Good People Doing Good Things — Robert F. Smith

Posted on May 22, 2019 by jilldennison under education, Good people doing good things, Social commentary

It’s graduation season at colleges all across the nation, but one commencement ceremony will stand out in the minds of many for the rest of their lives. Graduates of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, will be telling their grandchildren about their graduation “way back in 2019”. Why? Because of the generosity of one man, Robert Frederick Smith.

Mr. Smith gave the commencement speech at Morehouse last Sunday. Watch (pay particular attention to the guy in the lower left-hand corner) …

Who, you ask, is Robert Frederick Smith? Never heard of him, have you? Well, he is a 56-year-old African-American man, originally from Colorado, currently living in Austin, Texas. He is a businessman, investor, and philanthropist, a former chemical engineer and investment banker. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. Not the sort of person I typically feature in my good people posts, and not the sort we usually think of when we think of ‘generosity’.

Smith’s net worth is estimated at $5 billion, but he is not your typical billionaire. Smith was not born into abject poverty, but neither was he born into wealth. Both of his parents were schoolteachers and his was very much a middle-class upbringing. But Smith had drive, he had ambition, and he knew at an early age what he wanted.

As a junior in high school, Smith landed an internship at Bell Labs — by calling the company every week for five months until he got a slot. Smith tinkered with computers during his summer and winter breaks and went on to study chemical engineering at Cornell University. He earned an MBA from Columbia University, followed by an investment banking job at Goldman Sachs. After advising billion-dollar mergers for tech companies such as Microsoft and Apple, he left Goldman to found Vista Equity Partners in 2000. Today, Robert Smith is the wealthiest African-American in the nation.

Smith’s gift to Morehouse graduates is far from his first act of generosity. Prior to the 2003 opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., Smith donated $20 million. In 2016, he gave $50 million to Cornell University for its chemical and biomolecular engineering school, and to support black and female engineering students. He is the founding director and president of the Fund II Foundation. Under his leadership, Fund II Foundation has invested in organizations such as Cornell, United Negro College Fund (UNCF), National Park Foundation, Susan G. Komen, and Global Wildlife Conservation, among many others.

In 2018, Smith was the largest individual donor at the City of Hope Gala, earmarking funds towards prostate cancer treatment for black men and for breast cancer research for black women. Smith also donated $2.5 million to the Prostate Cancer Foundation to advance prostate cancer research among African-American men.

In 2017, Smith signed on for The Giving Pledge, joining such notable philanthropists as Bill & Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett and currently 190 others.

“I will never forget that my path was paved by my parents, grandparents and generations of African-Americans whose names I will never know. Their struggles, their courage, and their progress allowed me to strive and achieve. My story would only be possible in America, and it is incumbent on all of us to pay this inheritance forward. For these reasons, on behalf of my family, I am privileged to join the Giving Pledge with a commitment to invest half my net worth—during my lifetime—to causes that support equality of opportunity for African Americans, as well as causes that cultivate ecological protection to ensure a livable planet for future generations.”

As you all know, I typically have little or no use for billionaires, as very few use their wealth to help people. But when a man pledges to pay off the student debt for 396 college graduates, my hat is off to him.

I did a bit of research and found that the average white college graduate leaves school with $28,650 in student loan debt. But, according to Brookings Institute, the average black student has an additional $7,400 in debt, in part because black parents have less wealth to help pay for their children’s educations. So, what Mr. Smith has done for these graduates is no small thing, for the total could well end up being around $15 million, according to my calculations. And what he said toward the end of his speech … he called on those graduates to “pay it forward” … will ensure that his gift is one of those that ‘keeps on giving’.

Tuesday’s ‘Toons …

Posted on May 21, 2019 by jilldennison under cartoons, Global Issues, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I decided to hop around and see how the cartoonists are handling things this week. Y’know, it’s odd that we can still manage to find humour in the atrocities our government is inflicting on us every day, but … I guess in order to maintain some degree of sanity, we must find something to laugh about, yes?

This week the three biggest topics were Trump’s & Bolton’s taunting of Iran and the likely fallout, the draconian anti-abortion laws being passed in many states, and Trump’s trade wars. But first … the world lost two fabulous entertainers last week, Doris Day and Tim Conway … so let’s start there.

Alabama, Georgia, Utah, Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi and other states have recently passed highly restrictive laws banning abortion, in some cases calling for long periods of incarceration for both mother and doctor. The ultimate goal of the far right evangelicals and Trump, of course, being to get these cases to the Supreme Court and overturn the federal law established by Roe v Wade, thus completely subjugating women to the whims of a few. They call it “pro-life”, but it is, in fact, anti-women’s rights, nothing more.

