Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

Filosofa Feels Snarky Today …

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

… and you know what THAT means!  Time for some Snarky Snippets!!!

Yesterday I saw in the news an example of the most perfect bit of justice handed out … the penalty was perfect for the crime!  It happened in Parma, Ohio. The crime?  A woman, Rosemary Hayne, was captured in a viral video screaming at a Chipotle employee before throwing her hot food in the worker’s face because she was displeased with the way the food looked.

Initially, Judge Timothy Gilligan sentenced her to pay a fine and serve 180 days in jail, with 90 days suspended.  But then he had another thought and cut the jail time by 60 days but added a requirement that she work at least 20 hours per week at a fast-food restaurant for two months.  What poetic justice!  Let her see the other side and what it’s like to put up with customers like herself day in and day out while working for minimum wage (or less).

In case you’re wondering what your highly-paid senators and representatives in Congress are doing this week … a week that is no doubt filled with high priority items like bills to keep the government running after January 19th, bills to send aid to Ukraine, etc., here are just a couple of the things they’re hard at work on:

  • Senator Ted Cruz of Cancun fame proposed a bill titled AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act. The bill would force automakers to continue putting AM radios in all vehicles indefinitely.  Senator Rand Paul blocked the legislation, saying a mandate on private companies would be an overstep of congressional power.  But wait ‘til you hear Cruz’ reasoning for continuing to put AM radio in all cars … “I think silencing those voices is enormously harmful to both free speech but also to a robust democratic process.” And then he proceeded to say that such conservative commentators as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck all have programs on AM radio.  Oh yeah, Teddy … by all means lets force automakers to put AM radios in cars so that everyone can hear conspiracy theories and lies, lies, more lies!!!  Oh, and take up lots of valuable time in the Senate discussing it, while you’re at it.
  • The all-important business of the House of Representatives yesterday was discussing and then voting on censuring Representative Jamaal Bowman. What did Jamaal do?  He pulled a fire alarm switch during a September House vote, which caused the building to be evacuated.  The Republicans say he did it intentionally to attempt to interfere with the vote, he says it was an accident.  Already, Mr. Bowman has been charged with a misdemeanor, written a letter of apology to Capitol Police, and paid a $1,000 fine.  The House Ethics Committee declined to investigate the incident.  But the House Republicans still weren’t satisfied, so they voted to censure him.  After the vote was taken, Bowman, the adult in the room, said, “Let’s get back to work.”

Yep, your tax dollars are hard at work this week!

For nearly three years, law enforcement has been trying to identify the perpetrators of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.  Some have been identified by family or friends recognizing their photo in the news, others by bragging to family or friends about their exploits.  So now … House Speaker Johnson plans to release what he says are thousands of hours of video footage to the public.  He seems to think that the public will then believe the Republican lies that this was ‘just another tourist day’.  But wait … he is taking the time to blur out the faces of the rioters because … “because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ.”  Say WHAT???

In other words, Mike Johnson WANTS these rioters who destroyed public property, injured and killed police officers, and attempted to overturn our votes to skate free???  And he’s second in the line of succession to the presidency???  WTF???

Somebody please explain to Mike that the goal IS to identify these criminals and bring them to justice!!!

And speaking of Speaker Johnson … I don’t care how religious he claims to be, his religiosity is a sham.  He claims to be so super religious that people fear he will attempt to remove the wall of separation between church and state, to turn the U.S. into a pseudo-Christian nation rather than the secular one it has always been.  He has even claimed that his god has made him “America’s Moses” and commanded him to “lead the nation through a ‘Red Sea’ moment.”   But we can breathe easier now, for he’s shown that his claim to fame is naught but smoke and mirrors.  Why?  His statement to the New York Times regarding Donald Trump says it all …

“I endorsed him wholeheartedly for re-election in 2020 and traveled with his team as a campaign surrogate to help ensure his victory.  I have fully endorsed him once again.”

One cannot be righteous and support a ‘man’ who is a sexual abuser, a liar, a conman, a cheater, and a criminal.  Full stop.  Mr. Johnson’s mask has been removed and we should now see him for exactly what he is … a power-hungry hypocrite.

Ramblings From The Bouncy Mind

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2024, Global Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I spend a good deal of time each day perusing the news, with a particular interest in the politics here in the U.S.  More often than not, my daily reading sets my teeth on edge and brings more musings and questions than it provides answers.  Yesterday was no exception, and left me with a bit of what I call ‘mind bounce’, whereby I cannot seem to focus on just one topic to sit down and write a coherent post.  So this morning’s post is just a compilation of a few of my thoughts while I try to talk my mind into settling down a bit.

