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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WHAT I LEARNED FROM WHOOPI

Things are different than what you think

Several years ago, I watched Bill Maher’s talk/comedy show Real Time on HBO. One of Bill’s guests was Margaret Cho, an exceptionally talented comedian who has always pushed the envelope. This night the panelists were discussing America’s many wars, conflicts and global interventions. Margaret declared that President George W. Bush should be charged for war crimes because he used US military force under false pretenses to topple Saddam Hussein, which also killed innocent people. One of the other guests retorted, “You are a comedian. You don’t have the right to say that. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bill broke up the fight, but I was taken aback. Does one have to meet certain qualifications or carry a particular pedigree before commenting on a subject? With the power of social media these days, many unqualified people have platforms far more powerful than their intellect.

Another night, Maher used the “N word,” and some powerful African Americans appeared on his show the following week to explain why he can’t use that word, even in a joke. For Maher, being contrite was not only out of character, but outside his brand of libertarian free speech and being politically incorrect to make a point.

When basketball player LeBron James commented about politics a few years ago, Laura Ingraham was quick to call him out by saying, “Shut up and dribble.” I guess that conservative washrag believes professional athletes don’t have the same valuable citizen rights declared in the First Amendment. Now we’re hearing it about Whoopi Goldberg. One commentator on a cable “news” network actually said, “Whoopi was added to the show to do humor, not engage in serious conversations.”

By now, everyone knows what Whoopi said and there are some coming to her defense, but it’s an argument no one will win with those who are most deeply affected by Hitler and the Holocaust. This is a situation like what ABC went through years ago with Roseanne Barr, who failed to comprehend the hate in her social media comments. For Ms. Goldberg, it’s a suspension and, of course, a “learning” moment. I have learned also.

Hitler and the Holocaust cannot be approached in a strictly historical or scholarly etymological way. Words, no matter how much we massage or defend them, must be understood in context of the emotional vibrations they impart. I’ll use the word, “uptight” as an example. When Stevie Wonder sang, “Everything is alright, uptight, out of sight,” we joyously sang along. Several years later, being “uptight” was no longer a good thing. And few would have commented on the irony of a blind man singing the words, “out of sight.”

Pop psychologists decided the word “uptight” meant to be filled with stress. There’s no way to go back to the older, original meaning. Words change and morph throughout history and as a meaning changes a different feeling can be elicited when the word is used. It would be a futile exercise to debate the derivation of the word, “race” and apply that to a defense of Whoopi Goldberg’s statement.

Here’s what I learned quite swiftly. Just like no white person can truly know what it’s like to be black, no non-Jewish person can accurately know the pain, the sorrow, and the struggle felt by those who saw the numbers tattooed on the arms of their loved ones. The Jewish community has a right to bristle when hearing an uncentered debate between TV talking heads about the Holocaust and Hitler’s demonic theories and actions. Those wielding opinions on such a powerful platform need to figure out which topics are outside their range of knowledge and simply not comment on them. I’m sure Whoopi is smart, but she’s not an expert with Jewish emotions or knowledge, but as we have seen many times before, anyone has the right to make a mistake, so long as they have the cognizance to own it.

I am the son of a soldier who was there right after those death camps in Europe were liberated, and even I can’t comprehend how that affects the families involved. I do know that my father was deeply depressed by what he saw and spent the rest of his life trying to find solace in his church and with his God. I don’t need to be told how I felt when I looked at the photographs in the History of WWII books that were in our home. This is why Emmett Till’s casket was open in the church, to make everyone know what happened.

Hitler was quick to declare who was part of the “Aryan race” and who was not. Had he kept his stupid theories to himself, we wouldn’t be talking about this and six million people would not have been murdered. Some might use the word, “died” in that sentence, but doing so would be wrong. Human beings were murdered. This is a perfect example of the challenge people face when communicating. They sometimes say stupid things or slightly change the meaning to win an argument only to lose a friend.

I approached a sensitive matter and learned a valuable lesson: don’t over-analyze, try to justify or allude to understanding another’s pain. Was slavery bad? Yes. Were African Americans killed? Yes, but I cannot use the knowledge of my race in a discussion about someone else’s race. Why should white board of education members get to tell Black people how it was? It’s never an exact fit when you force your viewpoints or try to pervert the truth. Doing so might make the other person feel you don’t care, or worse, that you don’t understand.

