WRONG WORDS, WRONG TIME

The price we pay for freedom

You know, people say stupid things. It happens frequently. Many folks on social media are ready to attack those who tweet, text or talk Second Amendment smack after a mass shooting, and so today’s coverage begins.

Late last year, Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles sent out a holiday card with his entire family holding guns. The caption read, “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.” When asked about that photo in light of three kids and three adults being gunned down in a school in his city, he refused to apologize for his tasteless holiday P.R. Why? Perhaps he fears an expression of sorrow and grief would expose him to be less than the manly man he conjures for his brand and image.

Oh, Ogles did say he was, “devastated by the tragedy,” but like 99% of the Republicans in office, he will do absolutely nothing to protect the rights of “life, liberty and happiness” of the very people he represents, but he’s only one of many misguided guys who believe a gun is part of the “American dream.”

Another trope that rolls out of the mouths of the protectors of the amendment they like is a notion that mass shootings demonstrate that “freedom is not free,” and when people die at the hands of a lunatic it’s simply “the cost of freedom.” I find myself screaming that sounds exactly like a notorious domestic terrorist, Timothy McVie, who was put to death by the state.

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVie planted a bomb at the Oklahoma City Federal Building and killed more than 168 people, including nineteen children. When asked about the kids lost in his retribution for the Waco siege two years before, McVie uttered the immortal line, “They were just collateral damage.” Now, we have far-right members of Congress blaming the Nashville shooting on transexual procedures and illicit drugs, ignoring the real problem. The alleged shooter was being treated for a mental disorder.

There was no law in Oklahoma that prevented anyone from buying enormous amounts of the fertilizer McVie needed for his bomb, and obviously there are no red flag laws in Tennessee that would have prevented the shooter from legally buying seven guns. Audrey Hale’s parents didn’t think she should own guns, but she was a 28-year-old adult who could own as many guns as she wanted.

Tim Burchett, another braindead Congressman from Tennessee, declared, “We’re not gonna fix school shootings.” He even went so far to say that he doesn’t think the government has a role to play in stopping mass shootings. This guy, along with Andy Ogles, should be thrown out of Congress. If they cannot even believe a solution is feasible then they are part of THE PROBLEM.

Intellectually, I don’t care if you own one or four hundred guns, but if the purpose of your weaponry is casting fear over the neighborhood, you are misguided. If your reason for ownership is sport and hunting, I must ask what happened to using a rifle to bring down a deer or bird? Why would you destroy the very meat that is the object of your quest? Most police departments don’t have the firepower of their local gun clubs but, when protecting blue lives, pro-gun fans never seem to remember that cops are often outgunned by those with the automatic weaponry that Democrats want to ban.

Maybe I am naïve about the protection aspect of having weapons in the home. I get that you want to protect your family, but protect them from what? If an average gun lunatic wanted to off your whole family, all they would need is a loaded AR-15 and you would be helpless with your little 9mm handgun. It’s just a teddy bear for a nervous person, bringing comfort but no real protection.

Another aspect of our ongoing struggle with the plague of lunatic shooters is this concept of congratulating the police on how fast they responded. That’s all well and good, but in the end it’s not the quick response to the 911 call but the lack of concern about mental health challenges, red flags laws and dismal gun ownership record keeping. We truly have no idea about who owns guns and how many. Maybe we just don’t care.

A workable system would be national gun registration and a database entry required for weapon merchants and accessible by law enforcement. We need to keep an eye on those who buy “too many” guns or “too much” ammunition and messages posted on social media presenting clues to a crazy person’s intent. Yell to the ACLU all you like, but the print clearly states, “a well-regulated militia.”

Let me get real here. When dishonest politicians, TV talking heads and far-right scum on the internet claim the ravaged, dead bodies of nine-year-old children is just “collateral damage” or the “price of freedom,” I want to screech, “If you cannot do something to protect our children and make America better then SHUT UP!”

I don’t care if you are a Republican or Democrat, if you don’t do something about this crisis you will go to hell. According to Axios, “At least 57 people have died in 38 mass shootings in the US this month alone, with another 133 injured.” With seven hundred people taken from the earth each year by senseless mass shootings, we must address it. We first must admit it happened, then agree it’s a scourge and decide what we will do to prevent it. If not, we are not much more advanced than Neanderthals, who didn’t have guns.

Security at every door, metal detectors, teachers with guns, students with guns, more resource officers, more weapons, more religious resistance to a Second Amendment update will only kill more. We are at the tipping point and maybe it’s too late. It’s certainly too late for the 57 people who were taken from us this month by firepower, but it’s not too late to take back some guns, limit who can own them and convince America that inaction by those in power is careless, reckless and intentional disregard. In a court of law that’s called “negligence.”

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BANNING BOOKS NEVER WORKS

Why would “educators” ever support censorship?

Do you remember the phrase “Banned in Boston?” Why wouldn’t the city first settled by the Puritans be nervous about art, literature and language which surely could corrupt America? When the Catholics arrived there from Ireland, things were just as bad. The idea that the Pope in the Vatican could control the viewpoint of people in America, even plagued John F. Kennedy’s run for President.

The phrase “banned in Boston” was used to describe a literary work, song, motion picture or play which had been prohibited from distribution or exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts. City officials had wide authority to forbid works they claimed presented “objectionable” content or sexual language. They even outlawed the $5 bill of the 1896 “Educational” series of banknotes that featured partially nude allegorical figures. Now here’s a funny twist. Things banned in Boston were available as something special everywhere else. When it’s banned, people want to see it.

A news story hit last week saying the McMinn County School Board in Tennessee had banned books, some of them written by Pulitzer Prize winners, I immediately thought about Germany in the 1930s and Russia in the 1950s barring books telling a truth that differed from that of the people in power. Right after they banned the books in Germany, they started to round up the Jews and put them on trains.

I know some moderates will probably say I am overreacting, but my pointed concern is we are facing a conflict of reality right at our doorstep. The right-wing nutjobs keep telling us that the lefties and socialists are coming to take America away, but it’s clearly the opposite.

