Blogging friend Brosephus doesn’t post daily, and in fact today’s post is his first this year, but when he does post, his words are memorable and wise. In today’s post, he compares what is happening in the impeachment trial to certain events in the 1960s … history does repeat itself. Take a close look at the picture at the top of his post – it captures this moment in our history perfectly. Thank you, Brosephus, for this prophetic post.
It’s my first post of 2020, and I have a ton of stuff on my mind. We’re only 23 days into the new year, and I’ve already hit life highs and lows that will be hard, if not impossible, to surpass. This post, however, isn’t about me or my personal life. This post is about what America is about to experience and to question how Americans will respond in return.
As we know, the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is underway in the Senate as I type. As some have prognosticators have pronounced, most Americans know “the fix” is in the works to acquit Trump for his crimes. Indeed, there may not be much that we Americans can do to stop the acquittal, but there is a lot we can do as a result.
I chose the cartoon at the top for an explicit reason. There are many of us…
I have just two bits of snark … well, actually I have around 15, but I won’t make you listen to them all …
Remember when almost immediately after moving into the White House, Trump initiated a travel ban on people from seven predominantly Muslin nations? The courts struck it down almost as quickly as he initiated it, and after much back and forth, he got some watered-down version of it. Well, now he is considering another travel ban, this one expected to be implemented next Monday, to mark the 3-year anniversary of his original travel ban. I am thoroughly confused by the countries he intends to include in this ban:
Belarus
Myanmar (also known as Burma)
Eritrea
Kyrgyzstan
Nigeria
Sudan
Tanzania
I can see not one shred of justification for banning people coming from a single one of those nations, can you? However, it is interesting to note that four of those countries are African nations. Hmmm … nah, surely fair and equitable Trump wouldn’t discriminate based on something like skin colour … would he? Yes, of course he would, and my guess is that for those four nations, that is precisely his reason.
I have read no less than 7 articles on this topic, trying to get a feel for the method behind the madness. One article promised …
Trump’s call to dramatically expand the travel ban, explained
… but it lied … it explained nothing that I didn’t already know from the other articles. Now, back in 2018, the Supreme Court affirmed that Trump has broad authority to restrict immigration where national security demands it. But to the best of anyone’s knowledge, these countries do not pose any threat to national security. Every time somebody in Trump’s cadre mentions the threat of terrorism from the outside, I want to scream, for the terrorism we have experienced in the last several years has been domestic terrorism … homegrown nutcases.
So, I still puzzle over the connection of these seven nations, and why on earth he wishes to ban people coming to the U.S. from those countries. I also, at this point, puzzle over why anybody from any other nation would even want to come to the U.S. Take my word for it, folks … if you don’t have a good reason, you’d be better off going to almost anywhere but here!
It is interesting to note, however, that other, similar nations … nations where Trump, Inc. has businesses, say hotels, golf courses and the like … nations like Turkey, Egypt, Azerbaijan, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Suadi Arabia are never mentioned in talk of a travel ban. Hmmmmm …
This has largely flown under the radar, in the shadow of the impeachment trial and Trump’s trip to Davos, but I think it bears watching.
Yesterday, our friend Scott (sklawlor) sent me an article about a proposed bill in the Kentucky State Legislature, Senate Bill 89 that would give police new powers to stop people on the street and demand that they identify themselves and explain their actions, rather like New York’s stop-and-frisk laws that ended two years ago. The program was highly discriminatory, with officers stopping disproportionately larger numbers of African-Americans and Hispanics than others.
By the end of the day, the Kentucky Senate bill had been withdrawn, but it left a bad taste in my mouth and disturbed both Scott and me that after the experience with stop-and-frisk in New York, any lawmakers would even consider such legislation. So, I did a bit of digging … and … I was truly shocked to find that no less than 24 states … nearly half the states in the nation … have some form of “stop-and-identify” statutes! So, in the following states, if you are walking down the street, you can be stopped by a police officer and forced to show identification and explain why you are walking down the bloody street!
