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“The Inhuman Power of the Lie”*

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

*From Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

If it is not clear to everyone now that this administration, and Mr. Trump, rival the Soviet Union when it comes to prevarication and suppression of the truth as policy it never will.

What they have done is seize the “inhuman power of the lie” as so aptly put by Boris Pasternak in Dr. Zhivago (and you thought it was just a movie) and implemented it as standard practice.

Can’t answer a question by the media, attack the media.

Can’t explain a revelation or report of incompetence or wrongdoing, attack the source.

Can’t answer critics, indict them or sue them.

The list is long and I won’t bother to recite it all here. Those of you who recognize this disaster of an administration already know it and those of you who deny this reality will skip over it as per your master’s protocol (if you need to know something, he will tell you what it is.)

This political usefulness (in a Machiavellian sort of way) of lies and denial, well documented in On Lying and Politics by Hannah Arendt, while a characteristic of many political entities, has been taken to a different level with the Trump Cabal of Con Artists and Pretenders to the Throne.

Every single member of that administration suffers from nocturnal emissions dreaming about a time when they will occupy that position and bask in the same exercise of undemocratic power.

And it’s not like they concocted some secret plan to do this. Oh no, they hid it in plain sight in the pages of Project 2025. That wasn’t a policy document, it was an operational plan and it is well on its way to full implementation. I’ll post the link (again) and hope you take the time to read it. (Project 2025)

These lies are always accompanied by complaints of assaults by imaginary enemies with the parallel lie of imaginary triumphs. “Enemies are everywhere and they are jealous of our success. They hate America and want us to fail. The Constitution is not always right, we know better.”

Since the first moment he pronounced the 2020 election a fraud, a blatant lie well documented in the book Disproven by Ken Block (a must read), to the latest denial that he “didn’t read the whole post,” when he put a racist and sickening video on his Truth Social platform, which could be named Pravda but the irony might be too deep, I believe he is incapable of telling the truth. And before you scream Block is a liar and agent of the Democrats, he was hired BY THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN and last time I checked they do not hire Democratic operatives. Why would they? They don’t actually embrace democracy in either the Democrat or the once admirable GOP style.

And the frightening part, is the number of otherwise intelligent and supposedly rational individuals around him who have become card carrying members of the Hear no Evil, See no Evil, Speak no Evil club required for membership in the Trump Cult. They would’ve burned a card with a saint in their hands, but they couldn’t find any.

Let’s hope the guardrails of government can withstand this out-of-control monstrosity of an oversize load vehicle veering side to side and smashing against them.

Questions I’ve Been Asked

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

After a post on Social media, I received a number of negative responses (always entertaining) including one that wanted me to answer a few questions. Here is the series of topics and my response.

1. Border Policy

Not sure what the question is here. Of course I support secure borders and prevention of unlawful entry but I also support reasonable opportunity to enter the country lawfully, robust and intelligent amnesty programs for those facing deprivation of rights in their native countries, and recognition that lawful immigration is a net benefit to this country.

Closing the borders isn’t a policy. Controlling the borders and those who can enter the country is.

2. FED Policy

The FED has always enjoyed an independent status from political interference. It is the whole purpose that monetary policy be free of politics. While the members are selected by political authorities (hopefully based on background and qualifications, not loyalty), they are free to make their decisions based on sound economic indicators and conditions not political pressure or threats of removal without cause.

Why this is a mystery or perceived as a problem by this administration is troubling yet consistent with their abandonment of standards and precedent.

3. Ukraine War

Russia invaded the Ukraine after agreeing (decades ago) never to do that in exchange for the Ukrainians surrendering nuclear weapons formerly belonging to the Soviet Union after the collapse. While I do not think we should put ground troops there, I do believe it is in our best interest to provide sophisticated weaponry to the Ukrainians as a bulwark against further Russian aggression which would directly impact NATO allies, primarily Poland and Germany.

Not that tit-for-tat is wise foreign policy, but helping Ukraine inflict more casualties on Russia might expedite a settlement. Keep in mind it was Russian and Chinese weaponry that killed most Americans in Vietnam. Of course, it was American weapons that killed many Russians during their exploits in Afghanistan and Russian weapons killing Americans in our time there, demonstrating the folly of such policies. But this is just a speculative discussion, not setting foreign policy.

Mr. Trump seems to believe his force of personality is enough to restrain Putin, it is not. The constant reversal of policy and flipflop between Russia and Ukraine merely delays any long-term resolution. We either live up to our claim of defending all friends, opposing all foes or we drop the facade and just pursue our own agenda.

4. Iran protest

I once read an article (that I am trying to find) that argued, during our invasion of Iraq, we picked the wrong country in terms of the support of the local population. Iraq is a series of historically antagonistic tribal associations with little loyalty to the country. Iran, on the other hand, was a mostly unified population (excepting the Kurds) that would be more supportive of outside assistance to rid them of the horrors of theocracy (something we should take notice of and avoid).

Iraqis would fight for their own part of the country and against any other, the Iranians would be more unified in toppling the Mulahs and crafting a more representative government for the whole country.

I do not think we should directly aid the Iranian people unless we have a fully articulated plan in place for the end game. A war here would be much different than Iraq. And discussion of restoring the Shah to the throne is tantamount to trading one dictatorship for another.