I was concerned when I learned that Michael Flynn, disgraced former general, convicted felon and Trump pardon beneficiary, moved into the next town over from mine. Now it seems that Michael and his equally poisoned brother are opening a storefront to mobilize locals to keep Donald Trump’s Big-Lie alive. As CNN reported, “The Army is now acknowledging that Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, the brother of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, was in the room for one of the key January 6 phone calls in which D.C. government and US Capitol Police were asking for National Guard troops to quell the unfolding violence at the US Capitol.” I’m not at all sure why the guy should have even been there but, clearly, it reeks the same odor that flowed from the Nazi party in the 1930s.

There are some real emotional topics driving the far-right propaganda. First, they have this idea that Democrats are not capitalists, which is a lie. Socialism might be their devil to defeat, but they simply don’t understand how America works. Then they have this thing about Black people gaining too much power and “taking things over.” Okay, but I have yet to meet a single person from the right who can tell me what critical race theory is, let alone explain why the basic truths of America’s past would be bad for anyone to know.

CRT isn’t taught in 98% of the universities and colleges in America, and it’s certainly not comprehensible for any kid without a college degree. That’s why it’s not taught in public or private schools. I’ll sum up CRT in one sentence. The United States of America, either knowingly or unknowingly passed laws that held African Americans back. To this very day we have a bundle of barricades weighing against Black voters, starting with the Jim Crow laws, such as IQ tests for voting, fees for voting and reducing the number of polling locations. Then there’s gerrymandering, reducing the power of Black communities. Finally, we are passing laws that prevent the teaching of certain subjects in American history. We have a problem.

When a Tennessee school board voted unanimously to ban the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Maus, which details the horrors of the Holocaust, the white school board majorities included those of the Jewish faith in this whitewashing of history. In their quest to remove intellectual pain and concern from teaching, they are going to guarantee we raise dumb kids who will believe there is no racism, cops are always right and the federal government is evil. Since we already have a fundamental problem, just imagine how this could expand in the next couple of decades. We teach the Civil War in our schools so please explain why we should not teach about what Germany did to the Jews in World War II?

Probably more than six million people of the Jewish faith were murdered by the Nazis and there were more than six hundred thousand Americans killed during the Civil War. Both of those death tolls are greater than those of the Covid crisis. If you want kids to understand the value of life you must show them, sometimes graphically, how fast life can be taken away. If you want our next generation to think we’ve cured all the ills, then the question of how we did so will be raised. Someday our kids will rip off the wallpaper to see what you’ve been hiding from them on the surface beneath.

Sure, take Maus off the shelves, but now there will be lots of people who get the book and share it with their kids. If something is banned in Tennessee, many smart kids will find the work, read it and get smarter. You just gave the subject matter of the Holocaust a special place with those goth-oriented intellectuals living right under your nose. Are you going to ban smart kids from your schools, or better, take those kids you want to protect and put them in private schools where they will learn that the rich run the world?

BTW, the big headline in Slate.com proves it: Sales of Maus Soar After a Tennessee School Board Banned the Book.

Our society is doomed if we are going to stop teaching certain subjects just because, well, they’re not important, anymore. Imagine a time when totally unqualified people who buy into the Pollyanna propaganda step up to teach children Big Lies. Boy, that would be terrible.

Not everyone in Tennessee is stupid. Al Gore hails from that state and he received a great education on climate change. So, should we strike that subject from our curricula and not give a damn about what we leave for our kids?

Banning books is bad but it’s even worse when people get away with that shit. Someone must stop them.

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WORKING THEIR WAY TO THE TOP

Oath Keepers leader arrested: seditious conspiracy

We now have abundant evidence the Department of Justice has decided that the January 6^th attack on the capital was more than “just a protest.” Someone could get twenty years in prison for planning, ordering and being involved in a grand conspiracy to overthrow the US government.

According to CNN, “The Justice Department has charged eleven defendants with seditious conspiracy related to the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, including the leader of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes. The new indictment, handed down by a grand jury on Wednesday (1-12-22) and made public Thursday, alleges that Rhodes and his co-conspirators engaged in a conspiracy to ‘oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force, by preventing, hindering, or delaying by force execution of laws governing the transfer of power.’”

So, let the games begin. In plain terms, sedition occurs when one conducts or incites people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch. The definition is more detailed in US law, “If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”

If we were living in a different era and time, the punishment could have been death by firing squad. However, the arrest of Mr. Rhodes and the other ten indictments should serve as a warning shot across the bow of the USS Big Lie. While former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Minority Leader Keven McCarthy are playing footsy with the House Committee investigating the January 6^th Insurrection, they might want to rethink their witness tampering and non-cooperation. If there was communication between them and any of these conspirators, they, too, could be charged with a major crime: seditious conspiracy. If they are waiting for the slow courts to help them avoid telling the truth to Congress, things will start moving much faster if they are arrested for sedition.

Rhodes was not in Washington on the day of the Capitol attack, he was in his command post in Virginia, but his communications, now in the hands of prosecutors, will speak to his involvement, influence and criminal acts. Most likely, Rhodes, much like his hero Donald Trump, has a great desire to attain martyr status and will not cop a plea. He’s proud that he was able to do what he did on January 6^th and there will be no mea culpa. Trump might want to check and see if he, or any of his underlings made contact with Rhodes from December 11, 2020 to January 7^th, 2021. This investigation is far from over and all of them could be scooped up.

I hope everyone involved in this travesty gets arrested and given the well-earned punishment they deserve. No one on the side of democracy will be satisfied until we learn how the confluence of Trump’s rhetoric, actions, inactions, and lack of responsible leadership let to this mess.

