Category Archives: Political Commentary

October 31, 2020 · 02:12

Lying and Dying: President Trump’s Responsibility for the Coronavirus Debacle

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

On February 7th President Trump was being interviewed by Bob Woodward for his upcoming book. The interview was done by telephone and Woodward recorded it. At that point Coronavirus 19 was ravaging the Chinese city of Wuhan and its surrounding province. Not long before Trump had spoken to China’s President Xi and said of Xi:  “I think he is going to have it in good shape. But it’s a very tricky situation. It goes through air, Bob,” … “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” Trump said.

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

At this point Woodward did not know that the President had been briefed by his National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien had told Trump in January 28th that “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency.” He was backed by his deputy, Matt Pottinger, was a China expert whose reports on China’s previous responses and lack of transparency on the 2003 SARS epidemic, and the factors that made this new virus worse than it, warning the President that he needed to think in terms of the 1918-1920 Great Influenza pandemic. The President was briefed by Alex Azar, Dr.Robert Redfield, and Dr. Tony Fauci about what he needed to do, everyone recommended shutting down travel to and from China and imposing a 14 day quarantine for Americans returning from China. This happened on January 31st and is something that the President has since claimed that he did despite the opposition of everyone else in the room. It was a lie, like almost everything the President says and does.

Three days after his interview with Woodward the President said at the White House, in a television interview, and in a campaign rally in New Hampshire, said “When it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away… I think it’s going to work out good. We only have 11 cases and they are all getting better.”

In the following months the President consistently undermined those who had warning him about the danger, and despite knowing the danger admitted that “he was being a cheerleader” and “trying to present an image of strength.” At the same time he repeated false information about the virus and the need for passive protection; masks, hand washing and social distancing.

It is now nine months since President Trump learned of how deadly the virus would be, and still claims that it is not a big deal and that he “defeated” it on the day that the nation recorded its highest number of infections, which has since been surpassed, yesterday there were over 101,000 newly diagnosed cases.

Today’s COVID-19 body count:

New Diagnosed Infections: 101,461
New Deaths: 988
Number of Active Cases: 3,056,626
Total Cases: 9,316,297
Total Number of Deaths: 235,159

Let us put these numbers in perspective. The United States has roughly four percent of the World’s population, but we have roughly 20% of the total cases worldwide, just under 27% of active cases, and just under 20% of total deaths. For a country as advanced as ours this is a debacle created by a President who though he knew the truth, went against all of his experts in infectious diseases, and national security advisors. Additionally he works every day with the GOP Senate, and his Supreme Court to deny healthcare coverage to Americans, guaranteeing that those who need healthcare, especially those with President-existing conditions, which anyone who survived COVID will be certain to have.

Additionally,  as I have said many times, behind every number is a name, a face, a man or woman, a father or mother, husband or wife, child or sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, friend, neighbor, or coworker. Every person infected or killed by this disease is or was a flesh and blood human being, not just a statistic.

His son, Donald Junior, openly mocks those infected and the dead by dismissing the virus as “no big deal,” even as the President continues to deride those who promote sensible public health policies that would save lives.

The President’s actions during this crisis did not reflect incompetence, he knew exactly what he was doing, he was playing to his re-election above all else. Instead they were actions of criminal malfeasance, and a direct violation of his Oath as President. He failed to meet the minimum obligations of his office by lying to the country about the virus and how deadly it would be, and by undermining the nation’s response to it, something he continues to do, even four days before an election that he is promising to undermine if he loses, including telling unconstitutional right wing And white nationalist  “militias” which are nothing more than terrorist groups with more in common to the Ku Klux Klan, the Red Shirts, White Leagues, White Liners, and Nazi Brownshirts than they have in common with actual patriots.

It is going to be a very dark Fall and Winter. ICU admissions are filling up the small hospitals in most of the states with the highest infection rates. Hospital admissions are rising, and unlike the Spring and Summer waves which were relatively localized, which made it possible shift medical resources to the danger zones, it is blowing up everywhere. There are no reserves to throw into the battle, soon there will be no room in the ICUs or the hospitals. Doctors are going to have to chose who gets treatment and who doesn’t. The spike in deaths is just down the road a bit. We are staking our hopes on vaccines that are yet unproven, and will likely not be available in significant numbers until next Summer or Fall. By all means I want them to be effective, safe, and given in enough quantities to stop this horrendous virus, but even the most promising vaccines are still problematic, some clinical trials have been halted because of unexpected complications. Likewise, we don’t know their efficacy, and we don’t know when they will be available.

But it didn’t have to be this way. Had President Trump told the truth to the American people and been like Winston Churchill when Britain stood alone, told the British people:

“In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war…”

But he did not. He could have been a hero, an iconic figure who told the truth and used every resource of the nation and our allies to defeat a global pandemic of which kind has not been seen in history. Had he done those things he could have gone down in history as a hero despite all his other failings as President. I could have lived with that. But he didn’t, and by Election Day there will be approximately 240,000 COVID-19 deaths. Some models say that by Inauguration Day that number might double.

I wish there were some good news to report, sometimes telling the truth is not a job filled with warm fuzzy thoughts.