There was a time in Scottish history when the powers of Great Britain declared my descendants were an inferior “race,” and that allowed the English government to wield ridiculous power over people, who were the same as Brits, humans. Back in that day, there was a common law known as The Lord’s Right, also called jus primae noctis, which loosely translates to “the right of the first night.” This rule allowed feudal lords to have sexual relations with subordinate women on their wedding nights. They used the force of their army to take the women away from the village. Imagine if the governor of your state took your daughter on her wedding day. I certainly didn’t need to debate whether I was a “subordinate race” to feel anger and resentment toward any government that would allow such a barbaric practice. If you don’t want to take the time to read about it, just go watch the movies Brave Heart or Rob Roy.

The final lesson for today, but never forever, is we must always remember the horrendous things people do to people. It always starts when they declare you are an “other.” They can steal your name, they can steal your family, they can steal the very meaning of words for their own purposes, but it’s impossible to erase the blood stain by arguing about words. You must know the feeling, the pain and, of course, the reality of today. There are still Nazis in America. Those same evil people we thought we eliminated continue to live amongst us. Don’t waste time discussing words when the problem is still alive.

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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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POPULISM & PANDEMICS

Political Beliefs Can Kill You

I and a group of friends took part in a “Ridin’ with Biden” campaign event last October in Florida. We came across a group of Trump supporters camped out in front of an early voting location and I put my large megaphone out the window of the car and yelled, “He’s going to kill you! He’s going to kill you!” The trumpers were oblivious to the way Trump’s Covid-19 policies were hurting and killing us. I get it, they love him and trust him with their grandmother’s lives. Why? It’s all part of a populism religion they decided to follow.

This sectarian concept has overtaken large portions of our country and our elected representatives. Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups often related to their form of government. Prejudice, discrimination or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo and which group holds more power within the government. One of the worst parts of America’s current populism is a constant war on science. By denigrating experts, big, strong-man populist leader Donald Trump first gets the attention of the downtrodden workers and eventually entices them to seek his advice rather than that of credentialed, knowledgeable experts.

Fareed Zakaria wrote in the Washington Post in March of 2020, “Trump, for his part, fuels fears by constantly talking about how the disease came from China and how he heroically saved American lives because he ‘closed the borders to China’ in late January, 2020. Thank goodness he doesn’t seem to know that the H1N1 virus was first detected in Mexico. If he did, he might close the border with Mexico, just to be safe.” Donald Trump has never trusted any opinion that is opposed to his own viewpoint.

Zakaria came back to that discussion on his CNN show yesterday morning. His experts were fair to point out that not all populist leaders in the world denied the danger of Covid, but they often tend to rebuke experts, disconnect from science and make decisions based on what they think their followers will swallow, rather than the truth. In the beginning of the pandemic, Indian’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was rather draconian with the lockdown and those polices kept the virus at bay. Then, he made the same mistake Trump did by pushing to reopen the country too soon. This caused a crisis of pain and death that will probably destroy his political career.

Brazil has a leader who was in total denial of the coronavirus and mingled with people at rallies, shook hands and called Covid-19, “just a little flu,” until he got it himself. He then softened his misdirection but continued to blame everyone else for what was happening in his country. The more people listened to him the more people died. He repeatedly fired his national health directors and appointed replacements, believing mismanagement was causing the spread of the virus.

At this point, Brazil has more than 14.7 million people infected and more than 400,000 have died. Right now, India has more than 350,000 new cases each day and a total of 19.5 million infections with more than 215,000 deaths. We don’t know how many people have died in China or Russia, where dictators make policies. Some say that China, where the virus originated, has only 4,636 deaths. In a country of 1.4 billion that’s a totally unbelievable number.

Some sources say that Russia has 109,000 deaths, which makes more sense than the China statistic. Remember, Russia has a population of 145 million people. We know the case counts of democracies are more accurate. We also know that overzealous populist leaders, irresponsible state governors and state-run media have cooked the books on Covid-19. But as the World Health Organization puts more pressure on nations to cough up current statistics, we learn more about the effect of this virus on the planet.

The democracies of the U.K. and Israel had some rough coronavirus moments, but also amazing accomplishments. The U.K. was on the edge of disaster and Prime Minister Boris Johnson came down with a wicked case of Covid-19. In the U.K. currently, more than 34 million people have had a first vaccine dose and over 14 million have had a second. An average of 415,000 second doses are now being given daily. The National Health Service in the U.K. is very organized and thorough. For example, 98% of the people over age 50 in Scotland have received at least one vaccination already. The lowest percentage in that same category is London, with 87%.