Most Democrats running for election or re-election have one major problem:  they are too quiet.  Much as I hate the loud voices from the other side, the Democrats need to become more forceful in voicing and promoting their ideologies, in telling the voters how they plan to actually help them.  Republicans can’t do this, at least not honestly, because they have no intention of actually helping the average Joe, but Democrats DO.  They want to enact legislation that will ensure everyone has access to healthcare, that educational opportunities are equal and affordable, to ensure worker safety and a fair living wage to workers, that we are doing everything in our power to protect and repair our environment for future generations, and so much more.  THOSE are the things that the voting public should be hearing, but instead the Democratic candidates are nearly silent.

Judd Legum over at Popular Information recently published an article about the campaign contributions being received by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is running against President Biden in the primaries on the Democratic ticket.  Turns out, that to date, fully 38.5% of Kennedy’s campaign donations have come from Republicans!  Only 19.8% have come from Democrats, and 31.3% from persons with no partisan history at all.

Interesting … are the Republicans, then, counting on the Kennedy name to further divide the Democratic Party such that whoever wins the primary has the backing of only slightly more than half of the party, giving a boost to their own candidate?  In my view, Kennedy is not a viable candidate with his conspiracy theories and bigoted views, but then the likely lead contender on the Republican side is also not a viable candidate, quite probably having been convicted of numerous felony offenses against the U.S. government, against We the People, by the time November 2024 rolls around.

I find it amazing that a nation of people who have themselves faced discrimination and persecution for centuries, are refusing to stand with the LGBTQ community against discrimination by the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.  The U.S. and more than 30 other countries including France, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Ukraine issued a joint statement last week expressing concern over the targeting of the LGBTQ community by the Hungarian government, but Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to sign on to the letter.  What hypocrisy.  The Jewish people have been shunned and persecuted throughout history in nearly every nation on the globe, including Hungary.  In the mid-20th century, Adolf Hitler and his crew attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population.  Anti-semitism is still rampant in many countries today, but now the state of Israel is refusing to stand against the bigotry that is threatening the LGBTQ community?  There’s something very wrong with this picture and it’s name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

I’ve mentioned Vivek Ramaswamy in passing a few times … he’s one of the many running for the Republican nomination for the presidency.  Until yesterday, my biggest complaint against Ramaswamy was that he plans, if elected, to raise the legal voting age to 25, largely because young people are more likely to vote for a Democrat than a Republican.  But yesterday, he matched that with his ‘promise’ to put the ignoble Senator Ted Cruz from Texas (you remember, Cancún Cruz?) on the Supreme Court!!!  🤬

Okay, I guess that’s enough of my ramblings from the bouncy mind for one morning.  One last mini-rant … I notice that WordPress failed to include my afternoon post on the Reader yesterday, so I lost probably 20-40 views.  And our friend Pete tells me that he’s still having trouble accessing my posts.  What the heck have I ever done to WordPress to deserve this punishment?  I actually pay them around $300 per year for my account … you’d think they could at least put my posts on Reader where people would see them!!!  And on that note, I bid you a good day!

They Can Write Books, But They Cannot Govern

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Election 2024, History, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry

Cartoonist Scott Stantis writes that …

“When I started working in Republican campaigns, the party I signed up for had allegiance to a set of principles and ideals. Lower taxes, fewer regulations and, mostly, adherence to the rule of law. Now we see a bizarro party where right is wrong, wrong is right and a strictly enforced allegiance, not to principles, but to a deeply flawed individual.”

He is, I believe, spot-on.  The ‘GOP’ perhaps should be re-named the ‘DOP’ — Decayed Old Party.  Frank Bruni’s newsletter today further cements Stantis’ view of today’s Republican Party …

Josh Hawley’s manhood, Mike Pompeo’s midriff and other 2024 teases

By Frank Bruni

11 August 2022

Josh Hawley has a book about manhood coming out next year. Nikki Haley has a book about womanhood coming out in two months.

Mike Pompeo has lost so much weight that he’s barely recognizable. Mike Pence has grown so much spine that he’s almost a vertebrate.

Don’t tell them Donald Trump is the Republican Party’s inevitable 2024 presidential nominee. If that’s foreordained, then a whole lot of literary, cardiovascular and orthopedic effort has gone to waste.