N.Y. Crim. Proc. Law Laws of New York → CPL §140.50 (requires suspicion of crime)
North Carolina
State v Friend + N.C. Gen.Stat. § 14–223
North Dakota
N.D. Cent. Code §29-29-21 (PDF)
Ohio
Ohio Rev. Code §2921.29 (enacted 2006)
Rhode Island
R.I. Gen. Laws §12-7-1
Utah
Utah Code Ann. §77-7-15
Vermont
Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 24, §1983
Wisconsin
Wis. Stat. §968.24
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. After one lawsuit, Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, made its way to the Supreme Court in 2003, the Court upheld the legality of officers stopping people so long as there was “reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal involvement”. Well, that’s probably fair enough … if you’re skin is pale and you speak flawless English. But if you are black or brown, or speak with an accent … how fair do you suppose it is?
An August 16, 2019 article in the Los Angeles Times says that getting killed by police is a leading cause of death for young black men in America.
My friend Rob, an African-American, told me a couple of years ago that about half the time he drives downtown, he is pulled over for no reason or some minor reason … something a white person almost certainly would not have been pulled over for. His son has been stopped more in the few short years he’s been driving than I have been in my entire lifetime. After the blatant racism that has resulted in killings of unarmed black men by police – Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddy Gray and more – do you trust police to act only when there is “probable cause”?
I don’t.
Okay friends … now that I’ve given you something to frown about, let me finish by giving you something to laugh at … well, sort of anyway.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, a federal holiday in the United States. I first wrote this tribute to Dr. King in 2017, and each year I reprise it, with slight changes or minor additions, for I find that it still says exactly what I wish to say. I am posting it a day ahead this year, for a few reasons, the main one being that I don’t wish it to be overshadowed by the white supremacist/gun rally that will be taking place in Virginia tomorrow. Dr. King’s memory deserves better than that. So please, take just a minute to, if nothing else, listen once again to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In these troubled times, it is good to be reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: Only love can do that.”
“That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on 15 January 1929. He would have been 91 years old last Wednesday, had he lived. On this day, we celebrate not only his life, but also his legacy. Martin Luther King Day celebrates not only Dr. King, but the movement he inspired and all those who helped move forward the notion of equal rights for ALL races, all those who worked tirelessly during the civil rights era of the 1960s, as well as those who are continuing the good fight even in this, the year 2020.
Dr. King, along with President John F. Kennedy, was the most moving speaker I have ever heard. To this day, I cannot listen to his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech without tears filling my eyes. If you haven’t heard it for a while, take a few minutes to watch/listen … I promise it will be worth your time.
This post is both a commemoration and a plea for us to carry on the work that was only begun, not yet finished, more than five decades ago. Today we should remember some of the great heroes of the civil rights movement, those who worked tirelessly, some who gave their lives, that we could all live in peace and harmony someday: Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Nelson Mandela, Nina Simone, Mary McLeod Bethune, Lena Horne, Marva Collins, Rosa Parks, W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Roy Innes, Medgar Evers, Booker T. Washington, John Lewis, Percy Julian, Marcus Garvey, Desmond Tutu, E.D. Nixon, James Meredith, and so many more. I am willing to bet there are some on this list of whom you’ve never heard, or perhaps recognize the name but not the accomplishments. If you’re interested, you can find brief biographies of each of these and more at Biography.com .
Yet, while we celebrate the achievements of Dr. King and the others, there is still much to be done. Just look around you, read the news each day. Think about these statistics:
More than one in five black families live in households that are food insecure, compared to one in ten white families
Almost four in ten black children live in a household in poverty, nearly twice the rate of other racial groups
Among prime-age adults (ages 25 to 54), about one in five black men are not in the labor force, nearly twice the rate of other racial groups
Although blacks and whites use marijuana at approximately the same rate, blacks are over 3 and a half times more likely to get arrested for marijuana possession
For every dollar earned by a white worker, a black worker only makes 74 cents
Black families are twice as likely as whites to live in substandard housing conditions
Black college graduates now have twice the amount of debt as white college graduates
The likelihood of a black woman born in 2001 being imprisoned over the course of her lifetime is one in 18, compared to 1 in 111 for a white woman
Similarly, the likelihood of a black man being imprisoned is 1 in 3, compared to 1 in 17 for a white man
Of black children born into the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, about half of them will still be there as adults, compared to less than one-quarter of white children
Data courtesy of the Brookings Institute– for charts and supporting details of above date, please click on link.