Israel has done a fantastic job with vaccinations. As of May 2, 2021, Israel had fully vaccinated 87.3% of its population. Even with 900,000 people who contracted coronavirus in the country, they had only 6,363 known deaths. That is a particularly good outcome in a country of 9 million. Perhaps their general population has more awareness of science and medicine.

Populism attracts people who often reject things based on status or labels. If an intellectual in medicine is presented as an elitist by a populous leader, their followers tend to adopt the simple lie rather than the complicated realities of math, science and medicine. It’s interesting to note that a person doesn’t have to be less educated to take on a belief counter to well-known and proven facts. Steve Jobs denied conventional medical wisdom and it killed him. The word we should focus on is “wisdom.”

We all want our leaders to apply a sense of experience, knowledge and good judgment to their actions or decisions, but in some cases, they may not have enough knowledge or experience to act effectively. Where they lack knowledge, they must trust and depend on others for facts and guidance. If they don’t have good judgement, they might take advice from people who are totally full of shit. The quality of judgement is evaluated after the fact. Leaders talk of using their “best” judgement, but they cannot say it’s good judgement until their action bears fruit.

India’s populist leader Narendra Modi made good choices in the beginning, but since the country was organized around a strict caste system the first wave of Covid-19 hit the lower classes and then slowed. When Modi began believing his own press, he opened the country to political rallies and large religious events, which was not only bad judgement but fatal to thousands.

Bad choices and ignoring science have consequences. This from Reuters, “The incumbent chief minister’s party in India’s West Bengal state has defeated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party in a state election held as the coronavirus pandemic surged to crisis levels. Modi has been criticized for focusing on the elections instead of making the pandemic his top priority.” So, there’s another populist who cares more about power than people. Bye, Bye!

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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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THE POPULARITY OF AMERICA

Immigration Challenges and the Far Right

I would love to think that all the concern about immigration by the right-wing media and hardcore Trump fans isn’t based on deep-seated prejudges, but for some reason I have trouble believing that. Oh yeah, the last four years of intense hate and nationalist rhetoric is probably responsible for the lack of credibility in their messaging.

Most conservative politicians go on and on about how broken the US immigration system is and how we need to stop letting people in. One might say that America is not responsible for the terrible conditions in the countries immigrants and refugees are fleeing from, but that’s not exactly right. Many of our failed foreign policies and drug enforcement initiatives have contributed to instable governments in some Central and South American countries. That subject is much too deep and complex for exploration on this page today, but should you read the Stephen Kinzer book titled The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, you will probably be shocked and embarrassed at the things our country did abroad in the name of democracy.

People all over the world love the United States of America and millions want to live here. Those folks lucky enough to have a landmass they can walk to get here, do so to escape the highly dangerous and unproductive places where they live. Yes, that’s not our fault but we need to understand oppressed people will always desire to come here and stay, and that has nothing to do with Biden’s policy of sheltering unaccompanied minors or the walls Donald Trump failed to build.

America has more than 800,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, more widely known as DACA. These kids and adults have a kind of landed status, but they are not citizens. They can work and they carry cards declaring their right to be here, but since June 15, 2012 they exist in an uncertain limbo.

According to the Brookings Institute, “As of January 1, 2015, there were 11.96 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The most recent Pew Research estimate puts the total number of unauthorized immigrants at 10.5 million in 2017. Overall, this represents a minority of the foreign-born population, which in 2017 numbered 44.5 million and of them, 45% are naturalized citizens and 27% of whom are lawful permanent residents.” Once again, I cannot adequately detail how the immigration system works, which includes working visa, green cards and long-term applications for citizenship. Instead, I’ll focus on the strict rules facing those applying for entry and seeking asylum here.

There are two basic requirements for entry into the United States. First, asylum applicants must establish that they fear persecution in their home country. Second, applicants must prove that they would be persecuted in their home country on grounds of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.

When those known as “coyotes” working for fees bring young kids to our southern border and dump them over the wall, the kids are in a deep state of panic and many can’t say why they had to leave their home countries. They may have been separated from or told by their parents they must go live in America. Not only is there a language barrier for many of them, but a lack of knowledge about possible legal entanglements.

