,856 went to Democrats, but more than 10 times as much, $5,334,565, to Republicans. Some of these Republicans oppose the implementation of DACA. Weird, huh?  

3. Of current “Dreamers” over High School age, 72% are in advanced education programs, which surpasses the current 69% for all US high school grads. 90% of dreamers surveyed are employed, 80% have driver’s licenses and half of those are organ donors.

4.  For those receiving “Dreamer” status, wages rose from an average of $10.24 hourly to $17.46, with about 700,000 of 788,000 total employed. To put this in perspective: a married DACA participant in a single earner household with one child earns, on average, more than $10,000 above the federal 2017 poverty level and above the Medicaid eligibility level. Hardly the societal leeches which is Michelle Malkin’s typical characterization, huh?

       Lost in all this is the fact that Michelle Malkin is, herself, an “anchor baby” fortunate enough to have been  born in Philadelphia to Filipino parents who were here only on work visas. Malkin benefited from public schooling and a first class college education (Oberlin, whose liberalism she now detests, apparently) and that’s OK, because, just like all DACA participants, being here wasn’t her choice. However, being a shrewish virago, critical of others less fortunate and faced with a far harder struggle apparently is her choice.

Emperor Trump, Naked and Ignorant

       One of the reasons treason is the sole crime defined in the US Constitution is precisely because the British defined 'treason" as essentially anything they cared to so call. A citizen could be accused and tried for something as mundane as publicly saying they didn't like the king. Disagreeing with official policy, simply by saying so, also filled the bill for charges. Treason became the catch all solution for political dissidence for despotic abusers of power and defenders of the status quo, no matter how corrupt, in many nations of the world.

       Since the abuse and punitive application of the charge was so closely identified with our Colonial rulers, Hamilton and Madison defined it and its applicability rigidly to limit the ways in which it might be used against our citizens. "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court".  Sadly, in a recent speech President Trump concurred with the use of the word in describing persons who simply disagreed with him. Evidently, he hasn’t read the Constitutional definition and, was devoid of cognizance of the significance of his words.

       As a man who has, by their own recounting, asked government employee members of staff if they are loyal to HIM vice the Constitution, Trump has shown his desperate need for validation. An insecure malignant narcissist is frightening. Even more frightening is the number of Americans who, with this reality becoming more and more apparent daily, allow innate prejudices, personal insecurities and lack of social conscience to enable them to continue justifying their error in judgement at the polls just over a year ago. Equally disheartening is their failure to acknowledge that the man simply cares little or nothing about most of those Americans who elected him to an office which requires so much more humanity, intellect and sense of dignity than he can, or will ever, muster.

More Stossel lunacy, seasoned with drivel.

John Stossel’s readers must be either confused or more likely, simply dismally unperceptive.  A recent column discusses the “Freedom index” which is a ranking of nations based a collection of several fairly divergent statistics. Among these are “freedom to trade, amount of regulations and tax, plus personal freedoms such as women’s rights and religious freedom.”  This opener then degenerates into a typical "Stossellian"  rant against all things government and anything not robber baron, free market in nature.

        Remember, this is the same man who said, in an op-ed column of Aug 30, 2017, that $99 dollar a gallon bottled water in Houston in Hurricane Irma’s wake was really just “sound market economics, not price gouging.”  Then, in what is a real head shaker, he chided Bill O’Reilly, a drinker of bottled water, on Faux News, telling him that “You’re being scammed, but you can afford it” while pooh- pooing bottled water (a valid commentary, for once).  

        What is amusing about all this is that many of Stossel’s Readers seem to believe that he’s a conservative “just like them.” And minus critical thinking application, their confusion is understandable. Closer analysis, however reveals something else. Let’s take the “religious and women’s freedom” statistic. Stossel uses these terms as in the absence of interference with personal beliefs or the extension of discrimination to others. US conservatives generally don’t support either,

        In the economic freedom arena, Stossel either has the naivete (or hopes his readers do) to analogize Hong Kong and Switzerland to the US as if their underlying circumstances were even remotely similar in scope, and US “Big Gummint” is the real problem. Along the way he implies that the US is more socialist by far that the others in the top five “free” nations. 

       He lists the bottom five as well, implying that, at some level, Socialism is the culprit, when in fact only one, Venezuela, even claims to be a Socialist state and it is really a dictatorship. The others in the bottom five are four Arab states, all totalitarian semi theocracies, all in the throes of religious sectarian strife, with Syria openly war torn as well.