I would like to see the trial of Stewart Rhodes take place now. And if you were wondering what they did, here’s a quick recap:

Manner and Means

The conspirators carried out the conspiracy through the following manner and means, among others:

Preparing for and coordinating travel to Washington, D.C., to use force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power;

Organizing into teams that were prepared and willing to use force and to transport firearms and ammunition into Washington, D.C.;

Recruiting members and affiliates to participate in the conspiracy;

Organizing trainings to teach and learn paramilitary combat tactics;

Bringing and contributing firearms, ammunition, and related equipment to the QRF* staging areas outside Washington, D.C.;

Bringing and contributing paramilitary gear, weapons, and supplies-including knives, batons, camouflaged combat uniforms, tactical vests with plates, helmets, eye protection, and radio equipment-to the Capitol grounds;

Breaching and attempting to take control of the Capitol grounds and building on January 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent, hinder, and delay the Certification of the Electoral College vote;

Using force against law enforcement officers while inside the Capitol on January 6, 2021;

Continuing to plot, after January 6, 2021, to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power; and

Using websites, social media, text messaging, and encrypted messaging applications to communicate with co-conspirators and others.

*Quick Response Force

I didn’t make this up and judging by all the gear they had brought to the insurrection, and planned to use during the after math, this was surely a pre-meditated, planned and perpatrated crime.

Should you be up for some pleasure reading, here is a copy of the entire 48-page indictment:

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Anyone who reads the document and still defends these disillusioned, low-life traitors should be spanked so hard they cry out for their mommies.

Among many other things, January 6^th is a total embarrassment. Should it be found that our former President was responsible for inciting events that tragic day, he must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.

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THE CULTURE OF CONTEMPT

Repetition Makes Lies Sound True

I am sick and tired of people on TV, in print and in videos telling me how divided we are. The line is, “After all is said and done…” oh, who are you trying to kid? It’s never all said and the B.S. is never done. So, let’s talk about our culture of contempt and see if you agree of disagree that we can or cannot agree.

I’ll start with common values. What are those? Did we never have them or are we so lame and stupid we cannot comprehend what they could possibly be? Okay, that is a contemptible statement, but even if true it’s still a way to show contempt. Not in the contempt of court sense, but more the everyday variety of contempt for a person. The definition of contempt is clear: the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn. Why is scorn such a major part of life these days?

Consider this phrase from a famous document, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We know that human life can be detected by a pulse. Liberty is pretty much whatever floats our boat. Conflict happens when my neighbor is happy firing guns in his backyard at 11PM while this guy next door wants to get a good night’s sleep. Sleep isn’t the only thing on my happiness list.

I don’t like certain people who become powerful, run for political office, get elected and then tell me what should make me happy. Should I disagree, then I am accused of being a bad person. When I try to find shared values to keep open communication between us, I am told there are none. Okay, that’s a hell of a place to start.

I hear people say they would like things to go back to the way they were, but when exactly was that, the 1950s, 60s, 70s, or pre-Civil War? If you’re going to say “things used to be so much better when….” please fill in the blank. A democracy never stays the same, and it certainly cannot go back to the days where the government allowed factories to dump poisons in our rivers, endorsed cigarette smoking and persecuted Gays and African Americans, because, well, that’s the way we did things back then.

While the far-right lunatics are acting like spoiled children at board of education meetings across the country, not one of them can explain exactly what Critical Race Theory is. It’s like the child needing to have the light on because of the boogieman in the closet. When you cannot convince the child nothing’s there, you compromise and leave the light on. You might shut up the racist parent by promising not to teach C.R.T., but then you’re perpetrating the myth that our founder fathers looked the other way about slavery because they were “good guys.”

A major story in the Washington Post today lays out the truth. “More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people.” It’s too late to ignore the truth and for those who shudder when they hear the term “white privilege” or “Black Lives Matter,” I have one question. Have we gone too far? As much as you might hate the term “defund the police,” it inspired many communities to investigate their expenditures. In the small town of Fort Wayne, Indiana, a taxpayer might ask, “Do we really need a tank?” but that is only one question in a sea of disagreements in America. Black people get shot by cops more than white people, but research clearly shows that Black communities say they need cops.

Media spends much time drumming on about January 6^th and Donald Trump. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but it’s keeping us from moving on. Had Congress convicted him during one of his two impeachment hearings, then voted he may never hold office again, the Republican party may have been motivated to clean up its act. However, that would not have changed anything regarding progress. Between two self-serving Democrats and the entire Republican party there is no desire to talk about common values. This is where we must start.

I would think clean water is a common value. I live in Florida and I won’t drink the water here. I recycle tons of plastic bottles every month because the water from the county is unsafe for drinking and cooking. Why aren’t those screaming lunatics at the school board meetings attending the public hearings on water? When fracking was being done in rural areas one could light tap water on fire. In cities like Flint, Michigan, children acquired mental health issues from drinking water the government said was safe. The governor of Michigan got away with harming kids in his state.

The culture of contempt is everywhere. A public servant who doesn’t testify before Congress, especially one who took a large paycheck bankrolled by us taxpayers, should be thrown in jail. It shouldn’t be done through a long court case where they get to spread lies to the public and not undergo an oath to force truthfulness. I have no respect when the presidential pardon is used for political purposes and I have no idea how to change it. My contempt for those who shun the law, get off scot-free and then make things worse is palpable.

When the lopsided media and social media constantly repeat that something is confusing, or that somehow January 6^th wasn’t an insurrection, in many small minds that blather becomes the truth. And when misguided souls act on the that false news and repeated lies, what should we do? We can’t arrest everyone to set minds straight, but when our system arrests more than 700 people it’s working backwards. What we should be doing is finding the people who have promoted this contempt and make them admit publicly, over and over, that they were wrong. Make them become the focus point for the rath of their own mob. Boy, that would make great TV!

Ours is not a culture of contempt, it’s just a few assholes with too much power who lie and cheat and steal. Unlike Arab lands where one loses a hand when they steal, or a tongue when they lie, we are a civil land but slow to justice. I can see why so many people are lost in their own misconceptions. We need to bring forth change, and a good starting point would be teaching our kids a truthful history and not sugar coat those who have committed sins. God was always fast on the draw when it came to retribution, well, at least in the Old Testament. As for those of you who want to go back to the old days, be careful about what you ask. Those weren’t all good times.

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CONGRESS IS THE REAL PROBLEM

Reading is mandatory — logic, not so much

If you thought that just because an individual is elected to Congress, they have a certain level of intelligence, you would be incredibly incorrect. It has become vividly clear that anyone who has enough money, an intriguing rap, the gift of gab or a reasonably lackluster competitor can get elected.