Our right-wing media features endless discussions about officials in the Biden administration not traveling to the border to see the problem up close. Why is that necessary? They are quite aware of the almost 20,000 minors who are in the custody of the US Government. The reality is the administration has bills to pass, Covid to conquer and other pressing responsibilities. One could say it’s bad optics that they aren’t down there on their knees and hugging the kids, but that will not solve the problem, and it is a problem.

There are times when following legal guidelines that a charge of not being moral or caring enough is raised. On the other hand, changing a policy to make it more, well, moral, can lead to a slamming for not following the letter of the law no matter what happens to the kids. When the bodies of babies and kids who were trying to get to a safer place started to wash up on the shores of the Mediterranean, the whole world criticized those countries that failed to help hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria. We got all sad for a while, but then we just forgot about them. It’s the normal flow of a human flaw.

We can bring those 20,000 kids to safety and unite them with family members who are already here, but wait, are those part of the ten to thirteen million undocumented people who arrived earlier? Are we going to balloon that group even more? 20,000 is not such a big number when compared to the 333 million people who live here now, but we need to realize that this is never going to stop. People will always make their way here to be part of the American Dream. Contrary to all the bullshit blasted out by Trump in the last four years, people in other lands consume our culture in the form of movies, books and TV shows and become convinced this is the happening place. We have an image of being the freest and coolest place on Earth.

There are three groups of immigrants. The first are highly trained or educated people who come to our county to learn or work. The H-1B visa is part of the Immigration and Nationality Act, Section 101(a)(15)(H), that allows US businesses to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. The duration of stay is three years, extendable to six years, after which the visa holder may need to reapply. When these highly skilled workers stay, it makes America better.

Then there are rich kids who come from other countries via airplanes, land here for vacations and never leave. According to Jorge Ramos, 40% of undocumented immigrants come by air and overstay their travel visas. We will need more people to help curb this misuse of the travel privilege.

Members of the third group walk right in, sit right down and ask to stay. This is visual and therefore it gets the most attention, but should you view this as a problem then you must also deal with the reality that it will never go away. We are not going to stop saying our country is the beacon of freedom and the World’s greatest example of capitalistic achievement, so perhaps we need to stop complaining about people wanting to come here.

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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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THE ARCANE TOOL OF IMPEACHMENT

Time to Wake up & Go Back to Sleep

I have found this impeachment process to be silly and unworkable. If the Founding Fathers ever thought they needed to get rid of a President, they would have just challenged the man to a duel and ended his problematic behavior. That is how Aaron Burr canceled Alexander Hamilton. Burr was a known traitor who was never convicted of either trying to steal land in Louisiana from our government or killing Hamilton. Death by dueling was not a crime in New Jersey at the time and no one could ever prove that Burr intended to hurt his country. Now we have the fate of Donald Trump laid upon the table. Sadly, it was predictable.

For all the nit picking done on both sides of Trump’s trial in Washington last week, the true goal, as stated by Mr. Trump’s wonky defense team, was preventing him from ever becoming President again. It’s a good goal, but perhaps a better one would be finding a way to prevent the return of his mob. It’s unreasonable to think that eliminating the Donald from political life will change the minds of his rabid fans. Trump may support their hate, hyper Nationalism, anti-Semitism, Neo-Nazi values, homophobia, xenophobia, misogynistic beliefs and white supremacist dogma, but their actions are all on them.

We can blame Trump for a lot of things, but they’ll all probably be wrapped up into a big, smelly bag of impeachment shit and ignored. He lied more than 30,000 times in five years, so what is the punishment for that? He stood by as his horrible immigration policies ripped families apart at the border, and he gets a pass for that? He gave rich people more money, ignored poor people and blocked growth for middle class Americans. Most importantly, he never took a stand against harmful domestic terrorists, and that led to the Capitol Hill riot. He’s guilty of inciting the insurrection, but that’s okay with Republicans because they would rather acquit the sinner than risk the loss of his base. Just like Trump wanted, they opened their states early and as the COVID killed people they chalked it up to the “cost of doing business.” Hey, the truth hurts.

So, what have we learned? Well, elections matter and saying that an election was fraudulent or rigged when it wasn’t is treasonous behavior. Trump said whatever he wanted, listened to no one else and cannot fall back on the Ronald Reagan excuse of not being aware of what others were doing around him. The Iran-Contra scandal taught us that a President can “forget” what he knows, lie about facts and insolate himself from any blame no matter how bad the crime. Trump can’t use that excuse, however, because we know the bad and harmful ideas were either his or had his strong endorsement. He’s proud of breaking the law, and to this day believes he’s smarter than everyone and untouchable — Teflon Don.

