Category Archives: Rants

Filosofa Growls …

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, guns, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Rants, Social commentary

Forgive me, but I’m on a bit of a rant today, as you’ll see in just a minute.  WHERE is the common sense in this country???  It sure as hell isn’t in our House of Representatives, and apparently not in our Judicial system, either.

At least three House Republicans this week began wearing pins in the shape of an assault weapon on their clothing. Representatives George Santos of New York, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, and Andrew Clyde of Georgia were all caught on camera wearing the pins, leading some to express outrage.

Representative Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat from California, was among the first to circulate images of the two Republicans wearing the pins.

“Where are these assault weapon pins coming from? Who is passing these out?”

Aaron Fritschner, the Deputy Chief of Staff and Communications Director for Representative Don Beyer of Virginia, captured an image of Congressman Clyde wearing the pin on his tie.

One of the members wearing the pins, Congresswoman Luna, on Wednesday also participated in a House Natural Resources panel debate to push back on Democrats’ attempt to ban firearms inside the Committee’s hearing room.

She tweeted later, “The same Democrats who are voting to send firearms to Ukraine are telling me I can’t carry one.”

The House Chambers may seem like a battleground, but I challenge Ms. Luna to go to Kyiv, live on the streets for 24 hours, and then tell me she doesn’t see a difference.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

I am first of all amazed by the utter stupidity, but this … this is a slap in the face to the families of the children killed in the Uvalde school shooting last year.  It is a slap in the face to the Parkland parents, the Sandy Hook parents, to every family who has lost a child to gun violence!  It is a slap in the face to this nation and its people!!!  These members of Congress no longer even pretend to respect the people of this nation … they no longer deserve to serve in our legislative body!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

And speaking of guns and Congress …

A group of U.S. Senate Democrats introduced legislation on Thursday directing the Federal Trade Commission to create rules banning the marketing of firearms to children, including the JR-15, which I wrote about a while back.

The bill has slim chance of becoming law as Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, have largely opposed additional gun control measures, consistently arguing they infringe on the right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  To which I say … BULLSHIT!!!

It is reprehensible that we even have to make laws banning the marketing of guns to children, and even more so that the majority will block such a commonsense law!  The leading cause of childhood death in the United States is no longer disease or auto accidents … it is GUNS!!!!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

And STILL speaking of guns …

There is a federal law that prohibits those who are under a restraining order due to domestic violence charges from owning a gun.  Makes sense, yes?  If a man couldn’t control his temper enough to keep himself from beating his wife or children, then we don’t want him to have a gun, right?  Well, guess what, folks?  Judge Cory Wilson, of the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that the federal law is unconstitutional!

Paving the way for this really lousy decision was the Supreme Court ruling last year in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v Bruen whereby the Court ruled that New York’s law requiring a license to carry concealed weapons in public places is unconstitutional.  This opened the door for what will likely be attempts to overturn what little gun legislation exists at the federal level, and states are already jumping on the bandwagon — within two weeks after the Supreme Court decision, the state of Maryland suspended a similar state law.  Others will follow suit.

By this time next year, there may be NO gun restrictions in U.S. law.  Nothing should surprise us anymore.  There is something intrinsically wrong in a country who values the right to own a killing machine more than it values the right to live.  And you want to know the real irony here?  Most of those who whine about their “god-given right” to own a gun, are the same ones who call themselves “pro-life”.  Again … BULLSHIT!!!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

If You Give A Kid A Gun …

Posted on by under education, guns, Law and justice, Rants, Social commentary

Guns in the hands of so-called ‘adults’ are bad enough, but guns in the hands of children is unconscionable!  It is a recipe for disaster!  The very same crowd that would deny a woman the right to have an abortion, would happily put a gun into her child’s hand!

