Foot-Stomping MAD!

Posted on August 14, 2022 by jilldennison under Free Press Issues, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

It’s been over a year-and-a-half since thousands joined forces to attack the U.S. Capitol in a failed, but nonetheless bloody coup attempt. The violence on that day, the calls to ‘hang Mike Pence’, still makes me sick to my stomach. The fact that the attempted coup was approved of by the ‘man’ who called himself ‘president’ still gives me nightmares. Violence seems to follow Donald Trump wherever he goes, and he seems to incite a great deal of it. Since that fateful January 6^th, violence and calls for violence have increased … even more so in response to a search warrant that was executed to retrieve national security documents Trump illegally stole from us and possibly shared.

Threats of political violence and actual attacks have become a steady reality of American life such that some days I feel we’re living in Somalia instead of the United States. And the violence isn’t all political … there have been 27 school shootings so far in the first 7 ½ months of 2022! School children!!! Yes, 27! No, you haven’t heard about all of them, for the media only makes a big deal if a relatively large number of children are killed such as was the case in Uvalde, Texas in May, but in total, 83 people, mostly children, have been shot in those 27 school shootings this year. Can’t blame these directly on politics, but you can sure as hell can blame the politicians who have consistently blocked any form of gun legislation such as banning assault weapons or far more stringent background checks. So, their answer is to arm all teachers … put even more guns into the hands of people unqualified to have them!

The political violence, however, is out of control and the feeding frenzy isn’t helped by social media, certain mainstream media outlets, and the politicians who keep telling people that the ‘other’ party is the one responsible for all of our woes.

A man named Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Donald Trump, posted the names and personal information of the FBI Agents who assisted in the execution of the search warrant to retrieve classified documents from the home of Donald Trump. He even included the social media account of one of the agent’s children! Within minutes, the families of these agents began receiving death threats. DEATH THREATS … against the families of law enforcement agents who were merely doing their jobs!

After the brutal murder of George Floyd in 2020, there were numerous Black Lives Matter protest that were, for the most part, peaceful. What little violence there was, was property damage, not lives threatened. But people were up in arms because the protests existed. Yet some of the same people who hated on Black Lives Matter protestors are the very ones cheering those who are threatening civil war, threatening to execute Merrick Garland! So … apparently they aren’t against violence at all, but are just against Black people, against LGBTQ people, and against anyone who attempts to hold the ‘man’ they have put on a pedestal accountable for his actions. And speaking of the LGBTQ community …

In late June, a former Marine stepped down as the grand marshal of a July 4^th parade in Houston after a deluge of threats that focused on her support of transgender rights. A few weeks later, the gay mayor of an Oklahoma city quit his job after what he described as a series of “threats and attacks bordering on violence.” A five-year-old girl was evicted from her kindergarten because her parents are gay. As I reported a week or so ago, a town in Michigan will shut down its library because the library refuses to ban books by LGBTQ authors or about LGBTQ people or issues!

The judge who signed the warrant to search Trump’s home for the missing classified documents is now receiving death threats, as is his family after some on social media called for a “rope around his neck”. Then Fox “News” exacerbated the situation by posting a photoshopped fake picture of the judge sprawled out with Ghislaine Maxwell giving him a foot massage. These are the kinds of things that stir the masses and get people KILLED!!!

Political violence, racial violence, school shootings … what the Sam Hell has this nation turned into??? What are we humans turning into??? Have we sold our humanity downriver, traded it for bigotry, hatred and violence???

I don’t have any answers, my friends. We can … we must … each do our part by controlling our own tempers, by shutting down any conversations where someone is speaking of or calling for a violent act, but that isn’t going to be enough to solve the problem. We can report those we see on social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, but that still won’t solve the problem. I think the answer lies in a direction none of us particularly want to go, but that perhaps we must go, and that is to put some limitations on the 1^st Amendment right to free speech. I don’t like it anymore than you do, but as I’ve long said, every right comes with an accompanying responsibility, and the people of this nation have abused the right without accepting the responsibility. It is highly irresponsible, criminal even, to call for violence, to call for someone’s ‘execution’ just because you don’t like what he says or does. We absolutely MUST start holding social media outlets and mainstream news accountable to a higher standard than they currently observe.

And … I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me say this, but we must have some gun control laws that do something more than pay lip service!!! Ban assault weapons altogether! Deny a gun to anybody who has even a single incidence of violent behaviour. Raise the gun ownership age to 25! Yes, 25! And make gun ownership a “one strike, you’re out” thing. We have to do this!!! And we must make the punishment for any violent act so harsh that it actually serves as a deterrent! Every person who was in the Capitol on January 6^th without authorization should automatically be serving a 5-year prison sentence. Those who had weapons or harmed anyone should be in prison for 20 years, no exceptions. If the price of violence is high enough, people will think before they mouth off or worse yet, grab their guns and go on a shooting spree!

I’ve said it enough times, but I’ll keep on saying it … VIOLENCE IS NEVER THE ANSWER!!! We are truly, and this is not hyperbole, turning into a third-world nation where random shootings are becoming the norm, where even children are targets, and where nobody is quite safe anywhere anymore. Write to your Senators and Representatives and tell them that THEY have the power to make changes and they damn well better do it NOW!!! I really don’t know what more we can do, but we better start doing something.

