Let’s review our president’s latest embarrassing display of immorality, incompetence and ignorance on the international stage: First, he mockingly asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop interfering in our elections, with a wag of his finger, and a laugh and a wink and a nod, and only after a reporter put him up to it. Then he joined with Putin in laughing about “getting rid of” journalists, again bringing up “fake news” (meaning any in the press who dare to report and print the truth about him). 

As Margaret Sullivan wrote in her editorial in the Washington Post over the weekend, our president “bonded with Putin over his scorn for journalists. ‘Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn’t it?’ the president said. ‘You don’t have this problem in Russia, but we do.’” Our idiotic and dangerous president says this to a dictator of a country where nearly 60 journalists have been murdered, all the while yucking it up with a murderous thug and our greatest adversary. 
 
But even that was not enough for our authoritarian American president who finds himself far more comfortable and chatty with murderers, thugs and dictators than with our democratic allies. Indeed, in yet another disgusting display of groveling, the OM praised and embraced his “friend” MBS for “doing a spectacular job.” 
 
If you remember, MBS is the murderous crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who ordered the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the grotesque details of which were recently made public in a special United Nations report. Apparently, our president was congratulating MBS on the great job he did of dismembering an American journalist into body parts that could then be conveyed in suitcases out of the Saudi Embassy in Turkey.
 
But even then, the Orange Monster was not done. On Friday, he invited North Korea’s murderous dictator Kim Jong Un to another photo-op summit in the demilitarized zone at the border between North and South Korean. This is now the third PR coup our president has granted Kim, apparently his love-letter pen pal, while asking for nothing in return. If anything, our idiotic president has made situation far worse than that, by ignoring and refusing to acknowledge the ongoing missile tests that our intelligence agencies all say North Korea is continuing to conduct.
 
Apparently, our president has never met a murderous dictator whom he didn’t admire. He loves dancing with murderous thugs and other mobsters.
 
This only makes sense, since the Orange Monster’s uncontrollable desire has always been to dominate and to control everyone and everything. For him, the whole point in having money is possessing enough power and dominance to lord it over everyone else. This has been the pattern of his entirely lazy and spoiled existence, wasting all of the $480 million he inherited from his rich daddy on his own vanity, avarice, lust and greed. Indeed, he has displayed the same need to control and to dominate in nearly all of his sexual exploits with women, where, as he himself admitted, he likes to “grab ‘em by the pussy,” and even with his first wife Ivana, who accused him in court filings of violently raping her (including tearing her hair out of her head).
 
Now, E. Jean Carroll has brought forth the latest charges of rape against our sitting president. Her telling of the tale only confirms yet again what he himself bragged about on the Access Hollywoodtape. It informs and reminds us of our president’s lifelong pattern of grabbing what he wants when he wants it, of his need to control, exploit and dominate, whether in the bedroom or the boardroom. He always has been and always will be a big-ass bully, with tiny little hands and an even tinier brain. 
 
Let’s face it: Our outlaw in chief admires murderous dictators because he wants to join their club and become one of them. For him, calling out journalists who report facts as being those who create “fake news” is just a first step; he wants the ability to silence his critics indefinitely, to execute them while at the same time vilifying them as the “enemy of the people.”
 
Unfortunately, the greatest enemy of the people we have in our country right now is our ungodly, embarrassing and ghastly president. The Congress of the United States must recognize the clear and present danger that he presents both to our democracy and to the world, and remove him from office before it is too late.

 
The Mueller Report laid out many felonious acts of obstruction of justice, and the felon in the Oval Office has committed many more acts of obstruction, including contempt of congress, since the Mueller Report first came out. Added to this are two additional felonies committed by the president when SDNY named him as Individual-1—i.e., the current White House occupant—as an unindicted co-conspirator that committed felonious acts of conspiracy to defraud the American people by deliberately breaking U.S. Campaign Finance Law during his presidential campaign of 2016.

But our current president has done so many more evil and cruel things in the name of the American people, which should be listed among the many Articles of Impeachment brought against this criminal in chief when he is finally brought to an impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate. One of the worst High Crimes and Misdemeanors that this president has committed is his flagrant incompetence, particularly in his handling of the immigrants seeking legal asylum at our southern border, and then using his own incompetence and incoherence and that of the chaotic administration that he himself created, as a weapon to inflict as much cruelty upon innocent law-abiding immigrants as possible.

