...at all? You think the monks of the Spanish Inquisition paused while heating the instruments of torture?

The men who wrote the Constitution in the 18th century knew their European history: the entire continent (and offshore islands like Britain) was soaked in the blood of martyrs and supposed heretics.

They did not want a theocracy here.

Yet our other founding story does involve theocracy: the Pilgrims and Puritans explicitly came to found a new world based on the Bible. And this other founding story has never gone away.

He has hackers meddling in all 50 states. He has US Senators & Congressmen in his pocket. He has the POTUS, for the love of God. He knows our electronic voting systems. He knows our national electronic infrastructure.

At this point, missiles are for amateurs — they’re very expensive & they leave a mess.

I don’t think he necessarily wants our US territory as such. What he wants is to destabilize Western democracies into bickering little countries that can’t unite to oppose him.He wants the US weakened and irrelevant. He wants NATO gone. He wants the USSR back, under a modern name.

Trump is the most useful idiot in the entire history of useful idiots, but the groundwork was laid by men like Mitch McConnell long before he showed up in DC.

Well, it’s 2am here, so I think I better put the tablet away and try to sleep, having already had my nightmare, so to speak.

There was a time when pledging "our lives, our fortunes, & our sacred honor" meant something.

There was a time when taking an oath “before God” put a man (sic) in an awesome and even terrifying space. It was more than mere words, even to rational Deists like Thomas Jefferson.

Nowadays, when a big chunk of the US populace is competing for who can be the mostest bestest Christian of all in the public sphere, our modern Christians in the GOP never blanch or tremble at the lies they say immediately after taking an oath to tell the truth, nor do they fear the loss of their “sacred honor” when actually betraying our Constitution and country. They have no sense that honor is something to value highly, and they have no sense of shame to hold them back.

The fault lies not in the Constitution, which (like RBG) I take to be a living document, but in the living Americans of the 21st century. The Constitution calls on each generation to interpret it anew and breathe new life into it. In the last 40 years, however, there has been a slow strangulation by American citizens themselves and the politicians they elect, and now the Senate is poised to plunge a knife into the heart of the Constitution.

In these past several days at DU I have heard the pitter-patter of a little drumbeat (among the general outcry) that the Constitution doesn’t work any more, that it relies on outmoded and antique ways of thought and behavior, and that it probably wasn’t written all that well to begin with.

In other words, what? Start over? Consign it to a museum devoted to failed experiments? Our Founders knew, and all wise men (sic) acknowledged, that the only thing that could destroy us is ourselves.

Let’s not co-operate in that destruction.

There was a time when taking an oath “before God” put a man in an awesome and even terrifying space. It was more than words, even to rational Deists like Thomas Jefferson.

Nowadays, when a big chunk of the US populace is competing for who can be the mostest bestest Christian of all in the public sphere, our modern Christians in the GOP never blanch or tremble at the lies they say immediately after taking an oath to tell the truth, nor do they fear the loss of their “sacred honor” when actually betraying our Constitution and country. They have no sense that honor is something to value highly, and they have no sense of shame to hold them back.

The fault lies not in the Constitution, which (like RBG) I take to be a living document, but in the living Americans of the 21st century. The Constitution calls on each generation to interpret it anew and breathe new life into it. In the last 40 years, however, there has been a slow strangulation by American citizens themselves and the politicians they elect, and now the Senate is poised to plunge a knife into the heart of the Constitution.

She challenged me: “Would you take that vaccine?” and without thinking who I was talking to, I said “Hell no!” Which, sadly, she took as permission to rant, so I forcibly changed the subject.

Trump is going to have trouble selling injectable snake oil to some of his core constituents, though. He’s been cozying up to anti-vaxxers since at least 2007. (LA Times 9-9-2020 Michael Hiltzik)

On the doorpost of RBG’s chambers at SCOTUS, a mezuzah. In her office, a framed quotation from the Book of Deuteronomy:

Justice, justice, shall you pursue.

Last night I was too benumbed to weep for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Today it seems I can do little else.

Cross gently, great soul.

This line of thinking is remarkably similar to saying “Black women will save the Dem party” and then being disappointed that a minority group who have been loyal and hardworking can’t in fact work miracles against overwhelming odds.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg never could walk on water, though she could swim like an Olympic medalist. (That’s a metaphor. So sue me.) She couldn’t change water into wine, either, but she could help make gay weddings legal and dance at them.

Just stop it, all of you. Do the work. DO THE WORK AND STOP BLAMING SOMEONE WHO SPENT HER WHOLE LIFE WORKING.

Cross gently, great soul. Thank you for your service to justice.

This line of thinking is remarkably similar to saying “Black women will save the Dem party” ...

...and then being disappointed that a minority group who have been loyal and hardworking can’t in fact work miracles against overwhelming odds.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg never could walk on water, though she could swim like an Olympic medalist. (That’s a metaphor. So sue me.) She couldn’t change water into wine, either, but she could make gay weddings legal and dance at them.

Just stop it, all of you. Do the work. DO THE WORK AND STOP BLAMING SOMEONE WHO SPENT HER WHOLE LIFE WORKING.

Michael Steele, former RNC Chair and former seminarian, quoted the Bible and said “Blessed is the true judge.”

Someone I was reading earlier mentioned that someone dying on Rosh Ha Shana becomes a Tzaddick, one of the righteous.

Cross gently, great soul, with our deepest gratitude.

It must have been 8:30 or 9 am, California time, and I felt disoriented because I’d been up very late writing for my dissertation. I had a small tv I kept in the kitchen for the evening news, and had actually never watched CNN, not being a news-junkie at that time. I watched for awhile in shock, then went out in my bathrobe to get the paper. My neighbor friend laughingly called out asking why I was up so early, and I told her to turn on CNN, as New York City had been attacked.

My experience of 9-11 and all that followed was so prosaic, because of being so far away. The endless loop on tv, the endless repetition of the timeline that kept me baffled for days because I had been asleep and they kept talking about times that were aligning with the the time my daughter called me, among other things. I kept thinking I was seeing part of it in real time. It took me over a week to sort it out.

Just sheer shock. How? Why?

My sister in Massachusetts and my best friend who worked in D.C. were much closer in every respect. I found out a few years years later that my cousin’s husband, an Admiral, had been working in the Pentagon.

My sister’s two children each knew a classmate who had a grandma on a flight out of Boston. My friend and her husband heard and felt the impact when the plane hit the Pentagon. The Admiral was unharmed but went to work on the horrible job of pulling the dead and wounded out of the Pentagon. My husband had cousins in New Jersey, and my neighbor lady was from New Jersey.

My friend’s husband originated in the Middle East and his name was a dead giveaway. They had some really nasty experiences, and ultimately changed their name. I think there was a quick sorting out of who was really their friend and who wasn’t. She had to travel for her Civil Service job, and was forever after pulled out of the line at the airport for special screening.

Everything changed. I can look back and say that now. I’ve always hated conspiracy theories. But there was something so godsdamned fishy about finding the passports in the rubble of the Towers. I mean,

I wanted to be in the streets, but made myself finish my dissertation first. Then I joined the marchers in my town, was invited to join the local Vets for Peace (I’m a civilian, but they liked me), joined DU, and was very active indeed for the duration of the BushCheney administration. I am proud of the work I did during those years.

Sad to say, the path I thought I would take after getting my doctorate never was fulfilled. I knew I was at a fork in the road, and I felt absolutely compelled to go oppose Bush and his lies and his war. I knew there was a good chance I would not be able to retrace my steps. But all in all, I could not remain silent.