American Idiot (s)

His Holiness gets medieval on the Donald

My decision to use the term "American Idiot" as the title for tonight's blog has absolutely nothing to do with the title of the Grammy-winning musical of the same name by the band Green Day.

After witnessing so many examples of outright buffoonery by members of the Republican party this week, I can't think of a more appropriate term to describe the shenanigans being perpetrated by members of the "Party of No".

Where to begin?


It's been while since I've given out a George Lincoln Rockwell Award, but this week's hands-down winner has to be Donald Trump.

The astronomically-conceited leading Republican presidential bigot candidate showed his presidential chops earlier in the week when he visited right-wing talk radio host Michael Savage's show on Monday to lend credence to the baseless loony insinuation being bandied about by extremist conservatives that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered.

Despite reports from federal marshals (who actually saw the body) that the 79-year-old Scalia died of natural causes related to a serious heart condition he'd had for years, right-wing conspiracy nuts have evidently confused reality with the plot of The Pelican Brief.

Trump's proof? As reported by Caitlin Yilek on TheHill.com on Monday, Trump told Savage:

"...I'm hearing it's a big topic. But they say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow." 

Case solved Columbo!

Pope Francis offers his take on Trump's spirituality

But as you've likely heard, Trump once again distinguished himself as a petulant clown-child today by getting into a war of words with Pope Francis after His Holiness told reporters during a conversation on the plane ride home that: 

"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not a Christian. This is not the Gospel."


Having served the Catholic Church for 47 years, it's fair to say Pope Francis knows a little bit about what it means to be Christian.

Versus Trump, who famously reduced the sacred act of communion on the campaign trail last year by insisting, "I drink my little wine, and eat my little crackers." - like some kind of buffoonish simpleton 12-year-old; no doubt that sat well with the Vatican.

After the Holy Father's words went viral around the globe, Trump responded with a series of typically nonsensical responses, but a statement like that from the Pope isn't going to be erased from the minds of the millions of American evangelicals Trump hopes to woo.

And the message, that the Pope thinks Trump is far from presidential material, couldn't be any clearer.

The message to thousands of voters in the state of Wisconsin was pretty clear too after the state's local primary elections held on Tuesday offered the first glimpse of how the new voter ID laws implemented by Governor Scott Walker and the majority-Republican state legislature.

Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker 

As Alice Ollstein reported in an article for ThinkProgess.org yesterday, across the state some veterans were unable to cast votes because Wisconsin's laws do not consider a valid Military ID card, or a federal Veterans Administration card with a photo to be acceptable forms of ID to vote.

Some college students in different cities were turned away from the polls after presenting valid out of state driver's licenses.

Back in March of 2015, the American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to expand the types of voter ID's the state can accept to permit residents to cast votes (including military ID's), but Judge Lynn Adelman (a Bill Clinton appointee) denied the ACLU request.

Leave it to Wisconsin Republicans to create a law that will prevent a veteran of the U.S. military from voting because his VA card isn't valid ID - all to protect against almost non-existent voter fraud.

Voter rights advocates are rightfully concerned about how those laws will affect turnout in the upcoming April 5th presidential primary. Outrageous.

Disastrous Republican Governor Sam Brownback 

But across the country in Kansas, where Republican Governor Sam Brownback and his Republican-majority state legislature have plunged the state into socioeconomic turmoil by passing a series of draconian cuts to government spending to finance tax cuts so lavish the state has virtually eliminated some taxes on business completely.

For example, back in April, 2015, I blogged about Brownback enacting almost Orwellian restrictions on how Kansas welfare recipients could spend the modest sums they receive; including limiting cash withdrawals from the state-issued debit card to $25 at a time, subjecting already economically disadvantaged residents to excessive per-transaction fees given that many lower class and poor Kansas residents have limited access to normal banking services and most ATM's don't allow withdrawals in $5 denominations.

Well the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed an appeals court decision that the Republican state legislature had violated Constitutionally-mandated equitable funding for public schools after they switched from a per-pupil formula used to determine public school funding, to a block grant system.

Last Thursday the state Supreme Court ruled that Republican's actions had undercut funding for poorer public school districts by an astounding $54 million, and ordered the legislature to come up with a revised funding formula by June 30th.

As Edward Eveld reported for The Kansas City Star last week, the court ruled that "without a constitutionally equitable school finance system, the schools in Kansas will be unable to operate beyond June 30th," 

Between Trump giving legitimacy to bizarre conspiracy theories about some kind of liberal plot to kill Antonin Scalia, Wisconsin's voter suppression and the massive unequivocal failure of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback's use of the state as some kind of "laboratory" for fringe right-wing ideas that bankrupt  government services to enrich the wealthiest few at the expense of public school education - it's like a parade of American idiocy.