Freedom Of Speech Run Amok

Posted on December 28, 2021 by jilldennison under History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Recently, a father of four named Jared Schmeck was on a live televised phone call with the President and First Lady, on a Christmas Eve event supposedly tracking Santa Claus’ progress, (a tradition designed to give children and their families joy in anticipation of the day ahead). After President Biden asked what Schmeck’s children were looking forward to and sweetly wishing him and his family a Merry Christmas, the man inexplicably punctuated his call with “Let’s Go Brandon.”

Jared Schmeck (l); President and First Lady Biden (r)

For those who have heard of the chant/hashtag ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ but may not be aware of its origin or meaning …

The hashtag was born after a sports reporter misheard a racing crowd chanting “F*ck Joe Biden” while interviewing the winning driver named Brandon Brown, thinking they were cheering him on. It is basically giving a middle finger to President Biden.

Now, ol’ Jared Schmeck was heard complaining to The Oregonian that he’s being unfairly criticized because people have slammed his joke. “Now I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech.” No, sweet cheeks, you are not being attacked, however if you believe you have the ‘right’ to speak to the President in such a manner, then surely you must acknowledge that the rest of us have a right to criticize your judgment, your foul language, your lack of mental acuity, and for being a grade-A jerk.

Beau of the Fifth Column expresses it well …

I wonder, if the Founding Fathers had realized how ignorant and cruel the people of this nation would become over the centuries, might they have put a few constraints on some of the ‘rights’ included in the Bill of Rights, or Amendments #1-10? Seems to me we need some, since people are obviously incapable of using their brains, of using a bit of common sense, of showing respect.

Take, for example, this voicemail that was left on U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell’s voicemail …

Is this really how people want to be remembered, by the number of times they can invoke the F-bomb against a fellow human being? Is this who we are? More and more it seems so, for until the past ten years or so, I never knew how cruel, disrespectful and downright ignorant so many of the people who call themselves “Americans” could be. Needless to say, I am deeply ashamed of a large portion of this nation. Freedom of speech has run amok in a way that would horrify the men who wrote the Bill of Rights in 1791. ‘Americans’ need to learn to engage the brain before opening the mouth, and there ought to be a price when they intentionally fail to do so.

Wise Words From A Wise Man

Posted on January 28, 2021 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Last night, I read Nicholas Kristof’s column from yesterday, an open letter to his conservative friends. While he is kinder and more forgiving than I am, I do agree with most of what he says, so I’ve decided to share his letter here with you. Mr. Kristof has twice won the Pulitzer Prize, as well as numerous other honours far too numerous to list here.

A Letter to My Conservative Friends

Hold us accountable, but please do the same for the charlatans who deceive you, use you and cheat you.

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

Jan. 27, 2021

AMHILL, Ore. — This is an open letter to some of my old friends and neighbors who believe that Donald Trump won re-election, who think that face masks are for wimps and who fear that Democrats are plotting to seize their freedom.

Dear friends and neighbors,

Relax! We liberals aren’t plotting to round you up in “re-education camps.”

I was horrified when a couple of old friends here asked if they were in danger for having supported Donald Trump. I gently told them that they were in no peril — and I was stung that they felt greatly relieved to hear it.

Yes, I know that Fox News is peddling nonsense about Democrats setting up re-education camps, and that a Wall Street Journal column asked, “If you were an enthusiastic Donald Trump supporter, are you ready to enter a re-education program?”

Folks, you’re being played. Again.

These are some of the same charlatans who argued last year that, as Fox News put it, the coronavirus is “just like the flu” and that mask mandates are a step toward “tyranny.” More than 400,000 coronavirus deaths later, some people are dead because they believed that drivel.

Then there’s the rubbish about the election. This month, just days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, a childhood friend told me confidently that Trump would swoop in to serve a second term. When I told him he was wrong, he was astonished that I could be so poorly informed, and he helpfully advised, “Don’t pay attention to those liars in the mainstream media.”

You’ve been hoodwinked, exploited and manipulated by con artists waving flags, casting lies and monetizing bigotry. Steve Bannon, who suggested beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci, defrauded Trump supporters into donating to build a border wall and then used some of the money for himself, according to a federal indictment.

Here on our family farm, we received a direct mail appeal warning about “Islam in Yamhill Schools” and pleading for donations to protect Christianity. No, that isn’t about conservative values, but about spreading hate and hysteria while grabbing at your wallet.

So let’s give America a chance to heal. And, as I told my worried friends, don’t hesitate to stand up for your conservative values. We need Republicans! America benefits from a loyal opposition.

For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week called for trying harder to keep schools open. On that issue, Republicans have been more right than many Democrats.

But half a century ago we didn’t need the racist George Wallace wing of the Democratic Party, and today we don’t need the wing of the Republican Party that embraces conspiracy theories and winks at violence.

The grand question: Without that wing of today’s G.O.P., what’s left?

One glimpse of the conundrum: The G.O.P. representation in Congress is losing Rob Portman, a widely respected senator who announced he will step down, and just gained Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, an extremist who in 2019 endorsed the idea of shooting Nancy Pelosi in the head. When a party loses a statesman and gains a kook, that’s a bad omen.

Meanwhile, the Hawaii G.O.P. this week recommended the “high quality” commentary … of a Holocaust denier. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned on Fox News that Democrats are trying to “exterminate the Republicans.” Sure, Democrats sometimes say and do dumb things, too, but there’s no symmetry.

