What would Jesus do?

Attorney General and all-around bigot Jeff Sessions attempted to defend the parent-child separations that are taking place on the southern border this week by citing a passage from the Bible:

"I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes," Sessions said. "Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves. Consistent, fair application of law is in itself a good and moral thing and that protects the weak, it protects the lawful. Our policies that can result in short-term separation of families are not unusual or unjustified."

I'm not a religious person, but I've read The Bible from beginning to end three times, and this is not so hard to understand. Christians simply need to ask themselves one question:

What would Jesus do?

Whether you believe that Jesus was the son of God, a prophet, or simply a smart and righteous guy, his teaching, as presented in The Bible, is unwavering and unambiguous.

Would Jesus separate a child from their parents?

Would Jesus refuse to bake a cake for two men who loved each other and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together? 

Would Jesus, a refugee himself, send asylum-seekers back their home country and an almost certain death?

Would Jesus cut permanently cut taxes on the wealthy while offering fractional, temporary tax cuts to middle class?

Would Jesus have voted for a man who brags about sexual assault? Defrauds Americans with a fake university? Lies constantly? Commits adultery with porn stars and then pays them off with hush money? Stands accused of sexual assault but almost two dozen women? Insults Gold Star families, war veterans, the disabled, and women? Refused to rent apartments to black families? Demands costly military parades? Befriends brutal dictators who have locked up hundreds of thousands of his citizens in gulags?

If Christians simply applied the "What would Jesus do?" question (and perhaps in some cases actually read The Bible instead of trusting the teaching of politically motivated religious leaders) to these policy decisions, the choices would be clear.

No, Jeff Sessions. The Bible does not support your barbaric policy of separating children from their parents on the border. Jesus would never do such a thing, and "What would Jesus do?" is is the only Biblical standard that should apply to Christians and/or bigots who attempt to use The Bible to defend their barbarity.  

Ruth and Bush

This is a photograph of future President George H. W. Bush and Babe Ruth in 1948. 

The cancer-stricken Babe Ruth donated an original manuscript of his autobiography to Yale University. He presented the gift during an on-field ceremony at Yale Field, where he was greeted by the Bulldogs’ baseball team captain, George H.W. Bush.

I love this photograph. I love to imagine what these two men - the greatest baseball player in history and the war hero-turned Yale scholar - were thinking this day. What were their lives like? Did they have any idea that the lives of two historic men were intersecting that day? Did they have any idea how they would both be forever remembered by history?

Ruth would die months later from his cancer, though his legacy and records have stood the test of time.

Bush would go on to be President of the United States, and 70 years later, is still alive and kicking. 

It's photos like this that make me yearn for a time machine so I could go back to that moment and see all that a photograph does not allow you see or experience.

So many white people...

The White House hosted military spouses last week. Here is a photograph of the group, released by the White House.

View fullsize

Noticing anything odd? 

It's admittedly odd that the entire group appears to be female, given that about 15% of the armed forces is female, so there are presumably some male military spouses in America. 

But much more disturbing is the color of this group. America's armed forces are 40% non-white. The odds of a group of 52 military spouses containing no people of color are about 1 in 300 billion. 

My physicist friend Charles calculated it for me. 

The only way this group doesn't include a single non-white members is if the White House deliberately avoided inviting non-white spouses.

The blatant racism of Donald Trump and his administration never ceases to amaze me.

Then again, let us not forget the color of the White House and Republican Congressional interns for last year. 

Constantly frowning and avoiding dogs at every turn

Grammar is important, especially when it comes to the design of memorial plaques. Ignore a few basic rules of grammar and you could end up with this:

A woman who both never saw a dog in her entire life and never cracked a smile.

Quite the departure from what this foundation was presumably intending. 

When I asked my nine year-old daughter to read this and tell me what she thinks of Nicole Campbell, she said, "A grumpy, dead person."

The best way to rewrite this plaque is probably this:

In loving memory of
Nicole Campbell
Who never saw a dog that didn't make her smile

"Who never saw a dog without smiling" also works, but I like the seemingly irresistibility of dogs that the first option implies. 

Either is far better than portraying Nicole Campbell as some unsmiling monster who managed to avoid dogs for her entire life. 

When the words are important and permanent, you need to get it right. 

The Trump administration has been the most type-ladened organization that I've ever seen. Not only is Trump's Twitter feed ("official statements" according to his press secretary) filled with capitalization, spelling, and punctuation errors, but typos abound in this administration.

