Dear _____

I am writing out of grave concern for this country. I very much wanted to try to give the President-elect a chance, I really did, but he has created an untenable situation on many fronts, and I feel we are already mired in crisis. Here is a partial list of extreme and unsustainable problems:

-He is populating the White House with people of extreme views, which the vast majority of Americans do not share, and in a few cases, with known white nationalists like Steve Bannon.
-There are reports that he has requested the highest levels of security clearance for his son-in-law while his children are simultaneously running his for-profit business. This is a clear and dangerous conflict of interest.
-His chief foreign policy strategist, Michael Flynn, is running a consulting firm, Flynn Intel, which is currently doing business with Turkey. Gen. Flynn is simultaneously running this company and being given access to the Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), which would include top-secret information about many countries, presumably including Turkey; again, a clear and dangerous conflict of interest.
-He refuses to place his international business in a blind trust, and continues to profit from it while also being privy to our most delicate foreign policy secrets: Conflict of interest #3.
-There are credible reports that his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka are already—right now—using taxpayer-funded government resources, including a .gov account, to sell their jewelry.
-He has already, on more than one occasion, ditched his media detail, apparently lying to them outright, so that the American people will not be aware of his activities leading up to the inauguration, and he is speaking to foreign leaders on his personal cell phone, something with which a nation so heavily concerned about governmental communication protocols may be uneasy.

Finally, he just paid out a $25 million settlement to get out of a fraud suit made against his “university”.

There are many more examples I could give you, but I think you get the idea.

Let me be clear: none of this—not one bit of it–is either normal or acceptable. These practices are abhorrent, undemocratic, and a direct threat to our national security.

This cannot stand.

I ask you to be extraordinarily diligent and to keep a tight rein on this man. These are not arguments which arise out of of a difference in ideology; these are matters vital to our national security. They are wrong any way you slice it. Again, this is a crisis situation. Please do not ask me to sit back, take a deep breath, and give the incoming president a chance: we are beyond that point. Trump and his entourage are veering out of control and it is up to responsible elected officials—in short, it is up to you—to stop them.

Respectfully,

Bernard A. Kemper
Madison, WI
buzz@buzzkemper.com

I have decided to put some children’s stories up here, read aloud by me. The first one is “Little Girl’s Christmas” by Winnifred E Lincoln (public domain). More to come…enjoy!

It was a lovely day to be at a coffee shop. A bit brisk out, so we were all gathered inside, each pair of hands cupping our own little version of hot, liquid bliss. Some were engaged in quiet conversation; others tapping away at laptop keyboards.

All content and happy.

Then your phone rang. It was like a fire alarm bell. A bell one would expect to find on the dry, wood and straw building next door to the main furnace of Hell. After jumping out of my chair several inches and checking to see if I had wet myself, I looked over to see whom it was that could possibly want their phone that freaking loud. Perhaps it was a new “Spinal Tap” model that can be turned up to 11. I think I felt the building shake a bit. I saw the dudes working construction outside look around to see what was drowning out the jackhammers.

You reached for it and picked it up. Thank heavens! Reprieve! You will answer! And after what I imagined would be no more than just a few moments of residual ringing in our collective ears, we could get back to our lives.

But what horror is this? You did NOT answer. You stared at the screen with the nonplused, bewildered look of a Chihuahua to whom wave/particle duality is being explained. Via interpretive dance.

Clearly, through several additional ear-splitting rings, you needed to ponder whether this call was worth taking. The suspense of those of us in the room–who were tearfully saying good-bye to our hearing–was palpable. It was nearly as strong as our collective urge to dunk your phone like a biscotti in your extra-fancy latte. Or perhaps shove the phone someplace that may give you an eensy-weensy idea of the discomfort you were causing us.

Suspense…..suspense…….

YOU TOOK THE CALL! Wow what a moment! But of course loud, obnoxious technology tends to be owned by loud, obnoxious people, and so our collective sigh of relief was soon being strangled to death by the icy cold hands known henceforth as “you talking”, the volume and tone of which could politely be called what any mom would recognize as an “outside voice”, but which I will more accurately compare to a screeching banshee whose fingernails on the proverbial chalkboard are miked up and running through the Marshall amp stack once owned by Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore.

So, kudos to you, ma’am. We can now hum your ringtone (though, due to hearing loss, we cannot tell if we’re doing it correctly), and we clearly discerned every last syllable of your side of a dreadfully boring phone conversation. But don’t mind us. We are obviously nowhere near as important as you are. Carry on.

Love, Buzz