THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

When Charlie Kirk was killed the MAGA’s elevated him to almost sainthood status. T**** orders flags flown at half mast. Eulogies abound. Statues appear out of nowhere, and Turning Point USA chapters become mandatory in Oklahoma high schools. 

Two National Guardsmen are shot and again, the MAGA’a are incensed. To them it is a “crime against humanity.” Clearly the tragic deaths of these three people caused heart-wrenching angst and apoplexy among the MAGA’s.

However. Consider these statistics on mass shootings in America since 2000. This list is not intended to be comprehensive and only includes incidents where more than ten people died. 

Las Vegas, Nevada (2017), 60 people killed at random , 13 killed by a white supramcist outside a grocery store;and hundreds injured;

Orlando, Florida (June 2016), 49 people killed and more than 50 injured in an attack on an LGBTQ nightclub; 

Blacksburg Virginia (April, 007), 32 people killed and over 20 injured on Virginia Tech campus; October, 

Newtown, Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School (December, 2012), 27 people killed at the school;

Sutherland Springs, Texas (November, 2017), 26 people killed during a Sunday church service; 

Uvalde, Texas, (May, 2022), 21 people killed at Robb Elementary School; 

El Paso, Texas (August ,2019). 23 dead at Walmart shooting;

Buffalo, New York, (May, 2022) 13 dead outside a grocery store;

Brookfield, Wisconsin (Oct 2007) Living church of God shooting, 11 dead;

DeKalb, Illinois (Oct, 2007) Northern Ilinois shooting. 11 dead.

That’s a total of 240 Americans dead  in mass shootings, at at least 60 of them were children. 

Indeed, if we include the dead in the some 30 other incidents of mass shootings that left at least 10 dead, we’re already over 370, and that’s not even counting the hundreds of shootings that killed a mere handful. The overwhelming majority of these nameless dead are simply innocent victims of random, senseless violence. 

And why did they die? 

Social theories abound on this subject. However, Kirk an acknowledged font of MAGA wisdom, alibied these killings in a truly heartless manner when he claimed that “Having an armed citizenry comes with a price. You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death. I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” Indeed, right wing commentators such as Tim Pool and other pro‑gun influencers have explicitly insisted that no amount of dead children justifies limiting gun rights. 

This may account for the fact that the best we often seem to get from the from the right wing after a mass shooting is thoughts and prayers, followed by politically-charged accusations and innuendo. For example:

Following the 2023 Nashville Christian school shooting, senior Republicans expressed outrage about attacks on Christians and schools, used the event to attack “woke” culture and trans people.

After the 2022 Uvalde massacre, Texas Republicans and national right‑wing figures responded with intense anger at the local police, the school system, and “soft” security, demanding more armed personnel, fortified schools, and crackdowns on mental health.

The overall pattern of MAGA responses to mass killings is that when conservatives habitually move beyond “thoughts and prayers” to some combination of demanding more armed security and policing in schools, churches, and public spaces, harsher and expedited  criminal penalties, expanded “good guy with a gun” responses, culture‑war attacks on liberals and minorities, and even “godlessness,” all framed as the real cause of the shootings.

This is all in directly opposed to what has generally become the left-wing response to these events: a kinder, gentler nation, a humane response to the violence and support for federal gun‑control legislation. 

The truth here seems to me to be that besides the fact that the America public in general has become inured to this level of slaughter by firearms, American conservatives seem to get aroused to more than their standard, off-the-shelf responses only when they identify with the victims. 

The rest of the dead are deemed expendable to the god of the 2nd Amendment, or more simply because of who they are. They serve only to create a platform for political rhetoric aimed at perceived political and cultural targets. There is something fundamentally wrong with this picture.

And that is reflected in the politically-charged and cold-hearted response of the conservative right which does not weep out loud for long over the untold thousands who fall victim to mass shootings. Instead, they respond emotionally with knee-jerk angst, then continue with heartless, soulless bullshit. Their lack of humanity is apparent and appalling.

And that’s what is wrong, here. 

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

ANGEL OF DEATH

One unmistakeable trait of a tyrant is a demonstrable lack of concern for human life. The evils of Hitler and Stalin come readily to mind. Tragically, Donald T**** exhibits that same indifference. For, in spite of his claimed belief in Christianity, instead of endeavoring to feed the hungry, heal the sick and give aid and comfort to the needy, he has sanctioned and even facilitated human suffering and death.For example:

A prominent, detailed scientific report by a commission of 33 scientists was published by The Canadian medical journal Lancet in early 2021 which attributed about 22,000 deaths in 2019 to the T**** administration’s rollback of environmental regulations during his first term.

