The Ironic Cherry Reads... If It Hadn't Been for Dubya

Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights

by Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose

If you don't know Molly Ivins, you missed one of the great political writers of all time.  She came to my attention when I read a review of her collected articles entitled, "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?"  Molly Ivins once wrote about Texas politics, and with great gusto about the Texas legislature.  After writing in the Dallas Times Herald about one local politician, "if his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day," a number of humorless readers canceled their subscriptions.  To which the Times Herald put up billboards all around Dallas saying, "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?"  Yes, she could.

She had a wonderful wit and was fearless, lived life as I imagine a Texan would.  She had a great time mocking the idiots in the Texas legislature, so it was only natural that she would be the one to expose George W. Bush in all his ignorance and privilege.  She, along with Lou Dubose, wrote books about the Bush years entitled Shrub (his years as governor and campaign for president) and Bushwacked (the presidency).  Over the years, Molly maintained her sense of humor, but writing about the serious damage that was being done to our country became more dark and pronounced.

In 2007, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose published her last book, Bill of Wrongs, while Molly was dying of cancer.  In the acknowledgements, Dubose has the sad privilege of thanking her for her contributions to exposing injustices and attacks on our democracy throughout her life.  This book was her last attempt to warn us that our rights were under attack.  Molly begins the book talking about how she is less amused and more alarmed by the transgressions of the Bush administration.  For someone who lived her life laughing past the graveyard, this was something to take seriously.

When I hear people talk wistfully of the Dubya years, I find myself missing Molly more than ever.  We need her to give us a good shake, to remind us that without Bush, we would not have become so desensitized to losing our rights.  It was a slippery slope indeed, and on so many fronts.  As we talk about children in cages, we are not talking about the war on Muslims.  We try to fight for women, DACA children, African Americans, LGBTQ, and for gods' sake the New York Times and the Capital Gazette, but can't seem to keep up with the hatred being spewed and violations that are being made on each of us daily, by the twitter president and his partners in crime, the US Congress and the Supreme Court.

We keep reminding ourselves that this is not normal.  Yet after only 24 hours of the media talking about how the Democrats were going to fight Mitch McConnell's push to get another radical right wing supreme court justice on the bench, last night I heard a bunch of talking heads going through Trump's list of potential nominees, assessing them as though this was going to be a normal process.  More air time validating the unconstitutional consolidation of the three once independent branches of our government.

So, let me give you a quick run-through of Molly's reporting of the plundering of the Constitution that went on during the Bush years.

Before Bush, we could protest in view of the president.  During the Bush years, people began to get arrested at rallies for, one example, wearing a t-shirt that read:

This arrest, mind you, wasn't even at a rally; it was during an official presidential visit.  Celebrating the 4th of July.  As he gave a speech about "free thought, free expression."  Those were the days, when we had a president that really knew how to double-talk, with sincerity. 

Molly features South Carolina's own Brett Bursey in his fight for the right to protest, as Bush's own deplorables worked to create the "free speech zones" that now typically make certain that our free speech is hidden from view.

Bill of Wrongs was published in 2007, after years of dizzying changes brought about by the shock of 9/11.  After years of tyrants like Dick Cheney turning our fears into frenzy.  Terrifyingly, the PATRIOT Act that was pushed through Congress in 2003 is now just a fact of life, as we struggle with Russian interference and a president that welcomes it.  I was surprised to recall that the chillingly acronymed ICE -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- was only imagined and implemented in 2003.  As an arm of the creepily named "Department of Homeland Security," which itself was invented in 2002.  All just part of the government these days.  (Since the horrifying past weeks of children in cages, separated from their families, there has been a growing call for the end to ICE.  Infuriatingly, our own Congressional Democrats are walking it back, pleading for moderation.  What can I say?)

During the Bush years, it wasn't just political appointees that were chosen for their loyalty and ideology.  I recall some news about screening and litmus tests for judicial appointments, and a nation horrified.  Unlike the current stable genius who is raiding our democracy, Bush was shrewd enough to deny what he was doing; he knew he couldn't get away with such a flagrant abuse of power.  These days, the orange haired tyrant wants us all to know he is denying us our rights as he does it.  A short year or so ago we were appalled that he had demanded loyalty from his FBI Director; today we don't even blink at the thought of justice department toadies. That slippery slope gets steeper and ever more slippery.  And lest we give him too much credit, our republican Congress has been excluding its elected Democratic representatives from lawmaking since our first black president was elected.  Trump has no new bad ideas, he just flaunts the old ones. 

