April 2023
Clint Hill: A Tortured Hero
30/04/23 10:06
April 30 2023 (Vol. 17 No. 22) - On a recent visit to a half-price book store, I purchased a copy of Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Ford written by former Secret Service agent Clint Hill with Lisa McCubbin. It was on The New York Times Best-Seller List in 2016, but I was too busy being a college professor at the time to read it. Anyone old enough to remember the assassination of John F. Kennedy remember Hill from the picture above, taken from a frame of the infamous Zapruder film. Within two seconds of the first of three shots being fired, Agent Hill reacted. As it turned out, it was too late to save the President. But he may well have saved the First Lady who, in shock, had climbed on back of the limousine to retrieve a piece of her husband's skull. The book is one of three Hill has written since he was forced to retire in 1975 because of the stress of the job and the toll it took on his health. A recurring theme throughout the book is how much those six seconds in Dallas in November 1963 haunted him - and continues to haunt him. In an 1975 interview with 60 Minutes, Hill told CBS correspondent Mike Wallace that the president's death was his fault, that he had responded too slowly. At that moment, Wallace, as has every one else since, told Hill that it wasn't his fault and that he had acted heroically. Another recurring theme in the book is how the men whose lives he has guarded at the risk to his own can be so cavalier about their personal safety. Even after JFK's assassination, subsequent presidents occasionally took unnecessary risks. There's another message from his book: Presidents are humans with gigantic egos. If they didn't have those egos, they probably wouldn't have been president in the first place. Hill saw Eisenhower as a formal, but polite man. Kennedy was the friendliest and kindest of the presidents he guarded. Johnson was crass and bullying. Nixon was devious and insecure. Ford was "an everyman" who was easy to get along with. Interestingly, he really enjoyed his time on Vice President Spiro Agnew's detail and was saddened by his self-inflicted fall from power. But the greatest message that comes out of this book is that protecting the President of the United States comes with a great personal cost. While Clint Hill has learned to cope with his demons from Dallas, he will forever be haunted by the nagging sense of "What if I had acted sooner?" One can only hope that someday he will achieve that elusive inner piece by realizing that he, too, is human, and did the very best he could under horrific circumstances. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. Biden For President...For Now
25/04/23 07:26
April 25, 2023 (Vol. 17 No. 21) - President Joe Biden announced in a video released this morning that he is seeking a second term. I will support him in this effort. I have three fundamental reasons why I'd like to see Biden reelected. First: He's earned it. Forget all the static and Republican bullshit. Look at the facts. Most of this nation's economic problems and America's image in the world have been vastly improved during Biden's first two years in office. While there is still work to be done, you should give him credit for untangling much of the mess created by his criminally-indicted and seditious predecessor. Second: He's a good, decent man. With his election, America began to fill an empathy gap created by the previous oligarchical and amoral tenant in the White House. The late President George H.W. Bush once dreamed of a "kinder and gentler America." Joe Biden is trying to deliver on that, despite intense opposition over gun control, immigration and civil rights by his predecessor - who is facing a civil trial in New York today over a sexual assault - and by his sycophantic and pathetic followers. And third: If him, who else? Certainly not the defeated former president who may well be sitting in a prison cell by Election Day. Certainly not that little dictator - with emphasis on the first syllable - who runs Florida as if it were the Third Reich. Asa Hutchinson or Niki Barbour? I am surprised they can even stand up straight after spending the last six years kissing The Donald's ass. Bernie Sanders or RFK, Jr.? Put them in a barrel and roll them down the hill and you'd have a nut job on top every time. Let's face it: As long as American democracy remains under threat by the former president and his MAGA maggots, Joe Biden is the best we have to steady the ship of state. I do have one qualification: Concern about Biden's age. We are moving into new territory by electing a man who will be 86 when his term ends. However, age is not a disqualifier. He may move and speak like a elderly man, but, objectively, there is no evidence of any serious mental decline And remember: There is a large body of highly qualified physciatrists who believe that the soon-to-be-incarcerated ex-president was - and still is - mentally ill. So, for now at least, Joe is my guy. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.Have You Had Enough?