Trump and his National Security advisor John Bolton have been seemingly trying to poke the beast (Iran) and start a new war in the Middle East. Just what the world needs, eh?

Trump’s trade war … some time ago he said, “Trade wars are easy to win”. Well, we know … we knew then … that he is clueless, that he doesn’t understand international trade any better than a banana does, and now he’s proven it. He has gone tariff-crazy and it is hurting US, especially the farmers, but he’s oblivious and doesn’t care anyway.

And I close with just a few miscellaneous ‘toons …

On Feeding Our Children …

Posted on May 20, 2019 by jilldennison under education, Social commentary

Imagine you are a child in school. The lunch bell rings, you head to the cafeteria with your friends, stand in line, select your lunch, and when you get to the cashier, you are told that you cannot have your lunch, for your parents haven’t paid your lunch bill. You are handed a sandwich … or worse, the cashier throws your lunch in the trash and tells you to move out of the line. Your friends … they are looking at you … you feel as if every single kid in the cafeteria is looking at you. You are so embarrassed you wish the ground would open and swallow you. You run to the bathroom in tears. This is happening all over the United States.Some children are eligible for free lunch, but those who are not must rely on their parents to keep money in their school lunch account. Sometimes perhaps the parents are a bit short one week, or perhaps they simply forgot. It happens. Children should not have to go without a nutritious lunch and be shamed in front of the entire school for something over which they had no control. And yet, that is exactly what is happening across the nation.

In Warwick, Rhode Island earlier this month, the school district implemented a new policy that any child who has unpaid lunch fees or cannot afford to pay for his/her lunch will be denied a hot lunch and given only a “sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwich”. The district claims to have “tens of thousands of dollars” of unpaid lunch fees and can no longer afford to extend lunch credit to the children.

Enter a good Samaritan, Angelica Penta, owner of a local restaurant, who offered $4,000 to help pay some of that lunch debt, but her offer was firmly rejected … twice! She was told that the school would have to decide which children’s accounts to apply the money toward, and so unless she specified whose accounts she wished to pay, or unless she paid the total they claim is owed, they could not accept her generosity. Meanwhile, children are being embarrassed and subjected to a sandwich made of … sunflower seeds???

But Warwick is only one such example, as I found out on researching for this post. This is happening all over the country and has been for some years! In Phoenix, Arizona, children’s arms are stamped with the words “Lunch Money” if their accounts are empty. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, lunches are thrown in the trash, rather than given to the children if they cannot pay. What a waste!!! A few states have recently banned what is called “lunch shaming”, but in others it is standard practice. In Rhode Island, legislation requiring all students to receive the same hot lunch regardless of their financial circumstances is pending, but meanwhile kids in Warwick schools are eating sunflower seed sandwiches and continuing to be embarrassed.

There are any number of steps the schools could have taken other than hurting the children. They could have contacted the parents by phone, discreetly sent a note home with the child, or even called the parent in for a consultation. The children do not have control of the family finances! There are a few heroes here, though. Ms. Penta’s assistance was ultimately accepted by a portion of the district, West Warwick, and she has set up donation jars in her restaurants where patrons can add money to help the cause. The rest of the district, however, continues to insist that she must specify which children she wishes to help. She has posted on her Facebook account that if anyone needs help paying for their lunch, to contact her and she would help.

Chobani, the yogurt makers, has given the district $47,650 to apply toward the debt the district claims it is owed. Now, oddly, the district first claimed the lunch debt was in the $40,000 range, but just a few days later claimed it was $77,000. Something fishy here … surely they do have an accountant? Thumbs up and hats off to Chobani for their compassion and humanitarianism, and thumbs down to Warwick, Rhode Island, where officials are putting profit ahead of the nation’s children.

It is wrong to punish the children for their parents’ oversight, and in most cases it is simply oversight. We’ve all forgotten to pay a bill, or other important tasks. We send our children to school to learn, and it’s hard to learn much if you are hungry, or if you have been embarrassed so badly in front of your friends that you just want the day to be over so you can go home. School lunch … such a simple thing … and yet it has become a monumental issue in this nation. We are so obsessed with money that we are harming our greatest resource, our children.

Along those same lines …

Remember a few days ago when I posted Nicholas Kristof’s piece about Teresa L. Todd, the good Samaritan who stopped to help three immigrant teens and was arrested by Border Patrol agents for her efforts? Well, here’s another similar story.