And of course the above data does not even touch upon the recent spate of hate crimes, racial profiling, and police shootings against African-Americans. There is still much of Dr. King’s work to be accomplished. But who is left to do this work? Most of the leaders of yore are long since gone. There are still noble and courageous people out there carrying on the programs and works of Dr. King and the others, but their voices are perhaps not as loud, and there are none so charismatic as the late Dr. King.
In the current environment of racial divisiveness, we need more than ever to carry on what Dr. King only started. Instead, the past three years have found our nation backtracking on civil and human rights in a number of areas, ranging from discriminatory travel bans against Muslims to turning a federal blind eye to intentionally racially discriminatory state voter-suppression schemes, to opposing protections for transgender people, to inhumanely separating children from families seeking to enter the country. I think Dr. King would be appalled if he returned to visit today.
In a speech on April 12th, 1850, then-Senator and future President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis said:
“This Government was not founded by negroes nor for negroes, but by white men for white men.”[1]
That was wrong then, it is wrong today, and it will always be wrong. That is what Dr. Martin Luther King fought against, that is what I rail and sometimes rant against, that is why we need activists and groups dedicated to fighting for equality for all people … today, tomorrow, and forever.
Here is a bit of trivia you may not know about Dr. King …
King’s birth name was Michael, not Martin.
The civil rights leader was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his 5-year-old son.
King entered college at the age of 15.
King was such a gifted student that he skipped grades nine and 12 before enrolling in 1944 at Morehouse College, the alma mater of his father and maternal grandfather. Although he was the son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, King did not intend to follow the family vocation until Morehouse president Benjamin E. Mays, a noted theologian, convinced him otherwise. King was ordained before graduating college with a degree in sociology.
King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was not his first at the Lincoln Memorial.
Six years before his iconic oration at the March on Washington, King was among the civil rights leaders who spoke in the shadow of the Great Emancipator during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom on May 17, 1957. Before a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, King delivered his first national address on the topic of voting rights. His speech, in which he urged America to “give us the ballot,” drew strong reviews and positioned him at the forefront of the civil rights leadership.
King was imprisoned nearly 30 times.
According to the King Center, the civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on trumped-up charges, such as when he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.
King narrowly escaped an assassination attempt a decade before his death.
On September 20, 1958, King was in Harlem signing copies of his new book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” in Blumstein’s department store when he was approached by Izola Ware Curry. The woman asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr. After he said yes, Curry said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and she plunged a seven-inch letter opener into his chest. The tip of the blade came to rest alongside his aorta, and King underwent hours of delicate emergency surgery. Surgeons later told King that just one sneeze could have punctured the aorta and killed him. From his hospital bed where he convalesced for weeks, King issued a statement affirming his nonviolent principles and saying he felt no ill will toward his mentally ill attacker.
King’s mother was also slain by a bullet.
On June 30, 1974, as 69-year-old Alberta Williams King played the organ at a Sunday service inside Ebenezer Baptist Church, Marcus Wayne Chenault Jr. rose from the front pew, drew two pistols and began to fire shots. One of the bullets struck and killed King, who died steps from where her son had preached nonviolence. The deranged gunman said that Christians were his enemy and that although he had received divine instructions to kill King’s father, who was in the congregation, he killed King’s mother instead because she was closer. The shooting also left a church deacon dead. Chenault received a death penalty sentence that was later changed to life imprisonment, in part due to the King family’s opposition to capital punishment.
Dr. King fought and ultimately gave his life for the values I believe in, the values that should define this nation, though they often do not. Dr. Martin Luther King was a hero of his time … thank you, Dr. King, for all you did, for the values you gave this nation, and for the hope you instilled in us all that your dream will someday come true.
You’ve most likely heard about the big gun rally planned at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond on Monday, but perhaps you don’t know all the who, why, and what-for of it.
Why?