So until next time, stay safe, protect yourselves, make sure you vote, and look out for your neighbors.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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October 24, 2020 · 03:15

Lying and Dying Every Single Day: Trump Continues at the Final Debate

Friends of Padre Steve’s

I reluctantly watched the train wreck of a debate between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. To his credit the President pretty much to the debate format, a first in this election season, although he did try to steamroll the moderator more and more as the debate went on. He looked angry, for some reason, I thought his orange tint was a shade darker, it made his angry eyes stand out. But anyway, I digress.

As far as the debate went some issues were discussed and both men stuck to their script, Biden did nothing to harm his campaign and despite a few times where he to a lesser extent than the President uttered a few phrases of  word salad, but generally stayed on topic and hit Trump pretty hard a number of times. The President’s best line of attack was was near the end of the debate he attacked Biden on the transition to a non-fossil fuel driven economy and the push for zero emissions. Of course the Vice President’s ideas make sense and the United has to lead the world in this direction. But Trump used it to try to make his case as a friend of the oil industry, especially in Pennsylvania and Texas. I don’t know how many votes he swayed with the argument but it was really the only time that he might have got some people to not abandon him, but in doing so he also dehumanized poor and mostly black or Mexican people who live in the communities Just outside the fence lines of refineries and plants. He insinuated that they benefitted through jobs at them, but that is not the case. Most currently employed oil workers, are suburbanites who make enough money to live well away from the toxin spewing plants and refineries they work. As always the President lied about the effect on the economy, and the people who would be effected by the change, heck even the oil companies are beginning to diversify into wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.

Unfortunately lying is his baseline and he seldom deviated from it. Biden made some factual errors but they did not come across as outright lies. Likewise,

I had to start drinking early because the President lied continuously and with such warp speed that I could not keep track of all of them. His heartlessness was revealed so many times that as Priest and Christian I was overwhelmed at his repetition of so many disproved conspiracy theories, absolute lies, and the realization that Donald Trump does not care about the lives of any person than him, even his supporters based on his answers to the disaster that his administration had been regarding the Coronavirus 19 pandemic. The President claimed that cases were going down, that excess deaths were down, deaths were down, and that vaccines would soon be here and distributed by the military.

He told of his make believe world with a happy ending, when with COVID-19 there is no happy ending, no magical silver bullet that is going to make it go away. On the day of the debate the United States record its highest number of infections ever, and Friday the infections soared by almost 6,000 more than Thursday, 81,210 new infections and over 900 new deaths. The worst rates of infection were per million people were as follow: North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Nevada, Illinois, and Oklahoma. Those are the top twenty. Sadly, most of the infections and deaths in these states were not in the initial surge, but after months of negligence and political malfeasance of the Trump Administration, and the mostly Republican governments of these states, many of which opened quickly, reopened schools, and for the most part have poor public health systems and few intensive care beds. The spike in deaths hasn’t begun yet, but they will and the President will again be shown to be a liar, whose refusal to deal with facts, attacks the scientist and doctors that tell the truth, and attempts to mislead every American.

During the debate he spoke like Hitler in the last months of World War II that said that Germany would be delivered from defeat by new miraculous weapons, and a split between the Allies, when every German military leader and industrial expert knew that Hitler’s Germany was doomed to defeat. Like Hitler, he blames those who were responsible for his early successes at fault for his defeat, and blames the professional military and intelligence officers, diplomats, scientists, and even long term followers for being disloyal not to the nation, but to him.

He promised an effective way vaccine that neither the drug companies or any experts will be available in sufficient numbers until next summer or fall. Then he promised that this miracle vaccine would be distributed by the military. That my friends is complete hogwash. Our military is not designed to distribute millions of vaccines across the country. Our medical departments have been cut to the bone by the Trump administration in order to provide more “trigger pullers” and our reserve and National Guard medical personnel have civilian jobs, most of which involve staffing medical centers, research institutions, hospitals, clinics, and private practices all of which are already engaged in the battle against COVID-19. and by the way the readiness and maintenance readiness of the transportation assets needed to get the vaccines to the places they can be used absolutely suck. Contrary to what President Trump says all the time, our military has not been rebuilt. It is broken by nearly two decades of incessant and unnecessary wars, and those wars broke our ability to sustain our military at the levels it needs to confront the Soviet, Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian threats, additionally he has undermined our alliances with long term allies and diminished the trust in the world of American leadership.

So a few more words about his claims of the military being able to distribute a yet to be proven and produced vaccine is a lie. Heck, we in the military are being told that we won’t have Flu vaccines available for military personnel until late December and being told to go to civilian providers to get our Flu shots. Neither do we have a full fledged COVID-19 testing program in the military. If you want to know why units are sequestered and cannot deploy, or ships have to disrupt deployments because of COVID-19 outbreaks We don’t have them, and even if a safe COVID 19 vaccine is developed the chance that it will be distributed quickly by a military logistics system that is under immense strain to supply our troops around the world is mindless jibber-jabber.

I have to ask how many million vaccines will be produced, how they will be distributed by a already stressed military supply system. The fact is that the virus is blowing up all over the country especially in Red States that resisted almost every aspect of the science and ensured that their citizens would be more exposed and more vulnerable to the virus, and this includes states who Governors might be Democrats but whose legislatures and courts are controlled by Republicans is a ridiculous defense of those states policies that put people at risk.