I’ve never looked at popularity polls to determine how well a given Congressperson was doing, but there does come a time when it becomes necessary to judge the work of an elected representative. Unfortunately, we have to wait way too long to do something about electing the wrong person. Thus, the name of this very blog. Yes, we can vote every two years on Representatives and every six years on Senators, but that’s not fast enough in today’s sped-up reality and news cycles. Six years is a wait much too long for undoing a bad Senator.

Recent polling is not good for Congress. Last month, a Gallup Organization survey found that only 28% of those researched approved of the job the House and Senate are doing, while 69% disapproved. And I might add that 3% had no opinion. Who are those people?

2001 set the highest mark in the ongoing Gallup polls. That’s when Congress was voting to go to war in Afghanistan and invade Iraq due to trumped up lies about weapons of mass destruction. This underscores the reality that even when we like them, Congress is often doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

And that brings us to the politics of it all. No member of Congress wants the United States government to default. Any member who does should be arrested and charged with treason, but there’s a word that has lost its power and seriousness. When the former president was told that that some of his allies and administration officials had broken the law, he simply pardoned them. There are members of Congress who think investigating the insurrection of January 6^th is bad for America. Truth is, Republicans fear becoming tarnished should the public come to fully understand their involvement in Donald Trump’s effort to “Stop the Steal.” Really?

Congressional grifters use information gained from subcommittees and intelligence briefings to shape their investments and give themselves an advantage in preserving and increasing their wealth. Sure, they add rules and polices to help their tribe along the way, but they have never passed legislation that makes it hard or impossible for them to profit from their positions in Congress. If they were serious about making America better, they would pass potent regulations about financial disclosure, term-limits and the amount of political campaign contributions they can personally use. The true reason Donald Trump hasn’t declared his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election is to avoid disclosure of the cash in his campaign coffers. He’s a grifter.

When a member of a party, especially a leader or whip, tells his or her caucus how they are going to vote on a bill before it’s even debated, they are no better than the political bosses of the 1940s and 1950s who manipulated their members and thwarted any discussion on the merits of proposed legislation. Have we really grown from there?

Making law requires intense labor and demands tons of reading. When I was working with a local Little League group in Atlanta years ago, I volunteered to revise and publish the rules of the games. What a mistake! First of all, there were different rules for each level of play and all the rules had to be in-sync with the national rules from headquarters in Williamsport, PA. That project ended up as four packets of fifty pages each.

Well, imagine having to go through 1,500 pages over a weekend. That would be like reading three 500-page books. It’s most likely that the average Congressperson never reads an entire budget bill. They direct their staffs to find the things they ardently object too, or the things that are really good for them. The underlying words and meanings no longer have objective analysis until laws are passed. And this playing with the economic status of the country you claim to love just to shit on the other guy’s party, how many US citizens approve of that?

The demonizing of Joe Biden will happen no matter what he does or says. The media seems to like kickin’ old Joe to the ground right now. Sure, his numbers are down but anyone who says the economy is bad is ignoring three major realities.

First, under Donald Trump, Congress passed a major tax cut by restricting the ways corporations house their money. The corporate tax rate was changed from a tiered tax rate ranging from 15% to as high as 39%, depending on taxable income, to a flat 21%. At the same time, some related business deductions and credits were reduced or eliminated. Yes, stocks soared, and corporations bought back stock, but the disparity between the wealthy 1% and the rest of us grew. Yay, score another one for the rich people!

Second, Trump blew the federal response to Covid-19. It was his “Katrina,” only on a national level. His advisers can take some of the blame, but the more he told us it was nothing, more and more of us realized it was truly something, and that something was really, really bad. You can’t go to a restaurant that is closed, and a restaurant without enough employees provides an unpleasant experience. Just like Obama inherited the financial crisis, Biden was handed the challenge of righting a post-coronavirus tanked economy. Sadly, far-right saboteurs think fighting against the vaccine is good for their political gains even while their opinions are killing us.

Third, forced errors like the Afghanistan evacuation, the rising conflict at the southern border and our selling submarines to Australia are front and center. We need to remember that Trump pulled out of northern Syria and 130,000 Kurds, our allies in the fight against ISIS, were forced to flee their homes and hundreds of them were killed. Trump wanted to invite the Talban to negotiate a peace treaty, but he excluded the legit government of Afghanistan. Why were we so surprised when the Taliban took over?

While all the pontificators and pundits are overanalyzing the “Biden Doctrine,” it might make more sense to keep the government open and pay our bills. Why are we tolerating Republican actions to make America weak? It’s just a budget bill, and not any different than Trump shutting down the government because he thought it would hurt the Democrats. He even called it the “Schumer Shutdown.” Let’s see, how did that work out for him? Oh yeah, he’s not the president anymore.

Let’s focus on just one fact. Joe Biden’s approval rating is 43% while that of Congress is 28%. Who is the fairest in the land?

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GUARANTEES & WARRANTEES

Spoiled Americans with Unreasonable Demands

I am sick and tired of people complaining. I live in a town where the median age is 69.1 years of age, and old people love to nit-pick, but I’m turned off by it. Maybe they have lived so long they believe all things should be working perfectly. Well, they just aren’t. I find myself repeatedly asking these days, “Why is that? For example, when I google Pandora 50% of the time I get links for the jewelry company and the other half I get those of the music service. They should know I use the music service and present only those.

People quibble over the least important aspects of life. Let’s take Mike Huckabee. He’s 65-years-old, so he’s bound to say something stupid half the time he opens his mouth. But his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is only 38 and she’s running for Governor of Arkansas. You’d think she would know how to avoid saying stupid things, but no! Here’s a little back story for you. Arkansas currently is one of two states with the largest increase in Covid-19 cases. So, young Sarah Huck-a-wanna-bee rode to the rescue and wrote an op-ed piece to convince more Arkansans to get vaxxed.