The news media is lousy of late with articles about the various Democrats potentially waiting in the wings if President Biden decides against a second term, to the point where he’s sometimes treated as more of a 2024 question mark than Trump is.

Maybe that’s right. In a straw poll of Republicans at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, Trump was the top choice to run for president, winning 69 percent of the vote. Second place went to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, with just 24 percent, and third went to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, with a measly 2 percent.

But Trump is no spring chicken, and by the looks of things, he pays much less heed to his health than Biden does. A year from now he could be unfit for office in more ways than he already is.

He could be in handcuffs! OK, that’s probably just a happy fantasy. But maybe less of one since the F.B.I. raided Mar-a-Lago on Monday? He’s the subject of investigations civil and criminal, federal and state.

Or he could finally wear out his Republican welcome. “It is a sign of weakness, not strength, that Team Trump has been reduced to touting straw-poll results from events that most Americans, and indeed the vast majority of Republicans, know nothing about,” Isaac Schorr wrote in National Review early this week, adding that CPAC had in fact “been repurposed into an appeal to the former president’s vanity.”

The Republicans eager to take his place at the helm of the party know all that. And they don’t have to be quite as discreet and demure in their positioning as Democrats interested in standing in for Biden do. Trump’s not the incumbent president, at least not in the world beyond his and his supplicants’ delusions.

That positioning, once you recognize it, is a hoot. Everyone’s after a kind of branding that rivals won’t copy, a moment in the spotlight that competitors can’t match, an angle, an edge.

DeSantis’s action-figure approach to his role as governor of Florida is in part about the fact that Cruz, Hawley and others don’t have the executive authority that he does and can’t make things happen as unilaterally or as quickly. They’re would-be MAGA superheroes bereft of their red capes.

So a week ago, DeSantis didn’t merely suspend the top Tampa Bay area prosecutor, who said that he would never consider abortion a crime. DeSantis also peacocked to that part of the state and, surrounded by a flock of law enforcement officials, crowed about his decision during a news conference.

Cruz and Hawley were such hams during the confirmation hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson because, as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, they had a stage that DeSantis, Pence, Pompeo and others didn’t. Might as well pig out on the opportunity.

Haley’s forthcoming book, “If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons From Bold Women,” is one that Cruz, Hawley, Pence and Pompeo would have an awkward time pulling off, and it beats voters over the head with the fact that she’s a trailblazer in ways that they can’t be.

But does she or any other Republican love the Lord with Pence’s ardor? That’s a question he obviously wants to put in voters’ minds with his memoir, “So Help Me God,” to be released about a month after “If You Want Something Done.”

Pompeo is doing a prep-for-the-presidency twofer. According to The New York Post, he shed 90 pounds in six months after his stint as Trump’s secretary of state was over. And he’s apparently putting the finishing touches on a memoir of his own, “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love,” which Broadside Books is scheduled to publish in January.

Its crowded company includes not only Haley’s and Pence’s books but also one by Cruz, “Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System,” which is due in late October, and, of course, Hawley’s testosterone treatise, “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” which has surely become a more risible sell in the wake of those images of him sprinting for the Capitol exit on Jan. 6, 2021.

Here, for your delectation, is a snippet of the promotional copy for Hawley’s book: “No republic has ever survived without men of character to defend what is just and true. Starting with the wisdom of the ancients, from the Greek and Roman philosophers to Jesus of Nazareth, and drawing on the lessons of American history, Hawley identifies the defining strengths of men, including responsibility, bravery, fidelity and leadership.” I have goose bumps.

Lest “Manhood” fail to persuade you of Hawley’s nonpareil virility, he summoned boundless courage last week to stand up to … Finland and Sweden. He was the only senator to vote against their admission to NATO.

David Von Drehle sized it up correctly in a column in The Washington Post: “In search of a position that would set him apart from his rivals among the Senate’s young conservatives, Hawley arrived at the cockeyed notion that adding two robust military powers with vibrant economies would somehow increase NATO’s burden on U.S. resources.”

Cockeyed? No! Cocksure — and undoubtedly weighing which fearsome and dastardly global actor he’ll unleash the full force of his manliness on next. The citizens of New Zealand tremble. The people of Andorra quiver.

Harden Schools, Hardened Hearts

Posted on by under education, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

When someone, particularly a politician, opens his mouth and speaks, he should logically have considered the ramifications of what he says. Joseph Urban has written of a not-improbably conversation with the ignoble Ted Cruz that is at once both humorous and frightening. Is this road from Cruz’ remark about doors really such a stretch of the imagination these days? Thank you, Joseph, for this funny and yet thought-provoking post!