Let’s be clear: the criminal in chief has no use for the law UNLESS and UNTIL it is helping him and/or protecting him from prosecution. We have laws on the book protecting the legal rights of immigrants to seek asylum. Rather than obey this law, the incompetent in chief has chosen to ignore this law. Instead, he has deliberately annihilated wherever he can the chance for these brown-skinned immigrants to seek legal asylum. In breaking the law, he went much further, to identify and vilify these poor people as criminals, as non-human, as “vermin.” Then he lawlessly split up families, separating babies and children from their parents. Breaking yet another law he has held children in cages for months on end, withholding food, shelter, blankets, any kind of bathing and any kind of humane treatment. The despot in chief has even seen fit to withhold soap and toothbrushes...and sleep. We can now add crimes of inhumanity and violations of human rights to the list of our president’s Articles of Impeachment.

In addition, let's add Criminal Incompetence--how he has willfully weaponized his unrelenting incompetence to inflict cruelty. And in this same vein, perhaps we should also add Criminal Negligence.

None of the higher positions at the DHS who should be responsible for overseeing this unfolding humanitarian disaster, have been appointed by this president. All are “acting” appointments, by the president’s unconstitutional design, so that he can circumvent the constitutional duties of our senate to advise and consent, thereby making these officials accountable. The president hasn’t appointed officials to most of the thousands of unfilled positions in the government, because he doesn’t like following the law. He finds it much easier and more comfortable to break the law. And as he has thus far been allowed to break the rules without any consequence, he will continue to act like a king or an emperor. By making “acting” appointments only, the outlaw in chief avoids accountability both for himself and for his staff. Incompetence and Negligence then become not just weapons but excuses. His incompetence and that of his cabinet and whole dysfunctional administration is then used to justify all manner of crimes being inflicted by our government on the asylum seekers at our border. 
 
It is used to justify the illegal kidnapping of literally thousands of children. Who knows what happened to the kidnapped children. The government who stole them away, can’t tell you where they were taken or by whom, because they are too incompetent to have an answer. It is an incompetence born out of evil. The same sort of incompetence the German people used as a defense when they were asked about their own concentration camps. “We didn’t know what was going on,” they answered, when of course they did. 
 
“It wasn’t our fault,” is always the answer of incompetents when defending their acts of Criminal Negligence,  everywhere. “Don’t blame us.” 
 
In fact, whenever our idiot in chief is confronted with a vile act of his own making, he lies and says simply, “I know nothing about that. Don’t blame me.”
 
This president and his evil administration and “acting” appointees, who are willing accomplices to the deaths and deprivations now happening at the border, continue to use their own incompetence and “lack of knowing” to justify the sleep deprivation and other tortures being inflicted on innocent children, while they also deprive them of soap and water or a dry diaper or even someone who knows how to change a dirty diaper.
 
This weaponized incompetence is used to justify the deaths of immigrants attempting to cross the border when all of the Orange Monster’s attempts to thwart their legal right to asylum have proven effective, leaving them no other choice but to literally swim for their lives. The recent photograph taken of the corpses of a father with his infant daughter after drowning in their attempt to reach American soil is a reminder of all who have died as a result of this criminal president’s actions.
 
It is used to justify the murder of seven children who have died in the last few months while being held in our government’s concentration camps. 
 
Mueller’s newly announced testimony on July 17 cannot come too soon. It is long past time already, not merely to begin formal impeachments hearings, but to remove the criminal thug from office that the Russian government selected as our 45thpresident. He needs to be removed before more innocent children, already abandoned to despair in cages, die before our eyes. It is time for the one who caged these innocents to be put into a cage himself.

​There are so many applicable nicknames that have been used to accurately describe our current president: The criminal in chief, the orange monster, the liar in chief, the Russian Connection, the bungler, the charlatan, the idiot in chief, the toddler in chief, the Kompramant Comrade, the Undecider, a Whiny Little Bitch, Individual -1, the Unindicted Co-Conspirator, and on and on. But I believe there is a new nickname for our current president that most aptly describes the clear and present danger that he represents to our democracy, to our nation, and to the world. More than anything else, he is the ARSONIST IN CHIEF, one who loves creating fires wherever he goes, always taking credit when he manages to put out an occasional fire that he himself created. He is, in fact, a toddler in chief who loves playing with matches. 
 