I have no doubt we would succeed militarily. Nor do I believe, despite the threats of other nations (North Korea, Russia, Syria) to come to the aid of Iran, that any of that would come to pass. But I do not believe the US has made the case sufficiently well to justify such an action or to prepare the American people to accept the reality of flag-draped coffins returning to the US in numbers that might exceed Vietnam, Korea, or Normandy. There is also insufficient demand from Iranian opposition parties indicating a openness to such open engagement.

Such an action would require the most deft diplomatic and military skills by the administration and that is sorely lacking.

5. ICE ability to enforce the law without interference.

Clearly legitimate law enforcement operations should be free from interference and those who impeded such operations arrested and charged. But here we have a unique situation. While unlawful entry into this country is a crime, it is a misdemeanor. A minor offense.

The overwhelming majority of those arrested by ICE have committed no other crime other than this misdemeanor

History is replete with examples of people breaking the law to bring attention to injustices and foster change.

No one objects to ICE seeking out and apprehending those here illegally who have committed crimes. Those who have lived here without committing other crimes and contributed to the nation deserve some consideration of their conduct in the country.

At a minimum this would include due process.

But from my perspective, those who committed crimes, whether that crime is operating a motor vehicle without a license or murder makes no difference, they deserve to be deported. You came here to escape some situation then to further compound that act by breaking other laws eliminates my empathy for your struggles. Although, with that said, if someone here illegally were charged with shoplifting for stealing food to feed themselves or their family it may mitigate the circumstances, but that’s just the bleeding heart liberal (although quite Christian attitude despite my atheism) in me.

However, sending masked and heavily armed tactical officers after men, women, and children (particularly children who are completely innocent of any unlawful act) who have done nothing more than commit a misdemeanor is abhorrent. This is what led to the widespread protests against this policy.

One of the key aspects of dealing with arresting individuals for any crime, something every experienced officer knows, is the goal is to make the arrest with the minimum amount of force. Any competent officer seeks to reduce the tension in these circumstance, not exacerbate them.

Sending what resembles, for all intents and purposes, a military unit to arrest people for minor offenses sets a dangerous tone. Now while every arrest has potential to become violent, no matter the charge, it is incumbent on the law enforcement agency to stage the arrest to avoid, as best they can, inciting violent resistance.

One of the arguments for this invasion of Minnesota (Minnesota?) is the lack of cooperation by state and local authorities. Cooperation is a two way process not a demand for surrender. From what I’ve seen, local and state authorities have only sought the assurances that the law of immigration enforcement, due process, be followed. When they see the reality is midnight flights in direct violation of federal court orders I would expect them to withhold cooperation. It is their duty to operate under the law and refuse to aid any agency which acts counter to that.

One of the biggest roadblocks to expediting deportation is the lack of sufficient numbers of immigration judges. This falls squarely on the shoulders of the administration and their focus on arrest while ignoring the due process aspect. The average time from arrest to hearing can often be months or even years. Reducing this would go a long way to removing one incentive to come here.

The very argument the government made for overturning court decisions on abortion-that it should be a state decision-is inconvenient in this case. And if your argument that immigration enforcement is a Federal issue exclusively you are defeating your own argument. Reducing or eliminating access nationwide to lawful abortions was a cornerstone of the Republican platform. The states rights argument was a smokescreen.

And the fallacious argument of widespread voting fraud, particularly voting by illegal immigrants, is verifiably false.

I firmly believe in the premise of innocent until proven guilty. The tragic shootings of American citizens remain open cases and the officers involved deserve to be treated as innocent. Until all the evidence comes out, and it should be all the evidence for the courts and the public to see, the legality of these matters remains undetermined, but the innocence of the officers under the law need be respected.

Keeping an in-progress investigation confidential is often necessary and prudent, but it cannot remain that way indefinitely. The Justice Department would go a long way to reassuring the public by including local and state investigators in the process.

But, as I mentioned before, placing these officers in these circumstances amid widespread public resistance to these policies is a recipe for disaster. To falsely characterize these demonstrations as a violent insurrection because it fits a political narrative is tantamount to taking a match to a fuse.

While the government has a clear responsibility to keep the peace and enforce the law, it also bears a bigger responsibility to do so in a manner that does not incite violence. Under these circumstances, they have failed.

If ICE held a perp walk of every illegal immigrant convicted of a violent crime being loaded on a plane out of the country, they would do it to almost universal approval. Instead, they face almost universal disdain for their tactics.

6.Transgender surgery and hormone treatment for minors

This issue, like all the others, is complex. There is also an underlying false narrative, often reinforced by the President and his supporters, that children are being surgically altered or given hormone treatments without their parents knowledge on a regular basis. “They send Johnny to school and Jane comes home.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. But this, like many other issues, should be one undertaken with medical advice not political grandstanding. The biggest issue, as always, is a refusal by many who protest the loudest against such treatments to refuse to even consider the complex physical and psychological trauma of these conditions. They let their false “moral” outrage framed by religious nonsense blind them to reality.

God does not determines sex, genetics does.

Gender dysphoria refers to the clinically significant distress or impairment that can occur when a person’s experienced or expressed gender does not align with the sex assigned to them at birth. The distress may affect emotional well‑being, social functioning, or daily life, and it is not defined by gender identity itself, but by the presence of distress associated with that incongruence.

