Betty

Having Donald Trump as a leader is akin to being raised by a wolf. Tweeting is Trump’s howls to his pack, the true believers who picnic in a rain storm because the Wolf man, dry and comfortable inside his gilded mansion, insists that the sun is shining.

Trump is the Alpha male of the wolf pack, and his woman,, whomever she happens to be at the time, and however well-dressed and coifed she is, is his Alpha partner. She is not innocent, fragile or worthy of our pity. She chooses to be there and to breed more of their kind. Their subordinates aspire to be leaders the pack themselves, but they are consigned to be led. They are consigned to deny truth. Ignorance is their flag.  They exult and exert the power of the Wolf man by attacking the “intruders,” the blacks, the browns, the gays, the Muslims, for example, who presumably are keeping them from fashioning a world of bright orange hair and fire in the likeliness of their Alpha leader. The members of the pack do not read, do not study and pervert their own best self-interests in order to serve their master.
“Howling,” my encyclopedia also says, ”helps the pack stay in contact and also seems to strengthen social bonds among the pack members.” That’s why Donald Trump holds rallies at which he huffs, puffs, howls and tosses out chunks of red meat lies and ignorance dressed up as facts. That’s what the Alpha wolf does to hold on to his power over the pack.
Besides howling, the Alpha wolf marks his territory with urine and feces. In other words, he pisses and shits on “intruders” but in some few instances allows a few to join the pack. It’s a form of amusement for the Alpha wolf, but the ones who’ve been allowed inside his pack swear that they’ve arrived. Grateful, they become collaborators. They believe that they’ve been accepted into the pack because they are more special than most of their own kind. So happy are they to be allowed to run with the pack that they’ll say anything and do anything not be sent back into the wilderness. They bless and praise the Alpha wolf for his great wisdom no matter how ignorant and cruel he is. No matter how much he plays the dozens on their Mamas and Grandmothers, they bow down and say, “Thank you massa.” They show up on TV and write books, editorials and commentaries that justify and dignify the Wolf man’s most vicious and undignified acts and tweets.
Sadly, the mainstream media participates in the charade by hiring sycophants of the Alpha wolf supposedly to prove that they are “fair and balanced.” Willingly or not, they lend legitimacy to illegitimate ideas and in their duplicity, the mainstream media inflicts yet more damage upon on those already bleeding from the Alpha wolf’s bites.
There is no reason to be “fair and balanced” on matters of white supremacy and racism. There is no other side, no upside, to these nasty and vile notions. They are twin evils. Neo-Nazis are not “fine people.” They have no redeeming qualities. They are simply members of the wolf pack responding to the howls (the tweets) of their leader.
My prayer is that the Wolf man, his woman and members of his pack will either be redeemed by truth and righteousness or go straight to hell. I’m just saying.

My nephew was 8 when his Dad was killed in Iraq in 2005. I’m not sure that qualifies me, a great aunt, as a member of a Gold Star family, but I can identify with the pain of losing a loved one in combat.
This brings me to the recent uproar that has pitted the Trump White House against Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson.
Wilson is a family friend and was a mentor to Sgt. LaDavid Johnson, one of the four Green Berets killed earlier this month while on a mission in the West African nation of Niger. Wilson was in the limousine with Sgt. Johnson’s wife and family heading to meet the flag-draped casket bearing LaDavid’s remains. During their somber ride, the President called Myeshia Johnson, who is six months pregnant with the couple’s third child. Among other things, without ever mentioning her husband’s name, the President told Mrs, Johnson that “her guy” knew what he signed up for.
The family, according to Congresswoman Wilson, was appalled. They found the President’s remarks to be insensitive at a very sensitive time. Of course, this President couldn’t resist clapping back. He tweeted that he Wilson lied. He never said any such thing to Myeshia Johnson and to back up him up  the White House trotted Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly out before the cameras.
As a retired and decorate Marine General and a “Gold Star” father, Kelly has the credibility to talk about the emotional impact on a family when news comes that their loved one has been killed in action. His son, Second Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. The President can make no such claim. He avoided service during the Vietnam War and his children have never enlisted.
Until the dragged into this controversy, Kelly has said little in public about losing his son. He was eloquent in educating the public about what happens on the battlefield and why Gold Star families should be revered for their sacrifices. He should have stopped there. Instead, Kelly ripped a page out of the Trumpian book of lies. He attacked Congresswoman Wilson. He called her “an empty barrel” and a grandstander. He offered as proof his recollection of a speech Wilson gave at 2015 dedication of an FBI building in her district. He said that he was “stunned” by her self-absorbtion. In his apparent haste to take down the congresswoman Kelly failed to check his facts. He misrepresented Wilson’s remarks at the dedication by a mile. Moreover, rather refuting Wilson’s recollection of the conversation in the limo, Kelly affirmed it. The President said what Wilson said he did. She did not lie.
Kelly is a Gold Star father, yes, and he’s now on the battlefield of politics serving a Commander in Chief who is emotionally unstable and lies all the time. Kelly’s in bed with a President who demands loyalty from those in his administration that requires them to justify his lies and contradictions at the expense of whatever honor and reputations as decent and honest human beings they may once have had.
It is possible that Wilson and Sgt. Johnson’s family misconstrued the President’s clumsy attempt to comfort them. In the heat of raw emotion, it’s possible to take wrong an intended kind or comforting word. In such cases, decent people might feel compelled to start all over again and apologize to the dead soldier’s family. They might say, “I sincerely regret that what I said didn’t come out right. It was never my intention to offended you.” But no. The counter-puncher-in-chief, of whom it has been said, has “the empathy of a cockroach” has a compulsion to go low. Worse,
despite proof that the President lied and that Kelly consciously or unconsciously misrepresented Congresswoman Wilson’s remarks, no apologies are coming from the White House. In other words, they know they’re lying but they’re sticking to it. And note to Sarah Huckabee Saunders, the White House press secretary and also a profligate liar: Kelly’s military service does not make anything he says indisputable truth from the mouth of God.
“If you lie down with dogs, you’ll come up with fleas,” my elders often said. Add John Kelly to the appallingly long list of the flea-bitten who’ve forfeited any credibility they may have had in slavish devotion to the reprobate in the White House.