As of today there are over 8.575 million people who have been infected, almost 230,000 who have died, and if you count the number of over average deaths probably drives the death total to almost 300,000. Trump said that the numbers were down. It is not. Trump claimed that Virus infections were going down, as were deaths. But that is not the case, we are going into the third spike of the first wave of the pandemic because the Trump administration and its congressional, state, White Nationalist  and Christian Nationalist supporters ensured that any meaningful action to stop the virus would be undermined, because their political and Racist and religious political power demanded that it be so. Look at the statistics. Ethnic minorities, the elderly, and the poor are the majority of the deaths and infections. Those numbers are now beginning to include a lot of White people in states that have done the least to protect their citizens and have the least medical capabilities to handle the onslaught. Yes, the major metropolitan cities in the Northeast were hit hardest in the early days of the pandemic, but in comparison to the new areas, are doing well. That is not good enough but their preventative measures have been undermined by the President’s propaganda and an emotional and spiritual fatigue created by months of life disrupted by the virus.

Of course there was the propaganda put out by Trump on how children’s being separated and locked up by his administration were “being very well cared for” while locked in cages at the border.  I’m sorry, the Nazis said the same things of the Jews incarcerated at the “humanitarian” camp of Theresienstadt concentration camp, from which nearly 90% were sent to the death camp of  Auschwitz.  

When Biden brought up that over 545 children, forcibly separated from their parents at the border will likely never see their parents again because of Trump’s policies, Trump said “Good.” The fact is that the President has never, every condemned any violent acts, or previous illegal activities that international courts led by Americans would call Crimes Against Humanity, are not only tolerated, but encouraged, because the American President said so.

I am going to end for the night. I cannot be silent as a Christian, politics does not enter into my equation, but morality and human decency do matter, as do the best humanitarian aspect of my faith. The German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.” 

Likewise, if somehow I think that because I am a White Military Officer and remained silent that I will be spared because of that, I would be misguided and an imbecile. There is no safety for anyone today, even for those who most fervently believe what President Trump says. If you are one of them, and your really thing your liebes matter to him, they don’t and you are believing a lie.

The anti-Hitler martyr of the White Rose resistance Sophie Scholl wrote:

““The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place aswide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

Thats a fact. We have a President who is lying while people are dying every day In increasing numbers because of his lies, especially his supporters. That my friends is not a lie. Ask yourself, do you really trust him, or have you subordinated you’re morality, ethics, and respect for yourself to him, for what?

i do not stand in judgement over anyone. I believe in justice tempered by mercy. But as for me I have to echo the words of German Major General Henning Von Tresckow, a key planner in the anti-Hitler plot who on learning of his failures killed himself if the face of Soviet forces:

“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him. Otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.” 

Trump by no means is Hitler, but he acts a lot like him in terms of behaviors, words, and attitudes, especially in regards to minorities, the poor, his opponents, and even his supporters.

So until next time When I go back to my Battle of Leyte Gulf series, have a good night and please be safe. Even if you agree with the President and plan on voting form him, matters less to me than your lives and safety. I am tired of death, especially deaths that are completely preventable by the simplest actions such as the proper wear of face masks, social distancing, and hand washing. Those are not tyrannical measures, they are simple common sense and proven by science.

So until next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 6, 2020 · 03:02

No Sympathy for a President with No Empathy or Tose Who Follow Him Into the COVID19 Abyss


President Trump Defiantly Taking off His Mask after Returning to the White House Knowing his is Still Infectious 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I did not get online until couple of hours ago. I was a work, and then went to get gel injections in my knees and a steroid shot in my hip. I’m getting closer to Dr. House every day. That being said I spend most of this evening trying to trim down my Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! manuscript to the 100,000 words for my publisher desires without cutting meat and not fat. I only have about 17,000 words left to get to the goal and then I can pick my photos from what is in the public domain or allowed with attribution by their authors, and then work on my index. In the meantime I am working on my retirement physical, waiting for the VA to decide my disability rating,  looking for a job for post retirement, and stressing out about preparing our townhouse for sale and getting ready to find a new home without stairs, unless it has an elevator. 

That being said I didn’t see any news except for pop up notifications on my iPad until a couple of hours ago. I was aghast at President Trump’s actions leaving Walter Reed, knowing that he is contagious and his life is at risk, and then immediately unmasked when he got to the claim that COVID19 was not to be feared at the White House angered me because of the lack of concern for His staff, those who volunteered to serve in his administration or those assigned by DOD, the Justice Department, the Secret Service, DIA, NSA, CIA, FBI, or any other department that assigned career personnel to the White House.

My God, Trump has friends like Herman Cain who died of COVID19 after attending one of his rallies unmasked. Now 11 people, including his wife are infected who travelled with or attended events with him. Some like Kellyanne Conway have infected family members. How many others have passed it to their family members and friends?

Even Hitler allowed friends, advisors, and officials to leave his bunker as he prepared for Götterdämmerung in Berlin, even as he left the majority of Germans to death, dislocation, destruction, and his military to Soviet POW Camps, from which few returned. Trump makes Hitler look good by comparison.