Way back in the aughts, we had journalists imprisoned for not giving up their sources.  We had unchecked government surveillance of American citizens.  There were Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, black sites, torture memos; that was when the right wingnut John Ashcroft and James Comey got to be heroes, when torture became "enhanced interrogation techniques," and they reached the limit of what they could tolerate.

We talk fondly about Bush defending Muslims after 9/11, but while he was saying the right things, the FBI was surveilling and falsely arresting people who happened to be Muslim; Ivins and Dubose describe Attorney Brandon Mayfield's arrest for the Madrid train bombings.  Sure he was Muslim...  And did you hear that?

But he was Muslim, but they were protesting, but she was crossing the border, but he looked dangerous...

Which brings up the subject of religious freedom.  It was probably Karl Rove who decided that Dubya should call himself a "compassionate conservative."  And the Bush administration happily gave over federal funds to Christian organizations to do the work of government.  We mostly didn't worry about it too much.  It was hard to see what was wrong with doing good.  Unless you are gay and can only appeal for help from a fundamentalist Christian group.  Or you are a young woman who needs contraceptive care (or an abortion, which our government has decided not to pay for decades ago, for religious reasons).

During the Bush years, our librarians fought for our right to privacy.  Many of them.  I worked at a library where the branch manager happily gave up the internet sign-up list because a rape suspect said he was at the library on the computer during the time of the assault.  She was tickled that she could be part of solving the crime.  We had patrons who were unhappy that we didn't keep records of what they had read (so they wouldn't have to...).

I hate to say this, but most of us these days don't understand what could happen if:  our library records, computer records, phone records become available.  We have allowed businesses from Facebook to AT&T to credit card companies to have access to our personal data.  It takes seconds online to apply for and receive a credit card.  Because they have all our information.

The despot-in-chief wanted a national database of our voter registration records, and most of us couldn't understand what the big fuss was about.  Which left our governors and state attorneys general on their own, fighting the fight for our right to a protected secret ballot.

Forget the slippery slope.  We went over the cliff when we allowed ourselves to be frightened and intimidated into The PATRIOT Act.  And if I were more knowledgeable about history, I could go back farther.  We have been complacent about our rights.  We have a government TODAY -- all three branches -- that are complicit in dismantling the Bill of Rights.

Oh, my, I had intended to write a summary of Molly's book, highlighting each area that our rights were violated during the Bush years... but I couldn't help but go into a rant.  So many outrages, so many injustices, so many egregious violations of our civil rights.

And it all started with George W. Bush.  Please take the time to read the book.  Ivins and Dubose have done an excellent job, in just 200 pages, of describing the harm that began with Bush and his own basket of deplorables, many of whom have stuck around and crawled out from under their rocks now that Trump has freed up the swamp for his own personal use.

Our wonderful library still has copies that survived the Henderson Purge (which began around the end of the Bush era).  And because libraries have only so much space, I urge you to check it out, because:  use it or lose it.

Bill of Wrongs is so very relevant and important today.  But go back farther into the beginnings of the political life of George W. Bush.  We need to be clear that without him we would not be tolerating Trump.  As Will Ferrell said in his reprise of Dubya, "I was really bad.  Like historically not good."

Molly Ivins is the journalist that painted the picture of what harm Dubya could do, with a laugh and then with alarm.  If only we had listened.  If only she were here now, to help us through these dark days.

Silver Lining

It occurs to me that Silver Lining is the color of the roofing tiles I am having installed this very minute, with great noise and fanfare, thanks to Hurricane Matthew.  There have been a few Hispanic men hammering away since minutes after seven, no coffee break, no stopping to talk, just hard, physical work.  I don't know if they are legal immigrants or not, and, honestly, nobody really cares if it keeps the price of their new roof lower.  All the protests are bullshit and dog whistles, shamefully attacking and victimizing good people.

But other than the coincidental title of this post, that is not what I need to talk about today.  Today I'm not quite through my period of mourning, for Hillary, for our country, for all the mean and ignorant or just naive and foolish voters who hammered their own nails into all our coffins on Tuesday.  But I have been commiserating with friends, and posting on facebook, and talking to my kids, and just as with George W. Bush in 2000, there is a day after this one too.

In fact, I have started to compile a list of all the things we have to look forward to during the "presidency" of He-Who-Just-Cannot-Be-Named.