As the presidential primaries move into larger states with more diverse populations that accurately reflect the American populace and mainstream thinking, let's hope that like Pope Francis, voters begin to see today's Republican party for what it is.

A party that wants to burn bridges instead of building them.

Boehner's Tears, The Handshake & The Global Pope

Republican Speaker John Boehner's had enough [Photo - AP]

The live broadcast of Pope Francis' speech to the joint session of Congress filled me with a sense of awe at the depth of the message he brought to a chamber that has been so polarized, toxic and politically dysfunctional.

There's something about his presence and the carefully measured tone in which he speaks that makes him fascinating to watch.

The aura His Holiness projects clearly affects those around him, including Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, who was noticeably teary-eyed as the Pope spoke yesterday before shocking the political world with the news of his resignation this morning.

I guess even he's had enough of the small faction of extremist Republican Congressman who are determined to intentionally shut down the government, risk the stability of the largest economy in the world and affect the lives of millions of people over the personal desire of a few to defund Planned Parenthood - an organization that provides critical health care services for thousands of women across the nation who might not otherwise be able to afford or access such care.

Is the morality of a handful of elected politicians really more important than the best interests of over 300 million people? From the standpoint of their twisted logic, it is. Perhaps they think that will help Republican efforts to recapture the White House in 2016 - that dripping you hear is the sound of Hillary Clinton drooling.

Some media pundits are speculating that the staunchly Catholic Boehner's decision was a carefully calculated strategic political decision designed to prevent a government shutdown by removing the power of the threat of the Tea Party wing-nut faction to remove him from the Speaker's chair; which they wanted to use as a wedge to force him to go along with their government shutdown fantasy.

But I have to believe that the toxic anti-immigrant hatred of Donald Trump, Ben Carson's Islamophobia and Ted Cruz's detached lunacy, plus the weight of Pope Francis' words had to have played a part in his decision to step down from one of the most powerful political positions in DC.

Pope Francis greets Sec of State John Kerry

To me, Rachel Maddow provided one of the most insightful aspects of the Pope's visit; his choice to shake the hand of one person in the Congressional chamber; that of Secretary of State John Kerry.

In one handshake the Pope publicly repudiated the rigidly conservative Catholic Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis who, as MSNBC reported, "made headlines by criticizing Ted Kennedy's funeral and John Kerry's worthiness of holy communion."

Cardinal Burke's open scorn for feminism has made him seem more like a musty 15th century church relic than the leader of 21st century Catholicism and demoting Burke to a meaningless symbolic position in the church was one of Pope Francis' first major personnel changes to clean up the Catholic hierarchy when he was elected Pope.

Regardless of religious background, the Pope's visit to America has sparked such an amazing range of interesting conversations and discussions on a vast array of topics; I suspect his mentioning of influential American figures like Dorothy Day (1897 - 1980) and Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968) will expand the perspectives of untold numbers of people who were never exposed to them in school or college or were unaware of their influence on the 20th century.

For example, earlier this morning on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, during a discussion about the impact of the Pope's visit, speech and role in the world today, Brian invited Catholic immigrants in this country to call in to the show and share their observations.

A woman from the Dominican Republic called in to say that she wanted to see the Pope doing more to raise awareness of the DR government's plan to deport thousands of dark-skinned Haitian people who've lived across the border in the DR for years (some for generations) and repatriating them back to Haiti against their will.

While that example of a government instituting a race-based immigration policy is troubling given how close the two nations are to each other in more than just geography, I think the woman's desire to see the Pope use his influence to intervene demonstrates not just the high expectations that people have of his role as the head of the Catholic Church, but the tremendous respect they have for his authority and willingness to tailor the role of the church to be more relevant to the issues facing humanity in the 21st century.

His authority has nothing to do with warships, bombers, combat troops or drones.

From the global reaction to his tenure as Pope thus far, and his willingness to use the template of the moral convictions of Christian theology to address contemporary issues like wealth inequality, poverty, war and climate change, it's clear Pope Francis wields a powerful authority that transcends the physical.

More and more, he seems to be a Pope for all people around the globe - regardless of how they choose to worship.

Pope Francis is a religious leader who seems to transcend religion, geographic borders and the petty differences which divide so many of us that are symptomatic of a deep spiritual longing.

Frankly, if Rush Limbaugh calls Pope Francis a "Marxist", then he's gotta be doing something right.