Bonnie Kimball was a cafeteria worker at Mascoma Valley Regional High School in Canaan, New Hampshire until recently. Then on March 28^th, she was fired by vendor Café Services for letting a student have a lunch even though his account had no money in it. Turns out that Café Services’ contract with the school was coming up for renewal and the school was considering switching to another company, so Café Services had head honchos in the school keeping an eye on the staff. Her letter of termination stated …

“On March 28, a District manager was on-site and witnessed a student coming through the line with multiple food items that you did not charge him for. This is a strict violation of our Cash Handling Procedures, the Schools Charge Policy and Federal Regulation governing free meals.”

Once the story was reported nationally by CNN, The Washington Post and others, the company told The Post that they would offer Ms. Kimball her job back, but it was obvious to all that their purpose was to stop the negative publicity that was having a negative effect on their contract negotiations, and Ms. Kimball declined.

The situation came to the attention of chef José Andrés, a humanitarian who has provided thousands of meals to victims of natural disasters and the homeless. Chef Andrés tweeted …

“New Hampshire school cafeteria worker fired for giving food to student who couldn’t pay … The hero is Bonnie Kimball! If she needs a job we have openings at @thinkfoodgroup if you know her, let her know!”

Is our society becoming so self-focused, so intent on squeezing every last cent out of people that we punish those who try to help others? It would seem so.

Trump And Golf …

Posted on May 19, 2019 by jilldennison under Social commentary, Political commentary, Humour

Now, we all know how much Trump loves to play golf, right? He typically has an uber-short attention span, and according to many of his aides and advisors, they must be careful to feed him important information in very small doses. I recall a time when one of them was trying to walk through the U.S. Constitution (you know … that document he swore to uphold?) with him and by the third article, he got bored and started tweeting! But, when it comes to hitting a defenseless little white ball around with a stick, he never seems to tire.

Trump once said he was “the best golfer of all the rich people”. But multiple people have come forward to say that … first of all, he isn’t a very good golfer, and second, he cheats! Now is that a shocker or what??? The most dishonest ‘man’ we’ve ever had in our government and … GASP … he cheats??? He claims to have won something like 18 championships, but … for some reason, there is no record of such.There have, in fact, been so many reports of Trump’s cheating that sportswriter Rick Reilly has written a book, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump. Reilly has said he would like to challenge Trump to a game, but with some caveats …

“I’ll play him for 100 grand, [with the money going to] either of our charities. But the rule is, we can’t play his course, we can’t use his cheating caddies, and there’s got to be a rule guy with each of us, and I’ll play him all day.”

According to Bryan Marsal, chairman of the coming 2020 Men’s U.S. Open …

“I played with him once. It was a Saturday morning game. We go to the first tee and he couldn’t have been nicer. But then he said, ‘You see those two guys? They cheat. See me? I cheat. And I expect you to cheat because we’re going to beat those two guys today.’… So, yes, it’s true, he’s going to cheat you.”

Not long after becoming president, Trump invited Tiger Woods and two other notable golfers to play with him. According to one of the players, Fox golf analyst Brad Faxon …

“On this one hole, Donald hits his second and fats it into the water. But he quickly says to me, ‘Hey, throw me another ball; they weren’t looking.’ So, I do. But he fats that one into the water, too. So, he drives up and drops where he should’ve dropped the first time and hits it on the green.”

Says another frequent guest at Trump’s golf games …

“I’ve played with him a lot. This one time, I was in the fairway and he was right of the green but a little bit down the hill. He didn’t think anybody was watching, but I was. I saw him make a chipping motion from the side of the hill, but no ball came up. Then he walked up the hill, stuck his hand in the hole and pulled a ball out. It must’ve been a ball he had in his hand the whole time.”

And there are more stories, if you care to read them. But this week, there was a bit of poetic justice.

Apparently, Trump has an account on the U.S. Golf Association system where scores are recorded and maintained. Par in a round of golf is typically around 72, and Trump has traditionally posted more flattering scores in the 70s and 80s which, as we might guess from the reports of his less-than-honest play, are likely a fabrication. Well, last week someone obtained access to Trump’s page and posted awful scores of 101, 100, 108 and 102! Unfortunately, the Association became aware of the faux scores and has removed them.Remember back on the campaign trail (when isn’t he on the campaign trail?) when he criticized President Obama for playing golf, saying …

“I’m going to be working for you. I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”

Well, he has played at least once a week nearly every week since he’s been in office, on average 4-6 hours at a time, and we are footing the bill. There is even a website that tracks his golf games, the duration and costs! Your taxpayer dollars hard at work!