I imagine most of you have seen the video clip that went viral a couple of days ago about a child in a diaper running around the hallway of an apartment building waving a loaded pistol.  The child pulled the trigger at least twice, but luckily, although the gun was loaded, there was no bullet in the chamber.  He pointed the gun at a woman and her daughter, who immediately went into her apartment and called the police, probably averting a catastrophe.  The child’s father denied owning a gun, but the child led police to the desk where the gun was stashed and the father was promptly arrested.

And this came just a week after a six-year-old child shot his teacher!

So, with those two things fresh in my mind, can you imagine my horror upon reading of a gun trade show being held in Las Vegas this week that will feature a JR-15 .22-caliber long rifle meant for kids?  WTF???  Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to have a lobotomy right away!  According to the trade show’s website …

“The JR-15 is the first in a line of shooting platforms that will assist families in safely passing on the proud American tradition of responsible gun ownership to the next generation of recreational shooting and hunting enthusiasts.”

Every state has laws that prohibit a child from having a gun, yet the gun manufacturers are making guns specifically for children … where’s the sense???  Oh wait … sense, human lives, logic, compassion, and all that take a backseat to the big P … PROFIT!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The good news, if any can come of this, is that even young people are up in arms (no pun intended) over this, and on Tuesday a group of student protesters, including at least one who is the survivor of a school shooting, demonstrated outside the trade show’s venue, the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

One of the students, Ade Osadolor-Hernandez, a member of Students Demand Action, had this to say …

“I really am just afraid to walk at night, to go to class, and obviously with the school violence epidemic and school shootings, I was even scared to participate in class. I was always looking for the nearest exit.”

Isn’t that a damn shame?  We send our children to school to learn history, science, literature, to become well-rounded, knowledgeable, thinking adults, but instead of focusing on the lessons of the teachers and textbooks, they are focused on watching every movement around them and remembering where the hiding places and exits are.

Last weekend at a mall in Columbus, Ohio, 40-50 youths were involved in a fight that caused police to evacuate the mall.  Loaded guns were found on at least two of the youths that we know of.  But perhaps this statement by a patron of the mall identifies the real problem …

“We’re numb to it now, because we hear it so many times. It’s not like it’s something that happens and it’s a huge big deal, because tomorrow we’re probably going to hear it again somewhere else.”

Chew on that one for a while, my friends.

Meanwhile, Clay Jones has an excellent post on the topic of kids ‘n guns … check it out.

A Child’s Life Forever Shattered

Posted on by under education, guns, History, Law and justice, Rants, Social commentary

Yesterday, a six-year-old child was arrested in Newport News, Virginia.  Yes, you read that right … six years old and now in police custody.  What did he do?  He shot his teacher.  The child, a first grade student, barely out of diapers, brought a gun to school … and shot his teacher in the chest.  The superintendent of Newport News Public Schools, Dr. George Parker, said at a news conference that “we need to keep guns out of the hands of our young people.”  DUH!  Ya really think so?  We need to keep them out of the hands of ALL people!  That child did not purchase the gun … an adult bought it and left it, loaded, somewhere that was accessible to the child.  THAT is the crime here!

And while this is an anomaly, it is not without precedent.  According to the New York Times …

David Riedman, who founded the K-12 School Shooting Database after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in 2018, has compiled data on every school shooting — anytime a firearm has been discharged on school property — dating back to 1970. He found 16 cases involving shooters under the age of 10.

Three of them involved 6-year-old children. Two of those were ruled accidental shootings: One in 2011 at an elementary school in Houston in which a student had a gun that went off, injuring three people; and another in Mississippi in 2021, when a first-grader shot a fellow student with a gun he had brought to school and was playing with. In the third case, which attracted national attention, a 6-year-old boy shot and killed a young girl as the teacher was lining up students in a hallway.

According to Mr. Riedman’s research, there has been only one shooting at a school that involved someone under 6 years old: a kindergartner, aged 5, shot a gun in the cafeteria of his school in Memphis, Tenn., in 2013. No one was injured.

