Politics in Trump times

Having worked at the European Parliament has given me a bit of insight of how 27 states can work together... Yet what CNN, BCC and other TV-channels show me these days is beyond my comprehension. The turmoil, the confusion and the arrogance is mind boggling. It all seems haphazard, not thought through. There seems to be no trust, just in some people the blatant arrogance of power. If T. doesn't know anymore what to do he starts an other press conference. The meeting with his Israeli colleague Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu was to say the least weird. Trump suddenly didn't care whether a one state or two state solution. He only suggested to cool it a bit with the settlements. Palestinians have once again gotten the short stick.
Living in Antwerp, near a larger Jewish section makes me wonder how the people there feel. I see the different 'factions' in how they dress. I see how the young Jewish girls are little happy princesses and then when they grow up they seem not happy anymore. They have a bunch of children in tow, seem often sullen and down. Maybe they long to go back to Israel where the weather is better.
Yet what I really don't understand is how suddenly a person becomes Trumps best friend and how they get fired, or they make the decision to leave the ongoing madness and try and salvage their dignity...
Elizabeth Warren is my favorite together with Claire McCaskill
I root for them.

Courage against Racism

Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., urged Congress in a letter to block the 1986 nomination of Jeff Sessions for federal judge, saying that allowing him to join the federal bench would “irreparably damage the work of my husband.” The letter, previously unavailable publicly, was obtained on Tuesday by The Washington Post.
(Read the full letter below)
The letter was read by courageous Elizabeth Warren. She was silenced and brought outside the Congress, where in the hall she went on reading the full letter which follows here:
“Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts,” King wrote in the cover page of her nine-page letter opposing Sessions’s nomination, which failed. “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.”
Thirty years later, Sessions, now a senator, is again undergoing confirmation hearings as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, and he is facing fierce opposition from civil rights groups.
In the letter, King writes that Sessions ascension to the federal bench “simply cannot be allowed to happen,” arguing that as a U.S. attorney, the Alabama lawmaker pursued “politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions” and that he “lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.” She said Sessions’s conduct in prosecuting civil rights leaders in a voting-fraud case “raises serious questions about his commitment to the protection of the voting rights of all American citizens.”
“The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods,” she wrote, later adding, “I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made toward fulfilling my husband’s dream.”

Coretta Scott King

Elizabeth Warren read out the text that follows and was stopped and escorted out of the congress trying to stop the nomination of Jeff Sessions for federal judge. Elizabeth is my champion and I thank her for her courage. Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., urged Congress in a letter to block the 1986 nomination of Jeff Sessions for federal judge, saying that allowing him to join the federal bench would “irreparably damage the work of my husband.” The letter, previously unavailable publicly, was obtained on Tuesday by The Washington Post.

(Read the full letter below)

“Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts,” King wrote in the cover page of her nine-page letter opposing Sessions’s nomination, which failed. “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.”
Thirty years later, Sessions, now a senator, is again undergoing confirmation hearings as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, and he is facing fierce opposition from civil rights groups.
In the letter, King writes that Sessions’s ascension to the federal bench “simply cannot be allowed to happen,” arguing that as a U.S. attorney, the Alabama lawmaker pursued “politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions” and that he “lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.” She said Sessions’s conduct in prosecuting civil rights leaders in a voting-fraud case “raises serious questions about his commitment to the protection of the voting rights of all American citizens.”
“The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods,” she wrote, later adding, “I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made toward fulfilling my husband’s dream.”
It is sad that in today's America actions like this are still necessary. We live in dark times and Elizabeth shows us the courage we need in these circumstances.