As I see it, the last, best hope is twofold. First, Republican leaders must learn that extremism is a losing strategy. Only one G.O.P. candidate for president has won the popular vote in the last three decades, and the loony Arizona Republican Party has lost about 10,000 members since the riot in the U.S. Capitol and its censure of party elders like Cindy McCain. If Trump is further discredited through prosecutions or scandals, it is possible (though far from certain) that his malign influence on the party will diminish.

Second, to dampen that extremism, advertisers should stop supporting networks that spread lies and hatred, and cable companies should drop channels that persist in doing so. As a start, don’t force people to subsidize Fox News by including it in basic packages.

Is this a slippery slope? Yes, and it makes me queasy. But we all recognize that there are red lines: Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan grand wizards have First Amendment rights, but we shouldn’t pay to give them microphones, nor should commentators on the left or the right get megaphones to promote violence. Extremists enjoy free speech but shouldn’t be buttressed by advertisers or our cable fees.

So, conservative friends, fear not: We’re not plotting to lock you up in detention camps. We need you to keep us honest. But you’ve been scammed in ways that have hurt the country we all love. Hold us accountable, but please do the same for the charlatans who deceive you, use you and cheat you.

Snarky Is The New Normal

Posted on July 25, 2020 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Environmental Issues, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Try as I might, I cannot seem to keep the snarky at bay these days. I wake in the morning to an overflow of ‘breaking news’ on my phone, and it’s downhill from there … every story either causes my jaw to drop or an expletive to issue forth before I can stop it. It amazes me, as I sit here looking out the window, that the grass is still green, the birds are still flying about and stopping to help themselves to the bird seed on my patio, the flowers still bloom, children are out playing and laughing … everything appears to be ‘normal’, just as it was before, just as it has always been. But it is not … nothing is ‘normal’ in these troubled times. ‘Twould seem that snarky is my new ‘normal’, so …

Assault on the 1^st Amendment …

During the protests that have resulted since the brutal murder of George Floyd in May, law enforcement officials have assaulted and arrested journalists who were reporting on the protests. When Trump sent unwanted and unneeded federal forces into Portland, the violence only escalated, as did the attacks on members of the press. This, as I see it, is a direct assault on the 1^st Amendment right to a free press. U.S. District Judge Michael Simon agreed with me in his ruling this week that …

“When wrongdoing is underway, officials have great incentive to blindfold the watchful eyes of the fourth estate. The free press is the guardian of the public’s interests and the independent judiciary is the guardian of the free press.”

And with that, he issued a temporary restraining order not to arrest or assault journalists and legal observers for doing their jobs. Trump & Co have said they will appeal the order. This should concern us all, for if the press are stifled from reporting on such things as the brute force being used in Portland, Oregon, how do we know what is happening? Or, as Attorney Matthew Borden, representing the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, said …

“These are not accidents. These are not inadvertent shots. These are trained marksmen and these are the actions of a tyrant. They do not have a place in Portland, Oregon and they do not have a place under the First Amendment. If you do not have the press reporting on events first-hand, then you only have the version put forth by the government. And that’s what you have under a totalitarian state.”

If assaulting and arresting the press when they are doing their job, performing their duty to We the People, is allowed to become the ‘norm’, then we will no longer be a “free” nation, but as Mr. Borden said, a totalitarian state. What will follow will not be pretty, my friends.

Like a bad penny …

You’ve heard the expression about a bad penny that keeps turning back up? Sheriff Joe Arpaio is one such bad penny and yes, he’s back in the news and back on the campaign trail, this time running for Sheriff of Maricopa County once again. The ‘man’ is 88 years old, for Pete’s Sake … shouldn’t he just crawl off into the sunset and die or something?

In case you’ve forgotten, Sheriff Joe ran the most corrupt law enforcement department in the nation from 1993 until 2017 when he lost his re-election bid to a democrat, Paul Penzone. Thing is, Sheriff Joe was convicted of criminal contempt of court in 2017, but soon thereafter was pardoned by his partner in crime, Donald Trump. After losing his position as Sheriff, in 2018 he made an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate. He never got out of the starting gate on that one, came in with the lowest percentile in the primaries, and I thought surely that was the last we would hear from Sheriff Joe. But no …

And Joe Arpaio has not learned a damn thing despite having been the target of numerous lawsuits charging abuse of prisoners, entrapment, racism and much more. In his campaign announcement, he vowed to bring back things that the courts have either deemed illegal or his successor has done away with — immigration crackdowns, a complex of jail tents and other now-discarded trademarks.

“I’m telling you right now: I am going to do 90% of what I did during my 24 years. That’s the way it’s going to be.”

I don’t expect Arpaio to win … but let’s face it, we are living in strange times and if a television comedian can become president … need I say more?

Sinclair to do WHAT???

Most every city in the U.S. has a Sinclair Broadcasting channel, including my own. Here in Cincinnati it is WKRC, channel 12 … a station that was once among the most reputable but has apparently slunk to sleaze. This weekend, local television stations owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group are set to air a conspiracy theory that suggests Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, was responsible for the creation of the coronavirus.