In all these cases, it is not the children who are to blame, but the adults, presumably their parents, who had the guns and failed miserably in their duties as parents to protect their children by keeping their guns unloaded and locked away!  How many lives have been ruined in these instances before they even got off the ground?  And WHY???  Because people care more about their so-called “right” to own a damn gun than they care about the lives of their children.  FOOLS!

The teacher, who was shot in the chest, has “life threatening injuries but has shown improvement,” according to a local news station.  Further details of the Newport News incident will no doubt be forthcoming, and I will do an update when I know more, but as of this writing, my inclination is to say that the parents of this child should be sent to prison for the next twelve years, at least, for they are unfit to live in the same home as a child!

DAMMIT!!! 🤬

Posted on by under guns, History, Law and justice, Personal, Political commentary, Rants, Social commentary

Wednesday, 1:30 a.m.

1:30 this morning, I had just finished my music post and was getting ready to put it on the schedule for the usual time, 11:00 a.m.  Suddenly my phone went mad with a knock-knock here and a knock-knock there.  Being nearly deaf, my notification sound is a sharp knock, which I can hear much better than any tone.  Usually, it is silent at 1:30 in the morning, so I knew something was up.  Sure enough … three notifications from The Guardian, The Washington Post, and the New York Times informing me that a gunman had shot and killed multiple people in a Wal-Mart store in Virginia.

GODDAMMIT PEOPLE!!!!  Two days before Thanksgiving and people cannot even go buy a damned turkey or some sweet potatoes without getting killed???  We the People … our damned lives are less important to the members of Congress we pay to protect us than the profits of the damned gun industry?

As I pound the keyboard, hitting as many wrong keys as right ones, my loving cat Oliver, sensing my distress, hops onto my lap and using his paw, gently pulls my left hand away from the keyboard.  Whoever called them ‘dumb animals’ was dead wrong … they’re a hell of a lot smarter than we humans are.

Having spent a few minutes patting Oliver and chatting with him, my tears have dried and I am now somewhat calmer … at least I’m hitting the right keys now!  By the time I resume this post later today, hopefully there will be some details, but already … barely 3 hours after the massacre, Wal-Mart management is sending useless ‘thoughts and prayers’ just as most of our elected officials who cannot be bothered to take guns out of the hands of lunatics will be doing by this afternoon.  The latest from the BBC is that they think it may have been the store manager who opened fire, but … don’t worry, folks, for a Wal-Mart corporate executive said that the company is “shocked by this tragic event.”

On that note, I shall switch gears, pat Oliver a bit longer, have a piece of cheese, try for some sleep (it is now 2:45 a.m.), and return to this story later this morning.

Wednesday afternoon

Well, details remain sketchy but apparently it was the night manager who did the shooting.  He was in the break room with a number of employees planning for today’s deluge of last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers, and just as the meeting was about to break up, the manager pulled out a pistol and opened fire.  Six people were killed and either 4 or 5 were taken to nearby hospitals with injuries.  Given that there were some 20+ employees in that break room and the store was crowded with shoppers, it’s a small wonder that there weren’t more killed.  The gunman then turned the gun on himself and was dead when police arrived.  The name of the shooter (murderer) has not been released and the FBI is involved in the investigation.

Mass shootings … as commonplace as syrup on pancakes.  Someday perhaps we will have lawmakers who see it as their duty to craft restrictive gun laws with teeth, but as long as the gun industry is allowed to put lots of money into the pockets of these men and women, essentially buying their votes against ANY gun restrictions, these shootings will continue to escalate.  People claim the biggest reason for gun ownership is self-defense, but it is rare that a gun is used for self-defense.  The night manager at Wal-Mart certainly wasn’t ‘defending’ himself, nor was the murderer at Club Q last weekend, nor was the man who killed three University of Virginia football players ten days ago.  More often than not, guns are used to murder people for any or no reason, but not self-defense.

In some states today, it is as easy to buy a gun as it is to buy a pack of bananas.  When does it stop?  Does it stop when some crazed gunman kills a large number of members of Congress, or perhaps the President?  I know you’re all tired of hearing me rant about guns, and I’m tired of writing about guns, but until something is done, I WILL KEEP WRITING ABOUT IT!!!

