A Not-So-Grand Old Flag

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, easily divisible, with liberty and justice for some.

 

Every now and then, InSanity is inspired to create a new American flag that better represents the reality that has overtaken the country. Our most recent entry commemorated the fealty that administration department heads pledged to Donald Trump at a famously laughable cabinet meeting. Eight years ago, we proposed this alternative, little realizing that such a flag would be back in fashion in less than a decade.

Just when we think that things can’t get any worse or lower, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can always be counted on to prove us wrong. For months now, the agency has been deporting mothers and fathers — the parents of children born in this country and therefore United States citizens — whose only crime was to enter this country illegally to escape horrendous violence or unending poverty. The fact that they’ve been leading productive, responsible lives ever since — working, paying taxes, raising families, and contributing to their communities — apparently counts for nothing when it comes to the draconian enforcement of Trump’s January executive order. (See this October 24 account by a Yale senior whose father is now in the process of being deported.)

One has to ask what possible public interest is served by breaking up an intact family that has taken root in America and caused no harm. Whatever happened to the use of prosecutorial discretion, to common decency and compassion, to common sense? Has ICE gotten rid of all “the bad hombres” already and now has nothing better to do with its limited funds and resources than go after the hard-working parents of American children — even kids themselves, sick ones no less?

Reports surfaced this week about the arrest of a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who has lived in this country illegally since infancy. Rosamaria Hernandez was taken into custody at a Texas hospital where she underwent emergency gall bladder surgery. Border Patrol agents had stopped the ambulance she was riding in, followed it to the hospital, then waited outside her room until she recovered from surgery. Most patients would usually go home at that point but Rosamaria wasn’t able to: Agents arrested her and brought her to an immigrant detention center 150 miles away from where her parents live. (Update here.)

It’s hard not to conclude that the insensitivity, heartlessness, and cruelty on display in this situation is nothing other than the character of Donald J. Trump manifested as immigration policy. Our hypocritical narcissist of a president rants against athletes who take a knee or sit while the national anthem is played. Do actions like this, though, show any respect for what this country stands for? Or are they a stain on our most cherished values, an affront to all in whose name this is being done? We are a much better country than this, but for now, this latest flag is a symbol of what we’ve become.

If you’d like to voice your concerns, here is the telephone number ICE’s Office of Policy: (202) 732-4292. The White House comment line is at: 202.456.1111.

For an overview of existing or proposed Homeland Security policies governing unaccompanied children entering our country, please see this October 27 NY Times opinion piece.

 

Emergency Preparedness Kit

The enormous destructive power of hurricanes Harvey and Irma should make everyone realize the importance of having a fully stocked emergency preparedness kit ready at all times.

As a public service, InSanity is publishing here a list of essential tools and provisions that can protect one in the event of an impending disaster, e.g., whenever the current occupant of the Oval Office opens his mouth to speak.

 

1. Barf bag

Important to keep within easy arm’s reach for use at a moment’s notice. Be particularly alert for words and phrases alluding to love, God, the greatest, best, rotten or worst deal, inheriting a mess, law and order, draining the swamp, who knew, and foreign country that will pay for a wall on our southern border.

 

2. Duct tape

Recommended for taping over mouth so neighbors won’t be frightened by high-decibel, uncontrolled screaming.

 

3. Ice pack

Apply to chest as soon as temperature rises and blood begins to boil.

 

4. Pillow

Hang on wall to prevent injury when banging your head against it.

 

5. Rock or brick

Throw at TV, radio, or computer when sound becomes unbearable.

 

6. Ear plugs

Best alternative when only other choice is #5.

 

7. Blindfold

For covering eyes to prevent pain and lasting injury from looking directly at subject.

 

8. Current passport

Because you never know when leaving America on the next plane out is the best course of action.

 

9. Favorite drug or drink

Consume liberally once danger has passed and wait for rescue.

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Keep kit in a safe but readily accessible location known to all household members.

Refrain from eating or drinking anything while listening. Failure to do so may result in fatal choking, or the expulsion of solids and liquids through the nose with great force.

Shower as soon as possible afterwards to prevent possible contamination by toxic pollutants.

 

UPDATE, 12/25/17:

Also have kit handy whenever Vice-Sycophant Pence is speaking.

A Path Forward

 

A message I sent to the White House today:

Mr. President:

I congratulate you on your soon-to-be announced “path forward” on Afghanistan.

I think distributing thousands of flyers in that country featuring your scowling picture taken at Camp David among your military advisors will strike immediate fear into the hearts of not only the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS but also that two-bit psychopath (no, not you) leader of North Korea. You look so mean and presidential that even though none of them can read English (forgive my cosmopolitan bias), they’ll get the point and surrender immediately.

When I think of the American lives that will be saved, I can’t help but be proud that you are our Commander-in-Chief in these troubling times. I just hope that those around you will take the same precautions we must observe while viewing today’s eclipse, i.e., not looking directly at you, lest we be blinded.

Oh, I forgot, voting for you showed that we already are.

 

Independence Day

This photo pretty much sums up how I feel about our country today.

We live in a dark time with someone who is manifestly unfit for the Oval Office and enough people who don’t see this as a problem. If there is any “carnage” at all going on now, it’s the assault on truth, reason, decency, integrity, and compassion being led by our so-called Commander-in-Chief.