Fire alarms sounded earlier this week when this bumbling president nearly took us into an unnecessary war with Iran. Our president, who has no coherent policy on anything let alone foreign policy, eventually ordered a military strike on Iran, before ordering a stand-down with only minutes to go. And remember, it was he who created this fiery situation  in the first place by tearing apart the nuclear agreement with Iran and with all of the other signatories to the agreement that the Obama Administration wisely worked so long and hard to create.
 
Aside from all of the crimes that the current president has committed while in office, and putting aside his blatant racism, xenophobia and race baiting as well, he is both unfit and dangerous. Every day that he continues to be allowed to disgrace the presidency, he presents a clear and present danger to the National Security of this once great nation. We can only ask: What new and unnecessary fire will our arsonist in chief create tomorrow or the next day or next week? And what, if anything, are we going to do about protecting our country from this out-of-control president?
 
The fact that the vile pile of poo sitting behind the Resolute Desk remains in office is an abomination of justice. That proceedings have not even begun yet to impeach, remove, indict, arrest, and convict this outlaw, is a criminal outrage all by itself. 
 
As I recently pointed out in a previous blog posting, only the Democrats in the House of Representatives have the power to hold our criminal in chief accountable, yet they continue to delay an impeachment inquiry, and refuse to act as a check and balance on this lawless president. House Democrats still don’t get it. We are in a fight for our lives and for our nation’s survival. The menace sitting in the oval office MUST be dealt with, much sooner than later. They still want to believe that they are playing in a game with rules by which both sides will abide, but this president does not play by any rules except those of his own making, and he clearly is not playing with a full set of marbles. 
 
By setting fires, both large and small, our Emperor in chief (akin to Caligula) is burning it all down, little by little, law by law, norm by norm. If unattended, these fires will join and grow, turning the many small fires into a conflagration, too large to put an end to. 
 
I don’t believe for one second that the White House madman came to a lucid moment of sanity in halting the very same military attack that he had ordered earlier in the day. This is just another one of the more than 10,000 lies that this president has told the public since Russia selected him in 2016. I DO BELIEVE THAT HE HAD TO BE TALKED OUT OF THE IDEA, probably by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 
 
No one can convince me that our idiotic and immoral president gave a rat’s ass about 150 possible Iranian casualties. I believe that our narcissist in chief was told that this decision would cause him pain, probably at the polls in November 2020, and that was why he called off such an unwise action. What matters to our lunatic in chief is always seen through the prism of what is best for him, not what is best for our nation, or even for his own party. 
 
As the arsonist in chief continues to set ablaze anything and everything that he can, House Democrats still don’t seem to understand that they alone have the power to put out all of the fires. The House Democrats ARE the Fire Department. They alone can put out the fires, and it is THEIR job to do so. But they continue to dawdle.
 
The fact that our 45thpresident has committed crimes both before and after taking his oath of office is indisputable. The only question is whether or not anyone in the Democratically-controlled Congress will EVER hold this president accountable and impeach him. But they should keep in mind, as they ponder on what actions to take for the sake of their own political survival, that our arsonist in chief stands over a world drenched in oil and gasoline, with a box of unlit matches in his tiny hands.

​Only the Democrats in the House of Representatives have the power to hold our criminal in chief accountable, yet they continue to do nothing to thwart the ongoing and unrelenting crimes that he and his cronies have committed and continue to commit. Indeed, instead of doing their constitutional duty, to at the very least begin impeachment hearings, they continue to dawdle and shirk their responsibility. Despite the fact that they were given control of the House to act as a check and balance on our lawless president, they continue to bring a water pistol to a gunfight.
 
Today, for example, the gutless House Democrats whined about the unprecedented, non-existent and illegal claims that were made by the White House attorneys in a behind doors setting, insisting that Hope Hicks has immunity and need not answer any questions related to her time while serving in the White House. 
 
First, instead of insisting that Miss Hicks MUST answer questions in a public hearing, they agreed to yet another closed door hearing, where Miss Hicks and her White House attorney could get away with an illegal claim of immunity. Again, the House Judiciary Committee and its feckless and cowardly Chairman Jerrold Nadler allowed the White House to stick it to them again, without arresting Miss Hicks on the spot.
 
