To Our Children's Children's Children Once More

 This is my occasional confession of my true view of our world and what we might do to steer our ship in a better direction.  I'm sending this to you because you are one of the most important people in my life and I will value any feedback you may have.  I guess I still believe in the concept of democracy enough to hope that we can make the world a better place by sharing our opinions with those we love. I've found this method of email to a blind copy group to be relatively harmless at the worst.  You are free to respond or not.  For the record, some people have responded to my previous emails of this type and the discussions have been respectful and constructive.  For that I am grateful

I have been troubled in recent weeks by some of the statements by our nation's leaders: (Many of the links below are to Twitter.  Please let me know if you don't have a Twitter account and would like to see the linked pages.)

• Here is Nancy Pelosi claiming in the US Congress that "Vladimir Putin has ordered rape, kidnapping, and murder in front of family members as a weapon of war to demoralize the people of Ukraine".If this is not true, we are reaching medieval anti-semitic levels of absurdity, it seems to me.  I've been looking into the "Putin is Satan" allegations for many years now and have yet to find compelling evidence. Rather, I've found evidence against many of the routine claims.  Who's going to call Nancy Pelosi out on this?  
• House Speaker Mike Johnson apparently had a come to Jesus moment.  
  
  
  House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA): “I regard myself as a wartime Speaker… Former Speaker Newt Gingrich posted a couple days ago ... that this is the hardest challenge that's faced a Speaker probably in the history of the country … comparable to the Civil War, but maybe worse.”
• A year ago, I wrote a post mocking Lindsay Graham, Friend of Ukraine
  
  
  "It was reported last week that fearful of leaks, Ukraine has shared their offensive plans with only a tiny handful of people in the West. Apparently Lindsay Graham was one of them, as a new Politico piece reports with joy that Graham has been given a very thorough ‘deep-dive’ of the full offensive plans, which he calls very ‘impressive’. He further says that the Russians are in for a big surprise and ‘rude awakening’." 
  
  
  A year later we know that the intelligence Lindsay received was wrong and it was NATO that received a rude awakening.  This is the story of my life, from Vietnam through Iran, Iraq , and Afghanistan.  Yet we continue to defer to the intelligence experts.
• And now we have given the intelligence agencies more power:
  
  
  Republican Mike Johnson Hits Walkoff Vote as Intel Community Edges 4th Amendment
  
  
  After wailing for years about misuse of secret FISA surveillance against their own, House Republicans turtle, letting voters know exactly where they stand
  
  
  But someone I don't know responds: “That is the whole point of laws: to be based upon information accessible to the public and NOT on secret information only available to a select few. That’s how Kings rule and; not how democracies legislate."  [Josh Eisen is his name]

I am for an alternative to what I consider to be our current cancerous national security state.  I believe in the need for national security and intelligence, I believe that many of the people in the system are well-intentioned and intelligent.  But I believe there is a systemic rot that trumps these other beliefs, and this is based on my lifetime of experience.  I share this out of concern for you know, those referenced in the title, as well as for all of us here today.  This includes, especially, the people of Ukraine.