WHAT A WASTE!!!

Posted on by under Election 2022, Law and justice, Political commentary, Rants

The total annual salaries for the 435 members of the House of Representatives is $76,300,300.  That’s just the salary, not including benefits, travel, and other perks, and not including all their staff!  When you add it all up, the total budget for the House of Representatives is $1.715 billion!  We the Taxpayers are the ones who pay these salaries.  Now, mind you, I don’t begrudge them their pay and relative to what the average corporate executive earns in a year, House members’ salaries are actually less.  But what I do mind is paying for people to do a job that they are not doing, but instead are spending their time and our money on pointless, stupid time-wasting games.

As the Republican Party leadership makes plans for their next session beginning January 3rd, 2023, we hear that their sole intent will be to impeach President Biden … multiple times if possible … for grounds as yet undetermined.  They play to spend their entire first year doing nothing but running investigations into every aspect of the Biden administration, including the president’s family members, looking for evidence of … what???

These are just a few of the ‘investigations’ they are plotting:

  • They will seek to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of Homeland Security, not for misdeeds but because they are displeased that the Biden administration’s immigration policies are more humane than the Trump administration’s.
  • They’re planning to probe the alleged “politicization” of the Justice Department, claiming it is a hotbed of leftists and Democratic partisans. Additionally, they plan an investigation into what they claim is the ‘mistreatment’ of the January 6th insurrectionists.  Say WHAT???
  • They intend to investigate the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with the goal of gutting the IRS budget. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provided funding for additional IRS staffing to pursue tax fraud by corporations and the wealthy, but the Republicans want to ensure that doesn’t happen.
  • They say they plan to waste even more time and resources “investigating” the source of Covid, claiming that there was some vast ‘conspiracy’ involving none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, responsible for the virus. They say they want to see Fauci imprisoned, or perhaps even executed for his alleged ‘crimes’.
  • And of course they plan to make President Biden’s son, Hunter, the subject of some massive investigation into his emails, his computer, his sexual relationships, and probably the brand of socks he wears! Funny the double standard here … Trump’s children were involved in a number of unsavory things, but not once was an investigation launched into their shenanigans.  In fact, they were given high-level security clearances against the recommendations of the White House personnel security office at Trump’s behest.

These are but a few of the pseudo-investigations that Kevin McCarthy, Marge Greene and others are rubbing their hands together and salivating over launching.  The end goal, as I mentioned, is to impeach President Biden.  Why?  Because he’s not a Republican, because he won the 2020 election, because he’s a man of conscience and integrity, unlike most of the Republicans.  And there may well be yet another reason … because Donald Trump asked ordered them to.

Now, we can shrug it off, for it’s unlikely with the slim majority the Republicans will have in the House that they will succeed in impeaching the president.  Surely there are at least a few who would be uncomfortable with such a dramatic and ludicrous move.  And even if they succeeded in impeachment, there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that the Senate would convict him.  But it is still important because it is a denigration of our entire government, turning the United States Congress into a circus act.  In my mind, at least, it signals the beginning of the end of a democratic system.  The Republicans are obviously not interested in earning their keep, in providing good governance, but are only interested in domination.  Then again, maybe part of the scheme is to deflect attention from their own crimes and those of their ‘leader’, Donald Trump.

What makes me furious is that the Republicans have absolutely no plan for policy-making or for legislating, which is what we hired them to do!  Their sole focus is going to be on trying to bring down the Biden administration and block any and all legislation proposed by the Democrats.  And for this … for this we are going to pay them $76,300,300!!!  I don’t know about you folks, but I’m sick and damned tired of paying hard-earned tax dollars and getting absolutely nothing in return!  I’d far rather my tax dollars go to help improve the lot in life of people who are struggling just to survive in this world than the already-wealthy bozos the Republicans have shoved into Congress!