If you want to read her diatribe you will find it here, but let me throw out some tidbits. Ms. Huckabee opens with a rather astonishing and unbelievable remark, “Like many of you, I have had a lot of misinformation thrown at me by politicians and the media during the pandemic.” Really Sarah, what exactly did they say that was WRONG and why did you wait so long to get the vaccine you gratuitously labeled the “Trump vaccine?” In your overbearing idol worshipping you mentioned his name 17 times in your article. Yes, okay, we can thank the former president for giving big Pharma the money needed to start the gears turning, but he did nothing to promote confidence in the vaccine. 95% of everything he said when the vaccines were rolling out had to do with the big lie about the election. So, what good was he?

My frontal lobes burst into fire when reading, “I was also reassured after President Trump and his family were vaccinated. If getting vaccinated was safe enough for them, I felt it was safe enough for me.” Yes, young Sarah, but why wasn’t Trump promoting the vaccine and its effectiveness? If he’s responsible for this great thing, why does he never mention it? His only recent claim was people stopped getting the shot because they don’t trust the Biden Administration. Really? What does that have to do with the TRUMP CURE?

Ms. Sanders proclaims that events and church should not have been shut down, and there shouldn’t have been mask mandates. Sarah adds, “As the number of covid cases and hospitalizations once again rise exponentially in Arkansas, information is emerging that I hope people will consider. Recent data demonstrates that those Arkansans who are not vaccinated are at significantly greater risk for serious illness from covid. In fact, 98 percent of covid patients currently hospitalized in our state and 99 percent of recent covid deaths were people who were not vaccinated. It’s clear that the Trump vaccine works and is saving lives.” Sarah, the immunizations are neither the “Trump vaccine” nor the “Biden vaccine,” they are AMERICA’S vaccines. We paid for them. They are being made by Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, not by any administration or president. Get off your hyper-partisan high horse and start making sense.

It’s a ridiculous approach to ask people to do what is medically right for America by wrapping it in a Trump flag with the expectation that vast numbers of people will now stick a needle in their arms. All Sarah Huckabee Sanders has done is confuse people, which seems to be easy to do in Arkansas. I mean, really, they elected both Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee as governors and now they will probably put her in that chair. OMG. I want my razor back — to kill myself.

There are no guarantees in life and during a global pandemic words truly matter. More than once, Baby Huckabee lied to us from the press room in the White House. As they asked Michael Cohen, “Why would we believe you now?” Does anything Sarah Huckabee Sanders says carry meaning? She does point out that, “Many of our hospitals are now dangerously close to maximum capacity due to rising covid cases.” Yeah, but is that true? Sorry, I am being ironic there. I hear those hospital statistics from reliable sources, you know, the media you go out of the way to malign in your piece. You speak with forked tongue.

The bottom line? Sanders is merely using vaccination to pitch her run for Governor. She’s not a worthy messenger. If it’s a Trump vaccine, why isn’t his picture on every vial? You know, like Colonel Sanders’ face is on every bucket. Sarah, you could’ve gotten the shot seven months ago. Where were you then? Perhaps too busy trying to overturn an election? I’m glad you got the shot but hope you don’t get the votes.

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PANDEMIC BY-PRODUCT

Capitalism Goes Back to School

You have probably heard a theory about why employment figures haven’t roared back to pre- pandemic levels in America. The grand presumption from Republicans is people are not returning to their previous jobs because they are making so much money from the government’s pandemic relief checks.

As you might suspect, I have thoughts on this. First, let’s examine unemployment history. In October of 2009, right after the financial collapse, unemployment was at 10%. After a great recovery under two presidents, Obama and Trump, that number fell to 3.5%, one of the lowest unemployment numbers of this century. Then, Covid-19 came to the world and unemployment jumped to 14.8%. The federal government handed out assistance checks to people and some companies enrolled in the Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) to obtain government loans to pay employees and keep their businesses afloat.

In March 2021, US unemployment dropped to 6%, but instead of cheering on this great improvement the GOP complained that recovery was taking too long. They insisted that all pandemic relief payments needed to end so that poverty and need would drive people back to work. Okay, that description is tilted and subjective but let’s stop and think about this. The Republicans may be wrong.

I found this interesting viewpoint in The Hill, “Is questioning whether unemployed Americans respond to the availability of unemployment compensation just another way of insulting their intelligence? If one can make more money being paid to stay at home, a rational person should do that, mindful of any effect on future employability, of course. Do we really need proof of the obvious? To be sure, it is a bit cynical to frame this as ‘being paid to stay home,’ but that’s what it is — or more neutrally, compensation for being unemployed, which one will lose by taking a job.”

The restaurant industry is facing a huge workforce challenge. I tried to go into a Starbucks and another breakfast establishment recently only to see signs that they were closed because not enough workers showed up to work that day.

Here’s a headline from the Restaurant Manifesto blogsite: The Restaurant Labor Shortage Was Inevitable – Stimulus payments aren’t the only thing keeping workers on the sidelines. They say, “Some hospitality professionals have abandoned the industry altogether. Months of waiting to return to their old jobs has left many workers worried about being left alone at the altar. Others chose to relocate to places where jobs are plentiful—cities like Miami where disruption to restaurant businesses has been ameliorated by more permissive public health policies.” I would add that some workers didn’t want to return to a job placing them in direct contact with mask-less customers.

The article continued, “Some individuals who’ve lost their jobs also lost their health insurance coverage during the worst public health crisis in a generation. When the industry shut down, many owners immediately laid off their entire staff, no questions asked, even their most loyal workers.”

One of my suppositions is that laborers who were isolated and quarantined had time to question what is important to them. They started to see the difference between a low-paying job with ill-tempered supervisors as compared to fulfilling work that paid them properly under managers who treated them respectfully and fairly. It’s not hard to find someone who has worked in the food business with many stories of rotten experiences, including tales of sexual harassment, tips being stolen by co-workers and long shifts with meager compensation. Maybe that’s why they aren’t going back to their former jobs.

The good news is capitalism never sleeps, it continuously finds ways to survive and grow. What has the pandemic mentality forced companies to do? Well, motivation is at the top of the list. Companies are offering bonuses just to get people in the door to fill out an application. From free food to fifty bucks, the corporate lords have found religion – MONEY.