Gustave Gilbert, an American Army Psychologist who tended to the major Nazi War Criminals at Nuremberg said:

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

When I think of all the blood on Trumps hands due to his early knowledge of COVID19’s deadliness before the first reported case in our country and did nothing to stop it. He actively hindered the  CDC, FDA, and NIH; ignored the intelligence of the NSA, CIA and the head of his National Security Counsel about the national security risks; undermined public health officials at every turn by advocating for unsafe practices and proven testing and contact tracing methods.

As of yesterday his actions and inactions  have cost the lives of over 215,000 Americans as of yesterday, with 7.67 million infected, and 2.5 million current infections, with numbers going up in almost every state on a daily basis.

In doing so he doesn’t care if he kills all of us. I have lost any sense of personal sympathy or empathy for him, that being said I don’t want him to die, but be effectively leaving Walter Reed while still infected with his medical team shipping that he is not out of danger is irresponsible and needs to be condemned publicly by anyone with a grain of decency left in their soul.

To say he is not responsible, as he says himself is to say no one has died, and no one is guilty. Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who prosecuted the Nazis Gilbert watched over said in his closing argument at Nuremberg:

“They stand before the record of this trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain King. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: “Say I slew them not.” And the Queen replied, “Then say they were not slain. But dead they are ….” If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”

Trump claims no responsibility for the death and infections, just before his super-spreader event, he was asked about them, and said “It is what it is.” If any claims that Trump is not guilty of these death, then they are no better than those that defended the Nazi crimes. Likewise, if one person launches an ad hominem attack on me for this post, it will be their last here, and I will do my best to find them and shame them publicly, because they are willing accomplices in those deaths and infections.

Sophie Scholl, the 22 year old University of Munich Student leader of the White Rose Resistance against Hitler said:

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes – crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure – reach the light of day.”

I cannot imagine any honest American being ashamed of Trump and his clique’s actions during the COVID19 Pandemic. 

Finally, if you dear reader are a COVID19 Denier, refuse to were a mask properly, physically distance, do not wash your hands, or exhibit symptoms and willingly expose others you are guilty, just as Hitler’s followers who obeyed what they knew were illegal, immoral, and criminal orders and you deserve whatever happens to you. God help your families, friends, coworkers and associates, and may God or anyone save us from this madman. 

Thus ends the lesson,

Peace, if you can find it,

Padre Steve+ 

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October 3, 2020 · 16:40

A Brief Thought on Trump’s Condition


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Just a few short words before doing some work upstairs and going back to editing my book.

The White House is spreading so much disinformation right now it is harmful. The fact is that the worst symptoms don’t show up until a week to ten days after diagnosis, and the drug he is being treated with improved symptoms in hospitalized patients but has not been shown to keep people from dying of COVID19.

Dr. Conley said today that Trump he knew he was infected Wednesday and started treatment Thursday. This means that Trump went to multiple unmasked rallies and meetings Wednesday and Thursday in close proximity to people before he announced testing positive late Thursday night. This is indicative of what we all know to be a fact: Trump doesn’t care about anyone’s life, even those of his closest supporters. “Evil is the absence of empathy.” I Hope that he gets really sick and has to fight for his life, not that he dies but that he suffers, and after the worst is over that he becomes a “long hauler” so that he never forgets.

Until next time.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

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October 2, 2020 · 03:22

Trump’s Debate Debacle and the Irony and Karma of COVID-19 as Trump Tests Positive

President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I started this post on Tuesday night after the debate. My anger was palpable. I found out a few minutes ago that he and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19. The irony is so rich. The man who knew about how bad the virus is and how he did nothing to stop it, who took few personal precautions, exposed his followers in rallies where masks were not required and social distancing was ignored. He set himself up to get it by so casually denying the advice and attacking the experts who gave it. I hate to say it, but anyone who conducted himself in such a manner served to be infected, and due to him being high risk in that he is old, morbidly obese, and must have unreported medical conditions that he has ordered his doctors to lie about, including an  unplanned and rushed visit to Walter Reed, but I digress. I expect that he will have a very bad time of this, and may end up incubated in an ICU in the next few weeks. So please read on to my debate commentary. 

I hate bullies and liars. I always have. Donald Trump has always been a bully, and a liar and this was on full display tonight. I have never seen a President disgrace his office more and demonstrate his unfitness for office than President Trump did in the first Presidential debate tonight. He was far ruder and disrespectful than any American President than I have ever have seen. Trump broke every ground rule of the debate, and ended with him saying that the election didn’t matter and that he should remain in office, even encouraging Right Wing Militias like the Proud Boys to be stand by after the election. I felt assaulted as an American citizen, by his display of hatred for our political system, institutional, and Constitutional norms. It was as if only he mattered, and the rest of the country, even his supporters be damned.

Like Adolf Hitler, President Trump shouted down his opponent and the debate moderator through the entire debate. I was overwhelmed by his anger, invective, lies and incredible lack of empathy for the victims of COVID-19, or even Joe Biden’s dead son Beau who served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumor.