Just last week, Sarah Huckabee Sanders read a statement containing this:

“Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world and from its own people.”

Unfortunately, the "has" was supposed to be "had."

Big difference. 

A statement from Sanders’s office on the death of former first lady Barbara Bush was dated April 17, 2017, a full year prior to her death.

A White House press release last May said that Donald Trump was traveling to Israel to promote “the possibility of lasting peach.” 

A lasting peach sounds great, but not quite as good as lasting peace in the Middle East. 

An ever-updating list of public typos and spelling errors, verbatim, from the Trump White House, can be found here.

 My favorite so far is Trump's official inauguration portrait. At a time when he was forced to lie about his lackluster inauguration attendance and his post-inauguration parade route was so visibly devoid of human beings, Trump released his portrait containing a typo so obvious that you had to wonder if anyone in the new administration had a brain. 

A dose of 1850's racial politics to start my day

Five minutes ago, at 5:34 AM, my nine year-old daughter, Clara, walked down the stairs, sat beside me, and the first words out of her mouth were these:

"Hey Daddy, I was reading about Harriet Tubman yesterday, and I was wondering:  Why did the northern states agree to pass The Fugitive Slave Law even though the north wanted to abolish slavery?"

Just how I wanted to start my day. 

I'm starting to think that she reads too much. 

Philosophy explained. For real.

I'm not a philosopher by training, but I studied philosophy in college and have continued to pursue my study to varying degrees in my personal life.

This does not make me an expert.

But if I were to teach a class on philosophy on the high school or college level, I would use this board as both the syllabus and the final. It's a brilliant, succinct, and amusing summary of the general tenants of philosophy.

I love it so much. 

Eleven is evil.

Just after the United States launched missile strikes against Syrian chemical weapons facilities, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said, "I've never seen refugees as traumatized as coming out of Syria. It’s got to end."

Sure, but over the last three years, the number of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States has been this:

2016: 15,479
2017: 3,024
2018: 11

Even though decades of immigration data and almost every economist in the world will tell you that refugees bring added wealth and prosperity to a nation through entrepreneurship, hard work, and an increasingly robust tax base, and even though Jesus himself was a refugee, Trump has all but stopped the flow of Syrian refugees to our country, and his Evangelical base continues to support him through this cruel and evil process.

Hush money paid to porn stars and Playmates. Accusations of sexual harassment and sexual assault from more than two dozen women. Bragging about sexually assaulting women. 

Evangelicals reject the veracity of these mounting charges and somehow sleep soundly at night. 

But you can't refute these immigration numbers. America has stopped saving the lives of Syrian refugees, despite our ability to do so, despite the economic logic of doing so, and despite the Secretary of Defense's claim that he's ""never seen refugees as traumatized as coming out of Syria. It’s got to end."

From 15,479 to 11. 

It's despicable. 

And this isn't really an issue of immigration because Trump himself stated that he would like more immigrants from places like Norway than "shit hole countries" like Syria. Trump has made his position very clear:

We will take immigrants from the wealthiest, most stable countries in the world, but your tired, your poor, and your huddled masses? 

Not so much. 

Then again, Syrian refugees pose another real problem for Trump:

Just like Jesus, they aren't white, and they aren't Christian. 

Since racism or religious bigotry are a hallmark of this administration, you can see why it would be hard for Trump to accept these brown skinned, Muslim refugees.

When you launched your political career with lies about Muslims on rooftops during 9/11 and been charged multiple times by the federal government with housing discrimination because of your refusal to rent to African Americans, it's clear that Syrian refugees aren't going to sit well with xenophobe in the White House.    

Meanwhile, men, women, and children die in Syrian refugee camps. These are men, women, and children who are willing to come to our country and work long and hard for a better life. 

I don't believe in a heaven and hell, but if they exist, this is the kind of thing that would cause a person to burn in eternity for sure. 

Good news/bad news on the exoneration front

Good news: 

Lawrence McKinney, 61, jailed for 31 years for a crime he did not commit - rape and burglary - has been awarded one million dollars in compensation from the state of Tennessee.

A decidedly different outcome from Lamont McIntyre's fate, who I wrote about a couple weeks ago. 

Bad news:

It wasn't easy. And it almost didn't happen. 

Upon his release from prison, McKinney received just $75 after three decades behind bars.

"Because I had no ID it took me three months before I was able to cash it," McKinney told CNN.