Continuing government and university studies have demonstrated a direct relationship to human suffering and death as a result of the changing climate. Exhibiting a callous disregard for the lives of his fellow Americans, T**** rejects the entire concept of global climate change, and has cancelled those studies.

T****’s selection of Robert Kennedy Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services is another prime example of T****’s indifference to human life.

Vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA), the molecule that made possible the COVID vaccines, have shown to be effective against diseases ranging from pancreatic cancer and Type 1 diabetes to multiple sclerosis and even bird flu. Yet, Kennedy has re-branded mRNA therapies as “weapons of mass destruction.“ And all the while, he spreads conspiratorial lies about untested vaccines being pumped into the food supply to “mass medicate” Americans.

Claiming that more COVID research was needed, Kennedy has also changed vaccine protocols. He alleges without evidence that healthy adults and children do not need to be vaccinated against a virus that is now endemic in the population.

However, research shows that the virus does cause severe disease and hospitalization, and that the effects of “long covid” commonly occur in people without pre-existing conditions. Mortality in these cases is not unknown. T**** and Kennedy ignore this truth and do not care about their victims.

T****’s actions and his selection of Kennedy for H.H.S. Secretary will result in tens if not hundreds of thousands of Americans to suffer needlessly, and some will die from COVID and other wholly preventable diseases. Do either of these men care about the American people who will perish because of what they do? Not in the least.

On the world scene, by eliminating the USAID program T**** purposefully denied vital food and medical aid to myriads of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. The Lancet reported that an estimated 14 million wholly preventable deaths from starvation and medical conditions will occur in the next 5 years due to the elimination of USAID assistance. This number would include some 4.5 million deaths among children younger than 5 years.

There is an inherent racism to T****’s actions. The overwhelming majority of his victims are not white. Consummate racist that he is, the president most assuredly doesn’t give a damn about any of them.

T**** has also terminated American funding for Gavi, the organization that purchases vaccines for children in developing countries. This will significantly scale back support for efforts to combat malaria, one of the biggest killers globally. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of children, again almost all non-white, who will die because of what he has done. And gain, he does not care.

Here at home, the president’s bloodlust is evident by his rapid re-instatement of the federal death penalty and by his desire to add four more crimes to the list of Federal capital offenses. One of these crimes, large-scale (non‑homicide) drug trafficking, doesn’t reach the level of a capital offense in any state. But that doesn’t stop T****’s lusting for the power to kill.

Neither does T**** care about this nation’s poor. All during his campaign and after, Donald has insisted he would not touch Medicaid spending. Yet his “Big Beautiful Bill” cut $1.2 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act subsidies. Betraying the promises he made, T**** gleefully signed his bill.

Because of this, some 11.8 million Americans will lose their Medicaid coverage and their access to medical care. The number of those who will not survive because of this can only be surmised.

It is estimated that up to 40%, or some 23 million Americans, rely on Social Security for most or all their income In spite of this, the dismantling of Social Security is already in progress. Twelve percent of the Social Security workforce has been terminated. Many services, including almost the entire telephone answering and information service, have been either truncated eliminated as well. Offices have been “consolidated” or closed outright.

T****’s actions and indifference in these instances will bring suffering and death to untold thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable of our citizens. Millions will no longer be able to get the medications and medical services they need to survive, will not be able to adequately feed themselves, or lose their homes.

For in truth, does Donald T****does not care a whit about the fate of America’s poor or her senior citizens.

And then there is his alleged fight against fentanyl. Over 100,000 Americans have died since 2022 from fentanyl overdoses, an estimated 46,000 of them last year. Donald T****’s initial round of tariffs against Mexico and Canada were heralded as a way to force those countries to stop the smuggling of that drug into the country.

This was, of course, absurd on the face of it. America cannot browbeat her neighbors into engaging in drug-interdiction in this manner. The tariffs have since been withdrawn.

Since then T*** has taken to just blowing up small, fast-moving surface vessels in the open sea. He claims the individuals on board are “narco-terrorists” and cartel members. However, the U.S. has provided no evidence to support these claims, and reports indicate they are most likely low-level traffickers or fishermen.