I cannot believe what I saw, the number already disproved lies that that he blasted all night long on every issue, repeating QAnon conspiracy theories as if they were the Gospel and sowing discord that could destroy our country. He refused to condemn White Supremacist ideology, lying about his responsibility in the Coronavirus Pandemic, for 210,000 deaths and over seven million infected by it, many of who will never fully recover.

However, like everything else he touches, tonight he destroyed another American institution, that of a neutrally moderated debate. Instead he abused the moderator, Chris Wallace of the Fox News Network, his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, and everyone who watched, of course since his followers are fine with abuse and being abused they won’t raise an eyelash in criticism.

What the President did tonight was to destroy any respect for the office of the Presidency and the reputation of the United States around the world. I was so embarrassed.

Because of the Hatch Act I cannot urge anyone to support or vote for any candidate, nor can I say who I will vote for in the election. I have served in the military for over 39 years, obey my oath and have been able to serve under six Presidents, almost eight since I enlisted shortly after President Carter left office and won’t be on active duty if Joe Biden becomes President. In my service to the nation I never have believed that any American of any belief was not a person that I was not obligated to defend.

Donald Trump will never change, his documented lies, falsehoods, and distortions of the truth since he entered office number in the tens of thousands, respects no-one or nothing, During the debate he showed to the nation and the world that he only considers his power as the ultimate end. That is what a dictator does. After his election I gave him a chance, but in the past 3 1/2 years he has proved that he, the the Constitution, not our institutions, cannot be trusted. When he told the Neo-Nazi Proud Boys to Stand Back and Stand By it was a clarion call against our Republic. It showed that the President demonstrates that he does not uphold his oath to the Constitution, and only cares about his political power and the protection his offers him from his creditors.

My thought is that Trump has destroyed everything that used to be considered conservatism in the country and that the Republican Party once stood. I know because for 32 years I was a conservative Republican. Now I can only say, I can only repeat the words of  General Ludwig Beck: who said:

“Final decisions about the nation’s existence are at stake here; history  will incriminate these leaders with bloodguilt if they do not act in accordance with their specialist political knowledge and conscience. Their soldierly obedience reaches its limit when their knowledge, their conscience, and their responsibility forbid carrying out an order.”

Beck was correct. Final decisions about our Republic are at stake. My time in the military is almost over, but even so I will maintain my oath of office, my vows as a Priest, and my honesty as a historian who gets many threats, including death threats  on this blog because of President Trump’s calls to violence. The Proud Boys just issued a new patch for their hateful, fascist and violent movement using Trump’s words, Stand Back and Stand By. I will fight them if need be. I have been threatened by them for over a decade and I won’t take it.

I have turned my cheeks so many time that I have callousness on all four of them because of it. No longer. I will fight for our Constitution and Republic.

To quote John Paul Jones:  “It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.”

I say that I will take the risk and if fate says I lose, I will have my honor and integrity intact. To quote Major General Henning Von Tresckow who died in the attempt to kill Hitler and overthrow Nazi rule: “I cannot understand how people can still call themselves Christians and not be furious adversaries of Hitler’s regime.” I think the same of anyone who calls themself a Christian who is willing to follow Trump into the abyss.

To this end in response to last nights shit show of a debate presented by a President who broke every rule, disrespected and dishonored one of the last remaining  bulwarks of the American experiment, the right to watch the candidates tell the truth about themselves, their positions and how they defend the Constitution and Republic, I remain will continue to support legal orders, but I will be damned to Hell if in my last 90 days of active duty I will a pawn of a President who has bulldozed the Constitution and Poisoned our instructions. As Democrat Senator Stephen A. Douglas said of President James Buchanan, a man of his political party:

“God forbid,” I said “that I ever surrender my right to differ from a President of the United States for my own choice. I am not a tool of any President!” 

And I also quote Theodore Roosevelt who responded to attacks on his patriotism by members of Woodrow Wilson’s administration: 

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”

As I have always said, I will tell the truth.

I would rather stand in the shoes of Stephen A. Douglas, or Theodore Roosevelt, than in the shoes of President Trump. I still have to obey his legal orders and respect his office, but disobeying unlawful and unconstitutional orders issued by any President who tramples the Constitution and Civil Liberties at every opportunity is something that I cannot do for humor any other President regardless of their political party, or ideology.

I have to remind people time and time again that for 32 years, from 1976 to 2008 I was a loyal Republican, but by bearing first hand witness to the propagandists of the Iraq War, damaged by PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury, and finding that with the exception of their I support the Troops bumper stickers that the lies that brought on the war and it’s victims, including Americans really didn’t matter, to that Party.

My beliefs hadn’t changed, but theirs did, and 12 years later most remaining Evangelical Christian Republicans support a man who only uses them as a stepping stone to absolute power, and because he appoints judges sympathetic to their ideological, political, and social beliefs, even  though they no longer represent most Americans.

As far as that goes those people are heretics and isolators, who sold out their faith for that of a Golden Calf.

Now Trump and his wife Melania are infected with the Coronavirus 19. As I said up front, Trump himself is in a high risk group: Morbidly obese, old, and probably suffering from medical conditions that he has ordered his doctors to lie about for year to maintain the lie of his great health. I figure at best he has a long and painful ICU stay ahead of him, if he doesn’t die from it.