       So what? To begin with, all five “most free” nations have either universal healthcare (Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong) or, in Switzerland, a nationally mandated requirement for every citizen to buy private, by law non-profit, health insurance. If basic costs exceed a certain percentage of income, the government supplements the cost. You know, precisely like the Affordable Care Act? Additionally, the Swiss have forced military conscription and strict national gun control and registration laws.   So…John what was your point again?  

Uranium one

Let's begin with my letter to the editor in response to another's letter resurrecting the Uranium One "controversy" and go from there:

"A recent letter re: Uranium one and Hillary Clinton again displays abysmal ignorance of facts in the matter. In brief, they are:

First:

Uranium One is a Canadian corporation, South African in origin. The Bush Administration approved its acquisition of US mining rights in 2005! In 2010 A Russian corporation, Rosatom, bought Uranium One as subsidiary. Rosatom sells uranium to civilian power reactors in the United States which, historically, have always purchased most of their uranium from foreign sources. Currently, Uranium One is responsible for less than 6 percent of domestic production. Neither Uranium One nor Rosatom holds an NRC export license, so no uranium produced by either may be exported.

Second:

The Senate Committee on Foreign Investment in the USA, cannot negate such a sale; but may recommend that the President stop such a transaction. This involves the Committee and several cabinet posts giving either a yes or no recommendation. The committee's output is a suggestion, no more no less, but only twice has a president overruled it. The Cabinet level weigh ins are generally not even brought to the level of the department head, since no negative action can ensue.

Third:

The Committee is chaired by the Treasury Secretary, and includes members of 16 agencies, including Homeland Security, Justice, Defense, Commerce, Energy, Treasury, and State. All except SecDef Gates, were confirmed by a Republican Controlled Senate. Energy Secretary Steven Chu was the most directly involved with the issue and he was unanimously confirmed by simple voice vote. The Committee gave their unanimous assent to the sale. Even had Clinton  screamed "no" and held her breath, it just didn't matter.

Finally:

Every charity rating organization in America gives the Clinton Foundation top marks for transparency, utilization of funds, percentage of income allocated to administration (very low, by comparison with others) and the efficacy of program dollars applied to the relevant causes. There is zero evidence that any Clinton has ever personally benefited from Foundation contributions."

       Now for a bit more discussion. Critics blame Hillary Clinton, as if any action she took would have made  a difference in this matter. It wouldn't. Anyone who thinks the other cabinet heads would defer to her is delusional, especially SecDef Gates, a Bush appointee. Since neither Uranium and Rosatom have (or are likely to get) export licenses, the only thing that has changed is who gets paid for it. Telling a Canadian company that they couldn't sell their interest to a Russian entity is like the The US telling Hyundai they can't buy controlling interest in Honda.

       If the uranium in question were to be exported rather than sold to US interests it might matter, but such simply isn't the case. If one were to argue that perhaps the US shouldn't have allowed other nations to mine Uranium on US soil, that ship sailed 140 years ago. Take, for example, the Dewey Burdock uranium project in South Dakota. It encompasses 240 acres of public surface land, plus more than 4,000 subsurface acres of uranium-rich earth.

As of two years ago, a Hong Kong-based company had secured the right to mine and profit off that uranium, used to replenish nuclear power plants around the world, particularly in China. In November, Hong Kong’s Azarga Resources merged with South African mining Giant, Powertech, to become Azarga Uranium and manage the Dewey Burdock project. I remind you, this is precisely the same scenario as Uranium One/Rosatom. Oh, but wait, it's not, because this Uranium will be exported, since unlike Rosatom, Azarga already has an export license. Does anyone remember the furor over that transaction? Of course not, there was none, because Hillary Clinton was no longer Secretary of State, so who cares? Where's the outrage?

 Perhaps we all should care, not because of Mrs. Clinton, but because of an outdated law. Azarga will pay no royalties to the United States government, thanks to the Mining Law of 1872, which still governs uranium and other “hardrock” mining to this day, any company can extract and sell minerals from public lands without paying a cent in royalties to the federal government.

 To achieve some perspective, allow me to offer that the only reasons Uranium One and Mrs. Clinton remain in the spotlight are to attempt to divert attention from  the continual litany of gaffes, insults and embarrassments foisted on us and the world by the current administration.