I look at it this way … I don’t care about Trump’s golf scores one whit, but … BUT anybody who will cheat at a game will cheat at anything. If he cannot even be trusted not to cheat on his friends, how can he be trusted not to cheat on We the People? Think about it.

An Anniversary To Remember …

Posted on May 18, 2019 by jilldennison under education, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Yesterday marked the 65^th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, the landmark decision that established that racial discrimination in schools is unconstitutional. To honour this anniversary, I would like to share with you a post by the Jon S. Randal Peace Page that tells the story better than I could.

She just wanted to go to a good school, to be with her friends.

She lived in an ethnically diverse neighborhood, growing up playing with children of all races.

The school she wanted to attend, where her friends were, was only four blocks away.

Her father would take her to that school, the Sumner School. Being a part of the neighborhood, the family received a registration form for the school in 1952. She was so excited, to be able to attend a school nearby with her friends from the neighborhood.

But, when they arrived there, the principal would take her father to the office and close the door. She didn’t know what was happening, why the principal had to speak to her father alone. She heard her father’s voice begin to rise. After a few minutes, her father opened the door, he was upset, and he just took her hand and walked back out of the school.

The school had apparently sent the registration form to her family by mistake. They thought the family was white, Linda Brown and her parents were black and Sumner was a whites-only school.

“I just couldn’t understand what was happening,” she would say, “I was so sure that I was going to go to school with Mona and Guinevere, Wanda, and all of my playmates.”

Linda Brown did not realize that she was unable to attend the school because of the color of her skin. This was because the elementary schools in Topeka, Kansas, were racially segregated, with separate facilities for black and white children.

“I didn’t comprehend color of skin,” she said later. “I only knew that I wanted to go to Sumner.”

She and other black children were barred from sharing the same buses, schools and other public facilities as whites because of the “Jim Crow” laws.

Brown would be forced to walk 6 blocks through the dangerous Rock Island Switchyard in order to catch a bus to the segregated all-black school.

According to the Washington Post, Linda’s father, the Rev. Oliver L. Brown, an assistant minister at St. Mark’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, “felt that it was wrong for his child to have to go so far a distance to receive a quality education.”

Linda’s father would join several other parents, and, together, led by a young, NAACP attorney named Thurgood Marshall, would take the case, Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, would rule in their favor, saying that school segregation violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The unanimous ruling declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

Brown v. Board of Education would be the basis for many other rulings that led to desegregation, motivating the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

But, not only did black students benefit from the ruling, Native American children were also affected. Native American communities had to deal with segregation laws as well, with native children being prohibited from attending white institutions. After tribal leaders learned about Dr. King’s desegregation campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, they would contact him for assistance, resolving the problem.

Although Brown’s family was just one of 13 plaintiffs who sought to ensure the city fully integrated the rest of its schools, Brown would be burdened with the publicity because her family’s name was part of the case name. Her family would briefly leave their home in Topeka, Kansas, when she was a teenager, but she would return to Topeka after her father died in 1961.

She would also take on the civil rights mantle of her father, becoming an educator and civil rights advocate.

Brown was part of a group of Topeka parents who, in 1979, joined with the American Civil Liberties Union to successfully argue for the reopening of the Brown case. The parents argued that because of housing patterns in Topeka, racially segregated schools remained in the city, in violation of the 1954 ruling.

In a 1985 interview for “Eyes on the Prize,” a PBS documentary series on the civil rights movement, Linda Brown said, “I feel that after 30 years, looking back on Brown v. the Board of Education, it has made an impact in all facets of life for minorities throughout the land. I really think of it in terms of what it has done for our young people, in taking away that feeling of second-class citizenship.”

When Brown died on March 25, 2018, at the age 76, the Kansas governor paid tribute to Brown, saying:

“Sixty-four years ago a young girl from Topeka brought a case that ended segregation in public schools in America. Linda Brown’s life reminds us that sometimes the most unlikely people can have an incredible impact and that by serving our community we can truly change the world.”

In an interview with the Washington Post in 1994, Brown had said, “We feel disheartened that 40 years later we’re still talking about desegregation. But the struggle has to continue.”