By the way as of publication there were 7,494,671 total infections, 212,660 deaths, 2,545,390 current infections, 47,389 which were reported yesterday before the President’s announcement. Worldwide over a million people have died. 

How this effects any future debate is on me, but that now is probably the least of his concerns, and his political opponents are going to have a field day with it. Biden will be gracious but others will go for the jugular.

If it either happens I can only quote his words when asked about his feelings about 200,000 dead Americans, “It is what it is,” as he praised his response to the virus. That being said I don’t wish death on him, “just a fate worse than a fate worse than death.” (Gratuitous Black Adder Quote)

So, until whenever,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 1, 2020 · 15:53

When You Lose Your Citizenship You Lose Everything: Another Post on the Nuremberg Laws from the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial

www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/blog/remembering-the-nuremberg-laws-the-true-meaning-of-citizenship

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Another post from the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial on the effects of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, this one about how Jews lost everything including their citizenship before the Holocaust even began. Once they lost their citizenship, they were beyond all but clandestine help from people putting their lives at risk. This is the plight of all stateless people. Never Forget.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 1, 2020 · 15:35

A Post From the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial on Nazi Race Laws

encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nuremberg-laws

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Since I haven’t been doing much writing or posting here of my own I needed to let you know that I am alive and well. I’ve been very busy with what I need to do to retire, editing my book to meet the contract, help Judy around the house, and took Tuesday night to watch the “debate” that the President turned into a complete shit-show completely embarrassing himself, the country, and debasing his office. Everything Trump Touches dies. If you didn’t get his White Supremacist racist message anytime over the summer or during his it came through during the debate loud and clear. That is what makes this article from USHMM so pertinent now.

Have a great day,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 26, 2020 · 15:13

Pastors That Embody The Gospel and Don’t Use it as a Weapon: Thoughts from My Friend Fr. Kenneth Tanner


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

This is the latest Facebook post of my friend Father Kenneth Tanner,  Pastor and Priest at Holy Redeemer Church in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Before this he was on Staff and wrote for “Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.” His blog is located at https://medium.com/@kennethtanner 

As for me after doing some work around the house, I went out to watch Maddy playing in her little wading pool and slipped, causing me to do the splits, land hard on my right knee, and further aggravate my right hip. I have my bilateral knee injections on Monday and will have to bring up this, and the number of times I have had my knee or ankle go out, and my increasing number of falls. Since I had my VA evaluation Tuesday I have to send them an update. I think I will go back to using a cane, because it is really getting old. So I am going to go back to editing “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory!”

Please have a good and safe day and read Fr. Kenneth’s Essay on being a pastor in a time like this. He is refreshingly honest and pretty much sums up why I will not be a Church pastor or fight the politics of institutional Chaplain ministry when I retire from the Navy in less than 100 days. But we do need pastors like him.

Peace,

Padre Steve+ 

Father Kenneth’s essay follows…

 

Those who follow my social media know that the vast majority of my stories and images are about Jesus—his authentic humanity and his vulnerable divinity, how his unique person is our salvation and the salvation of the world. I’m astonished by and obsessed with Christ.

This same Jesus, who embodies the law and the prophets, who became one of us—a frail human who’s not immune to hunger, thirst, pain, and death—in order to liberate captives and set the oppressed free.

Those who bear the name and work of Jesus as they lead the church are not allowed to remain silent about the illnesses effecting their societies. We are held accountable for silence and inaction.

Our nation’s war on drugs and on terror has slowly eroded civil liberties and presents us with a crisis about personal freedoms, police powers, incarceration, and so on, and black Americans have shouldered the cross of what’s wrong.

Jesus came to set prisoners free—actual prisoners.

Justice systems are corrupt, are punitive rather than restorative, and America is not immune.

The gospel seeks to upend all of that with a profound trust in the ability of humans to heal—to be forgiven and to forgive—a trust that’s not shared by our nation’s “survival of the fittest” mentality.

Jesus stands with the poor, the refugee, the prisoner—not the ideal poor, or employable refugees, or model prisoners but the kinds we find in the real world, just as they are in all their inconvenience—and he expects us to lift up their cause.

What’s happened lately is that the political Left and the political Right define a lot of what the gospel urgently calls us to embody and to do as “political,” as supporting the ends of political movements, figures, or parties.

For the Left, if you believe that pre-born children have the right to life, for but one instance, then you must be a Republican or a supporter of the President.

No, you are simply applying to our public life together ideas of humanity, creation, and personhood taught in the Scriptures.

For the Right, if you want immigrants and refugees welcomed and treated with dignity, for but one instance, then you must be a Democrat or a supporter of their leaders.

No, you are simply listening to the law and prophets of Israel and applying to our public life together their relentless and ubiquitous warnings about God’s wrath toward any people who do not welcome and care for strangers and sojourners.

Salvation is not only about life after death but about this world, about our time and place in this world, and God is often waiting for Spirit-empowered humans to bring the kind of salvation he intends for the world by living the gospel.

So while I do not speak out about most things that concern me—I would never stop speaking right now if I did that—I do speak out loudly when I feel compelled before God to do so (as in this week’s meme about Breonna Taylor and our society’s collective responsibility for her).