For one thing, once they have worked through their own mourning, our wonderful comedians will have far better fuel than they would have had with Hillary in the White House.  I imagine Samantha Bee has only just been getting warmed up during the election season.  And Alec Baldwin, after working so hard to nail Trump, surely will be willing to show up (or call in) to SNL from time to time.  After all, we did miss Tina Fey's Sarah Palin once we didn't have the original around anymore.

I am also thinking that, given Trump's failure to grasp economics and his need to continue to be adored by those undereducated and underpaid workers, it is just possible that those of us liberals who work hard for too little will also reap the benefits, at least till the crash.  And as long as Donald doesn't insist on an ideological test for us white Americans, I should be okay for awhile.  It occurs to me with some relief that when the Bush years started I was on the low end of the wage scale, so when they ended I hadn't lost anything.  And now that I am attempting to live on Paul Ryan's social security, it seems not that much has changed.

Let's be honest, Donald Trump is a hoot.  He is every bit as stupid as W., but without the charm.  I am looking forward to those 365 day calendars of Trumpisms, and for a couple of reasons.  Not only were those idiotic gems ("More of our imports come from overseas.") something to brighten the dark days, but at the end of the Bush years I had stacks of scrap paper, perfect for phone messages and grocery lists.  And I am running low.

The younger generation, those we have been falsely accusing of being disinterested in politics, are infuriated.  They have truly had it with people trying to legislate their bodies, and sexual and marital choices.  They are sick to death of big corporations getting handouts from the government while they are spending their young lives trying to pay back student loans while failing to get a job that pays what they are worth.  They are not going to tolerate intolerance of race or religious choice.  The riots and protests over racism aren't going to stop, and women are not going to be forced to choose between an unwanted  pregnancy or a backroom abortion.  My son, who could be safely ensconced in his Ph.D. program, has told me that as he has become an activist, he knows he may someday be arrested, and it is a risk he is willing to take, a sentiment that fills me with pride even more than fear.

It will be fun to see the reaction of Trump supporters when Congress finally succeeds in repealing Obamacare.  They apparently had forgotten that before the ACA insurance premiums rose precipitously each year.  That will be a happy thing to watch, for me anyway.  As long as the Democrats are ready to yell loud and long when the right wingnuts try to blame it on Obama -- and probably Hillary as well.

And while they are targeting others for their failures, let us also remember that our new "president" gets bored with people when they have outlived their usefulness.  I can only imagine that it won't take long for the smugly pious Mike Pence to get under Donald's skin.  Imagine the name calling, followed eventually by the inevitable tweets.  And wouldn't it be fun at some point to hear that Pence has been "fired."

Of course, once Pence is gone it will be safe to impeach Trump.  And wasn't that clever of whichever brains-behind-the-boss manipulated Trump into choosing the white-haired Satan for his running mate?  Anyway, point being, nothing lasts forever in Trumpworld.

Along the way, it isn't going to take long for these characters to put the economy into the toilet.  And once it is there, I would say by 2018, the voters will be ready to appeal to a Democratic Congress to get us out of the toilet.

Again, though, let us not forget the Bush years.  And Trump's reigning philosophy.  When some lose, others win.  For a couple of years I had been able to afford amazing timeshare rental vacations, weeklong getaways at resorts for $500 a week, the cost of the annual maintenance fee for those who needed to recoup the cost more than take the vacation.  That ended with the resurgence of the economy (thanks, Obama).  Now, the vacations that went for $60 a night are up over $300 a night.  But when the economy tanks, and until they take away my social security, I'll be able to get in on a couple of weeks a year of vacations on the beach once again.

I honestly can't believe that here we are, doing the Bush years over again.  But our electorate truly does have a short memory.  And they are gullible, easily manipulated.  It takes the pain of an interminable war and the tanking of the economy to the point of loss of jobs and homes before they realize that those sugar-spun fantasies of cutting taxes in order to make us rich are just fantasies.

On Tuesday afternoon, before the end, it occurred to me that this race was more like Nixon than Bush.  The Trump crowd that adopted "lying Hillary" as their mantra and made excuses for Trump's blatantly illegal and immoral behaviors could have been the same hardhats that chanted that they would rather have a crook in the White House than Hubert Humphrey.

It is hilarious that in retrospect, Nixon doesn't look that bad.  It is criminal though, that our memories have been so thoroughly wiped of all the damage done in the Reagan years that Democratic and republican politicians alike would no sooner fail to mention Ronald Reagan than walk onto a stage without a flag pin.

And then there were the Bush years, as we went from a growing economy to the brink of disaster.  Bad choices made by a gullible president at the behest of the evil Dick Cheney.  And surrounded by a cabinet of ideological idiots.