You mean, apart from the fact that a handful of gun nuts care more about their right to own an arsenal than they care about their own children? Well, pull up a chair, my friends. After the 2018 elections when both chambers of the Virginia legislature flipped from a republican majority to a democratic one, one of the priorities was to pass some meaningful gun legislation. Now, it wasn’t as if they were banning assault weapons, or taking away people’s guns. The proposed legislation has only three parts:
Two things should be noted … First, 80% of the people in this country support gun regulations such as these, and Second, these are only common-sense measures … nothing that requires gun owners to give up their currently-owned guns, nothing that stops people from buying guns … simple, common-sense measures that might actually save a few lives.
But …
A group calling themselves ‘Virginia Citizen’s Defense League’, a misnomer if ever I’ve heard one, has taken umbrage. And thus, they are planning a rally at the State Capitol that has attracted the riff-raff and gun-toting scum in and outside of the state. The rally has drawn the attention of militia groups from as far away as Nevada and Oklahoma, including those tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.
Others vowing to attend include individuals associated with the Light Foot Militia, some of whom were banned from Charlottesville after the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, which ended in the death of a counterprotester. Richard B. Spencer, a prominent white nationalist who is among 24 defendants in a lawsuit over the rally in Charlottesville, also said he might attend.
So far, Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam has declared a ‘state of emergency’ and banned guns from the capitol building and grounds, and the FBI has arrested three neo-Nazis linked to the ‘Base’, a group that aims to create a white ethnostate. Chatter picked up on Facebook and in chat rooms by the FBI indicates that various extremist organizations are calling Monday’s rally the “boogaloo.” In the lexicon of white supremacists, that is an event that will accelerate the race war they have anticipated for decades.
These people, folks, do NOT represent the population of the United States. They are an extreme minority, and yet …
“They are fanning the flames for this event. They want chaos.”
The three bills will almost certainly pass the legislature, and Governor Northam has already promised to sign them into law, and yet these gun-loving people (and I use the term ‘people’ loosely here) are determined to bring chaos into the capitol. If I had to guess, I would guess there will be violence and there will be injuries, if not deaths.
Let me quote for you the text, word for word, of that 2nd Amendment they so love …
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Twenty-seven words. Nowhere does it say that every household should have the right to own a gun. Nowhere does it say that people have the right to own high-powered, automatic weapons that can mow down hundreds within minutes. Nowhere does it say that people have a right to keep an arsenal in their garages. The framers’ language was vague, but their intent was not. Their intent was not for John Doe to have the right to carry a gun into the grocery store and start shooting, nor for a family in the suburbs to keep a loaded pistol in their home. People have so broadly interpreted this that any law that has the word “firearm” in it automatically riles the gun-lovers. If I were given the task of making revisions to update the Constitution, the 2nd Amendment and the electoral college would be on the chopping block.
Now, to add insult to injury, the fool that sits in the Oval Office felt a need to ring in on the subject. Now, as president, he might have used his office to call for calm, to call for the rally to be canceled, or to urge people to keep the protest peaceful, right? But noooooo … he tweeted …
“Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia. That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!”
This from the so-called “president” of a nation of 330 million people. Keep your eye on Virginia tomorrow, my friends, because this may well be a harbinger of things to come.
We proudly present the second part of this week’s ‘Discord and Dissension’ project … please feel free to comment and make any suggestions you may have … we want this project to make a difference! Thanks to all of you!
Note to readers: This week’s post on our ‘Discord and Dissension’ project ended up being too long for a single post, and so it will be presented in two parts. The first part was presented earlier this morning, which you can read here. The following post is the second part.
Bush v. Gore
The 2000 election was extremely close. In the end, it came down to the state of Florida. George W. Bush had a lead of only 500 votes over Al Gore, and a recount ensued. It was during this period where the partisan divide between the two parties was on full display. One of the closest and most contentious elections was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court when they settled in a 5-4 decision to halt the recount—a split decision which also reflected the conservative versus liberal ideological makeup of the court.
Last Tuesday, after ten days of experiencing earth tremors, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was hit with an earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale. Yesterday morning, after days of aftershocks, the island was once again hit with a 5.9-magnitude quake, and today they are experiencing more aftershocks.
Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States; its 3.4 million residents are citizens of the United States who pay federal taxes and pay into Social Security and Medicare just as any other U.S. citizen.