Legal experts and some lawmakers have questioned the legality of the strikes. They argue that they amount to extrajudicial killings and a departure from the historical approach of interdicting drug boats as a law enforcement issue.

 Recently, as directed by the Commander in Chief, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued orders to simply “kill everyone” aboard one targeted vessel. When the smoke cleared after the first strike, two survivors were seen clinging to the disabled little boat. Hegseth ordered a second strike which killed them as well. That action was a clear violation of all acknowledged international rules of warfare and clearly constitute a war crime.

But these niceties are beyond T***’s comprehension. He just wants to kill people.

In fact, his administration’s focus has little to do with addressing the root causes of addiction in the U.S. Instead, T**** would rather make political points with symbolic declarations about border security, indiscriminate murder on the high seas rather than actually consider helping the afflicted, the addicted, and the dying.

And finally, there’s his first administrations response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was basically no response at all. His studied inactions lead to a horrendous toll.

T**** knew in December 2019 what was happening in China and that disaster was headed our way, yet he did nothing to prepare America for what he knew was coming. And when the virus arrived, he claimed it was of no consequence and spent months calling it a fraud and a “Democrat Party hoax.” He was lying, of course, and he knew it.

In the early stage of the pandemic there were three “interventions” identified to help stop the virus’ spread. But did Donald champion or model any of these behaviors? No. In fact, he did the opposite. And people died. And does he care? Of course not.

T**** did declare a national COVID emergency. However, “Operation Warp Speed” to the contrary notwithstanding, T**** did nothing substantive to marshal the country’s vast resources to fight the virus. And when the vaccines arrived, did our nation’s leader roll up his sleeve and lead by example? No he did not.

Donald T*****’s considered and deliberate refusal to lead the fight against COVID-19 by decree, by action or by example took a horrible toll. Some 385,000 Americans died on T.****’s watch while he sat on his heels and suggested we ingest disinfectant. And so our president turned a mounting crisis into a monumental tragedy.

Almost another half million Americans perished in 2021 before more dynamic leadership, higher levels of natural immunity and weaker strains of the virus finally brought the pandemic under control. But because of T****’s dereliction of duty, hundreds of thousands of Americans died from COVID-19 who did not have to. The blood of these dead Americans is on his hands. But does he care? Of course he doesn’t.

In all of these instances, Donald T**** had it within his power to uplift humanity by saving lives at home and around the world. By his actions alone he had the power to relieve the hunger and suffering of tens of millions of the world’s most vulnerable human beings. Instead, he did just the opposite.

Our country’s stature as a great and humanitarian nation depends on our president, our people’s representative does, from his high platform promote hight laudable and laudable actions at home and on the world stage. But does Donald T**** assume that mantle of leadership? No. Instead, he sheds it.

In depraved indifference to the requirements and demands of an enlightened leader and the needs of mankind, Donald T****’s deliberate actions and studied inaction has and will continue to lead to tragedy for millions of people in this country and around the world. With the power of life and death in his hands, deliberately, tragically and perversely, Donald T**** choses death. And he does not care.

It is almost as if he wants them to die.

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

In a recent speech, J.D. Vance said that when “the settlers came to the New World they found very widespread child sacrifice.” Framing it as a core moral achievement of Christian societies, he went on to say that ending this practice was “one of the great accomplishments of Christian civilization.”

He is, of course, lying and he knows it.

Historians note that while there is archaeological evidence of ritual child sacrifice in some Meso-American and South American cultures, there is little evidence that such practices were “very widespread” among most North American Indigenous societies. Vance’s broad “New World” phrasing implies this to be true.

Critics also argue that his allegations ignore both the racial and religious violence and abuses carried out by Christian empires and missions around the world. They also ignore the fact that Western Hemisphere civilizations were already many millennia old long before European colonization and that Indigenous societies had their own complex moral systems.

Yes, Vance is lying through his teeth and he knows it. However, he is not lying without a deep and sinister motive.

The vice president is engaging in racist revisionism all dressed up as patriotism and unspoken White and Christian supremacy. It reveals exactly how far the Right-wing Christian Nationalists and White Supremacists who are running our country will go to rewrite history to justify their fascist oppression.

Of course Vance and his ilk will deny all this. However, American author Maya Angelou has couched Vance’s language in it’s proper contest:

“When people tell you who they are, believe them the first time.”