I went to the mall recently looking to buy a white blouse. I didn’t find what I wanted at Macy’s so I went next door to the New York & Co store. There were plenty of white blouses, but none that screamed take me home. My eyes eventually rested on the cutest magenta colored, sleeveless sheath dress. There was only one left in that style. I took the dress off the rack and walked around with it for a while but I was in no mood for a try on. A saleswoman ambled over. “Do you think this will fit me?” I asked. She checked the label and replied, “No. I think it’s going be too big.” “Too big”? Dear Lord, I hadn’t heard those words in a very long time. I happily hung that dress back on the rack. I eventually picked out two other dresses and was at the cash register when a tall woman got on line behind me. I recognized her from somewhere around town. She had that pretty sheath dress in her hands. We began to chat. “I love that dress,” I gushed. “I had it in my hands but I put it back so it must be meant for you.” “I love it too,” she said. Then her eyes started to mist. She held the dress up and went on to say, “My mother just passed. This was her favorite color.” In that quick moment, I could feel the pain of her loss. I recalled something Patti LaBelle said that still rings true for me: “When your mother dies, the world shifts on its axis.” I’m a witness. It really does. I wanted to comfort the young woman more but that was not time or the place to ask a lot of questions, and especially since we are casual acquaintances and I couldn’t, and still can’t, remember her name. I hugged her though. The one question I was dying to ask, but didn’t, was if she was buying that pretty dress to bury her mother in or for herself to wear to her mother’s funeral.
I’m Just Saying that as much as I loved the dress and probably could have pulled it off even if it was a tad too big, I can’t imagine that it ever could have as much meaning for me as for the woman who ultimately wore it.

I wasn’t a fledgling entertainer looking to catch a break in the tough worlds of Hollywood or the media when it happened to me in Louisville, KY. I was just a skinny 17-year old working my first full time job. I was a $63-a-week clerk/stenographer for the United Presbyterian Church’s Board of National Missions. My harasser wasn’t some Hollywood mogul like Bill Cosby or Harvey Wienstein. No. I was the victim of a predator who wore respectability as a presumed “Man of God.” He was a minister.
I kept the incident secret for years; so long, in fact, that I really don’t remember that preacher’s name. He was African American and probably had kids my age. I’m sure I would remember his name had he worked where I did, in New York City at 475 Riverside Drive. The building was affectionately called “The God Box” because so many faith groups had offices there. Most likely I was familiar with this pig because he worked in the field for one of the entities that the denomination provided clerical support to through the Office of Synods and Presbyteries.
In any event, he was an authority figure in my eyes. The ruse he used for coming to my room at the old Sheraton Hotel was his claim that he needed me to take dictation for a document that was to be presented to the entire General Asembly the next day or the day after. I was glad to help him out.
It never occurred to me that a PREACHER would try to have sex with me. I didn’t ASK for it. Ultimately, he came to my room and I took down what he dictated, but when it came to leave, he hesitated. Out of nowhere, he jumped me. He was groping and kissing me. I was disgusted and scared. I cried and I begged him to stop. But I didn’t scream, believing that, though I was the victim, everybody would blame me and I would lose my job. I fought him off, but don’t doubt that he could have overpowered me, but didn’t because something in his Big head finally took control of his Little head. I have a recollection of pushing him out the door and smashing the heel of one of his feet in the process.
He never said a word to me. There was no apology, and when I saw him several more times during the General Assembly, he didn’t speak to me. He acted as if nothing had happened.
It was early 60s. I didn’t have language for what had happened to me. When I called my Mom, the fountain of all wisdom as far as I was concerned, she was upset and cried with me, but she didn’t have the language either other than to warn me to stay away from that man. “Don’t even look at him,” she counseled. Mom, who was back home in New York, must have felt as powerless I did. It was not just the matter of the distance, but the tenor of the times. I believe her response would have been totally difference if he had succeeded in full out raping me.
I had one hell of an introduction to the world of work. I survived, but I’ve never forgotten what that awful preacher man did to me. I’m just saying that sexual harassers and predators come in all forms. We shouldn’t be paralyzed by their status, their titles, their celebrity or their money. There is language and there are the means today to bring predatory pigs to justice. There are people who’ve been falsely accused, but having once been a victim, I will not add insult to injury by making my first response be to attack the accusers.