Stephan: I miss the United States. I mean I knew there was corruption. Anywhere there is power there is corruption. I knew both parties suffered from it, although the Republicans were consistently the worst because they were the party of corporations. But there used to be at least some awareness that the function of government was to foster wellbeing.
I was in government; I chose to walk away from a career because of corruption I saw in Watergate. But I never, ever, thought it would get to this point.
How much longer is the country going to put up with this? And if impeachment proceedings were introduced tomorrow, and were successful, where would we be? Mike Pence, are you serious? Third in line, Paul Ryan? The most pretentious pseudo-intellectual since Newt Gingrich. Really?
And the judiciary, and the appointment of corporatist, climate-denier, christofacist, anti-women judges and justices. Another Clarence Thomas? We will pay the price for a generation for the judges now being appointed by our mobster president and approved by a Republican Congress made up of what? You supply the adjective.
I miss America, and I think most of the rest of the world does too. Do you?
Mike Pompeo
Credit: Alex Wong
President Donald Trump has officially fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and intends to nominate current CIA director Mike Pompeo in his place.
Tillerson was the former CEO of ExxonMobil, which for decades was the number one funder of climate science disinformation until they were surpassed by the Koch brothers starting in 2005. But before Pompeo became CIA Director in 2017, he had for six years been a GOP House member from Kansas — and “the #1 all time recipient of #KOCH Industries $$$,” as the nonprofit research group OpenSecrets.org tweeted at the time:
Agreed. I spent nearly 20 years marketing my high performance loudspeakers in the USA during the 1980’s and 1990’s, developing many friends in both the recording industry as well as private users. Today, I like many of my Canuck residents, will not travel to or through the US, due to the gun culture and the corruption. I suppose the fear is for personal safety.
I miss the USA I came to. Was I filled with illusions? I grew up, opened my eyes and saw waves of corruption and malfaisant behavior from those in control.
Will I ever wake up to find I was only having a bad dream?