If almost any city in the continental U.S. had been hit with two earthquakes of this magnitude in under a week, it would be headline news every day, and the federal government would be sending troops to help residents, keep the streets safe, prevent looting, and assist in cleanup operations. For Puerto Rico? The government is doing nothing as far as I can tell.
You may remember that in 2017, Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, with nearly 3,000 human lives lost as a result of the Category 4 storm. The island still has not fully recovered and they are still waiting for some $18 billion in federal funding that was designated by Congress after Maria. The holdup has continued past a congressionally mandated deadline last fall for more than $8 billion of the aid to be officially announced, and on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the Trump administration of acting unlawfully in withholding the money. (Perhaps he is waiting for them to dig up dirt on Joe Biden?)
You may also recall that after Hurricane Maria, Donald Trump briefly visited the island and … threw rolls of paper towels into the crowd of people who had come to hear him speak, hoping for promise of some real help. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has done more for Puerto Rico than any other U.S. president, but I think if you ask the citizens of Puerto Rico, they’ll tell you that is naught but another of his lies. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake, not a word has been heard from Trump, though he did sign a disaster relief bill authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist. If it had happened in San Francisco or Miami, he would have at least been tweeting “thoughts and prayers”. But for Puerto Rico, nothing.
But, the federal government is not the only one who is kicking the Puerto Ricans while they are down! Given that the aftershocks have not ceased since the initial quake, it is understandable that many residents are trying to leave the island. Now, on an average day, a ticket from Puerto Rico to Florida would run between $85 – $120. Today, both United and Delta Airlines are charging between $249 – $349 – a nearly 200% increase! This, my friends, is how capitalism works. They call it the law of supply and demand, but I call it unconscionable opportunism. This is taking advantage of people who are desperate. This makes me sick.
The Florida Attorney General’s office says that airlines prices do not fall under the state’s price gouging statute, and even then, the statute only applies when Florida is under a state of emergency. The Better Business Bureau said there is no regulation in place for prices of airline tickets during natural disasters.
All in all, Puerto Ricans have gotten a raw deal from the U.S. and the president of the country is too busy assassinating foreign leaders, lying about the reasons for doing so, tweeting criticisms of anybody & everybody, falsely bragging about being the greatest president ever, and ranting about having been impeached, to do his job, to help suffering people. Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans are without power, many are sleeping outside for fear of the next quake, and most cannot afford to leave and have nowhere else to go. Once again, I am deeply ashamed of this nation … we have sunk to a new low.
Well, the day has finally come … we will be leaving first thing in the morning to find our new home. It has been a nearly two-year process, trying to find a nation that would accept refugees from the U.S., so hated in the world is this nation. Who would have believed a short ten years ago, when Master Trump won the 2016 election, that it would come to this? Sure, we knew he was inept and inexperienced, but we all thought he wouldn’t last the first four years, let alone stay in office for ten full years!
We applied for asylum first in the UK, for we have many friends there, but after Trump’s unsuccessful attempt to assassinate members of the royal family there, all Americans are persona-non-grata in the United Kingdom. Next, we tried Australia, but ever since those fateful fires in the early 2020s, their economy has been suffering and they simply cannot afford to take on refugees, for they struggle to feed their own people. We tried Mexico but were told “¡Vaya con el Diablo!” We petitioned France, but they stopped accepting refugees from the U.S. after Master Trump had the Statue of Liberty re-carved with his image in place of Lady Liberty’s and renamed it after himself.
And just last week, when we had lost hope of being able to flee the terror that is now our waking nightmare, we received a letter from the Canadian government telling us that we would be welcomed in Canada. We will have only 90 days to prove ourselves useful by finding gainful employment, else we will be sent packing. I am not worried, for I think we will be able to find jobs, even if only in some fast food restaurant. The alternative would be unthinkable and would almost certainly lead to our execution, or at least mine. Now our only concern is getting across the border tomorrow night.
