Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

From when I was a small child I thought the founders of the US made a good decision in separating the power to declare war (Congress) from the power to execute war (the President as Commander-In-Chief). Who in their right mind would want one person, possibly unstable, to be able to commit a powerful nation to bloodshed? In my lifetime Congress has ceded this power to presidents. They let LBJ commit us to war in Vietnam. They gave George W. Bush carte blanche to do anything he wanted in the "fight against terrorism", a remarkably nebulous phrase to guide our acts of violence toward something constructive. Now, under Republican leadership, Congress just doesn't care any more. Trump and Israel have started bombing Iran. Bombing is cheap (our soldiers don't risk anything on the ground) in terms of public outcry and despite self-serving uses of the word "surgical" by the military regularly kill non-combatants. It is the knee-jerk belligerence we have come to expe...

Tonight is another State of the Union speech by President Trump.  I haven't listened to an SOTU for decades; I never really learn anything from the performance of all involved, with the one party standing up to applaud every sound bite.  Policies that are offered are often forgotten within a week. Aside from the speech it is appropriate for we citizens to consider the state of our union. Our president has publicly and repeatedly separated us into righteous states who support him and enemy states that need to be tamed. FEMA no longer considers every state worthy of support in times of need along these lines. What about our citizens? The economy is in the toilet after Trump's playing with tariffs like children's toys, pretending that they are not taxes and pisssing off our trade partners. Trump and his minions keep telling us both that 1) everything is great and 2) it's all Biden's fault. There are apparently people that believe these two opposing positions at the sam...

One of the skills that Trump and his minions have is for distraction.  A while back there was the push to find evidence that he had used a racial slur starting with "N" used to hurt and harass people during his time on The Apprentice as if that were the only test if he was racist, despite his words and deeds specifically attacking people of color on a regular basis. Ignore this forest, see if you can spot a tree over there. It is that way with his pedophilia. Women have come forward accusing him of raping them (which is not new; over two dozen women have civil suits pending against him for sexual assault that he keeps managing not to have to deal with, the statute of limitations for criminal penalties for some unholy reason having expired) when they were underage, i.e., children. Raping children.  We keep going through the Epstein files (as we should) as if that, that will be the proof. Maybe it will. But maybe we could interview his accusers on the record and press charges b...

I voted in the primary this morning. There were a couple of choices to be made but in most of the races I knew who I wanted based on prior knowledge of the candidates. I had to show a photo ID to vote because of an election law. I have a photo ID because I am plugged into the mainstream; I have a driver's license. Many of the older residents of my state who might wish to vote do not. There are alternative ID's that are accepted and in different states there are filters in place; hunting licenses are good in Texas but not college ID's. To my knowledge no one from any government office is providing transport for the elderly to get them or offering to pay for the ID, which is a filter on folk who aren't very visible to the mainstream. One thing history has taught us is that when we increase the number of citizens who can vote politicians act differently. When only propertied white men could vote, government did not work very well for sharecroppers. When only men could vote...

My university closed its offices today and yesterday because of icy roads, so the title for this post is a misnomer. You really shouldn't trust what I write--- In my youth I would have probably driven in to work anyway, partly because I was a good driver used to driving in PA winters, and partly because if my car broke down I was a pretty good hiker and was always driving near something to walk to. Now I am older with artificial knees and know that I would probably need some assistance if my car broke down.  In this case wisdom and frailty seem to be opposite sides of the same coin. I taught my classes over Zoom and have met with several students that way, so the cost of the shutdown is less, both for me and for the university; if anything I think the accessibility of Zoom has made my university more cautious and more willing to close its campus. So: how the F are the Minnesotans able to protest ICE in full force with worse temperatures? I mean, wow. They decided they didn't wa...