The Old Liberal

After the latest school shooting in Uvalde. Well, this is 5 days later so maybe not the latest. At any rate, after the regularly scheduled school shooting, the party of guns had possible answers to this national event.

Luckily I was able to catch the attention of Ted Cruz. It wasn’t hard since I had a camera. This is the same Ted Cruz who cleverly escapes the frequent Texas electrical grid failures by flying to Cancun. The guy whose father helped assassinate JFK. Not what I say, that’s what former President Donald says. The man Trump called an “unstable person”.If anyone should know…

So, I asked Ted to explain how he would make schools safe.

Ted: We need to make schools safe. As my good friend President Trump as said, schools need doors that lock. From the inside. Doors inside the school that lock.

Me: As a teacher of over…

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Only In ‘America’

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

Yesterday afternoon, just as I was beginning to work on a good people post for this morning, the breaking news update jumped onto my screen …

Texas school shooting leaves at least 2 dead

I stopped what I was doing and went in search of information … turns out that, as you all know by now, 19 students and one teacher, Eva Mireles, were killed … or let’s call a spade a spade … they were brutally murdered while in school, the one place our children should be able to feel safe!  The death toll may yet rise if some of the students taken to the hospital don’t survive, or if students still missing are later reported to have died.  Plus, the 18-year-old shooter shot his grandmother, who is in critical condition in the hospital, before setting out for Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

This, my friends, is what Texas Governor Greg Abbott proudly said just one year ago …

No license or training is needed. 🙄 YOU, Greg Abbott, have the blood of these children on your hands and you will never be able to wash it off!  Senator Mitch McConnell, who has an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA), claims to be “horrified and heartbroken” and yet time and time and time again he has had the opportunity to pass meaningful gun legislation that might have prevented the 18-year-old shooter from getting his hands on a gun.  YOU, Mitch McConnell, and every other Republican legislator who has blocked gun regulations, also have blood on your hands!!!  And U.S. Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, sent thoughts and prayers and said he disdains any discussion on gun legislation.  YOU, Cancún Cruz, also have blood on your hands!!!

Days like today, I am so very thankful for a President who is compassionate and caring.  President Biden gave a speech yesterday evening where he said …

“Another massacre at a Texas elementary school. Beautiful, innocent second, third, fourth graders. As a nation, we have to ask: When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone, the courage to do more and then stand up to the lobbies? It’s time to turn this pain into action. I am sick and tired of it. We have to act. And don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage. For God’s sake, we have to have the courage to stand up to the industry.”

And former President Barack Obama issued a statement …

“Nearly 10 years after Sandy Hook — and 10 days after Buffalo — our country is paralyzed, not by fear, but by a gun lobby and a political party that have shown no willingness to act in any way that might help prevent these tragedies. It’s long past time for action, any kind of action. And it’s another tragedy — a quieter but no less tragic one — for families to wait another day.”

I cannot help but share the pain of the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents and friends of those 19 children tonight.  Picture being a parent at work, getting that phone call …

Eleven days ago, ten people were murdered in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.  Yesterday, 20 people, 19 of them children, were murdered in school, just two days before the end of the school year.  Where are all those ‘pro-life’ people???  Probably out there carrying signs that read “You can’t take my guns!” or some such drivel.  My granddaughter, when I told her about the school shooting, asked what kind of country this has become.  Not a very nice one, I’m afraid.

Just as I was finishing this post, I saw one from John Pavlovitz that I hope you’ll take a moment to read, for he said it far better than I ever could.  I hope you can understand why this post replaced today’s ‘good people’ post.  I will try to get one out later this week, but if not, there’s always next Wednesday.

YOU Do Not Walk Away From This One

Posted on by under education, guns, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Our friend Roger has something to say about yesterday’s mass shooting that apparently was racially motivated and perpetrated by an 18-year-old white male. Roger’s words need no introduction by me except to say that I am in full agreement with him. Thank you, Roger.

One additional note:  There has been yet another mass shooting this morning at a church in California.  That’s three (that we know of) in one weekend.  Welcome to the USofA.

The World As It Is. Not As It Should Be

Buffalo shooting: Ten dead in suspected race attack at New York state store:

Inditement Buffalo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61452958

There is next to zero chance of the following becoming an actual legal action. This is not the point of this post. The theme of this post concerns public responsibility, the consequences of polemic actions and the lack of concern to any victims.