Sixty-five years later. Everybody accepts that racial intolerance has no place in our schools, in our society, right? Wrong. A number of Trump’s recent judicial nominees have flat-out refused to affirm the Brown decision. One even went so far as to say she did not agree with the decision in 1954. Why??? Are we, in fact, headed on a backward slope in terms of racial discrimination just as we are in terms of women’s and LGBT rights? Suffice it to say that with the recent rise in white supremacy and Trump’s pandering to the right-wing hate groups, it is something we cannot afford to ignore.

Saturday Surprise — A Celebration of A Grumpy Life

Posted on May 18, 2019 by jilldennison under animals, Saturday Surprise, Social commentary, Tributes

It is with great sadness in my heart that I must bring you the news: Grumpy Cat has died. 😢

Now, I can hear you saying that Saturday Surprise is supposed to be fun, not sad, and that the death of the world’s best-known Grumpy Cat is not a happy thing. I agree, but … this post is not about Grumpy’s death, but rather about her life … rather a tribute, a celebration of her life in pictures.Grumpy Cat was rather the ‘Maxine’ of the feline world. Grumpy’s real name was Tardar Sauce, and while I always thought Grumpy was a he, he was in fact a ‘she’. I guess I just think of grumpy beings as male. (No comment from the peanut gallery here!) Grumpy’s perpetual scowl, that earned her the nickname Grumpy Cat by which the world knew her, was actually caused by a form of dwarfism.She first achieved some level of Internet celebrity in 2012, after pictures featuring her frowning face went viral on social media, then turned into a mean-mugging meme. It wasn’t long before Grumpy Cat was everywhere. She appeared on TV, popping up in episodes of “American Idol,” “The Bachelorette” and WWE’s “Monday Night Raw.”In 2013, Grumpy beat out “Gangnam Style” and the “Harlem Shake” to win Meme of the Year at the Webby Awards. The following year, she scored her own Lifetime holiday movie, “Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever,” a two-hour spectacle featuring the voice talents of actress Aubrey Plaza as the title character. Two years later, she made her Broadway debut, a one-night only appearance in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, “Cats.” Of course she did.In 2016, her sculpture was added to Madame Tussauds Las Vegas — and the cat was invited to curl up alongside her own wax figure.

Grumpy Cat had amassed nearly 4 million combined followers on Instagram and Twitter, with a Facebook page that boasts 8.5 million likes.

In 2013, Grumpy became the official “spokescat” for Friskies cat food.

There is even a Grumpy Cat online store, Grumpycats.com, where you can find hundreds of products available for purchase, from ugly Christmas sweaters and laptop sleeves to drink coasters and guitar straps — all of them, of course, bearing the cat’s famous frown, usually along with a similarly surly message.

Grumpy wasn’t a huge fan of holidays …

Grumpy Cat’s death is indeed sad, but you know what? She will live on forever in both our hearts and on the Internet, for there must be at least a million pictures and memes out there. And I close with a short video of some of her finest moments …

U.S. Rules The World???

Posted on May 17, 2019 by jilldennison under Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Rants, religion, Social commentary

As I noted in a post earlier this week, there is a movement among republicans and groups who misnomer themselves as “pro-life” to overturn Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision from 1973 that gave women the right to make their own medical decisions when it comes to abortion. A growing number of states have passed or are attempting to pass highly restrictive laws that contradict Roe v Wade and would take away women’s rights. I had not planned to revisit this issue this soon, but something came to my attention that stirred my anger yet again …

Trump is trying to impose his and the evangelical’s heinous views on other nations as well, cutting off all funding to any overseas organization or clinic that will not agree to a complete ban on even discussing abortion. The ban, dubbed the “global gag”, was actually instituted by Ronald Reagan, but has been revoked by every democratic president, and re-instated by every republican president since then. And along came Donald Trump. Donnie, so eager to please the only people who support him, the radical right-wing evangelicals, has decided that he (or rather people like Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham) knows what is best for the 7.7 billion people living on planet Earth.

In March, the US extended the gag, stating that any organization counselling women on abortion and using funds from elsewhere – even from its own government or a donor in another country – will no longer be eligible for any US funding. Take, for example, an international health care agency that provides women’s health care, possibly including family planning and abortion counselling, but also treating kids with HIV in other countries … countries where there is no women’s health planning, for it is illegal. Those organizations will no longer be eligible for any funds from the U.S., not even to take care of sick children in African nations.

My friend Jeannie, who lives in the Netherlands, told me the other day that “The Netherlands have one most liberal laws about abortion in Western Europe, but the number of actual abortions are amongst the lowest worldwide.” Think about this, folks … facts, not fantasy. A study published last year by the Guttmacher Institute found that countries with the most restrictive abortion laws also have the highest rates of abortion and that easier access to birth control drives down abortion rates.