This sort of broadcasting is beneath even Fox ‘News’, let alone what was once a reputable media company! This is something I would expect from Alex Jones or Breitbart. The baseless conspiracy theory is set to air on stations across the country in a segment during the program “America This Week” hosted by Eric Bolling.

Bolling, by the way, is a former Fox ‘News’ host … no surprise there, eh? I sincerely hope that Dr. Fauci files a libel suit against Sinclair, and perhaps Bolling personally.

Republicans wearing blinders?

It’s probably a good thing the Republican Party wasn’t in existence in the mid-1300s when the Bubonic Plague was around, else the entire human species might have died out then. On second thought, perhaps that might not have been such a bad thing. A recent PEW Research study shows that while 85% of democrats say the coronavirus pandemic is a major threat to the health of the U.S. population, only 46% of republicans see it as a major threat. WTF???

There are, as of this writing, 4.3 million cases reported and very nearly 150,000 deaths in the U.S. alone, and the majority of republicans don’t think it’s a major threat??? We have more deaths than any other nation on the planet, and more than double the number of every other nation with the exception of Brazil, who have just over half as many deaths as the U.S.

Were the republicans brainwashed in the spring when Trump told them it wasn’t a big deal – 15 cases and they would soon be gone? Or do they not see death as a threat to human survival? What if we had a government run by non-republicans who take such things as a pandemic seriously? Perhaps we would have had only 30,000 deaths and fewer than a million cases? We will never know, will we?

America’s Gun Culture On Display

Posted on May 7, 2020 by jilldennison under Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Look at the picture below …

Those are not National Guardsmen, nor are they law enforcement nor military. They are armed … heavily armed … protestors at a rally in Michigan. Would you be comfortable anywhere near this group of rabblerousers with guns? I certainly would not! I have planned for several days to write about this very ominous situation that was repeated in cities around the nation last week, but today I came across an OpEd by a contributor for The Washington Post that summed it up nicely.

We cannot allow the normalization of firearms at protests to continue

By Michele L. Norris

Opinions contributor and consultant

May 6, 2020 at 5:23 p.m. EDT

This we know: Black or brown people gathering in the streets or at the statehouse with rifles and body armor would not be tolerated.

They would not be allowed to yell in the face of police officers.

They would not be referred to as “very good people” by a sitting president.

There would be no debate about First or Second Amendment rights.

There would be arrests. Lots of them.

Let’s just admit that.

And let’s admit this, too: We’ve gotten far too accustomed to the image of white protesters carrying paramilitary-level firearms in public spaces. The presence of guns — often really large guns — at protests has become alarmingly normalized. It is time to take stock of what that means.

Accepting and even expecting to see firearms at protest rallies means that we somehow embrace the threat of chaos and violence. While those who carry say they have no intention of using their weapons, the firepower alone creates a wordless threat, and something far more calamitous if even just one person discharges a round.

If someone were to go rogue, it would be difficult for police to identify a shooter while facing a phalanx of protesters who all have rifles strapped to their shoulders. Distinguishing law enforcement from people dressed as “enforcers” could be tough. During the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, the Virginia National Guard tweeted that its troops were wearing “MP” patches on their uniforms so people could sort the military police from the rifle-wielding paramilitary groups that showed up wearing helmets, camouflage and tactical vests.

Accepting the open display of firearms at protests means we can expect an increased militarization of state and local law enforcement agencies seeking to protect their troops.

Accepting the open display of firearms at rallies means we must also admit this confirms a significant cultural shift that collides with norms and current laws. The protesters that stormed the statehouse in Michigan were within their right to carry guns inside the state Capitol under open-carry laws. But their actions were far outside of the comfort zone for many people who work in that building and who dedicate their lives to finding civil solutions to disagreements.

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey is a Republican and Second Amendment champion who initially supported challenges to the state’s shutdown order. But in a statement last week, he condemned the use of “intimidation and the threat of physical harm to stir up fear and feed rancor.” There are now discussions about reviewing the laws that allow citizens to carry and display guns inside the Michigan statehouse.

Almost every state has legal tools to crack down on armed militias under laws that prevent the formation of private paramilitaries that are not answerable to civil authorities. Such groups cannot falsely assume police or military roles and are not allowed to provide military training to prepare members for civil disorders. But when heavily armed protesters show up in formation at rallies, they certainly flout these laws.

Is this brazen display of force about the right to own firearms or the right to make armed threats for political purposes? Just asking, because the latter is not a “right” that can be equally asserted. The protests are purportedly about reopening America. A parallel goal is realignment — using the Second Amendment to conduct regular and routine shows of force to intimidate elected officials into enacting a political agenda.

Accepting the display of firearms at protests by some and not others means that we must also accept that some are rewarded with a kind of special citizenship that allows them to be seen as patriotic instead of threatening, and aggrieved instead of aggressive.

If we accept this as normal, it means the country collectively is shrugging its shoulders and co-signing a skewed social contract, in which white-nationalist groups grow in size and influence, as threats against politicians and journalists escalate, and as gun violence and mass shootings continue to rise.

Accepting this increasingly brazen display of guns as normal means an armed political movement is flourishing outside the guardrails of our political system.

This didn’t happen overnight. Advocates for open-carry have been carrying handguns and rifles to department stores, Starbucks and state capitols since 2013 in an effort to normalize firearms in public. The movement is coincidentally aligned with an entertainment trend in which paramilitary forces take center stage in popular video games and TV shows such as HBO’s “Watchmen” and Showtime’s “Homeland.”

