Month: May 2018

My mother, now spirit, a saying she had
Whenever our room looked untidy and bad
With dust in the corners and dirt in the nooks:
“The longer it stays there the cleaner it looks.”

Of late I’ve had reason of that to recall
Regarding Trump’s lies, his insufferable gall
His racial remarks, narcissistic extremes
The more times it’s heard, the more normal it seems

His clear disregard for the laws of the land
The use of his office to feather his hand
The requisite loyalty that Trump requires
A new norm for Presidents and who aspire

I look at the Congress, Republicans weak
Permitting the President havoc to reek
It was, once, their duty to check President’s
But that’s been replaced with obeisant assent

The path to dictatorship, norm by lost norm
With falsehoods abounding, truth lost in the storm
With dust in the corners and dirt in the nooks
The longer it stays there the cleaner it looks

5/30/18

In honor of Memorial Day

But Man Is Not a Warrior

An apology to Dr. Oded Levine
Killed on the Golan Heights, June, 1969

Machines of war are systems analyzed
Produced by real and artificial brains
And cost effectiveness is optimized
As measured by the numbers that are slain

But man is not a number
It is hard for him to die –
Leaves his wife in restless slumber
And his children wonder why

We statisticians kill in likelihoods
We politicians waste the world with words
We scienticians spill tomorrow’s blood
We soldiers die now, heroes of the sword

But man is not a warrior
He is tiller of the soil
He is teacher, worker, lawyer –
His, the world’s constructive toil

The words we use are awful words to use
The jargon of our trade reeks battle stench
We have no choice; we ply the art or lose –
Our bones would early fill the burial trench

But man is not just cartilage
He is spirit free to choose –
He, creative to the challenge
Need not suffer such abuse

We analysts must model games of peace
We men of research heal the hunger pain
We statesmen build the bridge to span the breach
So soldiers should not have to fight again

For man is man unequaled
Though his life a spark of time
His to mend the earth to peaceful
By the powers of his mind

5/27/18

Some people expect that Pres. Trump will retire
When Mueller’s results are complete and revealed
Some say if impeached, that would be his desire
But I disagree. His high post he won’t yield

Presume that the democrats win back the House
‘Though that’s not a given, despite the blue wave
And Reps. in the Senate, the Dems. soundly trounce
Although it’s the Senate the Reps. likely save

So Trump gets impeached for his multiple crimes
Unless there’s a real smoking gun in his hands
The Senate won’t act to convict him this time
It takes two-thirds vote or the charge will not stand

What’s more, Trump would run in the year twenty twenty
And having survived, it would add to his base
Given Trump’s domination of news he’d get plenty
Of votes, with, perhaps, just enough for first place

This scenario’s likelihood’s not too far out
Expect Trump to be there to run in two years
A chance: four more years of political drought
Would democracy die? Democrats likely fear

Just like radiation applied to a cancer
That kills all the good cells and bad cells alike
And pushes the patient quite close to disaster
From which she recovers to start a new life

That may be the impact of Trump’s term(s) as Pres.
He degrades institutions and disregards norms
But when said and done, what will sprout from his mess
Will be pristine democracy freshly reborn

5/26/18

As part of Trump’s penchant for busting through norms,
Those mini traditions that lubricate life,
His new violations are causing a storm
Of real consternation, political strife

The laws and traditions of our institutions
Trump blithely destroys in pursuit of his aims:
To profit illegally from his position
And those in the Justice Department defame

Pres. Trump had demanded regarding this guy,
Informant on Russia’s contacts with Trump’s people,
An investigation by his FBI
Trump’s claims of conspiracy, untrue and feeble

The norm is that President’s don’t interfere
With investigations that Justice performs
But Mueller’s activities fill Trump with fear
When Trump is demanding, to Hell with the norms

Tomorrow’s the meeting to meet Trump’s demands
For info on who Trump has labeled a spy
To then be released to Republican hands
Intent on discrediting the FBI

But I think they’ll all come away empty handed
Since Rosenstein’s clever and won’t violate
The norms of his office. He’ll give as demanded
Though valid, the data will nothing relate

5/24/18

A correspondent smartly dubbed our President, one Donald Trump
Reflecting Donald’s recent tweet, “he’s our demander”, tweet, “in chief “
But Donald didn’t draft his tweet; its English was beyond Trump’s reach
My guess it was Sean Hannity who hatches tales to make Trump jump

Pres. Trump demanded FBI to look within and find the spy
Embedded in the Trump campaign. He blamed Obama for this deed
‘Twas based on an informant who reported to the FBI
Some conversations with Trump people, possibly a Russian lead

The public naming of informants is a criminal offense
It undercuts their privacy and they’ll not chance the FBI
With news they’ve gathered secretly whose relevance can’t be denied
Once trust is gone it won’t return. For that there is no recompense

But Trump is desperate, more each day; of damage from demands, he’s dumb
He’s hiding stuff can’t be revealed, corruption from his past, my guess
And he’ll do anything it takes, from this onslaught not to succumb
Our institutions that held sway, he violates; he could care less

Indelible corruption is the hallmark of Pres. Donald Trump
I’ve hereby labeled him as being “Lying President Corrumpt “

5/21/18

Since posting “It Happened There Just Yesterday” two days ago, I have been carrying on Email discussions with several Jewish BLOG readers, some more strongly Zionistic and some more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight. For the benefit of all of you I reference here two relevant articles that I found worth reading: one by Bret Stephens and one by Donniel Hartman

Too many a serious subject tonight
For justice to do them all tidy and tight
Trump’s Qatar extortion, Kim’s stringing of Trump
Another flipped target, Avenatti’s new dump

There’re more but let’s start with the Qatar tale, sad
Not too long ago Charles Kushner, Jared’s dad
Asked the Emirate, Qatari, to make an investment
To bail out his real-estate’s due mortgage payments

Some hundreds of millions was all it would take
But Qatar said no, a bad deal they’d not make
So Trump turned against them and praised the blockade
Of Qatar by the Saudis; in tweets Trump relayed

Of course Qatar crumbled, gave up and agreed
To make the investment, whatever they need
Good graces with Trump now, the blockade rejected
Successful extortion? What else is expected?