STOP IT!!! JUST STOP IT!!! 🛑

Posted on by under Election 2020, Election 2022, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

Early this morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home was broken into and her 82-year-old husband was brutally beaten. Speaker Pelosi was in Washington at the time. This past summer, Senator Susan Collins of Maine had windows broken out in her home.  Many members of Congress have received hate mail and death threats recently.  As I read aloud the story about the attack on Paul Pelosi with my voice cracking and tears threatening to make a trail down my cheeks, I turned to my daughter and said, “This is NOT who we are!!!”  And then, after a pause, I thought, but maybe it is now.  Maybe the racism and greed and bigotry that have become such a part of this nation since its inception is turning us into monsters.

Senator Collins recently stated that “I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member were killed. What started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence.”  Consider these instances …

  • In Seattle, a man who had sent an angry email to Representative Pramila Jayapal repeatedly showed up outside the lawmaker’s house, armed with a semiautomatic handgun and shouting threats and profanities.
  • In Queens, a man who had traveled across the country waited in a cafe across the street from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office to confront her, part of a near-constant stream of threats and harassment that has prompted the congresswoman to switch her sleeping location at times and seek protection from a 24-hour security detail.
  • In the months since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which brought lawmakers and the vice president within feet of rioters threatening their lives, Republicans and Democrats have faced stalking, armed visits to their homes, vandalism and assaults.

The man who attacked Paul Pelosi had an online presence that should have thrown up red flags if anybody had been paying attention.  He had posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

And now, just hours after the attack, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin apparently thought he was being funny when he said at a rally, “Listen, I want to stop for a minute and — listen, Speaker Pelosi’s husband — they had a break in last night in their house and he was assaulted. There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re gonna send her back to be with him in California. That’s what we’re gonna go do. That’s what we’re gonna go do.”

It is said that the attacker entered the home screaming, “Where’s Nancy?”, and yet one Fox host claims that perhaps it was a random break-in, not necessarily intended for Speaker Pelosi.

The attacker, who I shall not name, is being charged with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and “several other additional felonies,” according to Police Chief William Scott.

A number of lawmakers have said they are ‘horrified’ by the attack on Mr. Pelosi, and outgoing Senator Ben Sasse said, “every single American needs to be lowering the temperature. This is increasingly obvious: Disturbed individuals easily succumb to conspiracy theories and rage — the consequences are bloody and un-American.”  While I fully agree with Senator Sasse, I also hold certain members of Congress, as well as a former president and his followers, for inciting the violence that is tearing this nation apart and threatening lives of innocent people.

JUST STOP IT – EVERYONE!!!  JUST STOP IT!!!  BE BETTER THAN THIS!

Note to Readers: “Paul Pelosi underwent surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital after sustaining a skull fracture and serious injuries to his hands and right arm. The surgery was successful, and he is expected to make a full recovery, said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

If You Can’t Win Honestly …

Posted on by under Election 2022, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary, voting rights

The failure of the United States Senate to pass the two federal voting rights bills that crossed their desks in January has led to nearly every state creating highly restrictive voting laws this year.  Thank you, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, for doing your part to destroy the rights of We the People to have a voice in our government.  In addition to the restrictive laws the states have been passing all year, there is a last-minute scramble to add insult to injury just ahead of the upcoming mid-term elections.  Just a few examples …

