NUMEROUS REPUBLICAN OFFICE-HOLDERS have made it clear of late that they pledge their allegiance to the Constitution of the United States rather than to Donald Trump. A notable “for instance” was House Speaker Russell “Rusty” Bowers (R -Az) who testified during the June 21 televised proceedings of the U.S. House Committee’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s Capitol. Bowers said that he told the president: ”You’re asking me to do something against my oath, and I’m not going to break my oath.”

Numerous other Republicans, including former Vice-President Mike Pence, have spoken or acted out in similar fashion. And they have done much to restore my faith in the two-party system that has dominated a Free America’s two-party political system for some time — although I remain basically a Democrat, especially in these difficult post-Trump times.

I have randomly used above a photo of U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and ex-President Donald Trump. While they’ve been using one another of late by association when advantageous, it’s just a matter of time until one throws the other “under the bus.” Perhaps about the time of this fall’s midterm election. McCarthy is House minority leader, and Trump still is hoping to somehow win the GOP presidential nomination in 2024.

Meanwhile, I continue to chew on the phrase “all enemies, foreign and domestic” from the above oath. I consider Trump
our greatest “domestic enemy” at present and perhaps of all time. Hopefully, he will soon fade from the scene without doing further damage.

I imagine that it only was the privilege of holding public office until Jan. 20, 2021, that protected Trump from legal prosecution for some of his actions before, during and after Jan. 6 of that year.. He’s just an ordinary citizen now,

Wandrea ArShaye “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, were featured in a video that Trump ally and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called a “smoking gun” for voting fraud at State Farm Arena in Atlanta. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Moss told the special House committee in its hearings June 21 how the pair’s lives were turned upside down by bogus claims that they were carrying “suitcases” full of ballots for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. State and federal investigators reviewed the video and conducted an investigation that found the two election workers had done nothing improper. Moss and Freeman have filed several lawsuits against right-wing news organizations and individuals due to the harassment. They have already settled one with One American News Network.

If I recall the televised hearing correctly, Moss was specifically mentioned 18 times in the accusatory video and a hate crowd gathered at the home of her grandmother, where she had taken shelter. As she and her mother are Black, the actions of Trump and Giuliani looked to me much like a ”hate crime” by today’s standards. But as I said, the timing of it all seems to apply in various ways.

However, I remain disgusted at this manner in which an everyday Black woman and her mother were conveniently but inappropriately used by Trump and Giuliani — their lives ruined as if they didn’t matter in the overall scheme of humankind.

Whom would you trust to stand by your side? With whom would you “ride the river” in stressful times?

MEANWHILE, June 24: “After the Supreme Court released its bombshell decision Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) seemed to realize he’d been played by Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, two justices he voted to confirm.‘I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans,’ Manchin wrote in a statement.”

It’s pretty impossible to stay abreast in a weekly blog with daily happenings in the Supreme Court, Congress, etc. It was “clear back” about June 23, for example, when the House special committee pretty much made the case that Donald Trump went beyond the bounds of legitimacy and decency in attempting to corrupt the Justice Department for his personal benefit,

AND HERE’S A QUICK BIT (June 25) from a tweet by the Seattle Storm women’s basketball team on current politics: “Now we have come to this: People have won the freedom to buy guns with impunity while women have lost the freedom to decide their own future.”

Read, listen, communicate with friends in red states — vote Nov. 8.