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

Donald T**** has said: “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me into Heaven. I think I’m not maybe Heaven-bound.” In other contexts he also said: “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. I don’t believe there’s anything that could earn me a spot in Heaven.” 

For once in his life, he’s right. The Bible confirms that. Here it is for starters, straight from the original text: 

“Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.”  Proverbs 21:13 . And there’s more:

“Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.” — Proverbs 14:31, and “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.” — Psalm 82:3. Not to mention:

“When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” — Leviticus 19:33-34.

And that’s just the Old Testament. T**** claims to be a Christian. Well, here it is, straight from the Savior’s mouth:

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” — Matthew 25:35-40. Also:

“Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise,” — Luke 3:11, and  “Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” —Mark 10:21

The Old Testament is clear on how we are to treat the poor and why, and especially how we are to receive and accept foreigners in our midst. 

Jesus taught that ignoring the needs of the poor is spiritually dangerous. He challenged his followers not only to charity, but also to radical generosity and justice with their time and resources.

These passages convey G-d’s (and his Son’s) expectation that generosity, justice and compassion for the poor reflect faith and obedience. They emphasize treating foreigners with kindness, and recognize hospitality as a core biblical principle. Jesus and the prophets explicitly connect caring for outsiders with G-d’s deepest values and blessings.

I sincerely doubt that T**** has actually read any of this himself. And I doubt that he has any real spiritual sense or religious convictions. Perhaps there is a spark of something in there, anything is possible. However, it looks like at least once in his life, T**** is right about something; Heaven will most likely be closed to him.  

After all, you can’t argue with the Good Book. 

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

                       

Donald T**** is literally deciding that who deserves disaster relief is based on how they voted

In the past several months, T**** approved millions in Federal relief funding for Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska, all states that helped elect him. However, the president denied disaster aid requests for Vermont, Illinois, and Maryland – all blue states that did not support him – after those states sought federal relief for severe flooding and storm damages. As of yet, he has not reversed those denials or approved the aid for any of the three states.

After Typhoon Halong devastated Alaskan villages in October, T**** was online calling Alaska’s residents “incredible Patriots.” In the same breath, he bragged about winning them “BIG” in past elections, as if disaster victims had earned their salvation by voting the right way.

So let’s be clear: if your community is drowning but didn’t vote for T****, good luck.

Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, didn’t mince words. “President T**** and his administration have politicized disaster relief And our communities are the ones who will pay the price.”

He’s right. And it’s obscene. Disaster aid isn’t supposed to be a campaign perk. It’s not supposed to depend on party lines, loyalty tests, or how loudly you cheer at a rally. It’s supposed to reflect the most basic moral principle in public life: we take care of our own.

What we’re watching is moral corruption in broad daylight, the erosion of fairness, compassion, and decency at the highest level of government. This isn’t just about who gets a FEMA check, it’s about who counts as worthy in T****’s America.

Every time T**** politicizes disaster aid he sends the perverse message that cruelty is power and empathy is weakness. We Americans don’t turn our backs on our neighbors because they voted differently. We help because that’s who we are supposed to be and that’s what we are supposed to do.

The idea that your right to recover depends on your political allegiance is beneath contempt and beyond corruption. Indeed, it is morally bankrupt. 

And that pretty much describes Donald T****. 

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILEYou are meant to feel powerless. That is what a strongman wants, to make you feel as if nothing can stop his taking autocratic control. This is Donald T****’s strategy, it is what he is counting on. No less than our way of life hangs in the balance.

Our democratic institutions rely on the compliance of its citizens and leaders with and within the law. They are not capable of dealing with the existential threat of tyrannical defiance. Our Founding Fathers presumed and relied on the intentions of good men to hold the reigns of power and authority.

But Donald T**** is not good man.

The 1st Amendment guarantees our right to free speech and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. We must continue to exercise that right, to continue to fill the streets across the country by the millions and make our petitions with loud, strong language.

It is in the country’s best interests that we are peaceful. As John Lennon observed, “When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”

And it works.

In Chicago and Portland, T**** did all he could to unhinge the population. He sent masked, armed agents in caravans to invade peaceful communities where they provoked violence and created chaos. They chased people down in the streets, parking lots and even into businesses. They beat helpless victims before arresting them and exercised indiscriminate use of tear gas. They arrested people as they came and left courtrooms. They claimed absolute authority.

