TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES

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From our President, the Cabinet, and our Congressional leadership, we sure ain't got Truth, and we sure do have Consequences.  Whoever said, "Elections have consequences" was on the money.

I comment here on but two of the dozens of current "Consequences":

I.

The cruelty of Trump's decision to adopt a policy of wrenching kids from parents was accompanied by his administration's lies that they knew where everybody was and could readily unite parent and child. Last week, a court ordered the government to restore the separated children to their parents, in accordance with a fixed timetable. This week, the Trump administration has confessed that its prior statements that they had the matter under control were false. 

The Department of Justice, the U.S. Marshals service, the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Health and Human Services now admit that they are scrambling because they lack records that would enable them readily to match parents with their children!

And HHS, which just a few days ago said it had custody of 2,300 children, has apparently discovered more kids, and now says it has 3,000 children in its custody, at least 100 of whom are under five years old!  

In a frantic effort to comply with the court's order, Alex Azar, the head of HHS has issued a "Hail Mary" call for volunteers to come help them figure it out. I had tears of sympathy for him when I read in the HHS press release that the matter was so serious Secretary Azar "personally stayed past midnight last night" to help out.

Wow. Working past midnight. "You're doing a heck of a job, Alex!"

II.

Election consequences include the moral bankruptcy of Mitch McConnell's lies about the propriety of waiting for after the 2016 elections before taking up President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Compare that, please, with Mr. McConnell's current assurance that the Senate will take up Trump's nomination of Anthony Kennedy's replacement before the 2018 elections.

Current reports indicate there are two leading contenders for the nomination:

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a Bush appointee, has been sitting on the D.C. Circuit bench for 12 years. He is a reliably conservative jurist and will solidify the five-vote conservative majority on what has become an overtly political court. 

But the real scary possibility is Judge Amy Coney Barret, whom Trump appointed to the Seventh Circuit just ten months ago.

I fired a warning flare in October, 2017. I posted this about Barret's nomination to the Circuit Court, under the Blog title, "Handmaid's Tale Redux?":

 "A couple of days ago, I read a frightening item in the NY Times. It reported on the nomination of a law professor, Amy Coney Barrett, to a seat on the Seventh Circuit, and noted she was 'often mentioned as a potential candidate for the high court, especially if Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg were to retire.'

Though the candidate did not reveal it on the questionnaire she submitted to the Senate, she is a member of a "small, tightly knit Christian group called 'People of Praise.'" There are 1,800 members in the world. The Times article continues:

Some of the group’s practices would surprise many faithful Catholics. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another, and are assigned and are accountable to a personal adviser, called a “head” for men and a “handmaid” for women. The group teaches that husbands are the heads of their wives and should take authority over the family... .

.......

The group believes in prophecy, speaking in tongues and divine healings ... ."

A former member of People of Praise explained that the covenant sworn to by each member is inflexible. Each member of the group must obey his or her "head," which in the case of a married women is her husband.  A member cannot leave the group without the head's permission.

Failure to keep the covenant is not merely the violation of an agreement. It is infidelity, comparable to adultery. Because of this personal characteristic of covenants, to make a covenant entails a certain renunciation of freedom. Brothers and sisters in a covenant owe their lives in a certain way to each other. They are accountable, perhaps not legally, but morally. They stand by each other “no matter what.”

During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to nominate Justices who would overturn Roe v Wade. Social conservatives are reported to be urging Trump that Barret is the candidate most committed to that end. That a President of the United States would appoint a person like Barret to the Supreme Court is believable only because that President is as unprincipled as Donald Trump. 

Question: If Trump nominates Amy Coney Barret to the Supreme Court, will the McConnell gang drink the Kool-Aid?

A bientot!