After he was freed, Mr McKinney sought a full exoneration. This was the only way he could petition the state for a more appropriate settlement. But in 2016, a parole board unanimously voted against a full exoneration, even though all DNA evidence indicated he was not guilty of his crime. 

One board member defended their decision not to exonerate him with this gem:

"The victim's descriptions to police matched McKinney's description, to a tee."

However, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam reversed the parole board's verdict and unilaterally exonerated him in December 2017. Only then were McKinney's attorneys able to get him his one million dollar settlement. 

Had the governor not intervened, McKinney's $75 settlement would have stood. That amounts to .006 cents per day of incarceration. 

Six-thousands of a cent per day behind bars. 

Even now, the settlement of one million dollars amounts to just $88 per day, and once attorney's fees have been deducted, that amount is closer to $61 per day.

There is no way to return 31 years of a man's life, but the state can at least ensure that his remaining years are spent is relative leisure and comfort.  

Is that really too much to ask?

Recently, Nevest Coleman made news after being released from prison after 23 years thanks to DNA evidence and immediately returned to his job as Chicago White Sox groundskeeper. 

Coleman endured a 12-hour interrogation, during which he was punched by a detective when he denied any involvement in the killing.

Told he could go home if he confessed, Coleman was coached to say that two other men had carried out the murder while he acted as a lookout. Coleman gave a statement, then recanted as soon as his lawyer arrived, according to court records.

Coleman and co-defendant Darryl Fulton both gave confessions and were convicted of rape and murder, while a third suspect who did not confess, was never charged.

As a person who came precariously close to confessing to a crime he did not commit after hours of interrogation and false promises, I can't tell you how much I feel for those men. I know what it's like to be in that small room, desperate to escape, feeling like you never will. 

The same detectives who coerced Coleman and Fulton's confessions were involved in other questionable cases. Just last month, defendants arrested by the same detectives but later exonerated by DNA evidence reached a $31 million settlement with the city.

Colemman and Fulton have yet to learn how much they will receive. 

Hopefully more than a groundskeeper makes. 

Republican interns are white.

Look no further than the current crop of White House summer interns to understand precisely what hardline Republican immigration policies are all about. 

You need to aggressively disregard people of color to end up with the group of almost entirely white people. 

Lest you think this is an aberration, here is a photo of last year's White House interns. 

Note the striking similarity. 

And here is a photo of the Republican Congressional interns from last year. 

In case you're wondering what the Congressional interns for the Democrats looked like, here is their photo. 

Pretty much says it all. Don't you think?

It's always strange when state-run TV and the President aren't totally in sync

When state-run television Fox News publishes poll data like this, there should be absolutely no question about the will of the American people. 

Yet not a single one of these measures have been put into place. 

When the American people overwhelming support legislation, and that legislation does not happen, there is only one reason:

Money. 

Republican donors, including and especially the NRA, are blocking this legislation with threats to withdraw campaign donations, and politicians who favor dollars over the will and safety of constituents are allowing it to continue.  

Even more important, we must remember that when it comes to issues related to guns, America is not nearly as divided as Republicans and the NRA would have you believe. This poll - commissioned and published by Fox News - shows enormous consensus amongst Americans related to these basic, common sense measures.  

A large majority of Americans want gun reform. Reasonable, rationale, sensible gun reform. It's only a loud, political active minority with money to burn and the gutless, useless politicians who take their money who are preventing  it from happening. 

International Night: A reminder of what our country can and should be

Last night my family attended my school's first ever International Night.

I didn't know what to expect. I wasn't involved in the planning of this event, so when I arrived, I was blown away by all that we experienced. Lining the walls of the cafeteria and the hallway were booths featuring countries from around the world, each managed by students and families who originated from those countries. 

My school is filled with immigrants from all over the world:

Nepal, Israel, Peru, China, India, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Ireland, Vietnam, Mexico, Korea, Columbia and many, many more. 

Each one of these booths featured foods, information, and artifacts from the country, and it was staffed by adults and children who were excited to tell us all about their homeland.

Later, there were performances in a packed auditorium. We watched a Chinese yoyo demonstration, a martial arts demonstration, and lots and lots of dancing and music from all around the world. 

Elysha and the kids sat between a Nepalese family and two children from Vietnam. I watched one of my colleagues perform an Irish step dance. I chatted with folks from Poland, Peru, Columbia, and Mexico. 

Best of all, I didn't sit with my family. I chose to stand, partially because I wanted to be ready to take photos and videos of some of my student performers, but also because I wanted to watch my children's faces as they watched the performances. I love to see the wonder in Clara and Charlie's eyes as they watch something new and exciting, and these performances did not disappoint.