Many have criticized my comparisons of the U.S. today to Germany of the 1930s, but in many ways, this is even worse. Technology and the age of electronic spying have led to a complete loss of privacy. Remember Orwell’s 1984 when he wrote of the ‘thought police’? That is exactly what today’s world is, at least here in the U.S. So far, I have been arrested four times for my writing that was critical of the government. The last time, what I wrote was in a private email to a friend, and within 30 minutes of sending that letter, the police were pounding on my door.
If only people had listened back in 2016, or even 2020 … if only people had voted the madman out back when we still had a chance. We no longer have elections, no longer have a voice in government. We no longer have an independent media … all information, such as it is, is now disbursed by state-run media outlets and carefully censored.
In nearly every city, new prisons are being built to house the political dissidents, those of us who remember what it was like to have freedom of speech and who continue to speak out. There are near-daily executions … very public executions, intended to serve as a lesson for those of us who still think we are allowed to have a voice. “Master Trump” as we must call him now, allows for no differing opinions, and all privileges are only for those who wholeheartedly support him. Our grocery stores are state-run and one must show a valid state ID to even buy food. Many of us have taken to growing vegetables in our small yards in order to survive, for the amount and quality of food available to those of us who are not wealthy is poor.
Thankfully, I don’t have young children or grandchildren, for the schools are now segregated by level of wealth, with the average person’s children receiving only the barest of education, and by age 16 being expected to enlist in the military. For a time, I was teaching the neighborhood children in my own home, the lessons of history and government, but once I was discovered, I was no longer allowed to have children in my home. The history books that are used in the schools are all new … history has been revised by Master Trump – a ‘man’ who has never read a history book in his life. It is whatever he says it is on any given day.
Well, I must go pack the meager bit that I will be able to carry to cross the border tomorrow night. We will be driving up to the Canadian border during daylight, find a place to rest for a few hours, then crossing the border on foot with only a backpack each to carry our belongings. I hope it is a good sign that tomorrow starts a new year – 2027 – and hopefully a new life for me and the girls. Wish us lu – who is that pounding on the door at this hour of the ni …………………..
The year is 2020. Ten days into the new year, and so much has already happened that we cannot keep up. The world is teetering on the brink, and all thanks to one ‘man’: Donald Trump. Yes, that Donald Trump, the ‘man’ who sits in the White House, in the highest position of leadership in the nation, despite the fact that he lost the election by nearly 3 million votes.
The year is 2020, and the United States will be having an election on November 3rd, in just 298 days the people of this nation will head to the polls to cast their vote for their representative, some for their senator, and all for the next president. Or will they? In 2016, between 58% – 59% of eligible voters actually voted. WHY? Because …
Hillary Clinton was a woman
Hillary Clinton was not “warm and fuzzy”
Hillary Clinton was blamed for her husband’s indiscretions
Donald Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton was responsible for the lives lost in Benghazi, though that myth was long since de-bunked
People who had hoped that either Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein would gain the Democratic Party nomination were disappointed and thus stayed home, rather than vote at all
People claimed they were “making a statement” by not voting
There are many more reasons, of course, but folks … think about it … barely more than half of the people who could have voted, did. Throughout the relatively short history of this nation, men and women have put their lives on the line to protect our right to have a voice in our government, and some 40% of the nation’s citizens threw that right away.
Because of that … mainly the apathy and ignorance of people in this nation … we are currently facing a number of crises in this nation, not the least of which is that an impeached president, trying to distract the public from his own crimes, is leading us down a path of destruction.
The year is 2020, an election year, possibly the most crucial one in the 233-year history of the United States of America. If we lose this one, we may well be responsible for ending life on this planet as we know it today.
The year is 2020, and here in the U.S., the two parties, Democratic and Republican, are more divided than at any time in history. There are strong ideological differences, as there have always been, but it goes even beyond that. We are almost two separate nations without a line of demarcation, and the sheer antagonism between the two is toxic. How did we get to this point? How can we ever reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable differences? Where do we go from here?
The year is 2020, and we are determined to make our voices heard, to do our part to put an end to the madness that has overtaking the U.S. Who are we? We are Jeff and Jill – you know us from On the Fence Voters and Filosofa’s Word. We are going to spend part of our time and some of our voices in the coming ten months trying to make a difference. We will be in your inbox most Fridays screaming WAKE UP, AMERICA!!! We are all, democrat or republican, Christian, Jew, Muslim or atheist, black, brown or white … we are all in this together and in order to make this nation whole and healthy again, we need to start … somewhere! We hope you will join us in our little project, and we look forward to your input and suggestions.