Gender dysphoria is recognized as a medical condition in major diagnostic systems. In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM‑5‑TR), published by the American Psychiatric Association, it is classified as a diagnosable condition to ensure access to appropriate clinical care. In the International Classification of Diseases (ICD‑11), published by the World Health Organization, it is described as gender incongruence and placed under sexual health conditions rather than mental disorders, reflecting evolving medical understanding while still supporting access to healthcare.

Recognized Legal Exceptions to Parental Control Over Medical Care for Minors

While parents or legal guardians generally have the authority to make medical decisions for minors, U.S. law recognizes several well‑established exceptions where a minor may consent independently, or where the state or courts may override parental choice to protect the minor’s health, safety, or rights.

1. Emergency Medical Care

In situations involving a medical emergency where delaying treatment would pose a serious risk to a minor’s life or health, healthcare providers may provide necessary treatment without parental consent if a parent or guardian is unavailable or refusal would cause harm.

2. Abuse, Neglect, or Medical Neglect

When parental decisions constitute abuse or neglect, including refusal of medically necessary treatment, the state may intervene through child protective services or the courts. Courts may authorize treatment when parental refusal places the child at substantial risk of serious harm.

3. Mature Minor Doctrine (Recognized in Some States)

Under the mature minor doctrine, some states allow minors—typically adolescents—to consent to certain medical treatments if they demonstrate sufficient maturity and understanding of the risks and benefits. Application varies by state and is often limited to specific circumstances.

4. Statutory Minor Consent Laws

All U.S. states recognize statutory exceptions allowing minors to consent to certain categories of care without parental involvement, commonly including:

  • Sexual and reproductive healthcare (e.g., contraception, pregnancy‑related care)
  • Testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
  • Substance use and addiction treatment
  • Mental health services (with varying age thresholds and limitations)

5. Emancipated Minors

Minors who are legally emancipated—through marriage, military service, court order, or financial independence—generally have the same authority as adults to make their own medical decisions.

6. Court Orders and Judicial Review

Courts may override parental medical decisions when necessary to protect a child’s welfare, including ordering treatment over parental objection or resolving disputes between parents or between parents and providers.

7. State Parens Patriae Authority

Under the legal doctrine of parens patriae, the state has an obligation to act in the best interests of children and may intervene when a minor’s health or safety is at serious risk due to parental decisions.

Again not a simple issue. Absent profound medical necessity for surgery or hormone treatments, the state should defer to parental choice. But if the circumstances warrant intervention, it should be taken.

7. Transgender men competing in women’s sports.

Given the complex nature of genetics, where there can be a range of chromosomal differences between male and female, this is a challenging topic. My personal feeling is it should not be allowed. But a more in-depth review of individual cases may be appropriate.

However, in the big scheme of things, this involves a very small percentage of the population.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, gender dysphoria prevalence accounts for 0.005–0.014% of the population for biological males and 0.002–0.003% for biological females. Using an average between male and female we are talking about 1.6 million individuals out of a US population of 326.7 million and they are not all athletes. I think this is much ado about nothing.

Reminds me of the old jokes about the East German women’s Olympic teams.

8. Protesters storming church services.

Like my earlier point on interfering with law enforcement engaged in lawful activities, no one has the right to interfere with someone practicing the faith of their choice. But there is another issue here. When a Church pastor is also engaged in secular matters for which lawful protest in opposition is perfectly legal, the fact that the protesters went to the church is immaterial.

While Freedom of Religion means we have to respect the right to embrace any faith and practice it, it does not mean we have to respect the tenets of the faith itself. Churches are not immune from protest simply because they are religious institutions. Quite often people of faith engage in activities in opposition to government actions. The cloak of faith does not make one immune from criticism, opposition, or open protest as long as it is done lawfully.

The fact that the protest took place at a church is not a significant issue. If someone broke the law, charge them. If they protest lawfully outside the church, it is the First Amendment in action.

In a related matter, the arrest of journalist Don Lemon is frightening, idiotic, and destined to be laughed out of court. What many may not know is the curious background to the arrest. The Justice Department went to a Federal Magistrate with the facts of the case requesting a warrant to arrest Lemon.

It was denied.

They then appealed the Magistrate’s decision and asked a Federal Judge to order the Magistrate to issue the warrant.

The court denied the request.

They then went to a Federal Grand Jury and obtained an indictment to charge Lemon. Now one doesn’t have to be a lawyer to understand this is a most unusual process to arrest someone and to predict, with a high degree of certainty, that the case against any of the journalists charged is going to collapse in court.

I hope this answers the questions. I cannot wait for the response.

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com

…Where Credit is Due

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

If one seeks to be fair in criticizing others, one must acknowledge when you agree with someone as quickly as you are to disagree. To act otherwise is contrary to the spirit of open debate.

While I see little redeeming value in this President’s policies, performance, or persona, sometimes he says something that borders on correctness.

It was during a rambling and wide-ranging interview with the New York Times. Trump waxed on in his customary manner about his rejection of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and managed to say something quite profound, albeit unintentionally, about the Civil Rights movement.