The little girl who loves learning about new countries and cultures was enthralled by every moment, and the boy who can't sit still for a single second sat still for nearly the entire time. It was as much fun to watch them as it was to watch the action taking place onstage.

It was a beautiful celebration of the many cultures that come together within our schoolhouse walls every day. 

We live in a country of immigrants, and this is one of our greatest blessings. My daughter ate Chinese moon cake and Irish cheese. She chatted with a student from China and asked questions from an immigrant of Sweden. Charlie was awestruck by the model of the Taj Mahal and stared in fascination at the Chinese yoyo. He "might want to learn to Irish step dance."  

What a remarkable evening of learning, connection, and understanding.

There are people in our country today who truly believe that America is a white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian nation, despite everything that our Funding Father's wrote and the long and storied history of the people who built this country. There are people in this country who would have us close our borders to the world, even when every economic study published states clearly and unequivocally that immigration strengthens a nation's economy. 

We have a President who would build a wall on our Southern border. We have a President who seeks to reduce immigration in our country to its lowest levels ever by removing family reunification systems and threatening DACA recipients by eliminating their protections. 

We have a President who routinely lies about the rate of illegal immigration and characterizes immigrants - documented and undocumented - in the most vile terms. 

We have a President who has been routinely deporting US military veterans because of their immigration status. They are good enough to risk their lives for us in Afghanistan and Iraq but not good enough to continue to reside in this country.    

Their country. 

Last night was a bold reminder about how beautiful our country can be when people of different cultures come together for a common cause. My heart and spirit were lifted last night as I looked across an auditorium that was awash in every color under the rainbow and saw nothing but smiling, happy faces.

New Evangelical definition of marriage

Just so we're clear:

Evangelicals now believe that marriage is between a man, his third wife, a porn star, and a Playboy model.

March For Our Lives 2018

Elysha and I didn't attend the March for Our Lives yesterday. Thankfully, blessedly, our two children are unaware of the Parkland shooting and all that has happened in response. We've done our best to shield them from this unfortunate reality for as long as possible.

Preservation of childhood innocence. A chance to move through the world with a little less anxiety and fear.   

But that didn't stop me from following the marches online, which her extraordinary. We live in a challenging time, but yesterday's march, and The Women's March, and the students walk-out last week give me great hope. 

The American people are politically motivated and activated in a way I have never seen before. Young people want to change the world, and they have the tools today to do it. It gives me great hope for a brighter, better future.

Also, I think protest signs are fantastic. A burgeoning art form. Here are my favorites from yesterday. 

CO2 is apparently like candy

This organization staked out a booth at the recent Republican CPAC conference. 

This is what happens when you lie and deceive for profit until you can't lie and deceive anymore:

 You invent a new lie so you can continue destroying the planet for profit.  

The Georgia Senate is controlled by bigots in the pocket of the NRA

In the last two weeks, the Georgia Senate has made two unfortunate decisions:

Last week, they approved a bill eliminating a tax break for Delta Air Lines after Delta eliminated its discount program for NRA members.

Delta offered discounts to NRA members flying to their annual meeting. In 2017, this discount was utilized by a total of 13 people. As a result of Delta's decision, they will lose about $20 million dollars in savings per year.

To Delta's credit, they doubled down on their decision, issuing the following statement:

“Our decision was not made for economic gain and our values are not for sale, We are in the process of a review to end group discounts for any group of a politically divisive nature.” 

Two weeks ago, the Georgia Senate has passed a measure that gives adoption agencies the right not to work with LGBTQ couples.

There are more than 100,000 children in foster care in America awaiting adoption, and every year, about half of those kids are adopted. The average wait time for a foster child to be adopted is 7.7 years. Nevertheless Georgia senators feel it's better to keep these children in foster care rather than allowing two women or two men in a loving relationship to adopt them. 

You know... because same sex marriage is a sin. The Bible says it, so it must be true. 

Just like the Bible endorses: 

Slavery: “Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.” (1 Peter 2:18)

Misogyny: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Timothy 2:12) 

Infanticide: "For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him." (Leviticus 20:9)

Discrimination against the disabled: "He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord."(Deuteronomy 23:1)

I've been to Georgia several times in my life. I've spent time on Georgia beaches and spent a weekend of hilarity in Atlanta.

I've enjoyed my time there, but I don't think I'll be returning anytime soon. 