Contrary to popular myth, a frog will jump out of a pot of water that is gradually raised to the boiling point. What will it take for America to do something similar?

The Joke’s on Us

In his June 23, 2017 column for New York magazine, Andrew Sullivan makes a compelling argument that Trump’s domestic and foreign policy agenda is driven by the need to undo whatever Obama did. Sullivan refrains from offering any reasons for the president’s spite, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it all dates back to the needling that #44 subjected yet-to-be #45 at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2011 (the same night, incidentally, that the Osama bin Laden raid took place). Witnesses report that the Well-Coiffed One sat stiffly throughout Obama’s hilarious monologue, which Ivanka would probably call “vicious” today.

Knowing what we now know about the notoriously thin-skinned, perpetually victimized narcissist who sits in the White House tweeting and watching TV news, it doesn’t sound at all far-fetched. Wonderful, isn’t it, to realize that withdrawing from the Paris Accord on climate change, betting the future on fossil fuels, shredding the safety net, rolling back civil rights protections, ripping families of American citizens apart by deporting one or both immigrant parents, insulting our NATO allies, cozying up to murderous dictators, gifting the 1% with enormous tax cuts, undermining prison, police, and Wall Street reform, gutting environmental, food and workplace safety protections, sabotaging public schools, and withdrawing critical support from world health programs, is because someone couldn’t take a joke.

That would be a joke in itself if the consequences weren’t so grave and it wasn’t the least bit funny.

InSanity Exclusive!!!!!

InSanity has recently discovered that after journalists were asked to leave Monday’s cabinet meeting—Trump’s first—a TOP SECRET directive was unanimously adopted by those in attendance. This was the session, you recall, when agency heads went around the table pledging fealty to Herr the president. Typical of their comments were these by Reince Priebus, chief of staff, and Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services, respectively:

We thank you for the opportunity and blessing to serve your agenda.

* * *

Mr. President, what an incredible honor it is to lead the Department of Health and Human Services at this pivotal time under your leadership. I can’t thank you enough for the privileges you’ve given me and the leadership you’ve shown.

What has not been previously reported however is that afterwards, everyone was asked to stand and repeat the following oath:

I pledge allegiance to Donald Trump, the esteemed leader of the United States, and to the plutocracy for which he stands, one nation, ripe for plundering, its wealth and resources for the chosen few.

(This was reportedly the same pledge that His Excellency Trump had asked of former FBI director James Comey at their now infamous White House meeting in January.)

Sources also tell us that Betsy DeVos, US Secretary of Education, was so enamored of the pledge that her department is now drafting legislation mandating that all schools require students to recite it every morning before the Lord’s Prayer.

 

The Real Climate Change Hoax

Ever since the Fraud-in-Chief took the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords, everyone’s been asking: Does Trump still think that climate change is a hoax? Frankly, who cares: The man has already demonstrated numerous times that he doesn’t think, that his most consequential decisions are based solely on his personal pathologies rather than the nation’s well-being.

To me, the more critical matter is the lie that he and his mindless minions are peddling to justify the withdrawal — claiming that it’s a bad deal for America. Really? The last time I looked, the accord represents aspirational, voluntary emissions and energy-saving targets that each country has pledged to strive for; absent are any regulations that require a nation to take specific actions, or penalties if its goals aren’t met. It contains nothing, in fact, that would prevent the U.S. from continuing to follow the administration’s current misguided policies. Why pass up a golden opportunity though to make — not one, not two — but almost two hundred enemies at once. The man is the most powerful man of the most powerful nation in the world but is always playing the perpetual victim.

The U.N.’s Green Climate Fund, which this country had pledged three-billion dollars to, is designed to help poorer countries mitigate the effects of climate change. The US contribution was the largest of all countries and Trump railed against it. However, it works out to only $10/citizen, eleventh compared to other industrialized nations whose per capita grant was greater. Sweden and Luxembourg, for example, top the list at almost $60/person. The fund is not only a matter of fairness but a crucial investment in Earth’s future.

Trump also declared that the accord was a huge transfer of wealth from us to other nations? Not even close. One has only to look at his tax cut proposals, weighted as they are to mostly the top 1%, to realize that this is just another one of his many projections that show up in rants and tweets.

The administration’s big lie excludes any calculations that consider the jobs to be gained in renewable energies and the enormous cost of storm and environmental damage, and greater incidence of disease, that are likely to result from rising temperatures. No mention either of the global instability that is bound to occur and create unimaginable pressures on nations more fortunate. When world-wide disaster looms just over the horizon, it is a complete absence of moral responsibility to double down on the fossil fuel industry.

The ad nauseam repetition of White House BS taking points needs to be called out for what it is: An Orwellian inversion of the truth that is the death knell of a healthy, functioning democracy.

Two Tools for the Resistance Tool Kit

From The ActionNetwork.org comes this useful town hall locator that tells you when and where a member of Congress is holding a public meeting for constituents.

And if you’re ever home at night wishing there was a rally or protest you could attend the next day if it weren’t too distant, or some meaningful mass action you could join without leaving your home, be sure to check out the Resistance Calendar, courtesy of Michael Moore.

One month into this presidential nightmare, our voices must not be silenced.