It is a high wire act and something like a personal siege to be the leader of a spiritual community in this moment.

I don’t know any pastor who’s not disheartened, burned out, and ready to quit. They won’t tell you about it, but I will.

I preached Jesus Christ to the folks at Holy Redeemer for 15 years but like every other church in this town (and around the country), our congregations are divided between those who want everyone to wear masks at church all the time or they won’t attend and those you don’t want to wear a mask at all so they won’t attend, some who think the pandemic is a hoax and others who think it’s real, along with so many other silly binaries that divide us, driven by a media and a political class that thrives on our separation.

It rips me up. Day and night. I/we won’t be one of them by the grace of God but a tidal wave of pastoral resignations and church closings is coming.

I *thought* we were all centered in Jesus Christ. I thought we were different at HR. It’s a MAJOR gut punch. I don’t even hear from families we served for more than a decade. Not a phone call, not a text, not a peep, even though we reach out consistently.

Then I read something from Eugene Peterson, in his “Eat This Book,” about 1982 and economic and racial tensions that were present and how disappointed he was, after 20 years of preaching, to see his congregation as divided as the world.

He started reading Galatians and the Corinthian letters and realized that Paul had the same troubles with his congregations in the first century, divided over truly dumb stuff.

It’s a human problem.

Eugene realized he was not a failure.

And he decided to double down on Jesus Christ.

And that’s how The Message was born.

I decided months ago to double down on Jesus, too. And my joy in preaching and leading has returned, even though far fewer people hear my sermons. They feel like some of the best of my life and some folks are hearing them. And that’s OK with me. It really is.

When I do address matters of public concern I address them not as a person with political interests but as one called to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That means that sometimes I sound like a “liberal” and sometimes I sound like a “conservative.”

And therefore a lot of times I am misunderstood by most everyone for all of the reasons I just laid out. And that’s OK with me, too. It really is.

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September 24, 2020 · 20:26

State Sanctioned Punishment and Death for Profit: Oswold Pohl and the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am continuing the edits to my book but decided to repost an article about how the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, head by SS General Oswald Pohl used Concentration Camps for punishment an profits.

Timely subject regarding how Federal, State, and Contracted correction facilities or detention centers become places where government agencies, the states and those they contract with use them to exact profit at the expense of prisoners. Over 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated in all types types of facilities across the country at the city, county, state, and federal level, public and private.  Despite have We are slightly less than 5% of the World’s population the United States owns 25% of the world’s  prison population.

While our prisons and detention centers have yet to rise to the fullness of the Nazi evil, although on private detention center contracted by the US Border Protection Service and Immigration Naturalization Service had a Doctor sterilizing women detainees against their will.

It is enough to make me wonder what would happen in them if President Trump remains in Office. The man has a penchant for sadism, cruelty, and violence, as well as personal profit that Americans have never seen in a President. He is a malignant narcissistic sociopath who has no empathy and now has the death of over 200,000 Americans on his hands due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, with many more to come.

He unleashes the police power of the state against mostly peaceful protestors for the most banal reasons, and urges his supporters to Commit violent acts against his opponents on his behalf. So if he remains in office I can only imagine what he will do, and I cannot imagine it being anything to most Americans could be proud.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Two years ago on our way from Munich to Berlin we stopped to visit the memorial at the site of the former Flossenbürg Concentration Camp. For most people it is best known as the site where Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, General Hans Oster and others implicated in the 20th of July plot to assassinate Hitler. However, the evil committed there was far greater than the execution of these outstanding men.

In May of 1938 the SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt or the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office constructed a labor camp for German political and other prisoners at the town of Flossenbürg near the Czech border in northern Bavaria.

SS Gruppenführer Oswald Pohl 

Directed by SS Gruppenführer Oswald Pohl, a former German Navy officer and paymaster. Already a dedicated Nazi, Pohl gave up his Navy career in 1933 to take a commission in the SS at the behest of Heinrich Himmler who desired to use Pohl’s military administrative experience to set up a more professional and efficient administrative branch.

 

Pohl was the man for the job, and over time his influence grew. He was appointed to head the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten or the Main Office for Budget and Construction, and over time his responsibility continued to grow. German historian Heinz Höhne who wrote of Pohl:

Four potent departments placed Pohl’s hand firmly on the levers of power in the SS empire: he was in charge of the entire administration and supply of the Waffen-SS; he controlled the 20 concentration camps and 165 labor camps; he directed all SS and Police building projects; he was in charge of all SS economic enterprises.

But in 1938 Pohl was just beginning his rise in the SS. He realized that the Concentration Camps could be used for economic reasons as well as the punishment of the Reich’s enemies. Himmler appointed Pohl to oversee the economic and business operations of the camps. In March of 1938 they began at Mauthausen in Austria by partnering with the SS operated German Earth and Stoneworks Corporation (DEST) excavate Granite using Slave labor. In May they did the same at Flossenbürg.

Pohl’s understanding of labor was thoroughly Nazi, he wrote:

“SS industries [Unternehmen] have the task…to organize a more businesslike (more productive) execution of punishment and adjust it to the overall development of the Reich.”