“Well, I think that a lot of people were very badly treated. White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well, and they were not invited to go into a university or college.”

He then added,

“I think it was unfair in certain cases. It accomplished some very wonderful things, but it also hurt a lot of people. People that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job. So it was; it was a reverse discrimination…”

Now if you muddle through the poor sentence construction and convoluted logic, there is an element of truth here. And before you take angrily to the keyboard and claim I have joined the opposition, let’s think about what he said.

“White people were very badly treated.”  This is a true statement.

They were very badly treated when they marched alongside their black brothers.

They were very badly treated when they fought for the right of blacks to vote.

They were very badly treated when they were killed for supporting actions such as boycotts, voter registration programs, and sit-downs to bring attention to rampant discrimination against minority Americans.

But their treatment doesn’t even approach the level of horrendous treatment afforded minority Americans (and women!) throughout this country’s history. Not even close!

Some argue this level of racism lies in the past, and that is true to some extent. But hidden, less overt, racism is alive and well and we now see evidence of a reemergence of the more overt version.

But this President wants to “whitewash” it.

The best we get from this President is a statement made in support of his disastrous, ill-conceived, and counter-productive attack on DEI that, when examined, shows signs of a truth, by way of his ignorance, not in the way he intended it to be. Many white people were treated badly when they supported civil rights legislation and those who fought against it now seek to repeal the progress.

That a sitting President can ignore the history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, racial violence, denial of basic human right, and reinvigoration of white supremacy movements and claim “whites were very badly treated,” is abhorrent.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were some of the most effective laws ever enacted to right the wrongs of the past. These equal opportunity laws balanced the inherent unfairness in hiring, housing, voting rights, and educational opportunities seems to have been lost on this man.

Have we made progress? Of course. Have we eliminated the ignorance, inhumanity, and inequity of racism? Clearly not. We may never become color blind, but we can become more aware of our own innate prejudices and work to overcome them.

This President sees a black man placed in a position that once would have been denied that black man and given to a white man because of the color of their skin as unfair. That such discrimination against blacks was acceptable in this country draws no criticism or rational analysis. And his “it did some wonderful things” hardly qualifies as acknowledging both the need and value of the legislation.

His lack of basic historical context and understanding is embarrassing. The fact that any American either supports this or sits idly by and ignores it is tragic. I fear for the very survival of this country.

All you have to do is nothing.

Balancing Equality and Fairness in American Law

Civil rights legislation in the United States has played a pivotal role in promoting equality and protecting individuals from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. These laws, most notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, were enacted to address systemic injustices and ensure all citizens have equal access to opportunities. However, as these laws have evolved, so too debates whether certain policies, particularly affirmative action, lead to what some call “reverse discrimination.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the cornerstone of modern civil rights protections, prohibiting discrimination in employment, education, public accommodations, and more. Subsequent legislation, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, further advanced the cause of equality by aiming to eliminate barriers to full participation in American society for historically marginalized groups.

To address persistent inequalities, affirmative action programs were developed to proactively seek the inclusion of minorities and women in education and employment. Supporters argue these measures are necessary to correct historical disadvantages and foster diversity. Critics, however, claim that such policies can result in “reverse discrimination,” where individuals from majority groups feel they are unfairly treated or denied opportunities because of their race or gender.

The term “reverse discrimination” refers to the perception or reality that affirmative action or similar policies discriminate against members of a dominant or majority group. Legal challenges have reached the Supreme Court, with notable cases such as Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), where the Court ruled that while affirmative action was constitutional, strict racial quotas were not. The debate continues, reflecting differing views on justice, fairness, and the best way to achieve an equitable society.

Civil rights legislation remains essential for protecting individual freedoms and promoting equal opportunity. The ongoing discussion about reverse discrimination highlights the complexities involved in creating laws that are both effective and fair. As society continues to evolve, so too will the legal and ethical considerations that surround these important issues.

One inevitably sees this attack on DEI and Civil Rights laws as a ploy to return to the good old days when whites weren’t “very badly treated.” All that was missing from his diatribe was “the South will rise again.”

If you’ve ever wondered what happened in Germany that gave rise to Nazism, you are a but a step away from experiencing it. He’s given you an enemy. He’s made you fear them. He’s put the blame for all the country’s problems on them. And he will paint all who oppose his actions to “save” the country as anarchists.

The Right to Protest Comes with Responsibility

/ Joe Broadmeadow / 4 Comments

The recent tragic event in Minnesota is convoluting two separate and serious issues; the validity and efficacy of the President’s immigration enforcement policy and the use of deadly force by police officers.

These issues need to be separated to ensure a fair and impartial analysis and investigation of the officer involved in the shooting.

The are several elements which are indisputable.

The officer was engaged in a legitimate law enforcement effort.

The officer was acting in accordance with his responsibilities as a member of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

When one engages in protest,
this right comes with responsibilities.

Renee Good was exercising her right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

From the moment the officer involved first encountered Ms. Good until the moment he made the decision to employ deadly force, the only facts that need be considered are if the officer’s encounter with Ms. Good was within the parameters of his job, whether Ms. Good was in a position to harm officers, and what the officer perceived of that threat.

If an officer, acting within the color of law and performing a function of his job, perceives a threat or act of deadly force directed against himself or others he has the absolute right to engage the threat with the force necessary to stop it, up to and including deadly force.