Young Kim is a master at out trumping Trump
When he pulls the string puppet Donald does jump
He egged Trump along promising to de-nuke
Trump desires this badly, can’t afford now to lose

So Kim played his trump: ridding nukes he won’t do
And there won’t be a summit if he must de-nuke
What concessions Trump offers remain to be seen
Like a fiddle Kim plays him; it’s too easy it seems

Two subjects additional meant for tonight
But they’ll have to wait for another time right
I’d say a lot more, since there’s more to be said
But I’m just too tired and I’m heading for bed.

5/17/18

All lives matter, even those of tiny Gaza Strip
It’s wrong to come to judgement solely based on cable news
I know Hamas’s provocations: demonstrators egged to riot,
Human waves of desperate Gazans trying to penetrate the border
Even so, it baffles me why lethal force was necessary
Several dozen Gazans dead and hundreds more were wounded
It happened there just yesterday

Jerusalem, the sacred city of the Jewish faith
For multiple millennia
The capital of Israel, a phoenix nation now reborn
The seat of Israel’s Knesset, i.e. Parliament
Against advice political, Pres. Trump decreed Jerusalem
To be officially the site where we would move our embassy
It happened there just yesterday

Jerusalem, is sacred, also, to the Christians, not just Jews
And to the Muslims equally, all Abrahamic faiths
The Arab Palestinians claim Israel to be their home
Jerusalem their capital. They left in forty eight
Some on their own and some forced out, eternal refugees
They demonstrated desperately against the U.S. move
It happened there just yesterday

All efforts in the past have failed, to draft a peace accord
That Israel and Palestine could both agree was just
The Trump approach: full speed ahead, let chips fall where they may
He has a plan, not yet revealed , for peace achievable
The message: Palestinians, it won’t get any better
So, while you can; this is your chance,
It’s now or likely never

5/15/18

 

Let’s talk on Gina Haspel, Dep. Director, CIA
Who Trump has nominated CIA, in charge, on top
It now appears she’ll be confirmed when Senate has its say
For those who righteously opposed her I will offer thought

Ms. Haspel oversaw the site in Thailand, a black site
What’s called “enhanced interrogation”, torture took place there
A terrorist, Abu Zubayda, tortured day and night
It’s still not known if what he told brought any truth to bare

The question raised in Haspel’s hearing: torture, is it moral?
Her answer: at the time, ‘twas legal as the lawyers deemed it
But since that time the laws have changed; it’s totally illegal
And if confirmed, no matter what, such programs she’d prohibit

The issue goes much deeper than this recent Senate hearing
Ones moral compass up against the standing rule of law
Are all moralities the same? They’re not; they’ve different bearings
That’s why we’ve laws to govern us, although they, too, have flaws

Ms. Haspel did as she was ordered as was legal then
The means, they thought, were justified to yield important ends
Morality’s not relevant with tasks that may offend
We are a nation ruled by laws on which our lives depend

5/13/18

The URL of the article didn’t come through on the Email of the posting.

A Poelitics BLOG follower Jared, recommended an article by Caroline B. Glick of the Jewish World Review concerning Natanyahu’s recent presentation on Iran’s nuclear intentions. He also expressed sentiments similar to my own recent thoughts on Trump’s bullying of other foreign leaders. These both have influenced this poem.

A Poelitics BLOG follower Jared, recommended an article by Caroline B. Glick of the Jewish World Review concerning Natanyahu’s recent presentation on Iran’s nuclear intentions. He also expressed sentiments similar to my own recent thoughts on Trump’s bullying of other foreign leaders. These both have influenced this poem.

Despicable is used by some describing Trump’s demeanor
A liar pathological some say exuding scorn
A narcissistic bully and a retribution schemer
All negative domestically, not so when dealing foreign

To paraphrase Jared’s remarks, a bully, sometimes two
Like Trump and Natanyahu, both unsubtle in the acts
They’ve taken up against Iran, a major bully too
Regime change is their worthy goal, so let’s review some facts

Pres. Trump undid the nuke accord; new sanctions soon he pledged
And Israel bombed in Syria armed forces from Iran
It also pilfered documents from secret storage sheds
Preserving nuke production knowhow, Persia’s future plan

Bibi’s presentation wasn’t meant for Trump’s consumption
As channel commentators , smug, so righteously presumed
‘Twas aimed, instead, inside Iran to foment agitation
To bring about regime change from within with leaders doomed

Both Trump and Natanyahu see a different resolution:
(Not the misconception of those channeling their views)
To grow the unrest in Iran into a revolution
No need for war, bully for them; let’s hope it will be news

5/12/18