Flossenbürg’s prisoners initially worked in the granite quarry above the town. They, like other slave laborers were exploited and even the more pragmatic views of Pohl’s office in terms of exploitation were based on the policies of extermination.

Stone Quarry at Flossenbürg 

As time went on Pohl developed a formula to base the economic profits of each prisoner. This was based on the “rental” of each prisoner to industry, minus food and clothing, the profits from anything left by them when they died, minus the expense of the cremation, based on an expected lifespan of nine months as a slave laborer. Pohl expected a profit of about 1,630 Reichsmarks per inmate employed as a slave laborer.

Flossenbürg was one of the second generation camps designed to be more than a place of extrajudicial punishment for enemies of the Nazi regime. It was designed for economic exploitation and extermination through work. While the initial inmates were Germans it would become a place where people from eighteen nations were worked to death.

Like Mauthausen, Flossenbürg supplied laborers to DEST which ran the quarry. The quarry is still in operation, though most of the work is done by machines run by very few actual well paid workers. The machines can be heard from the grounds of the former camp.

The camp grew and so did the numbers of prisoners, especially from countries conquered by the Nazis. Germans who made up the majority of the prisoners from its opening until late 1940 were eclipsed by Poles, Russians, and Hungarians. By the end of the war the camp had housed about 100,000 prisoners, of which about 30,000 died or were executed there.

As the number of deaths rose the process to dispose of the remains of the victims required that a crematorium be constructed. It was built in a valley at the base of the camp and ashes were disposed of near it in what is known as The Valley of Death. Those killed not only included those inmates who were worked to death, died of starvation or disease, but also the Polish and Soviet prisoners of war killed on the orders of the regime.

In 1943 the Messerschmitt facility in Regensburg moved parts production for the Bf-109 fighter plane to Flossenbürg. Camp inmates became part of the workforce producing those parts as well as other munitions for the German armaments industry.

The camp was liberated by the American 90th Infantry Division on April 23rd 1945.

The camp memorial is off the beaten track for most people. Visitors must make a special point to visit it. Unlike Buchenwald, Dachau, or Bergen-Belsen it is quite isolated from places that most people would go. Even so there are a significant number of Germans, and other Europeans, especially young people, who go to the camp to learn. In addition to the museum there is an education program with seminar rooms, guest speakers, and speak alike programs. A number of buildings have been preserved including the Camp Administration building, the Detention building where the special prisoners were housed, the laundry and camp kitchen which house the museum and special exhibits, the crematorium, two guard towers, and the SS Officer Club, or Casino. The last houses the education center as well as a small cafe for visitors.

In The Valley of Death near the crematorium there is what is called the Pyramid of Ashes, the Square of the Nations, and a cemetery. Above them are a chapel dedicated to the victims and a Jewish memorial.

For me I think that the most powerful images I will remember are The Valley of Death and the courtyard outside of the Detention barracks where Bonhoeffer, Oster, and Canaris were executed. The SS Camp doctor wrote the only account of the death of these men:

“On the morning of that day between five and six o’clock the prisoners, among them Admiral Canaris, General Oster, General Thomas and Reichgerichtsrat Sack were taken from their cells, and the verdicts of the court martial read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

That being said, while Bonhoeffer, Oster, and Canaris resonate with me I cannot ignore the fate of the 30,000 other men and women who died at Flossenbürg. They were victims of the Nazi policies on race and men like Pohl who extracted the last bit of profit they could make off of the lives and labor of their prisoners before they killed them.

Unfortunately with humanity being what it is and the desire to seek profit and power over the good of people what happened at Flossenbürg could happen again. There are men like Oswald Pohl today who would not hesitate to try to make a profit off of so called enemies of the state.

That is why we always have to remember what happened there and fight to ensure that it can never happen again

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September 20, 2020 · 21:26

Make My Day Trump Cultists that I have Tried to Reason With


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Here’s the deal. I do my best to treat everyone who comes to my site and comment with respect and simple decency. That runs out when a person, be they a subscriber or not makes comes to the site and makes ad hominem attacks and treats me like shit I say the hell with them. I had to do that today to a subscriber of a couple of months who I had a number of interactions with but even though he disagreed with me I treated him with respect and kindness while not giving up my position.

Today he responded to my post about what Mitch McConnell and was President Trump are doing with the chance to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a Trump apparatchik before the election. I told the man that I had treated Him with the utmost of respect and kindness since his first opposing comment but that he was done. I have blocked him from posting ever again and frankly I don’t give a damn what he or anyone else thinks.

So, if you want to be like Ray or Raymundo Ruiz , a Trump Cultist from Orlando Florida, formerly of Winter Park Florida.  I am calling him out by name. I won’t publish his phone number, address or Florida Registered Voter number, but let this is a warning shot to anyone who comes after me here. If I can identify you I will call you out, I will shame you.

That might sound unchristian, but I don’t tolerate bullies and will do everything within the law to call them out and shame them. They are unworthy of respect and deserve nothing more.

So if they come to your blog, website, Facebook Page, Twitter feed or anything else, don’t even attempt to engage them with reason or logic, because they don’t respect you and probably wish we were dead. If you can identify them shame them, if not block them.

That being said, I am done for the night.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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