In response, people in those cities created organizations to monitor and warn people at risk by phone and with whistles when ICE squadrons were seen patrolling their neighborhoods. They had observers on scene to document ICE assaulting and arresting helpless victims, and their lawyers in the courts. In some cases, street demonstrations intimidated T****’s brownshirts, forcing them to retreat.

Mocking their tormentors with eloquent humor, Portland demonstrators in Halloween costumes lined up opposite armed, masked ICE thugs. Costumed protestors marched by the hundreds, and the image of a defiant frog became the symbol of that city’s resistance.

The good people of these American cities creatively channeled the essence of Dr. Martin Luther King and John Lennon. Damning “optics,” bad press and spirited, peaceful protest succeeded in blunting the effects of T****’s private army. ICE is now abandoning these cities and has moved on. The people in their new target cities already know what to do, and they’re doing it.

T**** wants us to feel powerless to stop him. He must see that we are not.

Our strongest weapon in defense of our country, our liberty and our freedom is first and foremost our concerted action against the president’s quasi-military occupation of our cities. And second, we must continue to exercise our right to speak our minds, to organize, to fill our nation’s streets by the millions and express our righteous anger.

We must continually remind Donald T**** that it is the people and only the people who are sovereign in this country. He does not make laws for us nor is he above them. And if he endeavors to become so, he must see that we can and will bring him down.

And we have the way to do that. We have one path forward to fight against this madman’s lust for power. We have the ballot box, we have our voices and we have our ultimate weapon:

Resistance.

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

  ALL FALL DOWN 

In a very real sense we are witnessing the fall of American greatness at the hands of Donald T**** and his right-wing MAGA’s. Consider:

A great, civilized country would not limit health care, tolerate food insecurity for its people or leave crops rotting in the fields while it citizens go hungry. 

It would not destroy what was once admired as the world’s best educational system.

It would not attempt to rewrite its history in order to satisfy a fickle minority who would erase rather than teach and learn the lessons of its tragic past. 

It would not target women by eliminating their reproductive rights or allow politicians to decide their health care issues and all the while refusing to help the babies whoa are the result of their crass indifference. 

A great, civilized country would not refuse or abuse desperate immigrants. 

It would not pretend to believe in Christianity while perverting and betraying its tenets.

It would not refuse to protect the Earth from destruction in deference to industries that would destroy it.

It would not tolerate the rise to autocratic power of a corrupt, demented, pathological liar, second-rate con artist and convicted felon.

A great, civilized country would not tolerate masked, armed and unidentifiable agents chasing people down in the streets and hauling them away in unmarked vehicles. 

It would not tolerate the housing of unnamed victims in inhumane detention centers without access to beds, personal hygiene, medical attention, legal assistance or decent food. 

It would not tolerate the detention, arrest and deportation of unnamed victims without the pretense of due process. 

In all these things America is debased. Its shining light on the hill grows dim as its cheap, tawdry leader drags its exalted promise through the mud.

The truth is that the Great Experiment of America’s Founding Fathers has been abandoned by men who deem themselves above it’s most sacred tenets: that we are one nation with liberty and justice for all, and that no man is above the law. 

Our friends back way and our enemies exult. We have become our own nemesis.

The whole world is watching. 

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

Moderate Senate Democrats are catching hell for caving on the government shutdown. But they didn’t just go quietly into the long good night. There is some interesting strategy at work, here.

It’s important to remember that nothing to date is a done deal. The agreement has to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president. And there are some things in it that not everyone’s going like.

Also, the Republicans don’t come away clean. The Democrat’s legislative wins include restoring the jobs of thousands of federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown and bar further reductions through Jan. 30.

They guarantee back pay for hundreds of thousands of others who were furloughed, as required by a law T**** endeavored to break. Among other things, this would put the air traffic controllers back on the job just a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Americans will like that, and will know who to thank.

The agreement protected the government Accountability Office, (GAO), an agency that helps Congress keep track of federal spending, by maintaining funding at its current level. It also removed language that would bar the agency from suing the White House to release illegally withheld funds.

More importantly, it will eliminate the dog-and-pony issue of who is responsible for the shutdown dragging on while keeping the hot-topic issues of healthcare and food insecurity open and directly in front of the American public for at least another month. Millions are already going hungry and millions more are looking at a devastating jump of the cost of medical care.

