Tag: Susan Eckenrode

Adrift on an ocean

  By

“Spend enough time in the thick of the fight and you become conditioned to it, poisoned by its cynicism and contempt, hardened by its continual cruelty. Face the world in a battle posture long enough and you lose the ability to live any other way.”

On Learning To Love Offensively (For Those Weary From The Fight)
John Pavlovitz

 

Adrift on an ocean
of fear and despair
without any notion
of how, when or where
we’re heading has taken
a toll on us all.
With reason forsaken
and hatred on call,
we worry and wonder
at what we can do.
Somewhere over yonder
a light’s shining through
the clouds that were hiding
the truth in our midst,
that love is abiding
but needs an assist.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

An incompetence crisis is coming

  By

“The normal incompetent person flails and stammers and is embarrassed about it. But the true genius at incompetence like our president flails and founders and is too incompetent to recognize his own incompetence. He mistakes his catastrophes for successes and so accelerates his pace toward oblivion. Those who ignore history are condemned to retweet it.”

 

The Coming Incompetence Crisis
David Brooks, Opinion, The New York Times

 

 

An incompetence crisis is coming,
a notable prospect that’s numbing;
’cause it seems there are still
key positions to fill
just to keep their ineptitude humming.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Are we witnessing still more distractions

  By

“And on it goes, day after day, a thickening fog of diversion and obfuscation, taking public attention away from the FBI’s investigation into possible treason by Trump and his aides, and focusing it instead on a thickening smog of other controversies.

 

“Trump knows that reporters need stories, and he is only happy to oblige. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous or baseless they might be. The more they obscure the big story, the more useful they are.”

 

Trump cranks up fog machine to confuse American public
Robert Reich, Opinion, San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

Are we witnessing still more distractions
and assessments of worldwide reactions
as the POTUS and crew
launch a trumped up preview
to prepare us for coming attractions?

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

When you hear that Obamacare’s failing

  By

“Growing evidence suggests that the markets are far from collapse. Because of how the subsidies work, people were generally shielded from this year’s higher prices, and enrollment is steady. Several recent analyses argue that this year’s increase was a market correction, and that a smoother market would follow in the years ahead.”

 

No, Obamacare Isn’t in a ‘Death Spiral’
The New York Times

 

 

When you hear that Obamacare’s failing
Using stats that the truth keeps derailing
Consider the facts
Before it gets axed:
Most insurers see profits prevailing.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Flimmerill, flammerill

  By

“Many people are horrified, and rightly so, by what passes for leadership in today’s Washington. And it’s important to keep the horror of our political situation up front, to keep highlighting the lies, the cruelty, the bad judgment. We must never normalize the state we’re in.”

 

The Scammers, the Scammed and America’s Fate
Paul Krugman, Opinion, The New York Times

 

 

Flimmerill, flammerill
Congressman Ryan will
circle the wagons and
scuttling doubt,
proffer empirical
incontrovertible
clearly assertable
proof of his clout.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Puttering, sputtering

  By

“The British called it ‘Window’; the Luftwaffe dubbed its version ‘Düppel.’ For the Americans, ‘Chaff’ was the code name for the top-secret weapon that, in July 1943, allowed the US Army Air Forces to obliterate Hamburg in broad daylight. For the past two weeks, the Trump administration has been using a Chaff approach to media management—and if we don’t learn how to deal with it, we may suffer the same fate as Hamburg.”

 

This WWII Military Strategy Perfectly Explains What Trump Is Doing to the Media
The Nation

 

Puttering, sputtering
POTUS keeps uttering
venomous, vacuous
gobbledegook.
Calling for action he’s
melodramatically
tweeting distractions we
never should brook.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Slickery, Dickery

  By

“Someday they’re going to study this era in American history and they’re gonna study it alongside the Know-Nothing movement, and they’re gonna ask the question of all of us: ‘Where were you in 2017, when we had the worst president in the history of the United States?'” – Tom Perez, DNC Chair

 

Phillips’s conclusion is that those bewildered by current political affairs simply haven’t looked far enough back into history. “One can’t possibly make sense of [current events] unless you know something about nativism,” he says. “That requires you to go back in time to the Know Nothings. You have to realize the context is different, but the themes are consistent. The actors are still the same, but with different names.”

 

How the 19th-Century Know Nothing Party Reshaped American Politics
Smithsonian

 

 

Slickery, Dickery
Donald J. Trump must be
quite undeniably
clearly the worst
POTUS in history.
Slathered with mystery,
incontrovertible
truth stays submersed.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Dire Straits

  By

Masterful manipulations,
unrelenting agitations,
Machiavellian machinations
roil across the land.
Using powers he applied for,
rights and freedoms people cried for,
generations fought and died for
crumble on command.

 

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

Public Domain Image

Twice he errs, thrice he errs,

  By

Seth breaks down White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s latest round of nonsense. (Video)

 

Twice he errs, thrice he errs,
Spicer gets icier.
Journalists, dicier
press to the max.

Sean shouts nonsensical,
oft indefensible
and reprehensible
fantasy facts.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode

 

Squiggerly, wriggerly,

  By

“Over the weekend, [GOP Senator Lindsey] Graham said at a town hall that the situation with Flynn was “getting weirder by the day,” and implored his fellow Republicans to “stay focused” on the investigation into Russia’s attempt to influence the outcome of the presidential election. Graham, who has been critical of the Trump administration’s approach to Russian relations, said Monday that he wouldn’t give immunity to Flynn, and said that Trump’s tweet defending Flynn’s request for immunity was ‘inappropriate.’”

Graham: Flynn asking for immunity “is a bit bizarre”
Politico

 

 

 

Squiggerly, wriggerly,
General Flynn will be
ever so willingly
ready to talk…

that is provided he
gets full immunity.
Incomprehensibly,
then he can walk.

© 2017 Susan E. Eckenrode