My Sunday Feeling

That didn't take long did it?  

Yesterday former KKK leader David Duke crawled out from under a rock somewhere in St. Tammany Parish to announce that he was running for the  Senate seat vacated by the equally loathsome David Vitter down there in the Pelican State.  In his remarks to the press after filing he stated that he was running "because the climate in this country has moved in [his] direction."  The nomination of Donald Trump as the standard bearer of what was formerly referred to with a straight face as the "Party of Lincoln"was all the proof he said he needed of this.  

I've written about Duke before.  Back when I was at Tulane, Duke owned and operated a bookstore in Metarie which specialized in white supremacist literature in Metro.  I seem to recall that he and some other "boys in the hood" came on campus for a demonstration which didn't amount to anything.  Tulane, being a private school, did not have-shall we say?-the constitutional duty to let Duke exercise his First Amendment rights on its campus.  Also, rumor had it back in those days that he was an informer for the FBI.  

So actually, there's nothing you could tell me about Mr. Duke that I wouldn't believe.  I think he's a stone con artist who may or may not believe the stuff he puts out.  But don't take my word for it.  

Because David Duke is a felon.  He did time as a guest of the Feds after pleading guilty to mail fraud and filing a false income tax return in 2002.  During 1993 to 1999, he convinced his weak-minded followers who weren't otherwise tapped out from giving to televangelists that he was broke and about to lose his home.  

This, of course, was not true.  

Indeed he had sold his home for a profit.  So what did he use the money for?  Gambling at casinos for the most part.  Really. And now he has the gall to run for the United States Senate.  

Then again, this is Louisiana and he is running to replace a scumbag like Vitter.  

Anyway, you would think that disavowing the candidacy of a racist criminal like David Duke would be the easiest thing in the world.  Indeed, it is for this reason that the Louisiana GOP and the Republican National Convention swiftly did just that.  I'm writing this at 5:30 CDT Saturday evening.  I checked before sitting down at the laptop and as of this writing we haven't heard "boo" out of the Trump campaign on this issue.

I mean, what is so hard here? Is it easier to refer to Hillary Clinton as "crooked?" How so?  David Duke DID TIME FOR SWINDLING HIS CONSTITUENTS OUT OF MONEY.  "Hillary as crook" may be a meme that resonates to those in the GOP that require red meat in their diets.  Duke's criminality, along with his racism, real or showbiz, are a matter of public record. 

So what's so hard Donald?  Maybe sometime tonight I will read that you indeed joined the GOP establishment (for once) and that you have denounced David Duke's candidacy.  Good for you.  What took you so long?

To me, that's the issue.  Duke does not have a snowball's chance in Hell of pulling this off.  He's been running for statewide elections and losing down there for as long as I can remember.  

Nope. To me the issue is what's taking Trump so long to denounce David Duke and his assertion that the advent of Donald Trump as presidential timber proves that the country has moved in Mr. Duke's direction?

How is this hard?

I mean really?

My Sunday Feeling

Sometimes words are inadequate.  Or at least they are in the hands of someone as unskilled as me.  

What a terrible week for institutional America.  Or what is left of it.  

I'm just kind of numb.  

M said that she just wants to gather her family in and protect it.  She graciously includes me in that number.  But we both know she can't do that.  We know we have to go out into the world.  

But what a world.  

The Presidential election has already worn me out.  And it is not yet August.  The presumptive nominee of the Republican party is a xenophobic narcissist par excellence who consorted with mob types in his real estate career.  He is easily the least qualified candidate for the Presidency since-I dunno-I'm thinking-I dunno.  Hellfire.  Even Aaron Burr had qualifications. And now what the R's refer to still with a straight face as the "Party of Lincoln" even as their presumptive standard bearer is the second coming of IL Duce.  

On the other side of the coin, Hillary and her omnipresent shadow Bill, can't keep from shooting themselves in the feet when they could be coasting to the finish line.  My original plan a couple of days ago was to give a lawyerly explanation of why there was no criminal case against Hillary.  As in nada.  Zero.  Not from the criminal side.  Not from the Constitutional side.  Complete probable loser from the prosecution trial prep side of it.  

But that would have resulted in the usual Facebook explosion.  And I don't care enough about somebody who can't seem to stay out of her own way at times to waste time defending her.  Not that I would be defending her.  I would just be explaining things.

But then again, facts don't matter.  


Really.  Facts don't matter.  Not in a world where some folks consider it unfairly divisive to consider that a disproportionate number of black folks seem to get whacked during routine traffic stops.  Not when a Trump billboard around Morgan says that "The Only Reason That Hillary Isn't In Prison Is Because She Is A Female Democrat."  

Really?  That's what politics have dumbed down to?  

And then in Dallas cops, providing security for a peaceful march protesting the aforementioned, get gunned down by an African-American Army vet trained in the use of a tactical weapon who wanted to kill white cops.  Parse that sentence if you will. Oh. And get this.  There just happened to be an African-American guy wearing camo in the vicinity who was openly and legally carrying an AR-15.    Which in Texas you can do.  Talk about timing.  He immediately became a suspect.  As the kids say, "Yeah, right?"

Yeah, no.  This idiot, who is lucky that he wasn't blown into next January, is talking about suing for defamation.  Of course he is.  Is this a great country or what?

The police eventually sent a robot armed with a bomb to explode in the area in a parking garage in which the shooter had barricaded himself.  

Predictably, there was stuff on FB about how this was excessive force.

Like hell it was.  The line between law enforcement and war got really thin at that point.  I'm good with the resolution.  Then again I'm a law enforcement person.  I'm also widely considered to be what passes for a "liberal." I see no contradiction. Why is everything a zero-sum game?

I'll tell you why.  Because you don't have to think when you reduce the world to black and white. 

M is a woman who in the words of a friend upon meeting her said she "radiates peace." M's immediate reaction to all of this madness is to express a desire to, as I said, gather us all unto herself.  

But she is a Deacon in the One True Universal and Apostolic United Methodist Church. She knows the world must be confronted.  Me too.  We just confront it in different ways.  

But for now, with all of this sadness.  With all of this lunacy on the Internet passing for journalism.  With all these experts in the criminal law popping off on Facebook. 

I'm just numb.  

So I'm good with M pulling me and her kids within the arc of her long arms.  

I'm lucky.  It passes for safe.  It will do for awhile.