Next Friday, 17 January, Jeff will begin with a bit about each of the two parties, the origins and how they got where they are today, then Jill will follow up with where we go from here. After that, we are going to be considering ways we can make a difference in this year’s upcoming election, how we can get voters engaged, make them see how important their vote is, etc. We will also be discussing things like religious liberty, the long-term effect of judicial appointments, and whatever else seems relevant in any given week. We want you to feel free to jump in with comments or even a guest post if you feel so inclined! That’s our plan for now, at least, but with the landscape changing daily, sometimes hourly, our focus could change over time. That’s the fun part … we have no idea where we’ll end up! So, until next Friday …
The United States is a secular nation, one that welcomes people of all or no religions, but does not govern based on the beliefs or principles of any religion. At least, that’s the intent as laid forth by the U.S. Constitution. Today’s “leaders”, the people driving public policy, seem painfully unaware of this principle. Our friend Jeff over at On the Fence Voters has written an excellent post about this, the greatest hypocrisy. Thank you, Jeff …
It’s an open secret that the evangelical community has forged a somewhat uneasy alliance with the current president of the United States. He gives them the judges they want, gives them lip service supporting ‘religious liberty,’ and does a travel ban on Muslims. All of this overrides the fact he’s perhaps the most un-Christian president in history who’s a pathological liar and who publicly bullies people he doesn’t like.
To them, while he’s an imperfect leader, he’s the ‘chosen one’ who might get them the ‘end days’ they so desperately crave. And while that’s enough to make me grab a shot of whiskey (even though I’m a beer drinker), even more frightening is that the two men driving his Iran policy are Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Both consider themselves proud members of the evangelical community.
I’ve known about Pence for sometime now. He’s a pretty…
On June 14th 2017 I wrote a post about Michael Bloomberg. It was actually a ‘good people’ post. Here are a few of the things I said about Bloomberg, some two-and-a-half years ago …
Many outside the New York area may not be aware of how much good Bloomberg does, but over his lifetime he has given away more than $4.3 billion!
I have always had rather a soft spot for Mr. Bloomberg, knew he was a good man, but even I had no idea just how much he has given back to the world.
The majority of his contributions are in the fields of Environment, Public Health, the Arts, Government Innovation, Education, Women’s Economic Development in Africa. Mr. Bloomberg has also signed the Giving Pledge started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, vowing to give away at least half of his wealth over the course of his lifetime.
Then I went on to list some of his causes in the fields of the environment, education, public health, women’s economic development, the arts and more. I wrote …
One thing that makes Bloomberg stand out in the crowd of wealthy philanthropists is that he is willing to try new things rather than, like some, wait for what they think will be the perfect organization and miss a lot of opportunities along the way.
Bloomberg is human, so I am certain that he wasn’t always right, either, but overall I believe he was a good mayor and is a good human being.
Bloomberg, in addition to being a philanthropist, is two things: a politician and a very successful businessman. In recent months, we have had every reason to trust neither politicians nor businessmen, but Mr. Bloomberg is the exception.
And I concluded, back in 2017, with …
He is living proof that politicians and businessmen CAN also be good people. I thought it important for us to remember that, especially now.
And then, in a response to a comment by Roger, I wrote …
“I would love to see him run on a democratic ticket, however … I would surely support him!”
Fast forward to November 12th 2019, nearly a year-and-a-half later, when I wrote a post titled Please Mayor Bloomberg, Don’t Do It where I re-blogged one of Jeff’s posts and in my intro blurb, I said …
“We do NOT need wealthy businessmen running our government … men who have never in their entire lives known what it’s like to have to beg for someone to help you pay the rent, or make a choice between paying the electric bill or taking your sick kid to the doctor!”
Left to my own devices, I would not have remembered what I said about Mr. Bloomberg in June 2017, nor likely what I said just over a month ago. I am old with a calcified brain, remember? But, our friend rawgod asked me, a few days ago …
“Today is Jan. 1, 2020. Bloomberg is running for the Dems, as you hoped. But I have not heard his name much on Filosofa’s Word. Has something changed? Or do you still believe he is a good person for the Oval Office?”