  • Just three days after being sworn into office, Wyoming Republican Interim Secretary of State Karl Allred sent a letter asking clerks to remove all drop boxes in the state. “I’m mindful of the fact that there have been no issues reported with the use of the drop boxes in Wyoming, but that does not alleviate the potential for abuse …”  Say WHAT???  There is “potential for abuse” in every single thing in the world, but that doesn’t mean you ban them!!!  There’s the potential that I might throw my coffee cup at someone’s head and give them a concussion, but we don’t ban coffee cups!!!  We don’t ban cars that kill hundreds … thousands of people every year!  Hell, we don’t even ban f*cking guns … yesterday, a 15-year-old child killed five people with a gun in North Carolina, but do you think Congress will act on stricter gun laws?  Hell no!  But this jerk in Wyoming wants to remove all ballot boxes, making it much harder for many to cast a ballot, to use their Constitutional voice in our government, because of the ‘potential’ for abuse!  Ballot boxes are more dangerous than guns???  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  • Last Friday, the Delaware Supreme Court struck down two recently enacted pro-voting laws claiming they ‘violated’ the Delaware Constitution. The two-page order struck down Delaware’s same-day registration and no-excuse mail-in voting laws. Another blow … a big one … to voting rights, especially for the elderly and the disabled who may have difficulty going to the polls in person and waiting in line, sometimes for hours, to cast their vote.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  • In Pennsylvania, Republicans are trying to get 242,000 people … nearly a quarter of a million … removed from the voter rolls, claiming they have moved outside the state since the last election. I find it hard to believe that so many have left the state in under two years and have no clue how they have identified those voters, but I’d bet money that most of the 242,000 voted for a Democrat or two last election and that is the actual criteria!  Other states, such as North Carolina and Wisconsin have similar efforts underway to purge voters.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
  • Early in-person voting starts in Georgia next Monday, just three days away. Yet, thousands of Georgia voters have already had their eligibility challenged by right-wing activists, empowered by a provision in Senate Bill 202, Georgia’s 2021 voter suppression law that could challenge the voting rights of some 364,000 voters! I guess those right-wingers know that their ‘man’, Hershel Walker, only stands a chance to win if they keep enough voters away from the polls.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

This is only a sampling of the latest efforts.  Republicans cannot win in a fair fight, so instead they will fight dirty.  Winning is their only goal … if democracy gets in their way, then they will kill democracy.  There was, however, one bright spot in the voting rights’ news from the unlikeliest of sources, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis …

Yesterday, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ian made landfall leaving behind massive damage to the state, Governor DeSantis issued an executive order allowing Charlotte, Lee and Sarasota counties to implement emergency changes. DeSantis’ order:

  • Allows counties to extend early voting and designate additional early voting locations
  • Gives voters in the three counties the ability to request their mail-in ballot by phone and for it to be sent to an address other than the address on their voter registration
  • Provides for drop boxes to be moved and polling locations to be consolidated as necessary
  • Increases the pool of eligible poll workers to address any shortages

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2022, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, Political commentary, Rants, Social commentary

A short one this morning, an excerpt from Robert Hubbell’s latest newsletter regarding the news that both OPEC and Russia intend to reduce oil production.  We all know that means higher prices at the pump, and while this should not be the highest priority on people’s minds as we head into the November mid-term elections, it probably will be.  People ought to be more concerned with the environment, the state of democracy, and human rights, but nope … they are more focused on how much it costs them to drive their gas-guzzling SUVs all over the place because, as one ‘friend’ told me, “it’s my happiness that matters most.”  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Putin’s War Tax on Americans

Robert B. Hubbell
6 October 2022

Saudi Arabia gave Russia a huge gift on Wednesday by coordinating a two million barrel per day reduction in oil production among OPEC oil producers. The effect of Saudi Arabia’s decision is to thwart the efforts by the Group of 7 nations to place a cap on the market price of Russian oil. Saudi Arabia’s decision will drive up oil prices, which Russia will use to fund its war against Ukraine. See NYTimes, The E.U.’s plan faces a new hurdle, as oil producers led by Saudi Arabia aim to keep global prices high.

          To state the obvious, neither Saudi Arabia nor Russia is a friend of the US or western democracy. Indeed, both are dictatorial, murderous regimes that ruthlessly suppress their people and seek to destabilize global peace and security. And both are darlings of the GOP and Fox “News.” Tucker Carlson claimed on Tuesday that Joe Biden blew up Nord Stream gas pipelines—an act of sabotage that occurred as Russian submarines and warships were spotted lurking near the points of attack on the pipelines.