The Dems on the House Judiciary Committee acted as though they were powerless to do anything about this situation, when in fact they are not. Again, I must point out that the House Judiciary Committee has the power to arrest uncooperative witnesses by exercising their inherent contemptpowers guaranteed them under our constitution to enforce the balance of powers. They have all the power they need. They just don’t have the balls to use the power granted them by the Constitution for such situations. They have the power to arrest lawless witnesses like Hicks and McGhan and Bill Barr. They just don’t have the political guts to do it. Lacking in any internal fortitude at all, these House Dems in the Judiciary Committee, including my gutless Representative Ted Deutch, continue to allow witnesses and their attorneys to show nothing but contempt for Congress and our Constitution. The House Dems continue to allow witnesses to ignore subpoenas, to illegally refuse to answer questions. This time, rather than putting Ms. Hicks under House arrest, the Judiciary Committee allowed themselves to be outplayed yet again by an utterly lawless executive branch. 
 
Then, when this farce of a hearing was finished, the former model Hicks was allowed to strut down the halls of Congress, as though she were doing a fashion in full few of cameras, ignoring reporter’s questions just as easily as she was allowed to ignore the House’s questions and the law. 
 
Our outlaw president is laughing at the Democrats in the House, and in particular laughing at his aptly nicknamed nemesis ‘Nervous Nancy,’ and in this case, rightly so. The president is launching nuclear weapons in the House’s direction, and they are responding by throwing paper planes. Nervous Nancy and the House Dems who still follow her, have allowed the president to turn their investigations into comic distractions not worthy of public notice.
 
Democrats still don’t get it. They are in a fight for their lives and for our lives. They still want to believe that both sides will play by the same rules, but that time passed when the Russians selected our president in 2016, and the nation chose to do nothing about it. This president does not play by the rules, and neither do any of the criminal cronies who work for him in the executive branch. “A subpoena?” they all say. “So what? We’ll use it for toilet paper!” 
 
I can almost hear the laughter that fills the west wing of the White House tonight. The Dems continue to talk tough but refuse to act. “How silly we made them look again today! The suckers!”
 
In truth, Nancy Pelosi and the Dems have allowed the investigations in the House to be turned into one farce after the next, and all of the gutless House Democrats, in following Nervous Nancy, have proven only that political expediency is all they care about. Indeed, the oaths they took in which they swore to protect and defend out constitution mean little if nothing to them, certainly not enough to do the right thing in the face of an evil and vile threat to our nation. IF THE DEMS WON’T TAKE THE PRESIDENT’S CRIMES SERIOUSLY ENOUGH TO BEGIN IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS, WHY SHOULD THE PUBLIC EVEN BOTHER TO TAKE NOTICE?
 
There is a slow burning going on in Washington, DC. Can you smell it yet? It is the burning of our Democracy, little by little, stone by stone, pillar by pillar, law by law, norm by norm, with little and small fires here and there. If unattended to, these fires threaten to join and grow, turning the many small fires into a major conflagration, too dangerous and strong to put an end to. The House Democrats seem to be waiting for someone else to come and save our Democracy, to put the fire out, when they alone have the power to put out the fire, not realizing that the Fire Department isn’t coming to save them or us. House Democrats ARE the Fire Department. They alone have the hose with enough water to put out the fire. But they continue to dawdle, to whine, still refusing to act with any clarity or conviction of their purpose. Only the House Dems can turn the water on, to send Justice raining down with enough strength and power and authority, to save our Democracy while there is still time, before the fire consumes us all. They alone have the power to impeach the bastard, but they still remain too gutless to do the right thing. Why, oh why, did any of us bother to give these Democratic turkeys control of the House? Why when they refuse to put an end to this president’s ongoing crimes? Why? And why on earth are these gutless characters worthy of reelection? I can’t think of a single good reason at this point.
 
Of course, our criminal in chief has done everything he can to battle the truth with falsehood, to fight law with illegality, to blatantly blow past any guardrails and norms than have protected our Democracy until now. Despite the war on truth, what Kellyanne Conway termed alternative facts, reality and the real facts are clear and indisputable:
 
1.         The Mueller Report found that the President colluded with the Russians in encouraging our greatest adversary to help him with the 2016 election. Mueller could not find sufficient evidence of intent to charge that a conspiracy happened, but Volume One gives countless examples when the president’s campaign coordinated and colluded with the Russians. COLLUSION happened. If you don’t believe this, read the report. No felonies here, but clear and present evidence of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, up to and including the implications of treason.
 