Investigating this incident needs to be limited to the facts of the incident, not the issue of the policies that put the officer there in the first place.

The tragedy here is Ms. Good may very well have not intended to harm the officers. From all the reports of family and friends, she was a caring and considerate person who was upset by the government policy and felt obligated to voice her protest.

Now many of you will find this hard to accept, but none of Ms. Good’s admirable qualities matter. The officer had no way of knowing that in the short time of the encounter. All the officer involved had to go on was what unfolded before him.

Everyone has the right to protest against government policy. No one should fear engaging in protest because of the potential threat from the government.

The overwhelming majority of ICE officers are conscientious and professional. They perform a difficult and sometimes dangerous job. The officer involved will live with his decision to take a human life for the rest of his, it will not be easy to accept that responsibility. People who don’t understand that have never faced the possibility.

When one engages in protest, this right comes with responsibilities. The officers tasked with keeping the peace do not know anything about the protesters. They have no way of gauging the individual threat level of a crowd of people.

If you engage in protest, you need be mindful of your actions. This is not to blame the victim here, but if you are operating a several thousand pound vehicle. and are engaged in a verbal confrontation with the police, you have a responsibility to make sure you don’t inadvertently pose a threat.

The investigation of this incident needs to focus solely on the circumstances from the moment of the initial encounter up to the use of deadly force and nothing else. Arguing about the validity of the policy or the legitimacy of the officer’s presence clouds the issue.

This may well be a tragic consequence of an ill-conceived policy. An unnecessary death is the result of such circumstances, but we have to consider the alternative. If the officer had been fatally struck, would the level of outrage be the same?

Policy didn’t kill Ms. Good, circumstances did.

Police officers are faced with making these decisions in seconds. An officer is expected to make these decisions in less time than it takes to read this sentence. They do not have the luxury of deliberation and extensive consideration of their options. They have to deal with immediacy of the moment.

To expect them to do otherwise is ludicrous.

Clearly some review of the use of force policy and procedures in place needs to happen. It is legitimate to ask whether firing at a vehicle is an effective method of ending the threat, a dead driver behind the wheel of a running vehicle may be more deadly. But any change or modification to the policy cannot alter the circumstances of the incident. The officer, in his perception, believed his life or the lives of his fellow officers were in jeopardy.

He had the right and responsibility to act.

The tragedy of the result notwithstanding, this is all that should be considered in determining the legitimacy or illegality of the officer’s actions.

What’s the Difference?

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

Russia claims Volodymyr Zelensky is not the legitimate elected President of Ukraine.

The United States claims Nicolas Maduro is not the legitimate elected President of Venezuela. (They had a practice run in 2020 about claiming election fraud and learned from that.)

Russia initiates unilateral actions against the Ukraine.

The United States initiates unilateral actions against Venezuela.

Russia takes territory and citizens of a sovereign nation without cause.

The United States seizes the President of Venezuela and his wife by military force.

Russia unilaterally demands the Ukraine surrender territory and the Ukrainian people within those territories to Russia.

The United States unilaterally claims the authority to “run” Venezuela and bring in American companies to run the oil industry to the benefit of the Unites States.

Expediency should never be a rationale for circumventing our Constitution and our commitment to international law.

Joe Broadmeadow

Can somebody explain the difference other than we have a more effective military capability?

Can somebody explain on what basis they think the Venezuelan people will welcome the imposition of a government run by the United States on their sovereignty?

Can somebody explain why we choose not to commit similar actions in other countries controlled by dictators, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Vietnam (oh wait, we tried that one), Sudan, Nigeria…

Here’s the list of the current 59 dictatorships in the world, https://planetrulers.com/current-dictators/

That anyone in this country supports the actions by President Trump in Venezuela is terrifying.

Whether Maduro is a narco-terrorist or not is irrelevant. We are a country of laws living in a tenuous post-World War II world that is based on international law.

Whether or not we have the ability and resources to execute such actions is irrelevant. Expediency should never be a rationale for circumventing our Constitution and our commitment to international law.

Rallying around successful but questionable military operations ostensibly seeking to right a wrong is fraught with risk.

We need to keep in mind the people of Venezuela have the right and the obligation to find their own solutions to their internal problems.  Inasmuch as the narcotics business affects us, we need to look inside ourselves for the fundamental reason for the existence of this business, the demand for narcotics by Americans.

If we accept the rationale that narcotics trafficking is an act of terror, then we are a country where millions of our citizens support terrorists and some reap financial benefits from their actions.

Perhaps dealing with the problem should begin at home.

We offer a market for the business and do little, if anything, to reduce that demand. Rest assured the flow of narcotics will not diminish substantially until this demand is reduced. And our using extrajudicial means to combat it is a slippery slope.

We could try to jail them all in keeping with our worldwide lead in the number of citizens we incarcerate.

Or, go right to the summary executions to avoid those pesty technicalities under the law. Perhaps pay-per-view executions in the Presidential Ballroom.

These operations make for glitzy press conferences, flag waving hysteria, and testosterone-fueled fist bumping, cue the patriotic music, but do little to address the problem.