By re-opening the government, the Senate agreement forces the Republicans to address these issues which are now squarely in their court. Without extending the ACA subsidies, which the Republicans have previously rejected out of hand, premiums will rise. And T**** is still in court trying not to have to feed hungry children. The Democrats are clearly on the people’s side, here. And the Republicans know it.

And finally, it means that Speaker Johnson will have to re-convene the House in order to pass the compromise budget bill. That puts the issue of the Epstein files on the table because he will will have run out of excuses for not swearing in Arizona’s newest member. He could even face a revolt among members of his caucus over the release of the files.

So the Senate Democrats are not just guilty of giving in. As they give, so do they get. And their agreement means they can hold the Republican’s feet over the flames for another month over the issues that matter most to long-suffering Americans. And they could even get their subpoena for the Epstein files, which could be the penultimate disaster for the Republican Party.

So what have the Senate’s moderate Democrats done? They’ve done what politicians are supposed to do. They’ve done what they get paid to do. They have “played politics.”

And it’s not a losing hand.

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

According to new reporting from journalist David Schuster, more than 100 GOP lawmakers are now leaning towards voting with Democrats in forcing the release of the Epstein files. Schuster suggests that they’re not doing this out of principle. They’re doing it to get in front of what’s coming.

Multiple sources report that senior DOJ officials have privately informed Republican lawmakers that the sealed Jeffrey Epstein files are even worse for Donald T**** than anyone imagined.

Nor is this just about T****. It is about the rot of immorality that lets billionaires, politicians, and predators operate above the law while the survivors of their depravity are silenced or dismissed. It’s about a justice system that protects proximity to power instead of the victims of it.

It is also clear that if the DOJ truly believes these files contain evidence of criminal behaviort, then keeping them sealed is not justice. It’s complicity.

Speaker Johnson is caught in an unbelievably tight bind. He has been told by his Lord and Master that he is not to allow the files be made public. Yet he knows that when (or if) he re-convenes the House, one way or another there will be a Congressional subpoena demanding that the files be released. 

Johnson knows he can’t hold out indefinitely. The House is scheduled to re-convene on November 10, the jig will be up. When the subpoena comes it will put Donald T**** into that unbelievably tight squeeze. He knows what is in those files; the thought of their release must terrify him. And rightly so.

Then there is this: will T**** defy a Congressional subpoena? Defying a congressional subpoena is considered an impeachable offense when done, as it will be inn this case, in the context of obstructing a congressional investigation. But there is precedent, this was the basis for one of the articles of impeachment against President Donald T**** in 2019.

The fact of the matter is that the truth is coming, one way or another. And when it does, Americans will have to decide whether or not they are prepared to put up with this terrible waste of human flesh any longer.

THE BERNHARD PERSPECTIVE

                               

SNAP benefits have never been cut off in any government shutdown. Until now. Not once, Not under Bush. Not under Obama. Not during other long shutdowns. The only two times Americans have come close to closing food assistance was during the 2018-2019 shutdown and the one happening right now. Both were under Donald T****’s presidencies.

In 2018, the USDA had to scramble to pay February benefits early to stop people from going hungry. Now, in 2025, we were warned that millions may not get November benefits at all.

We’re talking about families who rely on as little as $6 a day for food being told there is “no funding.” Yet the government sits on billions in reserve for just such emergencies, and under T****’s “big ugly bill,” billionaires and corporations get billion dollar tax breaks. 

And all the while, the president fields his private army in the city streets, he gives away $40 billion in American treasure to prop up the failing economy of a South American strongman he likes and ICE burns through millions on tear gas which it uses against innocent and defenseless citizens. 

And to top it off, the president accepts a gift jet that will cost Americas a cool billion to restore and will be his to keep, and builds himself a golden ballroom. 

This isn’t fiscal responsibility. It’s just plain, in-your-face cruelty. Which seems to be the hallmark of  Donald T****’s administration. Fortunately, a pair of federal judges have put the kibosh on T**** halting SNAP benefits and has ordered the government to pay them, either in part of in whole. 

T**** has said, of course, that will pay only in part, and that it may take a while before anyone gets relief. And that is only after challenging the lower court’s rulings and threatening in any event to defy them. So here we have it: Federal judges order T**** to feed hungry children, and he fights the order. 

You’d almost think he wants them to go hungry.