Whose Life Do You Pro?

In 2016 millions of Americans voted for Donald Trump because he was pro-life (the same reason that for years, they've voted for Republicans generally.) The trope was that Trump was a conservative who'd name conservative justices to the Supreme Court. This might someday create a Court that would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion a constitutional right. For most of these people – in my experience, at least – “pro-life” usually means little more than “anti-abortion.” But there's more to a pro-life outlook than that. (And never mind that Trump is hardly a conservative; he just plays one on TV. But that's another discussion.)

As a Catholic, I'm well-acquainted with the pro-life message. Catholic priests frequently rail against abortion from the pulpit – as well they should because abortion is a horrible thing. (Though I do believe in the constitutionality of Roe.)  But the Roman Catholic Church also states that it's against capital punishment as part of its official pro-life agenda. In my entire life, I've never once heard a priest give a homily decrying the evils of capital punishment. And if one did, you can bet that lots of parishioners would be up in arms about the priest “bringing politics into it.” I suppose it depends on your politics.

There's another life issue that gets precious little play in the noise of the pro-life/pro-choice wars. According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, since 2013 over 200 El Salvadorans have been killed, raped, tortured or otherwise harmed after being deported from the United States. While part of this period is covered by the Obama administration, Donald Trump has made a special point of restricting asylum access to immigrants (especially brown and black immigrants) as part of his xenophobic policy agenda. And one can reasonably assume he doesn't limit to Africa the nations he regards as “shithole countries.”

Many of these people specifically sought asylum in the U.S. because they were fleeing imminent threats in their homeland. And upon their forced return, many of those killed or harmed fell prey to the very people they were trying to escape. U.S. officials know (or should know – and often because the deportees have told them, begged and pleaded with them) that they're being subjected to imminent danger as a direct result of deportation.  Yet American immigration officials callously deport them anyway.

I'd like to ask my pro-life friends, just where does this fall in your calculations when it comes to voting for a president or supporting this one? If it doesn't register, I'd suggest you rethink your calculations. Just as I'd also suggest you recall the notions of love, peace, mercy, welcoming the stranger and the foreigner and that whole load of nonsense that Jesus kept going on about.

Blagojevich -- What a Rod!

Rod Blagojevich has torn a page straight out of the Donald Trump playbook. After the president commuted the former Illinois governor's 14-year prison sentence for corruption, he characterized himself as a “political prisoner,” blaming his troubles on “those uncontrolled, unaccountable lawless prosecutors who did this to me. I broke no laws. I crossed no lines.”

Like Trump, he refuses to acknowledge facts and apparently subscribes to the notion that if he repeats his lies often enough and loudly enough, they'll eventually find currency as facts. At least, one would suppose, with enough morons to buy his eventual book or watch his eventual reality TV show.

More disturbingly, he says the above-mentioned “lawless prosecutors” are the same people who are trying to undermine his savior-in-chief, calling himself a “Trumpocrat.” Given Trump's bald transactional worldview, it seems probable that, whether Blagojevich believes it or not, taking this particular angle with his claim of innocence was likely a condition of Trump's pardon.

“If the . . . flimsy, unlawful standard that was applied to me were to be applied to everybody else in politics, every senator, every congressman, every mayor, every governor would have been sent to prison as I've been,” he claimed. He went on to say, “The very same people who did it to me, many of them have been trying to do to President Trump. They turned things, they're routine and legal, and they suddenly say they're illegal.”

For his part, the president tweeted, “Rod Blagojevich did not sell the Senate seat. He served 8 years in prison, with many remaining. He paid a big price. Another Comey and gang deal!” U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was the lead prosecutor in Blagojevich's case – and former FBI Director Jim Comey hired Fitzgerald as his personal attorney after the president fired him.

Good god! A day out of jail and Blago has already hit “11” on the insufferable meter.

Three Years On, It Ain't So, Joe

I stumbled across these videos -- part 1 and part 2 -- from February 2017.  They  comprise an interview of Joe Scarborough by Stephen Colbert.  I consider myself a moderate lefty but Scarborough represents the kind of conservative I can admire and respect.  While I probably disagree with him on most political and economic issues, he has a respect for our laws and institutions that I believe is essential for the American experiment to thrive -- and even continue.

Scarborough makes the point that Republicans need to understand that there will be life after Donald Trump (the inference being that there will surely be a Democrat in the oval office someday.)  At that, Colbert tells Joe he doesn't necessarily share his guest's optimism that there will be a period of time after Donald Trump. It may have been a joke three years ago, but I've become increasingly worried that Colbert may have been right.  (And honestly, he seemed half-serious at the time.)

Since Trump's election, people have been talking about his dictatorial tendencies.  To wit: he's reduced presidential statements and news conferences to Twitter rants and press gaggles in front of the White House (no press room, no podium, no presidential seal or American flag -- just Trump and a microphone); he constantly refers to the press members in attendance as "enemies of the people" -- a classic exercise from the dictator's playbook; he diminishes in word and deed our alliances and the institutions of the post-WWII order; and he shows a very real affinity for dictators of other countries (Kim Jong Un, Rodrigo Duterte and above all, Vladimir Putin -- who, incidentally, must love the aforementioned weakening of the U.S.-led world order.  The Russia investigation matters, people.)

Just this week Trump fired members of his administration who testified against him in his impeachment trial.  And he's apparently tweeted to their desired effect his unhappiness with the length of Roger Stone's sentence for his seven-count conviction in the Mueller investigation.

Trump obstructs justice, interferes with court proceedings (remember, he live-tweeted insults of the ambassador to Ukraine as she testified) and he flaunts norms of every kind, including those that prohibit by law, public servants from profiting from their positions. Not to mention that he continuously lies about everything.


I believe the time has come when reasonable minds have to transition from decrying Trump's dictatorial tendencies to concluding that they're coming true.  The Democrats sure as hell better beat him in November, because if they don't, Colbert's half-serious prediction just might come true.