A 2012 study found that when women got no-cost birth control, the number of unplanned pregnancies and abortions fell by between 62 and 78 percent. But political appointees under Trump advocate for abstinence-only approaches, which have been shown not to affect unplanned pregnancy rates. Not to mention that they are impractical.

This isn’t just about abortion, people … this is about making women second-class citizens around the globe. This is about men’s dominance over women. In many nations women already have few independent rights, but in the Western world, women have come a long way in the past century or two. In the U.S., we are now allowed to vote as we choose, to own property, and there are laws to ensure we receive equal pay and treatment in the workplace, though the reality is often something different. And for the past nearly 50 years, we have been able to make our own health decisions. We cannot … we must not … allow this abomination to continue.

The United States is a secular nation whereby the government does not favour any one religion over another, and no religious organization or cult should be able to influence the law of the land to the detriment of all others. The United States is one of 195 nations on this globe, and we do not have the right to set policy in other nations. It is the height of arrogance to think that we do. It is time for the evangelicals to understand that they may have a place in this country, but that their beliefs are not shared by us all, and that the rest of us have rights also. It is time for government to base decisions on facts, not the religious fantasies of one group.

If abortion rights are taken from us, the abortion rates won’t drop, but more women will die as they seek back-alley or do-it-yourself abortions. That is an undisputable fact. Let this nation legislate based on facts, and let other nations decide their own policy … nobody died and left the right-wing white evangelicals leaders of the world. They will take us back to the Dark Ages if we let them.

Say WHAT???

Posted on May 16, 2019 by jilldennison under Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

My inbox this morning contained the latest column by one of my favourite journalists, Nicholas Kristof. As I read his column, I was torn between rage and tears, disbelief and horror. I present portions of that column, but you can read the entire column here …

A Good Samaritan and the Border Patrol

A motorist may have saved a life when she stopped to help three desperate young adults. Then she was arrested.

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

May 15, 2019

The path to Teresa L. Todd’s arrest began when three desperate Central American migrants waved frantically at her car on a Texas highway one night in February.

At least one other car had hurtled by, afraid to stop. But for Todd, compassion overrode any fear. “I’m a mom,” explained Todd, who has two boys, ages 15 and 17. “And I see a young man who looked the same age and size as my younger son. And if my son was by the side of the road, I would want someone to help.”

Todd, a single mom who works as a lawyer for a city and county in West Texas, found three siblings: two brothers ages 20 and 22 and their sister, Esmeralda, 18. To escape violence, they fled their native El Salvador years ago and recently Guatemala, where friends were murdered and a gang leader wanted to make Esmeralda his “girlfriend.”

Teresa L. Todd was detained by Border Patrol agents after stopping her car to help a group of migrants in Texas. CreditJessica Lutz for The New York Times

Esmeralda was suffering from starvation, dehydration and a potentially fatal syndrome called rhabdomyolysis that can lead to kidney failure. Seeing that Esmeralda was very sick, Todd invited the migrants into her car to warm up, and she began frantically texting friends (including one who is a lawyer for the Border Patrol) for advice about getting Esmeralda medical attention.

A sheriff’s deputy pulled up behind Todd’s car, lights flashing, and a Border Patrol officer arrived shortly afterward. The officers detained Todd for three hours, confiscating her possessions and keeping her in a holding cell.

By stopping to help a stranger, Todd may have saved a life — but this also got her arrested.

“It was totally surreal,” Todd recalled. “Especially for doing what my parents taught me was right, and what I learned in church was right, which was helping people. So finding myself in a holding cell for that, it was hard to wrap my head around.”

Esmeralda was hospitalized for four days, and she and her siblings are now in ICE custody. Todd has not been charged with a crime so far, but the authorities seem to have been considering a federal indictment. I reached out to federal and local officials for comment; they did not respond.

Todd told me that she has no regrets. “I think it’s the right thing to help those in need,” she explained. “That’s what I learned from my parents. That’s what I learned in church.”

“This is all about trying to chill the willingness of people to help others,” Todd said. “A friend told me, ‘The other day, someone tried to flag me down by the side of the road and waved an empty water bottle, and I thought about what happened to you and didn’t stop.’”

Referring to Trump, Michele Bachmann, the former Republican congresswoman, recently said, “We will in all likelihood never see a more godly, biblical president again in our lifetimes.”