The moronic comparisons to our imposing caretaker governments in Japan and Germany after the war are laughable. We did not do that without the consent of most of the nations united against Axis fascism. This is an unjustifiable and extrajudicial use of military force to seize a citizen of another country, taking unprovoked military action against that country, and rationalizing it by claiming we are helping the Venezuelans, righting a historical wrong, and combatting narco-terrorists.

There will be a great deal of ranting about how Venezuela nationalized the oil industry and unlawfully seized American assets. This is not the place for a history lesson, but one might want to try to at least have a fundamental understanding of this complex issue.

Nationalization, which took place over several years and presidential administrations, beginning in 1971, did not happen overnight. It was a progressive process meant to address the imbalance of the profits taken by the American companies as compared to the profits shared with Venezuela. American companies were given concessions to drill for oil, they were not given possession of the land, and they took billions in profits.

Any attempt to justify this as righting the wrong of this nationalization is a white-washing of history to paint the United States as a victim, it was not.

What we are doing is helping ourselves to the Venezuelans oil and there is no doubt Mr. Trump will get his cut of the profits.

And we will be left with an indelible stain on the history of our country and irrefutable evidence of our hypocrisy.

What’s the difference? There is none.

Author’s note.

(Now, I’ll sit back and wait for the vitriol pointing out how I am unpatriotic, support dictators (I have my voting record to refute that one), and my sympathizing with narco-terrorists to come pouring in.
In preparation for the barrage, I’ll put on the coffee. I hope you enjoy the show as much as I will. I particularly enjoy the ones in CAPITAL LETTERS!)

An American Crossroad

/ Joe Broadmeadow / 1 Comment

“When you come to the fork in the road, take it.”
Yogi Berra (sort of)

Ozymandius

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

America faces the most challenging crisis since the Civil War. Our government of checks and balances is now woefully unbalanced, controlled by those with checks and deep pockets.

The distortion of power between the uber-wealthy and the majority of Americans teeters on the brink of totalitarianism and total loss of our constitutional rights. And the most frightening thing about it is the willful blindness or stunning indifference of a significant number of American citizens.

We have a President who lacks even the slightest element of empathy or commitment to the greater good. His callous pronouncements about others, be they those recently deceased or the weakest and most vulnerable among us, are a sad commentary on his lack of humanity.

Like Ozymandius, he struts to engrave his name all over the country as if he deserves such honor, failing to learn from history the emptiness of such efforts by other maniacal egos. First, it was the unlawful and shameful renaming of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (it’s only a matter of time before the only events they can book there will be UFC and some failed country-western acts who mourn the loss of the Old South).

Then it was the unilateral decision to tear down the East Wing of the White House to build another testament to ego and self-aggrandizement. It is only a matter of time before he decides to dynamite Mount Rushmore, rename national parks (Trump-Yellowstone, Trump-Grand Tetons) after they pump out all the oil and decimate the environment, and imprint his picture on the one-hundred-dollar bill.

‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

We have a neutered majority in Congress who sit silent in the face of these outrages, using the cowardly argument that they hold their tongue to prevent Trump from seeking vengeance on the states they represent.

Is there any worse example of cowardice than that?

These Senators and Congresspeople have forgotten the lessons of the great women and men who came before them and, while working for their particular districts, kept in mind the greater responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the American people.

We may be a nation of Irish-American, Italian-American, Jewish-American, Catholic-American, Muslim-American, African-American, and a host of other hyphenated Americans. Yet, we need to keep in mind that the word before the hyphen is but an adjective. The essence of all people in the country is American, and we deserve a President and a Congress that keeps that in the forefront of all their considerations.

Our commonality as Americans is our most cherished characteristic, and we should resist with all our will any effort to segregate us into the haves and have-nots.

2026 is America’s crossroads. Unless we send a clear message that we will resist this march toward an authoritarian President with unrestrained power, we may not survive as the country our founding fathers created.

When a President can order the military to kill wounded individuals, even if we accept they are enemies of the United States and wish us harm, how can we object the next time an American pilot is shot down, captured, then executed by others?

Combat, despite the horrors and fog it engenders, has rules of engagement. We cannot hold ourselves up as people to be admired and emulated if we descend into the behavior of those we most criticize.

Mr. Trump has denigrated, diminished, and demeaned the Office of the President of the United States and this country in the eyes of the world. That most people outside this country are shocked by the sudden decline in our standing is telling. That many people within the United States are blind or indifferent to it is horrifying.

The list of acts that confirm this contention is long and dismaying, but there is hope. There are positive signs of resistance within the once-admirable Republican Party and encouraging signs of a revitalized and refocused Democratic Party.

Let’s strive to put people in office who will re-establish the balance of power among the three branches, remember their oath is to the Constitution of the United States, not partisan political parties, and seek a consensus among differing perspectives to preserve and protect this country.  

Now is the real moment to make America great again. If these last few months have not demonstrated the danger of the alternative, nothing will.

A Policy Dichotomy of Extraordinary Hypocrisy

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

Okay, class, we are going to start the day with a pop quiz. Simple two question test on current affairs. Ready?

Who WAS Alejandro Carranza?

Who IS Juan Orlando Hernández?

Come on, now. This should be easy. Okay, times up. Can anybody tell me the answers? No? Okay, I’ll explain.