17/04/23 07:10
April 17, 2023 (Vol. 17 No. 20) - Have you had enough? How many people must die from senseless - no, insane - gun violence before state legislators and Congress cuts off the flow of weapons of mass murder? This past weekend marked the 16th anniversary of the Virginia Tech murders (shown above), where 32 students died at the hands of a deranged graduate student. However, we do not have to go back in time to witness such senseless horror. Just pick up your morning newspaper or turn on your TV. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been approximately 300 shootings with 132 deaths and at least as many injuries in just the last 72 hours of me writing this. Some are better known than others, such as the senseless murder of four people and the wounding of another 28 at a "Sweet 16" birthday party in Alabama. Closer to where I live, a teenager was shot by a jittery homeowner in Kansas City, Missouri, when the boy showed up at the wrong house to pick up his siblings. Sixteen-year-old Ralph Yarl was administered the death penalty for going to the wrong block? (Fortunately, the gunslinger was a lousy shot and he survived!) How, in God's name, can anyone argue that this shooting was justified? So far this year, there have been 12,358 gun deaths - 7,062 by suicide and 5,296 by homicide, justifiable shooting or accident. There have been more than 140 mass casualty shootings so far this year. Have you had enough? If the answer is "yes," here's what you should do: Kick out any legislator who does not support a ban on the sale of military style weapons and high-volume ammunition magazines. Anyone who tells you that ownership of such weapons is a sacred Second Amendment right is lying. That right does not exist in constitutional law. The Second Amendment is not a hunting license. Of course, the people who tell you this say they need their weapons to protect them against the government. As we well remember, it was many from this same crowd that tried to overthrow the government of the United States on January 6, 2021. They are represented by an organization that has laundered money for the Russians and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars so its leader can live an opulent life style. And the politicians who support this corrupt organization are spineless sycophants who blindly follow a seditionist, whore-mongering, narcissistic tax-cheat. Demand that your representatives ban these weapons. And vote for those who feel the same way as you do. Make America Great Again? I'd settle for making America safe again. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.We Are Not that U.S.A.
12/04/23 11:10
April 12, 2023 (Vol. 17 No. 19) - There once was a country that systematically undermined the expressed will of the majority of its people by suppressing the votes of minorities, imposed laws and regulations against those with lifestyles they didn't understand, forcibly removed from public office those with whom its leaders disagreed, and bastardized democracy and Christianity to fit its own ego-centric, racist and misogynist world view. Can you identify that country? Sure you can. It's the good old U.S.A. Just to clarify, I'm talking about the apartheid-era Union of South Africa, U.S.A. However, admit it: For a moment, you thought I was talking about the United States of America, the original U.S.A. And you will have to admit, it sure looks like one of this nation's major governing political parties would be quite happy to emulate the country that imprisoned Nelson Mandela and oppressed its black majority for decades. From trying to overthrow fair elections, to false flag operations against immigrants and gays, to removing legislators from office because they insisted their colleagues bend to the will of their own constituencies, the Seditionist Party (previously known as the Republican Party) has been pandering to a demographic segment of America that is, by percentage, growing smaller and will be in the minority by the 2040s. These Seditionists even want to deny our own history, a proud history that also has its moments of shame. They don't want to learn from history. They choose to whitewash it. At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, I am not happy with the trajectory this nation is taking. The irony is that while South Africa appears to be evolving into a true democracy, the ruling class within the Seditionist Party wants to move the United States to a position on the fringes of civil society that the other U.S.A. once occupied. That would be a tragedy from which this world would never recover. As Ronald Reagan said many times, the United States of America remains the world's best hope for freedom, equality and justice. I just wish party that the Gipper once served as its standard-bearer would remember that. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.Case File #71543-2023
05/04/23 08:01
April 5, 2023 (Vol. 17 No. 18) - Some say he looked bewildered. Others say he was angry. I say he looked like he always does - the south end of a northbound mule. One couldn't help but take some measure of satisfaction in seeing our whore-mongering former president finally being arraigned for one of the many crimes he has committed during his sordid and scandalous life. However, that pleasure is tempered by two facts. First, as a general rule, no one ever wanted to see a former President of the United States as a criminal defendant - although I suspect most Americans thought this would happen the day this grifter was "elected" by a minority of voters. Second, there's the realization that this sad saga is only beginning. The next hearing in the People of the State of New York versus Donald J. Trump will not come until December. I don't fully understand why this process should take so long. Justice delayed is justice denied. Frankly, the former president's legal team - looking as if it came right out of the cast of The Godfather - is going to try and drag this thing out as long as it can. Its basic legal theory is this: If Donald Trump can win back the presidency, he will be untouchable. That makes me want to ask his supporters this simple question: Do you really think the President of the United States should be above the law? If so, tell that to Joe Biden. I'm sure he will be interested. Another other legal theory being floated about is that you can't make a felony case out of a state crime committed to cover up a federal crime. Using a legal term here, that theory is loadus fullum crapulous. The Manhattan D.A.'s office has been convicting white collar criminals under similar circumstances for decades. So now we wait patiently for case #71543-2023 to work its way through the criminal justice system. In the meantime, there may be additional indictments for other crimes - sedition, insurrections and even rape - just over the horizon. You see, it isn't just the Manhattan D.A. that has defeated President Bone Spur's number. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle.