Want to take your mind off the coronavirus, shortages of food and cleaning supplies, being imprisoned in your home and isolated from your friends & family? Well, I’ve got just the thing for you … here’s something even bigger to worry about …
On Monday, Hungary’s parliament passed a controversial bill that gave Orbán sweeping emergency powers for an indefinite period of time. Parliament is closed, future elections were called off, existing laws can be suspended and the prime minister is now entitled to rule by decree. Opposition lawmakers had tried to set a time limit on the legislation but failed. Orbán’s commanding two-thirds parliamentary majority made his new powers a fait accompli. – Ishaan Tharoor, The Washington Post
Granted, Hungary isn’t the U.S. and Viktor Orbán isn’t Donald Trump. Orbán had already corroded the state’s checks and balances, cowed the judiciary, encroached on civil society and the free press … much as Donald Trump has done to the United States.
Orbán has his supporters, too. He has been lionized as a nationalist hero for the West’s anti-immigrant populists and welcomed to the White House by Trump.
It should be noted that congressional democrats initially included election reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting in the $2.2 trillion ‘stimulus bill’ … measures that were struck down by their republican colleagues. Now, make sure you’re sitting down when you read what Trump had to say about those stricken measures that would have ensured we could all vote in the November 3rd election …
“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again. They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of clawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy and had nothing to do with workers that lost their jobs and companies that we have to save.”
And now, my friends, I suggest you start to do some serious worrying about the November elections, for it becomes obvious that Trump and the republicans have little or no concern for our right to elect new leadership in November, and that they see voter suppression as their only path to power. I’ve been concerned all along that Trump would find some way to cancel or postpone indefinitely our elections, and nothing I’m seeing is alleviating those concerns. I believe that Mr. Trump is seeing the coronavirus pandemic as a very fortuitous event for him and his cronies.
In 1980, Paul Weyrich, an influential conservative activist, said …
“I don’t want everybody to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
Chilling.
We are running out of time to put in place policies and processes that would enable every eligible voter to cast a ballot, even in the event that the coronavirus remains a threat into November. The republicans are playing a game … a game with our lives, with our freedoms, with our rights to participate in our government.
Look again at what the Hungarian Parliament has handed to Viktor Orbán. The only thing stopping our own Congress from doing the same is the democratic majority in the House of Representatives.
It must also be noted that the emergency law also stipulates five-year prison sentences for Hungarians found to be spreading “false” information. Think on that one a minute. Who determines what is “false” information? Think how many times Trump has declared stories published by The Washington Post or the New York Times to be “fake news”. Or what about us bloggers? In such circumstances, historically information is considered ‘false’ if it contradicts what the dictator says. Facts and reality become secondary and eventually are suppressed.
There are checks and balances to keep what has happened in Hungary from happening in the U.S. But, many of those have been destroyed in the last three years. The Supreme Court tends to rule in favour of Trump, even when that ruling is in blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution. The Attorney General has decreed that Trump is ‘above the law’ and can operate in whatever manner he sees fit. And the U.S. Senate basically affirmed Barr’s opinion when they refused to do their job and convict Trump of what were obvious abuses of power and obstruction of justice.
The U.S. Constitution, or any set of laws for that matter, is only as good as the people who enforce it. This is why the most important thing this year in the U.S. is that we have fair and honest elections on November 3rd as scheduled, no matter what.
And the answer to the question why all 50 states aren’t doing their part is simple … the GOP motto is: profit over all else. Profit is more important in this nation than people, than wildlife, than the environment … in fact, today’s profit is more important than life on earth tomorrow for far too many of our so-called ‘leaders’. I could expound at some length about this concept, but for today I have a single focus: those damn plastic bags that they shove down our throats at the grocery store.
Teeny Tiny Critters
For her, stones are not just materials or canvases that she just draws on. First, on her usual walk along the riverbank, she finds a stone that catches her eye:
“When I find a stone, I feel that stone, too, has found me. Stones have their own intentions and I consider my encounters with them as cues they give me that it’s OK to go ahead and paint what I see on them. So the stones I decide to paint on are not arbitrary, but my significant opposites with whom I have established a connection, who inspire me to work with them.”
The artist leaves the shape of the stone untouched. She neither grinds nor smooths them, as she likes to stay true to the stone that inspired her.
Yep, you got it … great big ol’ elephants fear little teeny-weeny bees! So, Northeast Frontier Railway’s Moradabad division installed honey bee sound systems at various points along the railway tracks. Once an elephant herd is sighted, villagers at once inform the local staff about their presence, the buzzing sound is then played near the tracks to scare them away. “Till now the project has been a success,” said the Divisional Railway Manager. Elephants have been long known to be frightened by the buzzing sound of bees and stings.
“We wish the cow well on its future adventures,” the department said.
And of course, I cannot end a Jolly Monday without a cute animal video!
Okay, folks, that’s a wrap for yet another Monday! I hope you guys all manage to find some good karma this week, keep your cool, and for Pete’s sake keep safe! Love ‘n hugs from Filosofa & Jolly!
Many critics claimed this was a sellout, as the horn and string sections were not typical of The Doors. The band admitted they were trying to broaden their audience and achieve commercial success with this album, which they did.
Something that was news to me when I was researching this song tonight … this song was popular around the time Jim Morrison was arrested in Miami for indecent exposure. The song had nothing to do with Morrison’s arrest, apart from an unfortunate title, but some radio stations refused to play it as a result. Morrison was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail for the incident, but he died while the case was being appealed. In 2010, the governor of Florida pardoned Morrison, believing that the conviction was politically motivated and that no conclusive evidence showed that the Doors frontman exposed himself.
You’ll notice that big corporations are getting almost as much as individuals. Funny that, for the CEOs of the big corporations have plenty of money … in fact, they should be giving us money instead of the other way around. And you’ll also notice that education was just an afterthought. Close all the schools with no advance planning, no guidance or direction, and then throw them a biscuit.