While trying to get more workers, they are also reviewing their hourly wages and benefits such as healthcare. They are now forced to compete with not only direct competitors but also other industries. Our media outlets love to point out how “bad” it is to work for Amazon, but their warehouse jobs are plentiful and they pay well. You can work in a restaurant and hope your daily tips are substantial or you can punch-in every morning to feed the monster Jeff Bezos created and making good moola.

It’s appalling to me that the Republicans assume everyone getting financial assistance is scamming the federal government. Instead of investigating and understanding real people problems, they just cut off the money, stop the abortions and make it harder to vote. Thanks for nothing. Maybe it’s time you do some research and listen to objective logic.

Congress has become a hydra, with each of its two heads canceling the other. The Democrats want to help but fail to unite around one solid plan. The Republicans lay in wait until an idea floats to the front, then they attack it regardless of its substance. I cannot believe that grown men in Congress are still afraid of Donald Trump. It’s clear that Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are nothing but Trump puppets, lacking backbone and vision.

If we take 6% as a starting place for recovery, we could be much more optimistic and perhaps see that slower reduction of unemployment might be driven by businesses reluctant to overextend themselves until the coast is clear. I suggest Republicans open the book about the disaster of a global pandemic to learn the number of permanently closed businesses. If Lindsey Graham knew the real number of those places that closed forever, and counted all the workers they used to employ, he might be a bit less vindictive toward people who are getting checks. If you are curious, South Carolina currently has an unemployment rate of 5.1%, and in government employees they are at negative-3.5%. Time to give out some government jobs, Lindsey.

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EASIER OR JUST BLOWING SMOKE?

New Voter Law Is A Trojan Horse, What’s Inside?

Back in my high school days, education officials made a rule that disallowed wearing jeans to class. There was no reason given for this draconian rule. Had we not been in the suburbs but in a rural area this law wouldn’t have worked. The administrators believed that wearing tight jeans would somehow make us act up and disturb the educational process. Really?

Sometimes we make a law in search of a crime and it takes the outcries of people to reverse it. I remember when the Atlanta Braves opened a new stadium and a woman was stopped because she was carrying a small cooler containing formula for her newborn baby. Less than 48 hours after this story broke the team ownership pulled the rule. Later, they loosened the restriction even more by allowing patrons to bring in food.

Voting has always been a challenge in America. The first mistake was not making the federal election day a holiday so that no one would have to miss work to vote or miss voting to work. Not one of the newly minted voting laws fixes that problem, which is #1 on my list.

Then there’s this. Early voting, whether it’s motivated by a pandemic or not, is a good idea. Any rule stating that tabulation of early votes cannot take place before election day, or worse, can’t begin until after the polls have closed, is foolish. How does that help the voting process?

Because we have many states that allow mail-in voting, which is a good thing, we must make sure the United States Postal System works properly in all fifty states and territories. The idea of no-excuse absentee voting is not a rare bird, nor should it be. You can see a list of all the states that support the concept here. And in case you didn’t know, Washington, Utah, Oregon, Hawaii and Colorado use mail-in voting exclusively, so what’s the fuss all about?

Lurking inside these new laws are grievance politics, partisan wounds and leftover racism that isn’t comprehended by many, including those people forging the new laws. The concept of disallowing a person to bring food or water to a voter waiting in line is a masked attempt at voter intimidation. Here’s the language, “No person shall … give any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector…within 150 feet of the outer edge of any building within which a polling place is established,” but there’s a trick in that stick. First, “the outer edge of any building” is inappropriate, given a polling location may have voters form a line around the perimeter or the building and “150 feet” might include everyone in the voting line. Also, are states actually prepared to arrest anyone who brings food or water to those of color waiting in line? That would be very intimidating, especially since cops have guns.

What’s really upsetting is the lawmakers know there will be long lines and they are attacking their citizens in the voting lines rather than working to make the lines shorter, the wait times less and the voting process faster. Anyone who views food and water you are giving your granny as temptation for voting a certain way is irrational, cynical and stupid. If anything, one waiting in a ridiculously long line to vote might be tempted to cast their ballot against the foolish people in power.

Here’s something from today’s New York Times, “Amazon, BlackRock, Google, Warren Buffett and hundreds of other companies and executives signed on to a new statement released on Wednesday opposing ’any discriminatory legislation‘ that would make it harder for people to vote. It was the biggest show of solidarity so far by the business community as companies around the country try to navigate the partisan uproar over Republican efforts to enact new election rules in almost every state. Senior Republicans, including former President Donald J. Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, have called for companies to stay out of politics.” The sad reality is these politicians take money from large companies for campaign expenses, but when those same companies point out a problem the grifters bark at them to back off. If they feel so strongly, why not pass a law that prohibits corporate funding of any candidate, party or Super Pac? Fat chance.

We live in a fast, souped-up world where we demand speed, efficiency and accuracy, not partisan bickering and built-in voter suppression. I am sure Brian Kemp, the Governor of Georgia, believes the new voting law he signed makes things better for his state. Why then are so many people telling him the law is bad?

Here is a major flaw that has nothing to do with food and water, it’s about power and control. One of Georgia’s new provisions is the state’s right to take over county elections offices the legislature believes have “persistent problems.” It wouldn’t be a surprise should they snatch control in Fulton County, which has 800,000 mostly African American voters. The Democrats won big there, and the Republicans believe there was corruption in that county, yet after three vote recounts no fraud was found. These idiots prefer Donald Trump’s lies over their own Secretary of State, Election Board members and, oh yeah, their voters. The law effectively changes the sixty plus year tradition of the Secretary of State being the sole keeper of Election integrity and places that responsibility in the hands of a party loyalist, perhaps appointed to overturn the will of voters. WHY IS THIS NOT A BAD IDEA?

We can debate the requirement of having a picture ID to vote, We do it in Florida and it’s not a problem. Florida lets you register to vote when you get your driver’s license. A voting ID card is not a bad idea. These are frightening times.