Alejandro Carranza was the name of a Columbian fisherman on a boat allegedly smuggling cocaine into the United States. While the identification is unconfirmed, as is the allegation of drug smuggling, Mr. Carranza now resides in the digestive tract of any number of species of fish or other ocean going carnivores having been obliterated by a US Navy missile(s).

Juan Orlando Hernández, on the other hand, is the former president of the Honduras arrested, tried, and convicted under our due process procedures after an extensive multi-year investigation by the Department of Justice for orchestrating and benefitting from smuggling 400 ton of cocaine into the United States.

Now, here’s an easy bonus question. Besides one being alive and breathing and one being disintegrated, what is the difference between them?

In Mr. Carranza’s case, the President of the United States unilaterally ordered him executed. In Mr. Hernández’s case, the President ordered him pardoned and released.

So the policy of the United States government, this most Christian nation born of the doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth and, apparently, less than enthusiastic about innocent until proven guilty, is to kill people on the lower end of the drug cartel hierarchy we “think” might be smuggling drugs and to pardon those of the upper echelon we CONVICTED of smuggling drugs.

I can see how this will indeed make us great again.

While we are at it, in keeping with our new naming policy of various departments within government, i.e. Department of War, let’s rename the Department of Justice to the Department of Smiting Offenders without Having a Trial (SO WHAT)

The Longest War

/ Joe Broadmeadow / 1 Comment

If you were to ask most Americans to name the longest war we have ever fought, they would say the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They would be wrong by a factor of three. This one is still ongoing.

The longest war, a war the President declared at the time with the advice and consent of Congress, is the war on drugs. President Richard Nixon, in 1971, a few months before his fateful decision to authorize the Watergate break-in, announced drug abuse to be “public enemy number one” (don’t you miss the days when we declared public enemies?) and began increasing the funding for federal, state, and local law enforcement.

For ten years, the war on drugs was more public relations than combat. It took President Ronald Reagan, in 1981, fresh off his “success” with the Iranian Hostage crisis, to fully ramp up the effort.

Focusing almost exclusively on enforcement and incarceration, the number of people imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses went from 50,000 in 1980 to  400,000 in 1997. Reagan’s wife, Nancy, contributed in her own way with the wildly “effective” Just Say No campaign.

The U.S. Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which allocated $1.7 billion to the War on Drugs and established a series of “mandatory minimum” prison sentences for various drug offenses. A notable feature of mandatory minimums was the massive gap between the amounts of crack and powder cocaine that resulted in the same minimum sentence: possession of five grams of crack led to an automatic five-year sentence. In comparison, it took the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger that sentence. Since approximately 80% of crack users were African American, mandatory minimums led to an unequal increase in incarceration rates for non-violent Black drug offenders, as well as troubling indications that the War on Drugs was fundamentally racist.

This is not a Republican or Democratic policy issue; it is shared across the political spectrum.

When the use of civil process to seize drug dealers’ assets became available, it was like winning the lottery. We took cars and cash and, as the theory held, used them to enhance drug investigations. Making drug dealers pay for the investigations into drug dealing seemed genius.

It turned out to be our own form of addiction. Many agencies became more focused on seizing the assets to pay their budgets than on stopping drugs. They lost sight of the goal. If an agency became aware of a kilo of cocaine in a location, they could get a search warrant and seize it. But, if they waited a few days, they could seize the remaining cocaine AND get the money from the sale of the rest.

Don’t believe that happened? It did, all over the United States. A very astute Assistant U.S. Attorney in Rhode Island at the time predicted as much in a conversation we had one day.

Not every agency engaged in such questionable activity. Still, it was enough to create a challenge to effectiveness and a stain on the whole purpose.

Now I was a loyal soldier during these halcyon days of the war, having served in a police department and working in various units focusing on drug enforcement. But over time, it became apparent that we were fighting a single-front war on a multi-front battlefield.

The majority of people we arrested, while engaged in breaking the law, were as much slaves to the drugs as those in the higher echelons were to the revenue.

If one is going to fight a war, one needs a strategy that identifies the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses.

In the war on drugs, we face three enemies. First, those engaged in the manufacture and distribution of drugs, both domestic and foreign. Second, we face the powerful force of addiction. And lastly, we face an even more powerful force, greed.

Putting all of our resources into targeting just one aspect of this three-pronged front is self-defeating. Over the years, the type of drugs has changed, the methods of smuggling adapted, and the avenues for laundering the proceeds have grown more sophisticated. Yet we continue fighting with the same strategy.

It hasn’t made us drug-free. It has put us in the top five countries in terms of the number of individuals we incarcerate per capita. We are just behind El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan at 541 per 100k.

And, one might argue, one of the “benefits” to come from the war on drugs is private prisons. Now, there is something we should be proud to have invented. Good old capitalism at its best.

To put it in the context of a war. If we had focused all our efforts on fighting Japan during World War II, because it was the only nation that directly attacked us, what would have happened in Europe?

Some Presidential administrations and some state and local authorities recognize the need to expand the war to address these other fronts. But not consistently. Treatment facilities for addiction, alternative sentences for non-violent drug offenses, and targeting the banks, businesses, and financial institutions reaping the largesse of drug money are not conducive to public relations campaigns.