Polls show that most Americans prefer a go-slow approach to reopening most businesses. The armed protesters in places such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and North Carolina represent a tiny minority. Some surveys put the most insistent open-now crowd at less than 10 percent. But the weapons make their influence seem larger — and they know that. We see protests punctuated by guns almost every day. It has become routine. We have normalized something that should be shocking.

Dangerous Words …

Posted on May 3, 2020 by jilldennison under Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

These days, I generally don’t give Alex Jones much space or consideration here, for he is naught more than a two-bit carnival hawker, and we have more important things to talk about. His radio show, InfoWars, has been dropped by Facebook and Twitter, and while he still has a loyal following of the ignorant who are willing to believe every conspiracy theory they hear, he is pretty much washed up.

Jones has gotten himself in trouble of late, has numerous lawsuits against him as a result of his claim that the Sandy Hook shooting that took the lives of 20 first graders and 6 teachers in 2012 was all a hoax, that it never happened, that the parents were paid actors. Well, some of Jones’ viewers believed him and in the years since, some parents have received threats and even had to relocate to ensure the safety of their remaining children.

His latest is so strange that I was all set to ignore it … why give him the attention he craves … until I thought about the potential ramifications, rather like the Sandy Hook fiasco. We can shrug off the conspiracy theorists and their theories, can ignore them and hope they go away, but the real danger comes from left field, from the ignorant who, lacking education or common sense, will believe and act on the conspiracy theories.

Remember Pizzagate? A rumour, started by a Reddit user and picked up by Alex Jones and others, made the rounds. The rumour was that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief, John Podesta were kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in tunnels beneath the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C. The restaurant’s staff and owner began receiving online threats against themselves and worse yet, their children. And then one day, Edgar Maddison Welch walked into the restaurant armed with two assault weapons and opened fire … a regular Bugsy Malone.

There is a very real danger in the fact that there are more guns in this nation than there are people, many of them assault weapons that can kill hundreds inside of a minute or two. There is a very real danger in that this nation is a tinderbox waiting for someone to light a match. Enter Alex Jones, claiming that the United States will soon have to resort to cannibalism and he is fully prepared to eat his neighbors. Yes, friends, that’s what he said.

In a video clip from one of his recent broadcasts that is currently circulating across social media, Jones graphically expounds about how the food supply challenges of the current crisis could require extreme measures, including cannibalism. I will not play the video here, but this is what he said …

“I’ll admit it. I will eat my neighbors. I’m not letting my kids die. I’m just going to be honest. I have extrapolated this out. I won’t have to for a few years, because I have food and stuff. But I’m literally looking at my neighbors now, going, ‘Am I ready to hang them up and gut them and skin them and chop them up?’ And you know what, I’m ready. My daughters aren’t starving to death. I’ll eat my neighbors. … I’ll eat your ass, I will. I’m combat model. Optimum self-efficiency. Probably the leader. My point is, have you thought about this yet? Because I’m somebody that thought I could fix this, and I’m starting to think about having to eat my neighbors. You think I like sizing up my neighbor, how I’m gonna haul him up by a chain? Chop his ass up? I’ll do it. My children aren’t going hungry.”

Now, ol’ Alex is likely just trying to get attention … that’s what he does. But think of one of those gun-toting white supremacists who have been instrumental in some of the recent protests demanding that cities and states re-open for business, despite the continued threat of further spread of the disease and tens of thousands more deaths. Picture one of them, already filled with anger and hate, listening to Mr. Jones’ podcast. Is it a stretch of the imagination to picture him cleaning his precious guns, oiling them, and loading for bear … waiting for the first time he cannot find chicken or potatoes at his local supermarket?

Given that farmers are plowing under their crops, fruit is being left on the trees to rot, and meat-processing plants are denizens for the coronavirus, it isn’t a stretch that there may be periodic shortages of certain foods over the course of the next year. But, this is not the Donner expedition and there is literally no danger that we will run out of food. But, for the diehard fools who will believe the likes of Alex Jones over reason and common sense …

Personally, I see these words as incitement, and while I am a long-time defender of freedom of speech, I have always said there must be limits. In my book, Mr. Jones has stepped over the line and has set this nation up for an extremely dangerous situation. With any right, whether it be free speech or the right to bear arms, comes responsibility. Alex Jones has taken his rights and shunned the accompanying responsibility. There need to be consequences for stirring a pot that is already about to boil over. Even if people don’t start threatening to eat their neighbors, I will not be surprised to see that Jones’ words lead to a new wave of hoarding, or people using guns to fight over that last pack of chicken legs.

It’s going to be a long, hot summer, folks. According to the guys at the National Weather Service, the hottest on record … ever. We will still be under threat from a devastating pandemic, we will continue to have high unemployment and periodic business shutdowns due to a resurgence of the virus. We don’t know quite what to expect, and tensions are already running high. The last thing this country needs is a loud-mouthed jackal telling us to be prepared to eat our friends and neighbors. The FCC needs to shut Mr. Jones down, for he has ceded his 1^st Amendment rights by putting lives in danger.