I contend the following should be considered for inditement under 18 U.S.Code 373- Solicitation to commit a crime of violence:

Inditement Trump

Donald John Trump

Inditement Cruz

Rafael Edward Cruz

Inditement Majorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Ron DeSantis

Ronald Dion DeSantis

Trump on the grounds of pursuing of a political career by inflammatory rhetoric, Cruz by his recent display on biased hostility to an African American nominee to the Supreme Court; Taylor Greene by sustained, hostile inflammatory rhetoric not suited to the holder of an elected office; De Santis by abuse of his officer as Governor of Florida by direct legislation in…

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Confirmation Hearing Or Political Circus?

Posted on by under cartoons, education, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Who could have seen it coming, eh?  Yesterday was day #2 of the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.  She answered questions for the better part of twelve hours … heck, five minutes of talking does me in.  I have no doubt that Ms. Jackson wished, on more than one occasion, that she could fire back at some of the questions she was asked, but to her credit, she proceeded with dignity and respect, only letting out the occasional sigh to indicate a bit of frustration.

Barring some dramatic revelation that I cannot foresee, I strongly believe that Ms. Jackson will, indeed, become the next Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.  I even think a few of the more … shall we say ‘honest’ Republicans … will vote to confirm her … perhaps Senator Collins of Maine, Senator Murkowski of Alaska, and Senator Romney of Utah.  Others are likely to vote ‘Nay’ for a number of stated reasons, but the main reason being that Judge Jackson has two strikes against her:  she is Black, and she is a woman.  Period.

I did not watch the 12-hour confirmation hearing … I really haven’t got either the time or the patience … but I have read numerous accounts of the questions and answers from the day.  The first one to come to my attention was, unsurprisingly, from Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.  Among Blackburn’s false or distorted accusations, she …

  • linked Jackson to the controversy over transgender athletes and women’s sports
  • suggested Jackson would trample parental rights
  • accused Jackson of wanting to put dangerous criminals on the street
  • accused Jackson of saying every judge has a hidden agenda
  • said Jackson praised the 1619 Project
  • said Jackson thinks judges must use ‘critical race theory’ when sentencing criminals

Blackburn went so far as to suggest to Jackson, a Black woman, that white privilege doesn’t exist in America, a country where of the 114 justices to have been confirmed to sit on the highest court in the land, only two have been Black.  She also asked Judge Jackson to “define the word ‘woman’”.  When Jackson told her she couldn’t, at least “Not in this context. I’m not a biologist,” Blackburn responded with acidity … “The meaning of the word woman is so unclear and controversial that you can’t give me a definition?”  Sigh.  Seriously, is this what we’re paying our lawmakers to do?

And then there was good ol’ Ted Cruz, never one to mince words, or even to attempt to make his words sensible. Noting that the judge is a board member of her kids’ private school Georgetown Day, the senator began pulling out books, including Antiracist Baby, in order to claim the school is definitely teaching CRT. “There are portions of this book that I find really quite remarkable. One portion of the book says babies are taught to be racist or anti-racist,” Cruz bellowed, displaying an enlarged page from the book. “Do you agree with this book that is being taught with kids that babies are racist?”  Her response …

“I do not believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist or though they are not valued or though they are less-than. That they are victims. That they are oppressors.”

 She also noted that her understanding was that “critical race theory is an academic theory is taught in law schools.”

I’m not sure what got into Lindsey Graham … I seriously believe that man has some mental issues!  In the middle of his questioning Judge Jackson, he asked … “What faith are you, by the way?”  Say WHAT???  Since when is religion a qualifier for a seat on the bench???

Then Lindsey began berating Judge Jackson for defending detainees at Guantanamo Bay back in her days as a public defender.  He went on a verbal diatribe, spouting …

“We’re at war, we’re not fighting crime! This is not some passage of time event. As long as they’re dangerous, I hope they all die in jail if they’re going to go back to kill Americans. It won’t bother me one bit if 39 of them die in prison. That’s a better outcome than letting them go and if it cost $500 million to keep them in jail, keep them in jail because they’ll go back to the fight. Look at the freaking Afghan government made up of former detainees at Gitmo. This whole thing by the left about this war ain’t working!”

And then he stormed out of the hearings without waiting for a response.