Were you to ask representatives in the Georgia State assembly if they were racist, they would honestly say no. But should you ask any of them what would give their party a better chance of winning in the next election, he or she would tell you that fewer votes from Black people would do the trick. So, you see, it’s not racism at all, it’s merely normal southern politics. By the way, they aren’t wrong. The more African American voters the more votes will be cast for Democrats. I guess people of color don’t like the policies of those Republicans who are pushing the trojan horse into the town center. Wouldn’t it smarter to figure out what the voters really want and just give it to them? Why try to take a bottle of water out of their hands? Remember, Coca-Cola makes DASANI and they certainly would be happy to provide the state with enough water for every voter, at a reasonable price or course. After all, they are capitalists.

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Gold, God, Guns & Goofballs: If you only read one chapter of this book, try “Take a Knee for America” and think about our never-ending conflicts between minorities and the police. I’m not asking you to take a stand but having a deep and honest conversation about why some people think the way they do would be productive. This is a book for the moment which seeks to start a conversation about peace. And if you are worried about social media, you really should check out the chapter called “Social Media Menace.”

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IF THE GLOVE DOESN’T FIT…

Our Latest Reality TV Trial

We all remember that poignant phrase from the O.J. Simpson murder trial when his lawyer Johnny Cochran said, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” It could very well be that single line produced enough reasonable doubt to get O.J. off the hook.

The opening of the Britannica Encyclopedia article on the O.J. Simpson trial says, “…criminal trial of former college and professional gridiron football star O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted in 1995 of the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. It was one of the most notorious criminal trials in American history.” It was the TV coverage that made it so intense.

The televised Simpson trial propelled one cable channel to the top of the ratings pile. It drew a massive audience to Court TV, which Time Warner renamed truTV in 2008. For years, the channel has been struggling with rebranding, trying to dissolve their courtroom image by adding more comedy and sports programming. That aside, the appeal of live courtroom coverage has never faded, especially when a compelling case is before the cameras.

According to History.com, “In 2008, the world was captivated by the bizarre behavior displayed by Casey Anthony. The then-22-year-old single mother from Orlando, Florida, was revealed to have spun a web of lies to cover up for the disappearance of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, that summer; the Facebook photos of her partying around town and a dearth of emotion in interviews fueling the charges of first-degree murder before Caylee’s body was discovered later that year.” Anthony’s attorney Jose Baez masterfully planted enough doubt in the jurors’ minds during the trial to get an acquittal. It was said there were too many unknowns, and the Facebook pictures of Ms. Anthony’s partying after her daughter was missing proved only that she was a bad mother and not a murderer. Really?

We are now in the middle of another court case being broadcast on cable TV and some Americans are mesmerized while others are repulsed. I try to avoid this TV coverage for two reasons. First, the regurgitation of the facts in the case makes me sad, angry and depressed. To repeatedly see the video of a police officer murdering a man by kneeling on his neck makes me sick. George Floyd was held down by three men face first on a Minneapolis street, and there is no US law stating that attempting to pass a counterfeit 20-dollar bill should net the perpetrator immediate execution with no trial or due process.

My second reason for avoiding the trial coverage is anger at the defense attorneys accusatory tactics and disparagements of the dead man. I know they have a job to do but that doesn’t mean I have to watch them at work. The defense has presented a theory that George Floyd died of an overdose or a heart attack induced by drugs and that contact by Officer Derek Chauvin was incidental and had little to do with the man’s demise. C’mon, we have ample proof of what happened.

Videos from bystanders, security cameras and cops alike show what happened leading up to the event, what happened outside the Cup Foods store and George Floyd’s death which took place in the street. In many ways all of us who have seen the videos are witnesses to the crime.

The release of video footage shot by a young man on the scene triggered nothing less than a worldwide response to oppression, police and government abuses and general condemnation of such incredibly brutal law enforcement. This trial has moved beyond Mr. Floyd’s murder. It’s now asking if cops have the right to kill another for any offense.

There are strong feelings in support of policework, particularly among those who have one or more family members working in law enforcement. In 2019, there were 697,195 full-time law enforcement officers employed in the United States. Various security forces and hired protection agencies are part of the more than one million people employed in United States police business, and that number does not include jail and prison corrections officers.

We should always respect the police and hope that when we need them, they arrive in time to serve and protect us. Their jobs carry a huge risk to limb and life. As we have been hearing, a cop is sometimes judged not by his body of work but rather by a single mistake they may have made along the way. That’s a tough burden to carry in any career. Many police officers and detectives retire each year without any blemish or controversial case, some even get medals for their outstanding body of work but, as the common statement goes, there are a few bad apples.

If convicted, Derek Chauvin will look back on the videos of him kneeing on George Floyd’s neck, cutting off the blood and oxygen supplies to the man’s brain until he died. I wonder how many jurors will remember the look of indifference on Chauvin’s face as the testimony unfolded. What a blasé appearance, hand in the pocket and the sunglasses perched on his head as if he was hanging out with the guys at a game. It appeared to be just another day at the office for Mr. Chauvin.

I am most disturbed by the testimony of the woman who approached Officer Chauvin and identified herself as an EMT worker from Minneapolis. She asked the police to check Mr. Floyd’s pulse. A simple request really, but she was told to get back on the sidewalk. In a sense, Derek Chauvin said, “Mind your own fucking business.” She did what she was told and returned to the sidewalk, but she didn’t leave the scene. Her public duty to witness what happened was important to her. Speaking up in a court of law was paramount to her. She had no indifference, only concern.

I don’t know if a buzz word or memorable phrase will come out of this trial, but we already have those three piercing words, “I can’t breathe.” George Floyd wasn’t the first to gasp those words, but hopefully he will be the last. We give the police guns and they use them. We give the police tasers and they use them. When did we give police the right to smother, choke and strangle another human being?

Even if you don’t kill the person, if you strangle or attempt to suffocate another human, you can be charged and if convicted, punished with up 5 years imprisonment. So, any cop who uses a stranglehold on another, cuts off air to their windpipe or blood to their brain is guilty of a crime. If they kill the person, they are guilty of murder. If only we had video proof — oh wait, we do.

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PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES

Should We Take Matt Gaetz Seriously?