2.         The Mueller Report found that the President committed at least ten acts of felonious Obstruction of Justice. That’s 10 felonies right there.
 
3.         The criminal in chief has already been named an unindicted co-conspirator to defraud the United States who broke two campaign violations of law in the SDNY. Add 2 more felonies.
 
4.         Since the Mueller Report was released, the president has committed literally hundreds of acts of obstruction of justice, witness tampering and witness threatening, in the light of day, while cameras run, in full public view or on twitter. Let’s cut the ass in chief a break and limit these hundreds of crimes to a minimal 20 felonies. 
 
By my count, that’s 32 felonies that our criminal president has committed, just since he took office. God knows how many more felonious acts will be revealed before the myriad of investigations into the criminal enterprise that is the Orange Monster’s monstrous activities, and how many more laws this outlaw will break before he leaves office. As he now obstructs justice on a daily if not hourly basis, the Articles of Impeachment against this dreadful and odious public menace if ever the House acts to impeach.
 
As I said recently in another blog, holding the president to account for his illegal and asinine behavior is no longer Mueller’s job. He put the ball squarely in the House’s court, even going so far as to hold a press conference weeks ago to try to publicly shame Congress into acting. Yet, still they do nothing. Either Congressional Leaders will begin an official impeachment inquiry or they won’t. We know the immoral Republicans in the House and Senate sold their souls to the Devil long ago, and that they will do nothing to protect our country or our democracy from ruin, as they answer to their Russian-appointed president and to Putin only. But most of us expected that the Democrats in the House would stand up and defend our democracy, not watch them calculating politically, hemming and hawing, and gnashing their teeth, and do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to protect our republic as we watch it being torn to tatters. 
 
The fact that our 45thpresident has committed crimes both before and after taking his oath of office is indisputable. The only question is whether or not anyone in the Democratically-controlled Congress will ever, EVER, hold this president accountable and impeach him. If they fail this test of courage, if they fail to do the right thing, then we can kiss the country we once knew and loved goodbye.

Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there!
 
Today, I wanted to acknowledge the latest of the rave reviews I have received for my new memoir SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON’S LIFE from the many readers on the NetGalley website. This one, written by Jeff Linamen was so lovely and heartfelt that I wanted to share it with all of you. The full text of Jeff’s review as it appeared today on NetGalley appears below:
 
NETGALLEY REVIEW
June 16, 2019
Jeff Linamen (Reviewer) has just reviewed SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON'S LIFE.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Full Text:

Hands down, one of the best memoirs I've ever read. Kerry Ashton bears every remarkable, horrifying, inspiring and deeply personal detail of his life. Sparing nothing, this is as raw and real as any memoir can get.

I held off writing this review, hoping the right words would come to me, but I'm still struggling to capture how deeply affected I was by this intense work. Ashton has bared his soul, giving us a profound gift of his words.

Ashton shares his story perfectly, alternating the distant past with more recent experiences; which prevents the journey from ever being too 'heavy' for the reader. Though Ashton's life has been quite different from mine, I could completely relate to difficult themes of the roles that religion and the search for self acceptance play in our lives. Ashton describes with profound clarity, his personal journey, in a way few authors have been able to articulate.

Though the title accurately captures the content of the book, it doesn't celebrate the spirit and inspiration of Ashton's words. I feel blessed to have found this- and taken the remarkable journey that carried me through, page after page. I can't recommend this highly enough.

******
 
My thanks to Jeff for his beautiful and touching review. I deeply appreciated his taking the time to give such a strong recommendation for my book. 
 
Also, I wanted to remind everyone that in celebration of Gay Pride Month, the eBook version of my new and critically acclaimed memoir, SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON’S LIFEis being offered at half-price during all of June (and until the 4thof July) in all domestic and international markets. With the eBook normally priced at $9.99 in the United States, it is currently available for only $4.99, at all domestic U.S. book retailers online including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
 
Debuting on its first day of release on April 27, 2019 as the #1 Bestseller on Amazon’s New Releases in Gay Studies, my memoir’s First Edition is currently available in both Hardcover and eBook formats. Hardcover retails at $28.95. The eBook will remain on sale at $4.99 through Friday, July 4thonly.Both the eBook and Hardcover can be purchased at all online booksellers. In addition, to celebrate Gay Pride Month, the Hardcover version of my book can be purchased at the discounted price of $25 on my author’s website at KerryAshton.com. 
 