John Cornyn, who I typically think of as one of the less toxic Republicans in the Senate, questioned Judge Jackson about her stance on LGBTQ rights, claiming that granting equal rights to LGBTQ people conflicts with the religious beliefs of some people. To which Jackson responded, “Well, senator, that is the nature of a right. That when there is a right, it means that there are limitations on regulation, even if people are regulating pursuant to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”

From everything I’ve read and the video clips I have seen, it appears that Judge Jackson handled herself well through the entire ordeal … far better than I would have in similar circumstances!  It’s just too damn bad that the confirmation of a Justice who will serve on the highest court in the nation for life has been turned into a political circus in recent years.  The Supreme Court are the people who will make the decisions we have to live by.  They will decide if women have the right to control their own bodies, whether LGBTQ people should have certain unalienable rights, whether a single religion will force us all into a small, airless box, and whether we have the right to vote.  And yet … the Republicans in Congress seem to care more about the colour of a potential justice’s skin and about her gender.

Note to readers:  This just in from the New York Times … “Conservatives are pressuring Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat, to oppose Judge Ketanji Brwn Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.”  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Just Two Little Snippets

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, guns, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

The thing that occupies my thoughts the most these days is the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.  My heart cries for the people of Ukraine and frankly I would love the opportunity to spit in Mr. Putin’s face!  However, other things also demand my attention, so for the moment I will turn my mind and my angst in other directions.

Address the real problem, Teddy!

Recently, Senator Ted Cruz made the following statement …

“Across this country, Americans are horrified at skyrocketing crime rates, at skyrocketing homicide rates, at skyrocketing burglary rates, at skyrocketing carjacking rates.”

Hmmm … I guess that I am the anomaly, then, for none of those things ‘horrify’ me.  What does horrify me is the alarming increase of racism, the murder of numerous Blacks by police officers, the very people we are told to entrust with our lives.  I am horrified by the utter disregard for the people of this country by certain politicians, many of them newbies from the last election.  I am genuinely horrified at the attempts in the majority of states to restrict voting rights such that Black people, the elderly, college students, and the poor will find it almost impossible to cast a ballot.  I am also horrified by the refusal of the Supreme Court to uphold voting rights and women’s rights, thus obliterating much of the progress that was made over the last century.  I’m horrified by the Republicans and the conservative media blaming every single thing they don’t like on President Biden, while failing to even note his many successes.  Oh yes, my friends, there are many things that should horrify the people of this nation, but crime … I’m not horrified by the crime so much as the failure to effectively address it, to consider the reasons people commit crimes.

Frankly, I’m more afraid of that “law-abiding” gun nut I see walking into the grocery store, or the pickup truck driving down my street with confederate flags in the back window and Trump stickers on the bumper.  If Mr. Cruz, or any other member of Congress, is so horrified by crime in this nation, then there is one thing they can do that will drop crime rates dramatically and have an almost immediate effect:  PUT STRICT GUN LAWS INTO EFFECT!!!  Take a look at crimes committed over the past year or ten years and you’ll find that most are committed with the use of a common tool – a gun.  If people have naught but a knife, a baseball bat, or their fists to subdue their victims, the crime rate is going to plunge dramatically.  Heck, we could probably reduce most police departments by at least 50%!

But the reality is that Ted Cruz couldn’t care less about crime or about the victims of violent crime … his statement was made for the sole purpose of garnering support, as it’s pretty clear he hopes to be on the ballot for president in 2024.  Perhaps he would do better by staying in Texas when the weather gets cold and the lights go out, rather than running fast as he can for the warm beaches of Cancún.

Justice Thomas should resign!

Since the founding of the nation, no spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice has been as overt a political activist as Virginia Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas.  Ms. Thomas has a leadership role in the Council for National Policy, a right-wing group with more than 400 members who include leaders of organizations like the ultra-conservative Federalist Society, the National Rifle Association, and the Family Research Council.  Most recently, Ms. Thomas took up the battle cry for Donald Trump’s Big Lie, the fantasy that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2020 presidential election and that Trump was actually the winner.  Not only has no evidence been uncovered to support this Big Lie, but the election has been investigated numerous times in nearly every state and deemed to have been the most fair and honest election in the history of the nation.

Ms. Thomas, however, continues even today to work against the people of this country, to attempt to undermine our will, and pressured Republican lawmakers to challenge the election results and appoint alternate slates of electors.  Had they done so, the election would have been decided by none other than the U.S. Supreme Court, of which Clarence Thomas is one of nine justices.  Can we say, “conflict of interest”?