I have always disliked two kinds of people. One is a person who relishes kicking a guy when he’s down and the other is a person who has inherited his affluence and power and misuses them to abuse people. I am not describing Donald John Trump, although he is guilty as charged, I am talking about the Representative of the Congressional 1^st District of Florida, Matt Gaetz.

A while ago I suggested here that we should use the popular “cancel culture” to cast off young Matthew, but ultimately decided that was a foolish idea because it would probably give us another like Marjorie Taylor Greene. But let’s focus on Rep. Gaetz and who he is.

Gaetz was born in Hollywood, Florida in 1982, making him 38 years of age. He grew up in a house that was used in the film The Truman Show. As of 2018, his parents still lived in that Seaside, Florida house. A sign on their white picket fence reads, “the Truman house” but it has nothing to do with Harry Truman.

How did Matt get so powerful so fast? Well, that’s where his father Don Gaetz comes in. See, old Don was immensely powerful in Florida politics. He served in the Florida Legislature from 2006 to 2014 and during some of those years he was the President of the Florida Senate. Don sent his son to Florida State for a B.S. degree, then Matthew attended the College of William and Mary where he got a law degree.

Young Gaetz worked at a law firm in Fort Walton Beach, Florida which is near his home in Pensacola. His old man groomed him for the family business and Matt started his political career at age 25. He represented the 4^th district in the Florida House of Representatives from 2010 to 2016, when he was elected to the US House of Representatives, where he’s been reelected two times since.

Gaetz became a supreme Donald Trump fanboy. Documentaries have shown him calling Trump at all times of the night and day to give him pep talks, advice and major ego stroking. I’ve always viewed the Trump/Matt relationship as a father/son situation. Remember, Matt’s father’s name is Donald and, while I am not a shrink, I think Matthew’s desire and efforts to please the Donald would be a great topic for a psyche class term paper.

When US Representative Liz Cheney voted to impeach Donald Trump, Matt felt he needed to protect his father, ah, I mean, his “president.” Gaetz traveled to Wyoming to be part of an Anti-Liz Cheney event and a small part of my brain whispered, “He better be careful.” You see, Liz Cheney’s father is the Dick, as in Dick Cheney, who has a soft spot for his daughter and will protect her in all ways at every turn. Now here’s a quick backstory. Not only was Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s VP, but for years he ran the CIA and then worked for Haliburton. He’s the best example of a “deep state” you could find in America.

In a statement sent to Insider, Matt Gaetz’ office said that, “Over the past several weeks, my family and I have been victims of an organized criminal extortion involving a former DOJ official seeking $25 million while threatening to smear my name. We have been cooperating with federal authorities in this matter and my father has even been wearing a wire at the FBI’s direction to catch these criminals.” Okay, so Mr. Gaetz confirmed the investigation but deflected to a claim of extortion. First, if he’s involved in some kind of sting operation why the hell is he talking about it?

Next, he’s going on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to explain things? I’ll get to Tucker, but let’s back up a bit. Matt Gaetz is no stranger to controversy. Remember that he wore a gasmask in Congress to poke fun at Covid-19. There have also been some ethics inquiries into him.

In June 2020, following an argument with then-Representative Cedric Richmond, Gaetz said he had been living with a 19-year-old immigrant from Cuba, Nestor Galbán, since Galbán was 12 and he considers Nestor to be his son. Later he clarified that Galbán is the brother of an ex-girlfriend and that Galbán spends time with his sister, with Gaetz’ family and with Gaetz. In 2017, Gaetz called Galbán “my helper.”

In December 2020, Gaetz announced his engagement to his girlfriend Ginger Luckey. She’s the sister of major Republican donor Palmer Luckey, who was the founder of Oculus, a virtual reality company. So, punk, are you feeling lucky? December 2020 is also when the probe by the William Barr Department of Justice was opened into Gaetz, who allegedly had sex with a minor and engaged in sex-trafficking. He admitted on Tucker Carlson’s show that he flew a young lady to Washington.

Here’s another tidbit from USA Today. In late 2017 Gaetz was the only member of the House to vote against a bill allowing the Department of Transportation to assist in combating human trafficking. Gaetz argued that he was against expansion of the federal government, which seems like a lame reason to me.

Now here’s where today’s news gets weird. According to the Washington Post, Gaetz said to Tucker Carlson, “You and I went to dinner about two years ago, your wife was there, and I brought a friend of mine, you’ll remember her.” Matthew connected that friend to an ongoing Justice Department investigation saying that the woman had been “threatened by the FBI” and told “she could face trouble” if she didn’t confess to authorities that Gaetz was involved in a “pay-for-play scheme.” I don’t know how many FBI questioning sessions Mr. Gaetz is aware of, but generally the agents give you a standard warning that if you lie to an FBI agent it can be used against you in court.

Then, live on-air, Carlson took on an appearance of stunned astonishment and said, “I don’t remember the woman you are speaking of or the context at all, honestly.” At the end of Matt’s appearance Carlson seemed to distance himself from the Gaetz tale by saying, “That was one of the weirdest interviews I’ve ever conducted.” Okay, Carlson didn’t want to be used, how rare for him.

Something is going on with Gaetz. He’s been alienated by many of the old guard Republicans in Congress, even though they won’t publicly admit it, and several news outlets are reporting that Gaetz has expressed doubts about seeking reelection in 2022. The word on the street is he’s considering a job at the conservative media outlet Newsmax, which would be a good landing if this investigation doesn’t lead to charges.

I live in Florida and have little to no respect for Matt Gaetz. He seems to be a pathological liar, just like his hero Trump, and I cannot understand why anyone would take him seriously. The problem with “made men” and what we used to call “lucky sperm” in business is that Daddy can protect for only so long and their assumed power can be taken away at any time, especially after making a big mistake. We need to know more about Gaetz’ relationship with Nestor Galbán and we certainly should hear from the 17 year-old young woman. I’m not out to cancel Matt Gaetz. I just want him to be honest and transparent, you know, like the glass house he lives in.

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How to Hire Great People: Tips, Tricks and Templates for Success

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The book that tells it like it is…

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