I thanked Todd for her humanity, and for helping save a life. She said her assistance had been instinctive.

“I’m simply a mom who saw a child in need and pulled over to try to help,” she said. “The whole time I was by the side of the road, I was thinking: What country am I in? This is not the United States.”

OH FOR PETE’S SAKE!!!

Posted on May 16, 2019 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

Ever notice how sometimes a headline catches your eye and your jaw immediately drops to the ground? The lunacy, the utter ignorance and stupidity of the human race never ceases to astound me. A couple of things brought about this head-shaking, eye-rolling, jaw-dropping reaction from me today. The first …

Proposed Fur Ban in New York Pits Animal Rights Advocates Against Black Ministers

New York City is currently considering a proposal to ban the sale of animal fur. For the record, and in case there was any doubt, I fully support this proposal! If nobody can sell the fur, fewer animals will have to die. Most of you already know that I like animals better than I like people, for the most part. So, where’s the controversy?

Black ministers have protested the proposed ban on the steps of City Hall, saying that furs are a treasured part of African-American tradition and culture. Hasidic rabbis point to their own tradition of many Hasidic men wearing fur hats on the Sabbath. And fur shop owners and garment manufacturers have raised alarms over the potential loss of jobs and an attack on an industry that has a centuries-rich tradition in New York.

So, let me get this straight … we should encourage the wanton killing of beautiful animals so that fur shop owners can continue to make a profit, so that Hasidic rabbis can buy new fur hats when they wish (take care of the one you have, or wear faux fur!) and so that African-Americans don’t have to be deprived of cultural frou-frous? Um … probably half of my friends are African-American and I don’t know a single one who actually owns a fur garment.

I can only imagine what the hunters and the NRA will have to say once they hear about this proposal and respond! Have I mentioned that people are selfish, arrogant and ignorant?

Pat Robertson: God Will Destroy America if Pro-LGBTQ Rights Bill Passes

Well, Pat, you know what? That’s fine by me, for I don’t think a nation that discriminates against people on any superficial basis should exist, and I damn sure don’t want to live in such a narrow-minded, bigoted nation.

“They always give good names to these things. This is a devastating blow to religious freedom and to the sanctity of America. If you want to bring the judgment of God on this nation, you just keep this stuff up. I was reading in Leviticus where it says because of these things the land ‘will vomit you out.’ Vomit you out. I think God will say, ‘I’ve had it with America if you do this kind of stuff, I’m going to get rid of you as a nation.'”

What an arrogant, narrow-minded, nasty prick! Sorry … I try not to be vulgar here, but this ‘person’ has ruffled my feathers and I’m not biting my tongue on this one.

The Equality Act is a bill that would modify existing civil rights legislation to ban discrimination against LGBTQ people in employment, housing, public accommodations, jury service, education, federal programs and credit. Now would somebody please explain to me just what has Mr. Robertson’s knickers in a wad? Remember when we had to pass legislation to ensure these very same rights to African-Americans? It was called the Civil Rights Act. Why do we keep having to legislate common sense? Why??? Because of people like Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham who think that their religious beliefs give them the right to take away fair treatment for those of us who do not share their beliefs.

The bill’s sponsor is David Cicilline, a democrat from Rhode Island, who says …

“In most states in this country, a gay couple can be married on Saturday, post their wedding photos to Instagram on Sunday, and lose their jobs or get kicked out of their apartments on Monday just because of who they are.”

Even though the bill is all but guaranteed to pass in the House, it’s fate in the Senate is less certain, and Trump is almost certain to veto it, as he has expressed his opposition already.

Sigh.

Conservative Radio Station Plans To Rebrand As ‘Trump FM’

Yep, you read it right, folks. And this one isn’t even down in Trump country! A far-right conservative radio station in Connecticut plans to temporarily rebrand itself as “Trump 103.3” when it converts from an AM station to an FM one. Like Trump needs his ego stroked even more???

The station hosts a number of far-right-wing syndicated programs, including Bill O’Reilly, the NRA’s Dana Loesch, Michael Savage, and the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro. Full Power Radio, which owns the station, said the goal is to “unite conservatives in Connecticut” and make the state a conservative, Republican-led one. NOOOOOOOO … we don’t need any more of those!!! What have these people been smoking???

“There is a real hunger for the truth and ‘Trump 103.3’ will report and uncover statewide waste and corruption that conventional media are afraid to touch.”

Truth??? Oh the irony!