And I had to find out what he was talking about, for I had all but forgotten that Michael Bloomberg was once my ‘good people’ and that I had said I would support his candidacy on the democratic ticket.
So, now I ask myself the tough question: Am I a hypocrite, or has my view changed, and if so … why has it? What has changed? Is my reversal valid?
Well, the answer isn’t going to be found in any of my usual sources, such as The Washington Post, the New York Times, The Guardian, or Politico … the answer will have to come from some soul searching, some pondering. And here are the results of such pondering and musing …
I think that when I responded to Roger that I would “love” to see him run on the democratic ticket, I was caught up in the mood of the moment, having just researched all the philanthropic works Mr. Bloomberg has done.
I am certain that he would make a better president than Donald Trump could ever think about being.
That said, I do not think he is the man I want to see win the nomination to be the democratic candidate. Why?
Because for the past three years, we have watched the wealthy take over this nation, make decisions that in no way, shape or form helped the average person.
Because the more I see, the more I am convinced that we need in the Oval Office somebody who can honestly understand the plight of the average person, and I find it hard to believe that someone born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth can truly relate to We the People.
Because as Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg was responsible for the long-standing “Stop-and-Frisk” policy that was used to discriminate against African-Americans and other minorities, though he has recently apologized for that.
There are still things I like about Mr. Bloomberg’s platform …
Gun control – he supports universal background checks, an assault weapons ban and a crackdown on gun trafficking.
Climate change – he upholds the Paris Accord and is a proponent of action to combat climate change, though not to the extent I might like.
Civil and LGBT rights – he is supportive of both.
Women’s rights – he claims to believe that reproductive choice is a fundamental human right.
But, he does not support raising taxes on the wealthy, which I believe is critical to reducing our national debt and deficit. He is not strong enough on environmental and other issues. I would not vote for him at this point, though I might have in 2017, as I told Roger. That said, I would vote for him if he were to become the democratic nominee, but I see the chances of that being slim-to-none, for he is polling at only around 5% and is not even on the ballot in a number of states.
The Democratic Party really needs to pull itself together, to stand behind the strongest candidate and soon, in order to unseat the incumbent, for if they keep backstabbing and eating their own, they are doomed, and will doom the citizens of this nation to an almost-certain autocratic regime. Michael Bloomberg is not the solution, though through his philanthropy he can continue to make a positive difference in this world. Not all of us can be president.
So, am I a hypocrite, or have circumstances merely led to an evolution of my thoughts? I leave it to you to decide. Jerry? Roger? Keith? David? Ellen? Jeff? Scottie? Nan? Padre? John? Let me know what you think, for I’m truly not sure.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on 15 January 1929. He would have been 91 years old last Wednesday, had he lived. On this day, we celebrate not only his life, but also his legacy. Martin Luther King Day celebrates not only Dr. King, but the movement he inspired and all those who helped move forward the notion of equal rights for ALL races, all those who worked tirelessly during the civil rights era of the 1960s, as well as those who are continuing the good fight even in this, the year 2020.
Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States; its 3.4 million residents are citizens of the United States who pay federal taxes and pay into Social Security and Medicare just as any other U.S. citizen.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has done more for Puerto Rico than any other U.S. president, but I think if you ask the citizens of Puerto Rico, they’ll tell you that is naught but another of his lies. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake, not a word has been heard from Trump, though he did sign a disaster relief bill authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist. If it had happened in San Francisco or Miami, he would have at least been tweeting “thoughts and prayers”. But for Puerto Rico, nothing.
Many have criticized my comparisons of the U.S. today to Germany of the 1930s, but in many ways, this is even worse. Technology and the age of electronic spying have led to a complete loss of privacy. Remember Orwell’s 1984 when he wrote of the ‘thought police’? That is exactly what today’s world is, at least here in the U.S. So far, I have been arrested four times for my writing that was critical of the government. The last time, what I wrote was in a private email to a friend, and within 30 minutes of sending that letter, the police were pounding on my door.