Blowing up boats makes for great theater, like a 21st-century Circus Maximus. It is all show and little substance. It makes people who don’t understand the complexities involved excited, gives the politicians a moment in the public spotlight (their own addiction,) and accomplishes nothing.

I dare say some would embrace the idea of putting drug dealers in the middle of a stadium and letting lions devour them for the entertainment of the masses. It would generate excellent TV ratings, even better than UFC. But it would have no effect on reducing the level of drugs being consumed in this country, would be another waste of efforts, and do nothing for the lions but make them lazy and fat.

 Our fifty-five-year war on drugs drags on, casualties mount—and not just the ones clinging to an overturned boat miles from shore—and we are no closer to our goal.

The Twelve-Year-Cycle Redux

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

Coming up on the twelve-year-cycle I wrote about here, https://joebroadmeadowblog.com/2019/01/24/an-american-twelve-year-memory-loss/, I wonder what 2028 will offer us?

The last time I wrote about this, 2016, we had just elected Trump to his first term. Somehow we survived, chose not to re-elect him to a second term, had four years of relative stability, then exhibited the most common symptom of insanity by repeating an action and expecting a different result.

I will give him this, we are not engaged in any active combat at the moment, but it would seem he desperately wants to try out the effectiveness of his renamed Secretary of War department by starting his own. (A bigly, better war. They say it’ll be the best war we ever had.)

We now find ourselves acting in the manner of enemies we long despised, where someone in the military chain of command orders a second strike to kill wounded combatants (I’ll grant the assumption for now, absent evidence to the contrary) in clear violation of the rules of engagement.

We have a President who supports the Secretary of War’s assertion that the decision for the second strike did not come from him, but from a field commander instead. This raises important questions about accountability and the chain of command in our military actions. There is no denial of the order. No announcement that this field commander has been relieved of duty pending an investigation. Nothing.

And keep in mind, while the designation of these alleged drug runners may be lawful, it does not mitigate the rules of engagement. Even if we assume the initial strike is lawful, no one has ever claimed these vessels posed a danger to the military assets engaged with them.

No one was shooting back at the Navy and one would be hard pressed to claim that two likely wounded men floating in the ocean posed any hazard to a 100,000 ton displacement aircraft carrier. They wouldn’t have even left a spot of the hull had they been run over by the ship (which would have been a less messy explanation of their demise.)

“Come to heading 250,”
“Aye aye sir,”
Bump!
“What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything”
“Sir, there’s a small red stain on the hull.”
“No worries, we’ll paint it later”

2028 is on the horizon. Let’s hope we regain our senses before then. A new President, not a recycled one, will (hopefully) take office. We have frightened the world enough for this cycle.

A Childish Miscreant and Menace in the Oval Office

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

We live in a time of chaos with a President whose behavior mirrors that of a petulant child rather than a statesman. The Oval Office, once a symbol of dignity and deliberation, becomes a stage for tantrums, impulsive decisions, and self-serving theatrics. The “childish miscreant” is not merely immature; they are dangerous in their recklessness, wielding power without restraint or reflection.

Want to make America great again? Then recognize that the single greatest threat to the success of that goal is sitting in the White House like Jabba the Hut.

If you agree with his policies (why and how do you even articulate his T.A.C.O. gyrations), then find someone with a modicum of civility and put them in the position. This poisoned tongue, inarticulate, uncouth, uncivil, unkempt, unkind, uncaring, unrefined, unsophisticated, unintelligent, unworldly, inept shell of a human is an embarrassment to this country, to the world, and to humanity.

The terms idiot, imbecile, moron, and their derivatives were formerly used as technical descriptors in medical, educational, and regulatory contexts. They have fallen out of favor, but I think we need to resurrect them to accurately describe the individual currently occupying the Oval Office.

There is something seriously deranged with that man, and more consequently, with any individual who can, with a straight face, ignore, tolerate, or justify the unmitigated idiocy of the verbal projectile vomit expelled from his mouth.

This poisoned tongue, inarticulate, uncouth, uncivil, unkempt, unkind, uncaring, unrefined, unsophisticated, unintelligent, unworldly, inept shell of a human is an embarrassment to this country, to the world, and to humanity.

Joe Broadmeadow

That anyone, A N Y O N E, in this country can stand silent in the face of him calling their fellow human beings retarded, piggy, stupid, or any other epithets is abhorrent. There is no justification, no rationalizing, no mitigating the damage this causes.

That anyone voted for this man after he openly and publicly mocked a handicapped individual is disgusting. And for those evangelicals out there who find it convenient to embrace this man because he echoes (but doesn’t practice) what you want to hear, I hope, should your belief turn out to be true, that you’re working on your defense for when your God asks you to explain your tolerance of this most unchristian behavior.

Those who either laugh it off as Trump being Trump or think it harmless are enablers. Those who are shocked by it but remain silent are cowards. Those who embrace it are the lowest form of life in the universe.

Suppose a high school freshman were to call someone retarded, or piggy, or stupid in front of the entire school, or mock a handicapped person. In that case, they’d be suspended in a heartbeat. But if you’re the President of the United States, using these terms against those who disagree or challenge him is somehow acceptable.

Until everyone in this country recognizes this boorish and uncivilized behavior for what it is and challenges it, this country will never be great again.