Thus far the book has received unanimous critical acclaim in all of its Editorial Reviews. Clarion Books, for example, praised it as “A triumphant memoir!” Blueink Reviews hailed it as “A powerful and detailed memoir” while exclaiming, “Ashton is a passionate, unfailingly candid narrator. Using vivid detail, he crafts absorbing scenes… giving us a compelling look at being gay in a community that seed this as a source of shame—a record of one man’s hurt and healing, while those with similar stories have yet to speak of their pain.” The Online Book Club Reviews said, “Ashton exposes the innermost parts of his psyche. A touching story with a strong senses of authenticity. An immersive experience!” And Kirkus Reviews, the foremost authority in the publishing industry, gave the memoir a rave review, calling it “A riveting story, alternating between the troubled child he was, and the proud, openly gay man that he became. A moving coming-out story!”
 
Most than anything else, in my memoir I explain how I rid myself of most of the shame I internalized as a child raised in the Mormon faith, and how I eventually became a SAINT UNSHAMED, and ultimately how I found, embraced, and fought for my gay pride and gay identity.

​To celebrate Gay Pride Month, the eBook version of my new and critically acclaimed memoir, SAINT UNSHAMED: A GAY MORMON’S LIFEis being offered at half-price during June in all domestic and international markets. With the eBook normally priced at $9.99 in the United States, it is currently available for only $4.99, throughout June at all domestic U.S. book retailers online including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
 
Debuting on its first day of release on April 27, 2019 as the #1 Bestseller on Amazon’s New Releases in Gay Studies, my memoir’s First Edition is currently available in both Hardcover and eBook formats. Hardcover retails at $28.95. The eBook will remain on sale at $4.99 through Friday, July 4thonly.Both the eBook and Hardcover can be purchased at all online booksellers. 
 
In addition, to celebrate Gay Pride Month, the Hardcover version of my book can be purchased at the discounted price of $25 on my author’s website at KerryAshton.com. 
 
Thus far the book has received unanimous critical acclaim in all of its Editorial Reviews. Clarion Books, for example, praised it as “A triumphant memoir!” Blueink Reviews hailed it as “A powerful and detailed memoir” while exclaiming, “Ashton is a passionate, unfailingly candid narrator. Using vivid detail, he crafts absorbing scenes… giving us a compelling look at being gay in a community that seed this as a source of shame—a record of one man’s hurt and healing, while those with similar stories have yet to speak of their pain.” The Online Book Club Reviews said, “Ashton exposes the innermost parts of his psyche. A touching story with a strong senses of authenticity. An immersive experience!” And Kirkus Reviews, the foremost authority in the publishing industry, gave the memoir a rave review, calling it “A riveting story, alternating between the troubled child he was, and the proud, openly gay man that he became. A moving coming-out story!”
 
The first paragraph of my new memoir explains a lot: 
 
“I told this story once as fiction in the 1980s, but this time I tell the truth. I even tell the truth, in #MeToo fashion, about being violently raped by another man when I was 18, with a knife held to my throat—a secret I kept from everyone, including myself, for over 40 years. The rape, like other experiences I endured while a student at Brigham Young University, where I came out in the early 1970s, had a profound impact on my later life. But this story is not so much about my rape or my coming of age at BYU, as it is about the lifelong effects of shame itself, not only about how I internalized and inherited a wounding shame from my Mormon upbringing, but also how I eventually unshamed myself. It is about the journey of a lifetime, finding spiritual growth, self-discovery and healing along the way, while encountering many miraculous events that pushed me forward through darkness toward the light.”
 
Telling about my experiences during my four years at BYU—the rape, falling in love for the first time, police surveillance, harassment and arrest, while enduring three years of conversion therapy, including two years of electroshock treatments—provide the structure of my memoir. But intermittently I also share memories from my childhood, growing up Mormon in Pocatello, Idaho, and later from my adulthood. In one episode, I talk about his mother’s passing, and how I unconsciously blamed myself for her death. In others, I describe some of the battles with my religious father, and how Dad and I eventually came to forgive each other. These stories, like many others shared in the book, are poignant. Some—like the description that I provide of my rape—are sexually graphic. Some stories are hilarious. And some are dramatic, like those dealing with the domestic violence that I endured as a child.
 
