Trump Appoints Mike Pompeo As Head of CIA

President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo, an open aficionado of torture practices used in the “war on terror,” to be CIA director shows that Trump was serious when he said he would support “waterboarding and much worse.”  Earlier, there had been a sliver of hope that that, while on the campaign trail, Trump was simply playing to the basest instincts of many Americans who have been brainwashed – by media, politicians, and the CIA itself – into believing that torture “works.” The hope was that the person whom Trump would appoint to head the agency would disabuse him regarding both the efficacy and the legality of torture.  But such advice is not likely from Pompeo, who has spoken out against the closing of CIA’s “black sites” used for torture and has criticized the requirement that interrogators adhere to anti-torture laws. He has also opposed closing the prison at Guantanamo, which has become infamous for torture and even murder.  After visiting Guantanamo three years ago, where many prisoners were on a hunger strike, Pompeo commented, “It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight.”  There is little doubt that the champagne was flowing on Friday at CIA headquarters, from the seventh-floor executive offices down to the bowels of that building where torture practitioners have been shielded from accountability for 15 years in what amounts to the CIA’s internal “witness protection” program.  Indeed, relief over the Pompeo appointment came in the nick of time. For one fleeting moment earlier in the week, there was some panic at the hint that the International Criminal Court might show more courage than President Barack Obama in bringing torture perpetrators to justice.  That suggestion caused a moment of angst up and down the CIA’s ladder of authority, from supervisory felons, such as Director John Brennan and agency lawyers, down to the thugs hired to implement the amateurish but gruesome regime of torture depicted in gory detail in the Senate Intelligence Committeeinvestigative report,

Perhaps you readers were confused when I said I didn't believe the "God of the Universe" gave moral laws.  Christians say to believe in Jesus because Jesus obeyed the whole law and fulfilled it.  So if you don't like what's in the Torah just take a Free Pass and say you believe in Jesus and pass Go and collect two hundred dollars.  Well the OT talks about stoning women for adultry.  There are injunctions against touching a woman who is on her menstral cycle as "unclean".  There are injunctions against eating lobster or pizza because it's a mixture of meat and dairy.  And there are laws about mixing wool with linen in your clothing, and it says whoever refiles his mother and father shall be put to death.  There are laws about keeping the Sabbath.  Many would ask me 'If you don't believe in a personal god, why worry about what he THINKS, if indeed he does engage in the sort of thought procsses we humans engage in.  My answer would be even if you don't believe in a personal god, many believe in Nature and 'Planet Earth" and worship the natural forces.  My theory is that it's better to live in harmony with nature rather than discord if you can.  Others would say to me "Nature can be brutal.  Wild animals kill and eat one another all the time".  But I think there are two regulations that come straight from God in the Garden of Eden when man was in a morally pure state.  I speak of "The Garden of Eden" as a metaphorical state of Well Being.  One was about "tending and keeping the garden".  This means think of ecology and not polluting the planet.  I guess this could be carried over into not polluting your body with smoking because your body could be "your garden".  The other moral injunction pertains to genetic research, and how man should not create new Life Forms on his own like GMO foods and combining cells with viruses and stuff like that.  Some are moral gray areas.  For instance should gene reperitive therapy be extended toward getting rid of the Gay gene?  On one hand being gay is a bad thing but on the other hand you're messing with God's sovreign creation and hence his will.  But I believe the principle is here is "You see this tree- - this one area is Mine and don't you mess with it because tinkering around with DNA is ucerping God's sovreign authority.  On the other hand if "God's Will" is "whatever happens" then it would seem that mankind has to be very passive about the future and be downright fatalistic about things, for instance, like a Donald Trump presidency.  To say that "God has a plan" may be literally true, but there's no reason why we have to "like it".  The early cabinet appointments of Donald Trump seem disturbing indeed. Personally I much prefer Bernie Sanders' "plan" for America such as reforming political contributions to campaigns and breaking up the big banks and helping college students out who are in deep debt.   Even Pope Francis today spoke of building Bridges rather than Walls to keep people out.  Classically, Christianity has been seen as a religion that preaches inclusion rather than exclusivity.  Even enlightened passage of the Old Testament say to get rid of the ritual and let mercy and justice flow down like waters from the mountains, or such similar words.  I think it's best if you have your own "Plan" for either your own life or for America at large, or you contemplate your hopes and dreams for a better America, to think on These Things, rather than follow the machinations of Donald Trump.