          And, of course, the GOP’s mob boss welcomed Saudi Arabia’s blood money at his Bedminster golf course only weeks before the twenty-first remembrance of the victims of the Saudi-assisted terrorist attacks on 9/11. Trump provided a feeble excuse for “sports-washing” the Saudi involvement, saying, “Nobody’s gotten to the bottom” of responsibility for the terror attacks—a blatant lie.

          The effort also seems intended to meddle in US and European politics. It is only a matter of time before Republicans begin blaming Joe Biden and Democrats for the increase in gas prices—rather than acknowledging that the increases are directly attributable to Saudi Arabia’s efforts to prop up Vladimir Putin. Don’t let Republicans peddle that lie without challenge. Saudi Arabia has just imposed a “Putin war tax” on all Americans.

Yes, We DO Care!!! We MUST Care!!!

Posted on by under Global Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

At a circus in Michigan last Saturday, the head clown was the former guy, aka Donald Trump, and one of the minion clowns was Marge Greene, well known for her conspiracy theories and hate speech.  Now, I don’t generally pay attention to things that come out of Greene’s mouth, for to the best of my knowledge, she has never uttered a true or sensible statement yet.  However, something she said really galled me …

“We have so many problems here at home, I cannot even think about sending our money over to fund a proxy war with Russia. Zelensky doesn’t run the United States government. He is not our president, but for some reason Joe Biden bends over every single time. … The American people don’t care about that war over there.”

The American people don’t care about that war over there???  Oh yes … oh yes, we DO CARE!!!  What angers me most about this is the utter arrogance, the idea that somehow people in the U.S. must be above what happens in the rest of the world.  This is complete and total bullshit!  Somebody needs to inform Ms. Greene that she does NOT speak for “the American people”!  People, innocent people – grandparents, children, mothers and fathers — are being murdered in Ukraine by a madman who dreams of leading an empire and will step on anyone and everyone to realize his dreams.  How could we not care???

Somebody should remind Ms. Greene that we all share the same planet … that what affects one, affects all.  If Putin conquers Ukraine as he hopes, he will not stop there, but will move on to his next conquest, possibly Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania – all members of NATO. Putin has made no secret of the fact that he hopes to rebuild a Soviet-style empire. It is this sort of attempted world domination that led to WWII and could easily lead to WWIII.  The people in Ukraine are no different than the people in Marge’s own district in Georgia … just people trying to take care of their families and live in peace.  I wonder how Marge would feel if Mexico invaded Georgia and bombed homes, public buildings and hospitals, killing thousands?

I believe that all people, regardless of skin colour, where they live, ancestry, religious beliefs, gender, gender identity or any other distinctions are valuable.  The people in Ukraine who go to bed at night not knowing if they will wake in the morning, who send their children to school not knowing if the school will still be standing by afternoon, are just as human, just as valuable as any citizen of the United States or Russia or the United Kingdom or any other country.  It is one thing to take pride in your homeland … most everyone, regardless of where their homeland is, does.  But that does not mean that any one group of people are somehow superior to others.  This notion of “us vs them” is exactly why we cannot manage world peace.  It is arrogant and ignorant, and when people in positions of power promote the idea of nationalism over humanity, it is dangerous.

The time for isolationism, for extreme nationalism, passed when the age of technology shrunk the world, but apparently Ms. Greene (and others like her) have not been informed that we’re all in this together.  Her attitude would make us a pariah in the global community, would cost us any respect our allies may still have for us, and would make our position in the world far more dangerous for us all.  Somebody please vote the selfish, arrogant Ms. Greene OUT of Congress … send her back to her gym!

Filosofa Rants Yet Again!

Posted on by under education, Election 2022, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary, voting rights

I was seriously trying to work on a post about banned books for Banned Books Week when I took a brief break and while perusing a bit of news and some other blogs briefly, I came across something that made my blood boil.  All hope of me finishing my banned books post tonight is gone … perhaps tomorrow, but for tonight I have a brief rant, and then I’m going to bed to read for a while and try to calm my shattered psyche.