Filosofa Is Angry …

Posted on March 27, 2020 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Anger can be a good thing, when it motivates and inspires you to do something to change events or circumstances. If, that is, that which makes you angry is something over which you have at least a modicum of control or influence. But, when you must simply sit and watch the idiocy around you, anger becomes self-destructive and leads to depression. I took a break from blogging yesterday, except for my music post, because everything I tried to write was beyond a snarky snippet, was even beyond a rant, but sounded like the ravings of a madman with more expletives than a trucker would use! I’m still angry, but I have, hopefully, corralled the worst of it. Crises bring out the best in some people, the worst in others. What we see every time we log onto any of the news media are the examples of the very worst of the human species. And, of course, our own government is making a muckety mess of it all, doing everything exactly wrong, and … we have no control. It is frustrating, at best, and I won’t say what it is at worst. So … prepare for a bit of a rant … “Ranty Snippets”?

The bitch …

Gerrity’s Supermarket is a small family-owned chain in northeastern Pennsylvania. Like grocers nationwide, it has been deluged with orders and has struggled to keep basics such as chicken breasts and toilet paper on the shelves. Employees have been working overtime, pausing only for five-second breaks to wipe everything down with disinfectant wipes.

Two days ago, on Wednesday afternoon, a woman entered the store, proceeded to the produce section where she intentionally coughed all over every bit of the produce in the store!!! ON PURPOSE!!! Two weeks I tried to buy a damn green pepper and this woman, in a single malicious act, destroyed some $35,000 worth of food … food that we have been struggling to buy!

The store’s co-owner Joe Fasula said that they had no choice but to toss every bit of the produce.

It didn’t take long for employees to realize what the woman was doing, and they quickly escorted her out of the store and called police. Turns out, the woman is known to the local police for having caused problems in the community before. WHY, in these times of so much grief and trouble, would anybody be so cruel??? But, this isn’t an isolated incident.

A New Jersey man was charged with harassment and making terroristic threats after purposely coughing on a Wegmans grocery store employee and saying he had coronavirus.
A Carlisle, Pennsylvania man is facing multiple charges after deliberately coughing near an elderly citizen wearing a medical face mask.

There have been hundreds of such reports. The Carlisle man was 57 years old, and the New Jersey man was 50 … not some teenagers pulling a prank that they thought funny, but full-blown adults! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

First Amendment is still alive, yes?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I understand that for three long years and two long months, Donald Trump has been trampling the U.S. Constitution. However … we will not allow him to completely remove, destroy, reverse, or otherwise restrict our 1^st Amendment rights!!!

The latest …

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to local television stations on Wednesday, threatening them with legal action and potentially their broadcast licenses if they continue to air an ad from a Democratic group, Priorities USA. The ad plays audio of Trump downplaying the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic over a chart of the mounting number of cases in the U.S. — now at more than 85,000 — but the Trump campaign objected only to one clip, of Trump saying “this is their new hoax.”

That quote comes from a Feb. 28 rally at which Trump repeatedly called his handling of the epidemic “one of the great jobs” and compared the Democrats “politicizing” of the coronavirus to the Russia investigation and Ukraine scandal. HE SAID IT! There’s no denying that it is a fact, it is the truth, it is on tape for all to hear! The president’s re-election campaign does not have the right to stifle free speech or free press! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The loons are coming out of the woodwork!

Rick Wiles is an American far-right conspiracy theorist and non-denominational senior pastor at Flowing Streams Church in Vero Beach, Florida. Mr. Wiles claims that God is spreading the coronavirus in synagogues because he is “dealing with those who oppose his son, Jesus Christ.” And here is where those epithets really, really want to come out, but I am biting my tongue in the interest of professionalism and of not stepping on any toes. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

While schools and college campuses around the country remain closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Liberty University is set to allow the return this week of up to 5,000 students. The plan was announced by the private evangelical university’s scandal–plagued president, Jerry Falwell Jr., an ally of President Trump. Falwell’s ‘University’ is located in Virginia, a state that recently closed all schools for the rest of the school year. Members of the community are not happy with Mr. Falwell, but he claims their concerns are ‘overblown’. Nevertheless, the campus is said to resemble a ‘ghost town’.

Say WHAT???

On a final note, before I throw my laptop at the nearest wall, as of midnight tonight, Trump’s overall approval rating has reached an all-time high of 45.3%. His previous high was reached on February 18^th at 44.9%. Would somebody PLEASE tell me what this jackass has done that people are approving of??? Since we first heard of the coronavirus back in January, Donald Trump has risked our lives every single bloody damn day by taking every single wrong turn he could take!!! WHAT THE HELL are people approving of??? Oh … is it that whopping $1,200 check? Well friends, guess what? You will pay that back in spades. Oh yeah … YOU the taxpayer will pay it back. The United States does not have $2 trillion … it is effectively bankrupt. It is borrowing that money and the day of reckoning will come. Remember, the wealthy and corporations don’t pay their fair share in taxes, so you, the average taxpayer, will pay that $1,200 back with interest! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

And now, my heart rate has once again traveled into that danger zone, so I shall stop for tonight. Hope you are all well and safe, my friends. Stay tuned this afternoon for Part XI of mine and Jeff’s project, Discord & Dissension.