Donald’s niece, Mary L. Trump, said in her fantastic book that Trump will never run for office again. Let’s hope she’s right, because the man’s oversized prostate of an ego might lead him to take the risk. Think about what could happen if he lost another election. Why put our country through the potential of another uprising? Besides that, why would the Republican Party want a loser to lead their party? Trump’s former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley soundly threw her former boss under the bus, “I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture [2024 Election] I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.” She’s absolutely right, but how long will it take the Trump sycophants to figure it out? Are they so removed from reality that they can never progress to a common wisdom?

The impeachment article was focused on the insurrection itself and some say the President’s lack of response after the Capitol building was breached cannot be included as part of the charge. The incitement of the riot, however, is surely a crime and should be examined by a civil court at some time. And we must not focus on the riot only. Much else happened over the last four years. Trump executed many actions that slowly but surely tore holes in the fabric of our democracy. To disregard the sum of all the damage done would be a severe disservice to this country. If we all allow Trump’s trail of treason to be forgotten, then we are all to blame as well.

Should you feel depressed that Donald Trump wasn’t held accountable by the Senate, take heart in what the New York Times published on the final day of the trial, “If this was a conspiracy, Trump was the leader,” said Jonathan Zucker, the lawyer for Dominic Pezzola who is a member of the far-right Proud Boys group and charged with obstructing police officers guarding the Capitol. “He [Trump] was the one calling the shots.” If Mr. Trump was, in anyway, part of the conspiracy, he too may have to face federal charges in this matter. In other words, this isn’t done yet.

Donald Trump has no place in the ongoing American story. Any thinking person should realize that he knows more than he and his attorneys admit and he had been planning not to leave office no matter the results of the election. He’s the spoiled kid who screams and rants until his parent’s cave in just to shut the little monster up. Did the Republicans refusal to convict Trump enable future bad behavior from him and his gang? I hope that isn’t true; we’ll have to wait and see.

Is Donald John Trump the victim he likes to portray himself or is he an exploitation trickster? His martyr syndrome seems out of synch with a guy who was gifted a multi-million-dollar fortune when he was ten years old. He’s never had to work a day in his life and, according to Tony Schwartz, his ghost writer on the Art of the Deal, Trump never worked much at all. He just sat at his desk, made phone calls, lunched, played golf and toured projects, but it was all his minions that did the dirty work. That’s pretty much what he did during his time in the White House too.

He hired lawyers like Michael Cohen to pressure people so he would never have to get close to the dirt. He used another large team of lawyers to pound his enemies with litigations. Trump and his organization have been involved in 3,500 lawsuits, being the plaintiffs in 1,900 and the defendants in 1,450 legal actions. They were also on the losing end of 150 bankruptcy cases. On top of all that, Trump was personally named in at least 169 suits in federal court. The Donald is one vindictive son-of-a-bitch and obviously a lawsuit magnet.

We now sit and wait to see what happens next. Will Trump announce his campaign for President for the 2024 Election? Will he buy full page newspaper ads to celebrate his victory and denounce the “deep state” that was always out to get him? Will he continue to claim he won the 2020 Election by a landslide and that it was stolen from him? Will Susan Collins come out and say that Donald Trump has learned his lesson? Sheesh, I hope not.

According to CNBC, “Minutes after voting ‘not guilty’ in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the former president is clearly to blame for the deadly Capitol riot. There’s no question that Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” McConnell endorsed the view that “President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office.” And the minority leader added, “He didn’t get away with anything, yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being [held] accountable by either one.”

New charges are probably on the way. The end of the impeachment trial is the beginning of deep investigations that uncover more and greater evidence of this man’s deceit and depravity. I’m almost certain he will be charged, but let’s not be certain that he will go to jail. It’s a sad reality that there are different laws for rich people.

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THE COUP THAT COLLAPSED

Trump Stoked an Insurrection Based on Lies

Everything that Donald Trump has said and done shows he is one pure-ass fake. Some might call what I am about to state here treason, but I will speak my mind without fear of intimidation or party affiliation, unlike those spinless Republican Senators who will not convict the former President of crimes against America.

In a different time and age, Mr. Trump would have been brought into magistrate court, charged with treason and shot on the public green the next morning. I’m not saying we should do this today, but he should know that had he lived in France during the two decades after that country’s revolution, he would have been beheaded. Sedition, treason and insurrection were not crimes one could argue away in court.