Who or what has sent me into a tailspin?  A man by the name of John Gibbs from Michigan who is running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in November’s election.  According to Wikipedia …

John Gibbs is an American far-right political commentator and politician. A member of the Republican Party, Gibbs was a software engineer and missionary before entering politics. During the Donald Trump administration, he held roles in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and was acting Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Community Planning and Development.

In July 2020, Trump nominated Gibbs to be director of the United States Office of Personnel Management, but he was never confirmed by the Senate. Gibbs promoted Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He is a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 elections, having defeated incumbent Peter Meijer in the Republican Party primary election for Michigan’s 3rd congressional district.

Okay, pretty much your typical maga-Republican, nothing new or out of the ordinary there, right?  Well, just wait.  As a student at Stanford University in the early 2000s, Gibbs founded a self-described “think tank” called the Society for the Critique of Feminism.  Here is some of what he had to say there …

“The Bible clearly articulates the idea that women should not teach or maintain positions of power. Although the reason is not expressly mentioned, it must be due to the nature of women (i.e. their differing mental characteristics), since every other command for living in the Bible is based on the condition of man. In other words, because women do not possess the characteristics necessary to govern, and since women have a more important task to do, which is to prepare the next generation, they are commanded not to rule.

And since Christianity is the historical foundation of American society, with all of the rights and freedoms expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, which we enjoy to this very day, being expressly and unmistakenly God-given, it is incumbent upon us to consider the relationship that our Christian/cultural heritage, which is so important to so many Americans, shares with feminism, which threatens to unravel the social fabric which has produced one of the marvels of mankind.

Some argue that in a democratic society, it is hypocritical or unjust for women, who are 50% of the population, not to have the vote. This is obviously not true, since the founding fathers, who understood liberty and democracy better than anyone, did not believe so. In addition, all people under age 18 cannot vote, although they too comprise a significant portion of the population. So we cannot say that women should be able to vote simply because they are a large part of the population.

We conclude that increasing the size and scope of government is unequivocally bad. And since women’s suffrage has caused this to occur on a larger scale than any other cause in history, we conclude that the United States has suffered as a result of women’s suffrage.”

And now you understand why I have steam coming out of my ears.

Somebody might want to remind him that those same ‘founding fathers’ also didn’t believe that people with his skin colour ought to be allowed to vote!!!  Oh what a hypocrite this man is!

Anne Marie Schieber, a spokesperson for Gibbs’ campaign, attempted to mitigate and control the damage when his views on women were made public, saying that he was only trying “to provoke the left on campus and to draw attention to the hypocrisy of some modern-day feminists. It was nothing more than a college kid being over the top.”  Oh no, sweet cheeks … this was downright blatant misogyny, putting down women in the worst possible way!  This was no little college prank.  And given Gibbs’ current conspiracy theorist tendencies, there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that he still feels that women are so far inferior to men that we should not be allowed to put on shoes and leave the kitchen, let alone vote or god forbid run for office!  Bastard!

Back in 2020, Trump nominated Gibbs to head the Office of Personnel Management.  During the Senate confirmation hearings, it came out that Gibbs had he had spread the false conspiracy theory that claimed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign chairman took part in a satanic ritual … that conspiracy theory, known as Pizzagate, led to Edgar Maddison Welch entering a pizza restaurant on 4 December 2016 armed with an AR-15, and randomly fired shots.

The only reason Mr. Gibbs’ name will be on the ballot this November is because the incumbent for that seat, Representative Peter Meijer, was ostracized by the GOP for voting to impeach Trump in 2020.  Therefore, Gibbs received that all-important ‘seal of approval’ from the former guy and won his primary.  He faces … oh the irony … Hillary Scholten, the Democrat running for the seat, and as of today, Gibbs is polling 9 points behind Ms. Scholten!  I would love to be a fly on the wall when he loses to … of all people … one of those women for whom he has zero respect!