Because Supreme Court justices do not want to be perceived as partisan, they tend to avoid political events and entanglements, and their spouses often keep low profiles. But Clarence and Virginia Thomas are the exceptions to those norms.  In addition to her position at the Council for National Policy, she founded a group called Groundswell with the support of Steve Bannon, the hard-line nationalist and former Trump adviser. It holds a weekly meeting of influential conservatives, many of whom work directly on issues that have come before the court.

For the three decades Justice Thomas has sat on the Supreme Court, he and his wife have worked in tandem from the bench and the political trenches to take aim at targets like Roe v. Wade and affirmative action. Together they believe that “America is in a vicious battle for its founding principles,” as Ms. Thomas has put it.

I think the time has come for Justice Thomas to turn in his resignation, and failing that, for Justice Thomas to be impeached.  The Constitution states that judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”  I don’t believe that Justice Thomas’ behaviour qualifies as ‘good’, and I do believe that his wife’s fanatical activism is influencing his decisions, interfering with his integrity.

Say WHAT???

Posted on by under Environmental Issues, History, Law and justice, Personal, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

If you have lived your life believing that you are, by definition of your gender and skin colour, one of the superior beings on earth, I imagine it’s rather difficult to accept reality when it hits you in the face.  White males have dominated much of our political and societal ‘norms’ since the beginning of this nation.  Until the year 2008 when we elected Barack Obama, a Black man, to be our president, every president had been white.  And male.  We have yet to elect a woman to the highest office in the land, and in fact relatively few women hold seats in Congress.  And yet … a portion of those white males are now claiming that they are “victims of racism.”  SERIOUSLY???

Women fought long and hard just to get the right to vote … it took them until August 1920!  Men generally did not want women to vote, just as today they do not want women to have senior positions in our government.  A few facts …

  • In 1839 Mississippi was the first state to allow women to own property in their own names
  • In 1848, the Married Woman’s Property Act was passed in New York and used as a template for other states in later years. This Act allowed women to enter into contracts on her own, transact business and file a lawsuit in her own name.  By 1900, all other states had passed similar laws
  • In 1862, the U.S. Homestead Act made it easier for single, widowed and divorced women to claim land in their own names.
  • In 1872 Illinois granted freedom of occupational choice to both men and women. But when Myra Colby Bradwell, who studied as her husband’s law apprentice to pass the Illinois bar, tried to practice as a lawyer, the US supreme court ruled in 1873 that the state doesn’t have to grant a law license to a married woman. Say WHAT???
  • In 1963, the US passed the first legislation requiring equal pay for equal work, but it needed to be expanded in 1972 to include salespeople, executives, administrators, etc.
  • In 1970 a federal appeals court decision makes it illegal for a company to change a job’s title so that they could pay women who held the position less than male workers. 1970, people … think about it … just over 50 years ago!

Remember that Virginia Slims television commercial (from back when cigarette companies were still allowed to advertise on television) that said, “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby!”  Indeed, women in most western countries including the U.S. have come a long way, but look how long it has taken, and the reality is that in the U.S. today, women are still considered by too many to be second-class citizens.

Even worse, Black people in this country have had to fight for every teeny tiny step of progress they have made and far too many lives … BLACK LIVES … have been lost in that never-ending battle.  Even in this, the 21st century, Black people are losing their lives to white supremacists for no reason other than the colour of their skin!  Remember the story of Emmett Till who was killed by white men in 1955 because he was a young Black boy and had a conversation with a white store clerk.  Even our police, the very people who are sworn to uphold the law of the land, are often the perpetrators of hate crimes against Black people!  Remember Breonna Taylor?  SAY HER NAME!  Remember Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, George Floyd and so very many others???  SAY THEIR NAMES, DAMMIT! Remember them … always.

My point?  Those white entitled men who claim they are victims of racism are so full of sh*t that I can smell them five miles away!  Last week, the former guy claimed that he is a victim of racial discrimination because … wait for it … the prosecutors in Georgia, New York, and Washington who are investigating Trump and his business organization are all Black.  Oh the irony, for I have never known anybody more racist and misogynist than Donald Trump!

But alas, Trump isn’t the only one riding this fake victim train!  The infamous Ted Cruz, senator from Texas, claimed that President Biden’s decision to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court was “offensive” and excludes most “Americans”.  Bullshit, Teddy!!!  Most “Americans” are excluded by nature of the fact that most of us do not qualify, do not have law degrees and previous experience as a judge!  Roger Wicker, a senator from Mississippi said that limiting the pool to Black women is “affirmative racial discrimination.”