I also share memories from my professional career as an actor and writer, both in L.A. and NYC, describing personal encounters with stars like Barbra Streisand, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis and Julie Harris, while sharing my experiences with famed writers Tennessee Williams, James Leo Herlihy (author of MIDNIGHT COWBOY), and John Rechy (author of THE SEXUAL OUTLAW), as well as my brief but profound affair with Stephen Sondheim. 
 
Lastly, I talk about the 12 years I spent in therapy, about my16-year battle with a rare and disabling cancer only recently won, and about my sexual journey that led me through S&M, kinky sex, and the leather scene, to the loving monogamous relationship I now enjoy.Most of all, I explain how I rid myself of most of the shame I internalized as a child in the Mormon faith, becoming a SAINT UNSHAMED, and how I fought for and embraced my gay pride.

​ 
In my latest posting, I saluted Senator Elizabeth Warren as an American patriot, for her courage in stepped forward many weeks ago as the first of the Democratic presidential candidates to call for the president’s impeachment. When, after Senator McConnell’s disgraceful “case closed” speech on the Senate floor, Senator Warren alone stepped up to the podium to insist that the case was far from closed, and that it was past time for impeachment hearings to begin in the House. Later, she explained to the public and her Democratic colleagues in both the Senate and the House, that “there is no political expediency exception to our oath to defend the Constitution.” Later still, alone among all of the presidential Democratic candidates, she called for a change in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel constitutionally untested rule that sitting American Presidents cannot be indicted, while promising to undo this blight on our democratic system of checks and balances, by pledging to do away with the OLC ruling once she takes office as president. As I pointed out last Wednesday on this blog, again and again Senator Warren has shown the courage necessary to take on the current criminal sitting in the Oval Office. In all of this, she has acted in the nation’s best interests and as a true American patriot.
 
Recent polling among Democratic voters in Iowa now show Senator Warren with a huge burst in her popularity, rising to 15%, just 1% behind Senator Bernie Sanders at 16% and only 9% behind the frontrunner Joe Biden at 24%. To me, this shows clearly that Senator Warren is being rewarded both for the substance of her well thought-out plans and for her courage. This bodes well both for her candidacy and for the Democratic voters, who care very much about holding our lawless president to account for his crimes. And this provides a warning to Congressional Democrats: IF YOU DO NOT IMPEACH THIS PRESIDENT, THE DEMOCRATIC BASE WILL TURN AGAINST YOU!
 
Clearly, if Impeachment Hearings do not soon begin, the continued cowardice exhibited by elected Democrats in Congress who continue to refuse to do their constitutional duty to hold EVERYONE or ANYONE accountable for the lawless actions of the current Executive Branch, may very well bite them all in the ass politically. In the current environment, which gets worse and worse for the president and his corrupt allies, Democrats risk going down with the sinking ship that is our current government. They risk being punished for their reticence and their cowardice. Those who display courage, however, will be rewarded. Only the Democrats in the House of Representatives have the power to hold this president accountable. As they continue to dawdle, to shirk their responsibility, and make excuses, they undercut their own argument that the president has committed impeachable crimes, and risk their own reelections in 2020. 
 
If, on the other hand, the Democrats in the House and Senate display the courage of their convictions, as Senator Warren continues to display every single day, their valor and fortitude will be rewarded electorally in the coming election, not merely with House control, but also control of the Senate, and of the White House. But first they must show bravery and a willingness to do their constitutional duty to hold this president accountable for the crimes he has already committed and for the ongoing crimes he continues to commit in the contempt of Congress he continues to put on full display. 
 
The fact that the 45thpresident has committed crimes both before and after taking his oath of office is indisputable. The only question is whether or not anyone in Congress, will step forward, as Senator Warren has courageously done from the moment she finished reading the Mueller Report, and take a stand against our Oval Office outlaw? As Senator Warren has pointed out, members of the House and Senate did not take an oath to protect and defend a criminal president or to protect their party or their political viability, but to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. 
 