The President of the United States relied on scripted empathy

Just in case you missed it, a Washington Post photographer managed to take this picture of the notes that Trump was holding while speaking to the parents of victims and survivors of gun violence in America's schools. 

Note #5 on the list:

"I hear you."

This is real. It's also terrifying.

Trump must rely on scripted empathy. Apparently a phrase like, "I hear you," was not immediately available to him. The narcissistic, egomaniacal, thin-skinned ignoramus is apparently not capable of expression empathy without the help of a staff member. 

Can you imagine another human being on the planet who would need help empathizing with the survivor of the Parkland shooting or the parent of the Sandy Hook victim?

Americans want greater gun control. Lawmakers do not.

When it comes to gun control, I have good news:

Americans are united.

In the most recent Quinnipiac poll:

97% of Americans support universal background checks.
83% of Americans support a mandatory waiting period on all gun purchases. 
66% of Americans support a ban on assault weapons.

In short, support for greater control has now hit a 10 year high.

This is also why so many teachers, students, and parents are enraged by the inaction of Congress. When public support for something like universal background checks is nearly 100% and we still don't have universal background checks, we no longer has representative democracy. 

Instead, we have a country run by special interests like the NRA who are paying politicians to behave in a specific way. 

Yesterday, while Stoneman Douglas students watched from the gallery, Florida legislators voted against moving a bill that would ban AR-15 rifles and other guns defined as "assault weapons" and large capacity magazines from committee to the House floor for questions, debate and a vote.

They didn't vote against the ban. They voted against debating and voting on the ban.

Why? They are cowards. They are afraid of a fight. They are afraid to debate gun control in a public forum. They are afraid to be held accountable by the vast majority of American voters who are demanding action. When the next school becomes a killing zone, they don't want to be on the record voting against a ban on the weapon that was used to slaughter students and teachers. 

Better to have students die barricading doors so other students can live.
Better to have teachers surrender their lives while protecting their students from a gunman.
Better to rely on thoughts and prayers than debate, research, expert testimony, and actual legislation.  

That way, they can still collect their blood money from the NRA and maintain their A+ grade.  

Fear not, Florida legislators. Despite your cowardice and inaction, there are plenty of courageous adults leaving for work this morning, ready to protect your students no matter what horror comes through their schoolhouse doors. 

As teachers, we can't remove an assault weapon from the hands of a killer.
We can't impose a universal background check before he purchases his gun.
We can't impose a mandatory waiting period before allowing him to purchase his gun.
We can't close the gun show and terrorist loopholes.

In short, we can't do all the things that the majority of Americans want done.

Instead, we can stand between students and bullets. We can think quickly and act wisely in the face of an attack. We can hide students and barricade doors. We can surrender our own lives in the preservation of student life. We can minimize the slaughter.

While you lack the courage to even debate and vote on gun control measures, we'll be busy protecting our students from the results of your cowardice and inaction.

Meet Antony Borges: American hero and a boy who has done more to curb gun violence in America than all of Congress.

Here is 15 year-old Anthony Borges, who was shot five times while protecting 20 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students by holding a classroom door shut to prevent shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz from entering.

Anthony Borges has done more to protect students from gun violence than every single member of Congress plus the President combined. While lawmakers in Washington offer their thoughts and prayers and accept millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the NRA, Anthony Borges placed his body between a killer carrying an assault weapon and his fellow students. 

While Congress refuses to even allow the CDC to study gun violence in America or move forward on their bipartisan agreement on banning bump stocks or close the gun show and terrorist loopholes, Anthony Borges turned his body into a human shield and saved lives.  

Anthony Borges is a hero. Our legislators in Congress and the President are cowards. Tools. Money-grabbing instruments of the National Rifle Association. 

Anthony Borges's Republican Senator, Marco Rubio, accepted $3.3 million dollars from the NRA last year and took to the Senate floor shortly after the shooting to explain who the assault weapon that pumped five bullets into Anthony Borges's body is not the problem. 

There is a GoFundMe account set up on behalf of Borges to support his long and difficult road to recovery. Both of his legs were shot, left upper thigh bone was shattered, and one bullet went through his back. As of this writing, Americans have donated 76,000 on Borges's behalf. 

Perhaps Marco Rubio should consider donating some of that $3.3 million dollars in NRA blood money to Borges. At the very least he could help an American who has actually done something to curb gun violence in America while he and his colleagues hunker down and hope this all goes away once again. 