And finally, here we are again, with a growing economy, a strong military, better foreign relations than we have had for quite a while, more jobs and even wages slowly rising.   Instead of Bill Clinton, we have the most admirable couple to grace the White House maybe in my memory.  And instead of Al Gore, we have Hillary Clinton.

Instead of the evil capitalist Dick Cheney behind the wheel, we have the evil religious fanatic Mike Pence.  And then we have the proposed cabinet of deplorables:  Chris Christie, the guy who claims he didn't know about "bridge-gate;" Newt Gingrich, the man who ended his marriage at his wife's hospital bed, and last but truly least, Rudy Giuliani, whose contact with reality is so completely shot that he believes the US was not attacked on George W. Bush's watch.  That same Giuliani by the way, who giggled like a madman a couple of weeks ago when he alluded to his knowledge of the FBI re-opening the investigation into Hillary's emails as another surprise.  Yeah, he's going to be the next attorney general.

So, lots of reasons to weep, and hopefully lots of comedy potential as well.  And lots of reasons to get fired up to fight.  It is true that we will be fighting two branches of government rather than just congress.  But with a cast of characters as shady and corrupt as this bunch, as long as we fight as fearlessly as did Bernie and Hillary for what is right, as long as we don't let the bullies intimidate us, we can not only survive but win this thing.  And by "this thing" I pretty much mean our country and our freedoms. 

Killing Democracy, One "Rule" at a Time

Over the last -- I don't know it seems like forever -- couple of years, we've heard a lot of talk about the "Hastert Rule" in the dysfunctional belly of the House of Representatives.  When I hear it, I usually snort derisively and mutter something like, "And who the hell made that a rule?"

The "Hastert Rule" means that a bill can only be introduced in the House if a majority of the majority (read, republican majority) supports it.  This idiocy was the brainchild of the evil Newt Gingrich, who managed to alienate his House and lose the Speakership after he brought the government to a shutdown in 1995.  Hastert was chosen to be Speaker of the House when the other options were too sleazy even for the republicans (I'm sorry, my disgust is showing.)  Hastert was considered more moderate and reasonable.

Enter George W. Bush and his peaceable bunch of thugs.  Next thing, in 2004 Hastert makes this "rule" the official policy of his speakership.  Can you hear Democracy crying?

Well, today's wild bunch could not have wielded the wrecking ball quite so effectively without Boehner's insistence on following this nasty policy.  Except when public pressure got to be too much, like on votes for relief from Hurricane Sandy, the "fiscal cliff" deal, and reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.  I imagine the Tea Party brats were in such a frenzy over not being able to throw their weight around that Boehner had to promise them, "You can have the Hastert Rule again next time."

So last week when the republicans were starting to get the feeling that the American people maybe didn't like them anymore, for example blaming them instead of the president for the shutdown, and the bullies in the backroom were having a good laugh over the wrecking of the government, Boehner caved and let that old Hastert Rule go.

But before that happened, the Speaker changed House rules just a little bit to prevent a Democrat from bringing up a vote to pass the Senate bill that would reopen the government:





This amazing piece of sleaze should make alarms go off throughout the country.  But if Representative Van Hollen had not sent it out on youtube, we probably would have no idea.

We really need to ask ourselves why the media did not pick this up, and why every Democrat (and the occasional patriotic Republican) is not screaming bloody murder about this.

Not only have the republicans gotten away with a gerrymandering that prevents a majority of voters from choosing their representative, and then successfully made laws to limit voting by those groups more likely to vote Democrat, but with the "Hastert Rule" and House Resolution 368, they have taken steps to make certain that elected House Democrats are unable to participate in the workings of the House.

We need to know this is going on, and let others know whenever it happens.  This is the sound of our Democracy getting flushed down the toilet in the interest of power.

When Your House Is Falling Apart

Our government has been following some very bizarre rules for tending to things.  It's so bizarre that I have found myself thinking of it in terms of psychiatric illness.

We could probably start with the shock of 9/11.  There we were, thinking we were the greatest nation in the world, infallible, struck in our hearts (in America heart=wallet) in the full light of day by renegades armed with weapons we left lying around unguarded.

Post traumatic stress disorder?  Not only were we looking over our shoulder and under our bed for the next attack, our corporate funded president couldn't figure out how to fast enough get those dollars to flow.  No conversation about the death and destruction of the Twin Towers could happen without focusing on the economic devastation.