The 1st Amendment vs Donnie Trump

Posted on March 24, 2020 by jilldennison under Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary

Imagine, if you will, President Barack Obama, ready to give a press conference, telling his aides that only people who agree with him completely are to be allowed in. Or, better yet … imagine George W. Bush giving a televised address to the nation after 9/11, but insisting that media companies black out his address to all democratic households. Fantasy, right? Silly at best. And yet, that is exactly what Trump has tried to do. His preferred venue for communicating his … er, um … thoughts … is Twitter. I honestly think he must spend 4-5 hours per day tweeting from his throne (bet there’s no shortage of toilet paper there!)

In 2017, within months of taking the Oath of Office (remember that oath, Donnie?) Trump began blocking Twitter users who dared to disagree with him. Seven of those users felt that if that is the only means by which he is going to communicate, then We the People must be able to question and yes, even disagree with or criticize him. And so, those seven convinced the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University to file a lawsuit on their behalf. Well, the wheels of justice turn pretty darn slowly sometimes, and the case was first heard by Judge Naomi Buchwald in May 2018. Her 75-page ruling, in a nutshell, said that, “No government official — including the President — is above the law.” Hmmmm … perhaps Attorney General William Barr could learn something from her.

Well, Trump and his cadre of lawyers, naturally, appealed the case and in July 2019, a New York-based appeals court upheld Judge Buchwald’s ruling, saying that public officials who take to social media for official government business are prohibited from excluding people “from an otherwise open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees.”

Judge Barrington D. Parker wrote for a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit …

“In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less.”

Justice Department lawyers defending Trump said in court that @realDonaldTrump is a personal account on a privately owned digital platform and that Trump may block followers he “does not wish to hear.” Sounds rather like censorship to me.

And … sigh … of course the lawyers picked up their briefcases and headed back to court to file yet another appeal. Yesterday, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit denied the Trump administration’s request to revisit the July 2019 ruling. Of the nine judges who considered the Trump administration’s request, only two said they would have revisited the earlier decision. The two are both Trump appointees, Judge Michael H. Park and Judge Richard J. Sullivan. Judge Park wrote in his dissenting opinion …

“The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not include a right to post on other people’s personal social media accounts, even if those other people happen to be public officials.”

Sea ditz.

The last sentence of the article I read … “The Justice Department is reviewing the ruling, a spokeswoman said.” Translate that as … Trump’s legal eagles will file yet another appeal to a higher court — United States Supreme Court. Remember something, folks … you and I are paying for all the time these lawyers are wasting, we are paying the judges salary and all their clerks who must review and type their 75-page rulings, we are paying for both legal teams … we are paying through the nose for Trump to have his hand slapped time and time and time again. And, what happens when the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court? Well, let’s see … there are the two Justices he leads around using the rings in their noses – that would be Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Then there is Chief Justice John Roberts who, ever since a few private tête-à-têtes in the Oval Office, has been just as much a Trump boot-licker as Kellyanne Conway. So, I give you three guesses.

Now, Filosofa, though no legal scholar, is going to weigh in on this one just for a minute. In the first ruling on this case, Judge Buchwald said that no one, not even the president, is above the law. And yet, Attorney General William Barr has said that as long as Trump’s fat arse is sitting in the Oval Office, he is above the law. My best guess is that this will be the argument the high-paid DOJ lawyers will use at the Supreme Court level, and because Bill Barr said it’s so, then … gasp … of course it must be so.

But back to the starting point. Trump’s attorneys argue that @realDonaldTrump is a private account. However, I would argue that by default it has become a government account, since Trump conducts nearly all communication with his portion of the public, his 62 million Twitter followers, via Twitter using that account. The 1^st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives We the People the absolute right to speak out against our government officials. If I attend a speech in another venue, I certainly can express my own opinion, so … why not on Twitter.

If the case goes to the Supreme Court and if the Court rules in Trump’s favour, We the People must engage in a very forceful protest. Coronavirus be damned … this is the future of all Americans that is at stake here, for centuries to come. We simply cannot let him continue chipping away at our Constitutional rights, my friends … it’s really all that remains between us and a full-blown dictatorship.

Sneaky

Posted on March 22, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

This, my friends, is how democracies die …

“The Justice Department has quietly [emphasis added] asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.

Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted.

[…]

The move has tapped into a broader fear among civil liberties advocates and Donald Trump’s critics — that the president will use a moment of crisis to push for controversial policy changes. Already, he has cited the pandemic as a reason for heightening border restrictions and restricting asylum claims. He has also pushed for further tax cuts as the economy withers, arguing that it would soften the financial blow to Americans. And even without policy changes, Trump has vast emergency powers that he could legally deploy right now to try and slow the coronavirus outbreak.

The DOJ requests — which are unlikely to make it through a Democratic-led House — span several stages of the legal process, from initial arrest to how cases are processed and investigated.”

You can read the rest of the article here, but let’s talk a bit about what this could mean.

This could mean, if somehow either Congress passed it, or failing that, Trump took his ‘executive power’ to an unprecedented level, that you might be arrested for any or no reason. Say your state is under a mandated “lock down” (something that is outside of the law to begin with), and you are out for a walk in your neighborhood. A police car is patrolling the area, sees you, stops and the officer arrests you simply for being outside. He couldn’t do that under normal circumstances, and if he did, you would be able to appear before a magistrate, explain the situation, and almost certainly be released immediately. But, if this suspension of constitutional rights were to fly, you could be arrested, tossed in jail, and not go before a judge “until this crisis is over” … possibly months or even as long as a year.