Well, folks, that’s it for now … I’ve got work to do … be back later!

On Stripping The Rights Of Women …

Posted on May 15, 2019 by jilldennison under Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Today I’m going to touch on a subject that is controversial, to say the least: abortion.

A number of states, the most recent being Alabama, have recently passed highly restrictive and misogynistic abortion laws. Anti-abortion evangelicals are patting themselves on the backs thinking, no doubt, that they have once again proven themselves the rulers over women’s bodies. But make no mistake … these laws are only a tool. The legislators and governors who have passed these laws are well aware that they don’t hold water, for when there is a conflict between federal and state law, federal law trumps state laws, no pun intended.

The federal law on abortion was established in 1973 with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Roe v Wade in which the Court ruled that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion. It is not within the rights of the State of Alabama or the State of Georgia to change, ignore, or override that ruling. Period.

So … why are they passing these ‘illegal laws’, you might ask. Because … long story short, they are hoping for a lawsuit against them that will reach the Supreme Court. And when it does, they are hoping, believing, that the Supreme Court will then use that lawsuit as a basis to overturn Roe v Wade.

One of Donald Trump’s campaign promises that gained him a large number of followers was that he would put justices on the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v Wade. It is an emotional issue that gained him the support of the evangelicals. However, the Supreme Court cannot simply say, “Let’s overturn a decades-old decision because the president would like us to.” A case must come before them that challenges that decision before they can take it under advisement.

You might notice that the states did not pass these dranconian abortion laws when President Barack Obama was in office and the Supreme Court was still largely apolitical. You’ll also notice that Trump was in such a hurry to appoint a second justice to the Court that he had a quiet little talk with Justice Kennedy, and shortly thereafter Justice Kennedy announced his imminent retirement. And you’ll further notice that there was a mad dash by Trump and his boot-licking Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, thereby giving the court a 5-4 right-wing, conservative majority, despite the fact that the Court is intended to be apolitical.

The stage is set … now the states who have passed these anti-abortion laws that rob women of their rights to have control over their own bodies will sit back and wait for the inevitable lawsuits claiming, rightly, that the states have no right to restrict a woman’s right of choice. Then will begin the inevitable back and forth through the courts until sometime next year, perhaps even sooner, the cases will reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump is relying on the five conservative justices to vote in favour of overturning Roe v Wade. Those justices are:

Clarence Thomas
Samuel Alito
John Roberts (Chief Justice)
Neil Gorsuch
Brett Kavanuagh

Justice Steven Breyer warned in a dissent to another decision earlier this week …

“Overruling a case always requires special justification. I understand that, because opportunities to correct old errors are rare, judges may be tempted to seize every opportunity to overrule cases they believe to have been wrongly decided. But the law can retain the necessary stability only if this court resists that temptation, overruling prior precedent only when the circumstances demand it.”

The Alabama bill, which has been passed by the state legislature and is expected to be signed into ‘law’ by Governor Kay Ivey, bans abortions at every stage of pregnancy and criminalizes the procedure for doctors, who could be charged with felonies and face up to 99 years in prison. The Georgia bill, recently passed and signed by Governor Brian Kemp (remember him … the guy with the gun pointed at his daughter’s boyfriend?), is only slightly less restrictive, banning abortion after about 6 weeks, often before a woman even realizes she is pregnant.

Those who are so dead-set against a woman’s right of choice, call themselves “pro-life”, but this is a misnomer, as I have noted before. They are often the same people who support the death penalty. They are often the people who protest their tax dollars going to help feed and clothe the poor. Many are the same ones who fought so hard against ACA, which provided affordable healthcare to those who would not otherwise have any. Pro-life? No, only anti-women’s rights.

If people are so against abortion, doesn’t it make sense to support such things as birth control, family planning and counseling, and other measures to prevent unwanted pregnancies? But no, the evangelicals are against all of those, too. They support de-funding such organizations as Planned Parenthood who help with all women’s health issues, and they argue against company-sponsored health insurance plans covering birth control. Sorry, folks, you cannot have it both ways!

Thus far through the years, state laws attempting to restrict abortion have all been struck down by the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional. Will that precedent hold? I cannot say for sure, but I’m less confident now than I would have been two years ago. More than 60% of the people in this nation support a woman’s right of choice, but these days it seems that the minority is the only voice that is heard. If the Supreme Court ultimately overturns Roe v Wade, it will be a slap in the face to every woman in the U.S. What will be next? Will they take away our right to own property? Our right to vote? Think about it.