Most of America has now seen the freshly released images of the Capitol Hill riot on January 6. If Donald Trump is not to blame, then who is responsible for those crazy people who stormed the Capitol? Is it Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, 4Chan, 8Chan or maybe Charlie Chan? Could it have started with Carlos Danger and Anthony Weiner’s dick pics, or has it simply “been brewing for some time now” as I hear endlessly from the puckered pieholes of pundits and prognosticators reading the grievance tea leaves in Russian restaurants? They are all full of shit, just like Trump and his ludicrous lawyers.

I say they are stupid. Why? Trump lawyer Bruce Castor actually offered these words in the halls of Congress during the impeachment trial, “We are so understanding of the concept that people’s minds can be overpowered with emotion, where logic does not immediately kick in, that we have recognized examples that otherwise would be hearsay and said that, no, when you’re driving down the street, and you look over at your wife, and you say, ‘Hey, you know what, that guy is about to drive through the red light and kill that person,’ your wife can testify to what you said, because, even though it’s technically hearsay, it’s an exception, because it’s the event living through the person.”

Okay, let me wipe some of this horse shit off my shoes before I launch into my own personal rant. What the fuck does any of that mean? I can only assume that he’s trying to plant a seed that the bad things you will hear about are being were told by people who don’t know what they are talking about, so just ignore them. YES, that must be it! Trump’s personal lawyers are saying that there is nothing to see here and we should ignore hearsay even when it comes out of the ex-president’s mouth.

If a person lies to their attorney, and their lawyer then presents that lie as a defense in a court of law, that doesn’t make it any less of a lie. His attorneys are going try to sell the Senators and the American public a premise that Trump was merely using his First Amendment rights while talking to a group of really good people and he bears no responsibility for what they later did on Capitol Hill. Okay, let’s examine that. There are only two conclusions one could draw from that scenario. One, Donald John Trump is such a bad communicator that no one understood what he was saying or, two, the group assembled that day was so stupid they misinterpreted him.

Trump’s more than 11,000-word speech, complete with audience reaction, is right here, Donald Trump JAN 6 2021 Speech should you wish to read it. Without a shadow of doubt, his words were an incitement to insurrection. His detailed, final pitch to sell the big lie about election fraud also featured a compendium of grievances of those who have so mistreated him. Poor baby. In his final act, the martyr stood before his adoring crowd saying it’s time to take back your country, be strong and fight like hell. And let’s not forget that there is nothing good about hell.

Trump used the words “fight” or “fighting” 27 times, but only used the word “peaceful” once. It came near the end of his 75-minute speech, “We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” So, there is the “out” that his lawyers will argue for 16 hours at trial. Really? That’s it? The other 11,000 words don’t matter?

To delegitimize the rightfully elected 46^th President of the United States, Donald pulled this one out of his index box of hate and lies, “I just spoke to Mike [Pence]. I said, Mike, that doesn’t take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage, and then we’re stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot, and we have to live with that for four more years.” Yes, Mr. Trump, that is how elections work. You should remember; you won one.

Mike and Karen Pence Rushed Away from Danger

Trump’s berating of his Vice President and confrontation with his inability or desire to break the law could have cost Mike Pence his life, along with those of his daughter and wife. Not only did Trump stir up the mob’s viciousness, he also directed their ire to Mr. Pence. But it didn’t end with his spoken word, Trump made it worse by tweeting to the insurrectionists at 2:24 PM, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” So, the Donald turned up the heat on Pence as the mob was in the Capitol building screaming, “Hang Mike Pence.” Loyalty?

What if the pack had captured and murdered Mike Pence? Would the Republican Senators then be more likely to convict this loser of a president and disqualify him from ever holding Federal office again? That’s a tough question, but it gives me no certainty they would convict. Their vote is always for sale and Donald Trump bought it with lies, fear and intimidation. No man or woman should have that much power.

Donald Trump’s attempted coup failed, just like most of what he tried to do as president. Hundreds of thousands of people died from COVID because of his lack of comprehension, terrible messaging and misguided policies. And five people died because of the insurrection. He should be tried in criminal court, with testimonies of those who were in the room with him as he watched the riot on TV. How did he act then? What did he say? Donald John Trump intended to upturn the results of a valid election, and we must do everything we can to make sure such a thing never happens again. Ten years in jail for the perpetrator just might be a good deterrent for future presidents.

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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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