That scenario is frightening enough, but let’s project a bit. If allowed to suspend constitutional rights, what other areas of our civil liberties might be affected? The one that worries me the most is the 1^st Amendment, our rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Already, our right to peaceful protest has been suspended by default with the ruling that no more than ten people are allowed to gather in one place. What next? Could it become unlawful to … say, speak against our government, to call Trump out on his lies and ignorance?

I don’t know where this will go, and I hope that the Democratic-majority House of Representatives will put a stop to such nonsense, but I do not have a crumb of trust in our government at this time – not Donald Trump, not William Barr and his Department of ‘Justice’, not the Republican-led Senate under Mitch McConnell. I don’t trust our law enforcement agencies, nor our Departments of Labour, Education, Health and Human Services … none of them. They are led by people who do not care about the people of this nation but will do almost anything to enhance their own profits and power. Just something to think about. Let’s keep our eye on the ball and hope our free press does the same.

And just one little snippet that I found humorous in a macabre sort of way …

“In Rhode Island, among businesses cited for ignoring social-distance warnings was Wonderland, a strip club, where customers were still receiving lap dances last weekend.”

Gotta get your priorities straight, y’know!

Trump vs The 1st Amendment

Posted on February 27, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary

Since the U.S. Senate handed Donald Trump the keys to the castle and told him to “have fun” and promised that “we’ve got your back” no matter what he does, he has been on quite a spree. Last week, it was the firing of qualified career people within the administration and their replacement with highly unqualified people. Then came the news that any non-loyalists, any not willing to basically swear an oath of fealty to Trump, would be fired and replaced with those loyal to the king Trump.

All last week, I waited for the other shoe to fall. What ‘other shoe’ you ask? The press, my friends. Ever since the day he threw his hat in the proverbial ring in mid-2015, Trump has been denigrating the press, referring to them as “the enemy of the people”, attempting to revoke press passes of those like Jim Acosta who had the unmitigated gall to ask him the uncomfortable questions he didn’t want to answer. And remember how, during his first year in office, he often threatened to change federal libel laws to make it more difficult for the free press to report the truth?

Yesterday morning it was announced that the Trump re-election campaign is filing a libel suit against the New York Times in the New York state court. Their claim is that the Times had intentionally published a false opinion article that suggested Russia and the campaign had an overarching deal in the 2016 U.S. election. The suit accuses the times of “extreme bias against and animosity toward the campaign,” and cited what it called the Times’ “exuberance to improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020.”

The New York Times responded with a statement:

“The Trump Campaign has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable. Fortunately, the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance. We look forward to vindicating that right in this case.”

Interestingly, the Times had not yet, at that point, been served official notice of the case, but rather had learned of it through media reports.

The case relates to a March 27, 2019, opinion article written by Max Frankel, a former executive editor of the Times who left the paper in 1994.

You may remember that the New York Times was involved in a landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling that has served as a safeguard for media reporting on public figures. In the case New York Times v. Sullivan, the court decided that the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection for freedom of the press allows even statements that are false to be published as long as the publication was not done with “actual malice.” Thus, the suit, according to the draft copy released by the campaign, accused the newspaper of a “malicious motive” and “reckless disregard for the truth.”

Now, note that this OpEd was written just under a year ago, and two years after Trump took office, and just under three weeks before the redacted version of the Mueller report was released. The Mueller report documented Moscow’s campaign of hacking and social media propaganda to boost Trump’s 2016 candidacy and harm his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. It also documented numerous contacts between people associated with Trump’s campaign and Russians. What it did not do, as Trump claimed, was ‘exonerate’ him.

A portion of Frankel’s piece stated …

“Collusion – or a lack of it – turns out to have been the rhetorical trap that ensnared President Trump’s pursuers. There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions. The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo.”

All of which is, in this writer’s opinion, proven true. And, although it took him two years, Trump did lift the Obama administration’s sanctions on Russia in January 2019.

A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign said yesterday …

“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Times was aware of the falsity at the time it published them but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process.”

Well … seems to me the statements were true, but either way, it was an opinion piece written by somebody who was not on the Times’ staff. Thing is, Trump has just been itching for an excuse to shred the “freedom of press” portion of the 1^st Amendment since even before taking office. Now that he is feeling newly emboldened, feeling invincible and that he can do anything he pleases, this is but his first step in the process of attempting to rein in the media.

Stuart Karle, an adjunct professor of media law at Columbia Journalism School, told Forbes the lawsuit is “an abuse of the court system and completely inappropriate.” Karle said he didn’t think Trump’s campaign expects to win the case, and believes it was filed for political reasons: “It’s using the courts to argue with their critics.”

I don’t see how he could possibly win this case, but … it feels very much like a portent of things to come. It feels very much as if this is designed to send a message to the media as a whole. I don’t like it … not one bit. At the very least, he is wasting taxpayer dollars, tying up the courts. At the very most, he will gain the attention of his faithful followers who will, of course, be more convinced than ever in the months leading up to the election, that the press is against Trump and that they should not believe a word that is said about him unless it comes from his chosen Fox “News”.

Keep your eye on this ball, friends …

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

Tag Archives: 1st amendment

The 1st Amendment vs Donnie Trump

Trump vs The 1st Amendment