A couple of short notes... and a peek ahead

TAT readers,

I just wanted let folks know that the reason my writing has been a bit erratic over the few months, has been that I just haven’t been up to it. Things are finally looking up and I am getting my feet back under me again, after battling some chronic issues. The way ahead looks bright and I am grateful. I know that I have owed a few of you responses to messages and I apologize for the delays. As this week and next week progresses, I hope to be caught up. Thanks to all of you most kindly for your patience.

There will be a new full essay tomorrow or Wednesday morning, with another later in the week. I hope to keep to a more regular schedule as things progress around here. There’s so much going on that we need to be aware of, that sitting on the bench, is not acceptable to me. Like most of you, I always feel better when I’m busy with the things I care about deeply, and that means writing here on Substack. Substack’s platform came at just the right time for many of us. For me, it has become a way to combat the evil in our White House and Congress, as well as to discuss other national security issues, in-depth.

I rarely decide what to write about until the morning that I begin pounding the keys. The rate of important developments seem to come by the hour, not the day or the week under the current administration. Some of the things I have considered today as subjects, if things do go awry overnight, is my perspective about some of the things we must do as a nation when this nightmare is over, and the handwriting is on the wall that it will be over, likely sooner than later. Humpty Trumpty’s perch on his wall, is precarious and appears to be more tenuous by the day.

We must pursue accountability from the top to the bottom of the Republican Party, along with their oligarchical taskmasters and enablers. I must emphasize here though, it is justice we seek, not revenge. Justice is part of being a patriotic American and pursuing it, a patriotic duty. Trump and Republicans chase revenge. Don’t be like them. We’ll have to reconnect with family and friends, while also remembering that the most brainwashed among them, will not change. This is something that I learned early in my counterterrorism career. Once someone passes a certain point on the spectrum of radicalization, the odds are extremely low, that they can regain a full sense of who they were, pre-radicalization. This is quite tragic for them and the rest of us, who were their family, friends and neighbors. America will not look dissimilar than it did post Civil War, whose Confederate ideology was quite similar to today’s GOP.

We must rewrite laws to ensure there is no chance of this occurring again. We need some significant changes at the Supreme Court, regarding how they are selected, held accountable with a firm set of ethics that can be enforced. The three branches of government must reaffirm and harden the “checks and balances” so brilliantly included in our constitution, primarily due to James Madison’s scholarship.

We must also take a broom to the overt corruption in congress, enabled by a pro-oligarchy SCOTUS. Damn Mitch McConnell for the mess we’re in across the street from the Capital, at the Supreme Court. More than any other person, he has turned our highest court into one that sucks up to billionaires and twists our law into pretzels, in order to justify supporting the fully far-right, MAGA Republican Party.

These are just a handful of the thoughts turning around between my ears this evening. There’s so much more to this line of thinking and so it will demand a full essay, as our news cycle allows. It’s time to start pondering, all that comes afterward.

Off now for this evening and back soon.

Thanks again to all for your patience,

Paul