Now, I'm not talking so much about people who lost their jobs because their livelihood was so totally disrupted.  Nor am I talking about those who lost the family members who provided them financial stability.  (And as I write these two sentences it chills me that we are talking about dollars and not lives, but I am trying to reconstruct as honestly as I can.)

The trauma that shook the country may not have been financial, but to our corporate-owned government that terrorist attack was all about money.  As Al Qaeda intended.

That's when the bucks started flowing.  Tax cuts and subsidies flowing to Wall Street and airlines.  We couldn't do enough to get those businesses going again, while the financial aid to families, including those first responders we heralded, was quite a bit slower to come around.

And there is where our obsession has been since then.

A convenient excuse by the Bush administration to feed its constituency, in W.'s own terms, "the haves and have-mores."

It only naturally followed that corporate America took what it felt it had always had coming, Congress shocked into being afraid to say no, believing every lie and passing it on.  The American people were easy.  We believed every scary story we were told.

And here we are in 2013.  Our bridges are falling down.  Our children are going hungry.  And those who are responsible for guarding the country's purse strings run up the debt to feed the corporate beast, and continue to tell us to tighten our belts and stop whining.

Pass the farm subsidy and the oil subsidy and the subsidies to the pharmaceutical industry.  But cut back on food stamps and the arts.  Feed the dinosaur, starve the hummingbird.

The uproar from the voters can barely be heard.  Those who question this bizarre philosophy of taking good care of the wealthy so they don't punish us by taking away our jobs are too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed, too confused to yell.  And the most fearful, the most psychologically vulnerable, are fed fears about the debt, the poor, Obamacare, and urged to stand up and shout.  And they do.

What will it take for the sane but tired of us to stand up and yell louder?  When our house is falling apart and whatever we do to keep it together no longer works, is this when we will rise up in anger?  When we have nothing left to lose, is that when we will no longer be afraid to risk being struck down?

The Stuff of Fiction

I am less likely today to believe that American democracy is foolproof than I was before the turn of the century.  Strange circumstances have upset the balance of what should be a strong and balanced system of government.  Until we lived through it, I doubt we would have thought believable the "election" of George W. Bush in 2000 by the Supreme Court.  Without the swaggering and incompetent Bush administration, I believe the perpetrators of 9/11 would have been caught before the attack, and consequently, without 9/11, there would certainly have been no second term for this idiot president and his evil minions.

So when I read Christian Nation by Frederic C. Rich, I did not chuckle at the absurdities of its premise.  Like Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, this work of fiction sets up an alternative history in which just that strange bit of credible chance leads to the falling of our democracy.

What if John McCain had won in 2008 and then died in office?  In ordinary times we would not foresee a takeover by Christian fundamentalists.  Yet here we are, where during the Bush years promotion to federal positions were granted to graduates of Christian diploma mills and anti-science agendas were pursued with confidence, and some troubling successes.

And now, despite a more rational leader, we have seen states take on the fight to ban abortion, to form state militias, to legislate against science.  We have an immobilized Senate and a radical right-wing House; our Supreme Court majority boldly rewrites the Constitution to an agenda that they claim is conservative, but is actually so only when convenient.  And we have a gun lobby that is untouchable.

We attempt to resist through democratic means the tyranny of these radical forces, who fight tirelessly in the name of their Christian god.  But where we fight with rationality and restraint, our opponents are enflamed not by the light of logic but by the irrational fire of fear and greed and hate and fueled by the dollars of corporate wealth.

Could it happen here?  

It's a gripping book, and I urge you to read it.

"Miss Me Yet?"

Hey, wait - it's only been two years!  One of the most decent things W. had done was disappear after President Obama's inauguration.  One of the happiest sights I'd ever seen was this former president's backside.  I know, it meant I couldn't wear my "Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot" t-shirt anymore, because hallelujah! it wasn't true anymore.  He may still be lost, but now he's found.

And then the inevitable bad news.  The smaller Bush had moved up from reading The Pet Goat to "authoring" a book.  I say "authoring" because, as he admitted :

"I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn't think I could read, much less write."

Sarah Palin at least admitted to having a ghost writer.  But if you believed in weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I guess you might buy a book written by W., himself.  But be forewarned, if you do buy the book, every penny of the profits will go to Bush.

Not even a penny to stock his presidential library.  That's right, our tax dollars will continue to pay for this guy's infamy.  So, instead of actual cash, which, thanks to eight years of the Bush presidency, I am quite short of, thank you very much, I would like to donate my very own books.  These are documents of the eight years that were painstakingly, even lovingly, collected by me, and I will be sending the "former president" a photo so that he can find a suitable location.