I’m tired, my friends.  I’m sick and damn tired of the people whose voices are the loudest in this nation twisting and turning words, upholding bigotry in all its forms, and hastening to destroy life on this planet.  I’m sick and tired of the people who are against anything and everything that makes sense, such as mask and vaccine mandates, protecting and repairing the environment, equality for ALL, whether male or female, Black or white, gay or straight.  There’s an old saying that, “If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.”  So true, and today there are so many who are choosing to be part of the problem and keeping the rest from finding the solutions to what is wrong in this world.  For Christmas, my daughter bought me this t-shirt … 

Pretty damn accurate, I’d say.

Filosofa Tries Not To Rant … Oops!

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I tried really hard last night to write a post that didn’t turn into a rant.  I failed.  The only news I read that didn’t evoke a rant, put me to sleep!  There’s just so darned much to rant about these days …

It appears that the inglorious Republican Party is determined to impeach President Biden.  It started the day after his inauguration when Margie Greene filed articles of impeachment against the President (before he had even settled in, let alone made any policy decisions) claiming that he had ‘abused’ his power.  Nobody took it seriously, knowing that Margie is a conspiracy theorist, follower of QAnon, and not terribly intelligent.

The latest, though, really sent me into rant mode.  Senator Ted Cruz, also not terribly intelligent, has said that the Republican Party will impeach President Biden in 2023 if, in fact, they manage a majority in both chambers of Congress in the mid-term elections this November.  He made it clear that there was really no reason for impeachment, no legitimate cause, other than “just because we can.”

“… whether it’s justified or not … the Democrats weaponized impeachment. They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that . . . is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

No, you Jackass!  Trump was not impeached because we disagreed with him!  He was impeached … TWICE … because he broke the law, abused the power of his office, and stabbed the people of this nation in the back with his autocratic ways!  Take your head out of your rather large posterior and wake up, Senator Cruz!

Now, I don’t anticipate that the Senate, even if led by a Republican majority, will vote to convict President Biden and remove him from office, because so doing would leave them with … GASP … a president who is both a Woman and Black!  The two things they hate most!

Unfortunately, Cruz is not up for re-election until 2024, at which time I hope the good people of Texas will remember how he abandoned them when a winter storm left them without electricity, leaving the country and heading for Cancún where the temps were in the 80s and electricity was plentiful.

Two of the former guy’s minions seem to have established organizations that are, in addition to other issues, advocating murder.  Okay, I know that’s a bit of a stretch, but I’m angry.  They are actually suing the Biden administration over vaccine mandates, which in my book means they prefer that everybody has the right to remain unvaccinated and thus go about spreading the lethal virus, infecting and killing people.

The first such organization is headed by the man with Nazi ties, former senior adviser and the architect of the former guy’s draconian immigration policies, Stephen Miller.  The organization is America First Legal (AFL), whose goal is to “oppose the radical left’s anti-jobs, anti-freedom, anti-faith, anti-borders, anti-police, and anti-American crusade” and “defend our citizens from unconstitutional executive overreach.”  Also affiliated with the AFL are former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker – a whole bunch of arseholes all under one umbrella.

The group is suing the Biden administration over “tyrannical and unconstitutional vaccine mandates,” claiming, among other things, that OSHA doesn’t have the power to “try and end pandemics.”  Like … ending the pandemic is a bad thing??????????  Sheesh!

The second group is led by former Vice-President Mike Pence and calls itself Advancing American Freedom (AAF).  You notice how these groups toss about that term ‘American’ as if anybody not on their side must not qualify to be an ‘American’?  AAF has joined forces with AFL to attempt to convince the Supreme Court to block the implementation of OSHA’s vaccine-or-testing mandate, arguing it is unconstitutional and poses a burden on workers.  WHAT burden???  The burden to keep safe and also help keep their co-workers, families, friends and neighbors safe?  Is that really such a burden?

My daughter, granddaughter and I have all been fully vaccinated, including the booster, and I can tell you that it did NOT infringe on our personal freedoms nor cause us any ‘burden’ in any way, shape, or form!  We can end this pandemic if every person does their part, but some would obviously prefer to spend massive amounts of time and money ensuring that more and more of us will become ill and many more will die needlessly.

And now, I will stop ranting so I can manage a bit of sleep tonight and so you can find something cheerier to read on a Sunday morn!  Have a great day!