I predict that Senator Warren’s candidacy and popularity will continue to rise in the polls as will her reputation throughout America as one who has the courage of her convictions, as one who is willing and able to fight against the corruption we see riddled now throughout our federal government. And the more courage Senator Warren displays, the more her polls will rise. Her courage will be rewarded, for we live in a time now that calls for heroes, not wimps. 
 
Political expediency, on the other hand—just as disgusting in Democrats as it is in almost all Republicans—will be seen quite rightly as displaying a decidedly lazy and insipid lack of character, which will be punished by the voters.
 
As for the political future of the Democratic caucus in both House and Senate, they can choose to continue to show restraint and prove themselves unable and unwilling to stand up against the corruption in Washington, or they can follow Senator Elizabeth Warren’s example, taking a courageous and patriotic stand against a corrupt and criminal president and his corrupt and criminal cronies. I deeply believe that in this case, if the Democrats will collectively stand on the right side of history for justice and truth, the Democratic courage they display now and within the next year will be deeply appreciated and even more deeply rewarded at the ballot box in 2020. And then, once their courage is rewarded with a new and full control of the federal government, they can begin cleaning house in Washington, DC in a new and deeply profound way that can be the beginning to rebuilding our Democracy in a stronger and far more honest way.

​American heroine, Senator Elizabeth Warren, courageously stepped forward many weeks ago as the first of the Democratic presidential candidates to call for the president’s impeachment when, following McConnell’s “Case closed” comments, she stepped up to the podium on the Senate floor and insisted that the case was far from closed, and that it was indeed past time for impeachment hearings to begin in the House Judiciary Committee. 
 
Later, she again proved herself to be an American heroine when she publicly said, “There is no political expediency exception to our oath to defend the Constitution.”
 
Now, alone among all of the presidential Democratic candidates, she is calling for a change in the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel ridiculous and constitutionally untested rule that sitting American Presidents cannot be indicted. In this same vein, Warren promised to undo this blight on our democratic system of checks and balances, by pledging to appoint only Justice Department Officials who will do away with the OLC ruling once she takes office as president. Further, she made it clear that she would propose a law to make it clear that all sitting presidents can and must be indicted for crimes committed before or during their time in office.
 
Again and again and again, Senator Warren has shown the courage necessary to take on our current criminal in chief.  Again and again, she has shown a courage and wisdom that no other Democratic nominee displays. Unafraid of speaking truth to power and unhesitating in her willingness to do the right thing, despite how these stances may affect her politically, she has acted in the nation’s interest and as a true American patriot.
 
Only the Democrats in the House of Representatives have the power to hold this president accountable. But they continue to dawdle and to shirk their responsibility despite the fact that they were given control of the House to act as a check and balance on a lawless president. If only the rest of the Democrats in the House and Senate displayed the courage Senator Warren continues to display every single day. If only their courage matched the Senator's conviction to actually DO SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to hold this president accountable for his ongoing contempt of Congress, other than whine about it and continue to wait for Mueller to do their jobs for them. 
 
Holding the president to account for his illegal and asinine behavior is no longer Mueller’s job. He put the ball squarely in the House’s court, even going so far as to hold a press conference one week ago to try to publicly shame Congress into acting. Yet, still they do nothing. This is not a job that our cowardly Congress can shove off on anyone else. It’s their call and theirs alone, as is made utterly clear in the Constitution of the United States of America—the document that they each swore to protect and defend.
 
Either Congressional Leaders will begin an official impeachment inquiry or they won’t. But the fact that the 45th president has committed crimes both before and after taking his oath of office is indisputable. The only question is whether or not anyone is left in Congress who will step forward--as Senator Warren has courageously done from the moment she finished reading the Mueller Report--and take a stand against this presidential outlaw? 
 
Each and every member of Congress MUST read the full Mueller Report, and then each should consider: If this outlaw in chief doesn’t warrant impeachment, then no one ever will. If Congress chooses not to act, they will destroy our democracy, turning a president into a dictator. Full stop. 
 
Sadly, not many in the House or the Senate have the courage of Senator Elizabeth Warren. But as Senator Warren has pointed out, members of the House and Senate did not take an oath to protect and defend this criminal president or to protect their party and their political viability, but to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Either we have a Rule of Law that everyone must obey or we have no Rule of Law at all. At least there is one true American patriot in the Congress, and her name is Senator Elizabeth Warren.