I don't think it will go away this time. At least I hope not. The classmates of Anthony Borges, some of whom are alive today because of Anthony, are angry, and they are taking their case to the cowards in Washington. 

I will be standing with them. As a teacher in a public school who might one day be required to make the same sacrifice as Anthony Borges, the very least I should expect from lawmakers in Washington is debate. Deliberation. Research. Statistical studies. Expert testimony.

Legislation, goddamn it. Do something or go home. 

Anything but the silence and the inaction that the NRA buys year after year with their millions of dollars in donations to Republican tools like Marco Rubio.

Trump's attempts to gaslight Americans again. And again. And again.

Donald Trump spent the day and evening at his Florida resort yesterday attempting to gaslight the American people via Twitter. 

He's clearly a desperate man.

We need to be cautious and not allow this gaslighting to work. 

If you're unfamiliar, gaslighting is a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, hoping to make them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. Trump attempts this constantly by simply, unabashedly, and shamefully stating falsehoods that Americans know are untrue in hopes that the lies will eventually crystallize into fact. 

• It's why he claimed enormous inauguration day crowds when all evidence proved otherwise. 
• It's why he repeatedly claims his tax cuts are the biggest in history (not even close). 
• It's why he claims that immigrants commit more crimes than non-immigrants when this isn't even close to being true.

Say something often enough and uninformed, undiscerning people start to believe it's true. 

Here are yesterday's examples: 

These first tweets blame the Democrats for the DACA problem, even though the problem was directly and specifically caused by Trump's refusal to re-authorize DACA protections to Dreamers. We had a solution, designed by Democrats and effective for years, but Trump removed it, creating this problem that he promised not to create. 

Yes he takes no accountability in hopes that Americans will forget his failure to reauthorize the protections. 

These next tweets are the sign of a man who does not understand that innocent people don't constantly profess their innocence, particularly while simultaneously disparaging the very organization investigating them.

Trump says, "No collusion" more than anything else these days. He wants those words to sink into our consciousness. He wants us to believe that "The Dirty Dossier" and "Uranium" are actual scandals, when in fact none of them are relevant or meaningful. This is why he doesn't explain anything in detail. He says, "Uranium" in hopes that Americans hear that word and think, "Clinton scandal" when most don't actually understand the situation at all.

Trump has claimed for months that the FBI investigation is a "witch hunt.: Now that Russians are indicted, he cannot claim this anymore. He does not acknowledge that he was wrong. Instead, he has shifted to, "The investigation proves no collusion via these indictments."

I don't know if Trump is guilty of collusion, but he sure as hell sounds like a guy guilty of collusion. 

Trump expects Americans to believe that a company that does not want to be linked to election tampering is the best source as to whether or not the ads that they accepted millions in Russian rubles to display swayed the election.

He attempts to make the VP of Facebook ads an unbiased, expert source of information. 

These next two tweets are interesting. Trump (and Trump supporter Michael Goodwin) would have us believe that the indictments against 13 Russians issued last week will be the only indictments forthcoming. Yes, it's true that last week's indictments do not prove collusion. A Trump campaign official was duped by the Russians, but he did not know that he was being manipulated.

But that's one guy. One set of indictments. There could very well be many more indictments to come. Give Mueller time. 

This last one is just stupid. 

The Russians decided to interfere with the American elections in 2014, particularly in order to prevent Hillary Clinton to become President. They didn't know who the candidates would be, but they established operations and simply waited for the weakest, most easily manipulated, most comprimised pro-Russian candidate to emerge. 

Trump appeared on the scene, the choice became obvious, and the team went to work. 

Anderson Cooper took on the administration on gaslighting in relation to the Rob Porter scandal. 

I highly recommend both of these commentaries.

Chuck Todd's litany of vile and shameful events is worth watching

The shame, embarrassment, incompetence, and cruelty that Trump and his White House produces on a daily basis makes is hard to remember all of the horrors of the past year. But it's important to remember every single one of them as Republicans continue to stand alongside this racist, misogynist, authoritarian ignoramus.

For the sake of a economically unsound, deficit exploding transfer of wealth from the working class to the 1% and the hope of cutting entitlements like Medicare and Social Security, Republicans have stood by and supported a vile and incompetent man.  

Meet the Press's Chuck Todd does a fine job reminding us of the atrocities of the past year on Sunday.

It's worth watching.

It reminded me of moments of stupidity and vileness that I had forgotten and re-energized me to click on my 5 Calls app every day and continue to speak out against this President and this administration at every turn.