Ugly Nationalism

I omitted an important point in Trump's racist rule in my opinion yesterday entitled "My Words are Insufficient" and that is the racist component of Nationalism: Trump calls himself a "Nationalist."  Most in his sphere especially Trump, I am guessing, have not a clue what Nationalism means.  It sounds so intellectual though doesn't it?  Trump, indeed, is no intellectual.  He probably learned that term at the feet of Steve Bannon his once philosophical guru or Stephen Miller his extreme right wing racist advisor. 

Nationalism is often racist -- white racist and it is at its heart and most of all a punishing authoritarianism. It appeals to the many in nations who have a racist history and, too, have felt ignored in national policy and perceived by them demeaned and unappreciated in international sentiment.  It rules out of fear of the "other."  Trump calls himself a Nationalist but we know that means white nationalism. Nationalism means for Trump by his own words America First.  America First was used by the Nazi lover and, sad to say, American aviation hero, Charles Lindbergh.  America First adherents do not care whom they hurt or even kill to get what they want.  The followers who call themselves Nationalist must be unquestioning and submissive to the leader and authority. The penalty not to be so or to question him or those in authority to him can be, of course, in Trump's case removal of them from office or in "The Apprentice" like fashion fired! 

Nationalism is ugly; Nationalism was Nazi Germany; Nationalism was Mussolini's Italy and Nationalism was Franco's Spain. It is authoritarian, it is expansionist, it is cruel and it is murderous in its ideological intent. It seeks war and domination of nations and/or alliances with other authoritarian leaders. Democracy is its enemy.  WWII Nationalism at its end killed 50 and some say 70 million human beings world-wide. It makes no pretense about humane policy; it is not humane; it makes no pretense of being all inclusive. It is not all inclusive. It is exclusionary, separatist and racist.  In the US case it is America First but really means the leader and his henchmen first.  Right now the penalty for opposition to the leader is removal from a job or any angry puerile tweet.  Trump has removed so many they cannot be enumerated on a cable TV panels. Most positions in the Trump universe are "acting."  The impermanence of that means the leader Trump can change on a whim persons who occupy that office.  Trump demands total unquestioning loyalty and appoints those like Trump on this Nationalist path. He is singularly trying to destroy our balance of power system, placing the Executive branch Constitutionally first, Congress second and filling the courts with his right wing extremist lackeys whom he can be assured will do his bidding.  It is chilling that in two years he has been successful in near obliteration of this system of government's checks and balances while pitting one American against another stirring simmering racial animosities that heretofore have remained latent or within fringe groups vociferous.  Trump has given these racist groups an equal voice.

In reality we are and should be a global community interconnected in a thousand ways. Yes, we care about our own interests but must compromise and learn to play well with others. Trump's eradication of everything Obama will, I hope, ensure his failure.  Trump is a failure in business, failure in governing, failure in ethics, a failure in marriage, and an egregious failure in telling the truth.  Again RESIST Nationalism at all costs and save the world.

My words are insufficient

I have been trying to formulate an opinion which directly addresses the poison of racist white nationalism that has infected part of our body politic.  It is understatedly dangerous to ignore as it is advanced by an incompetent, unfit and racist president of the most powerful nation on earth.  The most important historical event which has shaped not only my politics but my being is the WWII Holocaust.  It has done this not only because I am a Jew but because I am an empathetic human being who knows what it feels to be the recipient of the slings and arrows of those who have little to no empathy and a witness to where the path this lack of understanding can lead.  I am able to stand in the shoes of the so called "other."

The question for me becomes how do people do the evil they are commanded to do by their leaders carrying out supreme brutality toward their fellow man and often carrying out heinous orders to abuse not only other men but women and children too.  How can they do it and wake up in the morning, look in the mirror with a satisfaction of who they are?  I stand incredulous that this nation is imprisoning asylum seekers thousands of them -- men, women and children separating innocent children from their parents and enclosing them in crowded cages of filth, disease, with no place to shower or relieve themselves for weeks.  Children are sleeping when they can sleep on cold floors with thin aluminum covers and must often defecate in place.  They are subjected to an endless variety of cruelty, sometimes sexual, certainly humiliating encouraging fear they will never be free.  One young man who had correct documentation of his citizenship rejected as false, was nevertheless detained and finally after more than three weeks was released.  He had lost 26 pounds as the food, if one can call it that, was less than nutritious nor plentiful.  Asylum seekers' sin is leaving a home country of certain death, walking over a thousand miles to the US border to escape that certain death to a better life only to be greeted by a plethora of attitudinal pathology by US guards who locked them up in cages, with little food, facing death again through disease from close confinement and no hygiene not even a toothbrush.  Many who are confined as each day goes by with lights on at all times, find sleep difficult if not impossible so their psychology deteriorates.  They may be scarred for life.

The conditions in these border prisons of brown asylum seekers, of course, remind me of those camps in Germany during WWII. Through their dehumanization of the Jew Germans rounded them up and ultimately slaughtered six million of them gassing them to the ovens.  What does this teach? It teaches us that it can surely happen here; that all human beings have the capacity to stoop to the lowest most hateful denomination of their nature.  It takes a charismatic leader like Hitler then and Trump now to stoke the embers of worry, anger, fear and hate among whites who have felt ignored against the other.  Man's solace is to place the answer to all of his problems in one man, though that man a con, because they think he will keep them safe.  He will not keep them safe.  He will stoke the fires of hate against particular minority groups that has always been there and can lead to violence of violent men against that perceived enemy perhaps even leading to civil war.  It is dangerous.

"Facing History and Ourselves," an organization in Brookline, Massachusetts is dedicated to the understanding of how demeaning and disparaging groups of human beings can lead to a Nazi like totalitarian end and that we must face our own racist historical past as well as our own present being.  In Daniel Goldhagen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners -- Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" he writes that ordinary people not simply the powerful were involved in the perpetration of the Holocaust. 

Perhaps my favorite quote is one from "Gentlemen's Agreement" with Gregory Peck.  He is Protestant and a writer who assumes the identity of a Jew in America after the war and says:  "I've come to see lots of nice people who hate it [anti-Semitism] and deplore it and protest their own innocence, then help it along and wonder why it grows. People who would never beat up a Jew. People who think anti-Semitism is far away in some dark place with low-class morons. That's the biggest discovery I've made. [It's] the good people. The nice people."

We must all of us join hands and together return this nation to what it was and what it says on the Lady Liberty's plaque in New York Harbor which my immigrant grandparents saw welcoming them to a new land and new life where they could be free:  In pertinent part it says: ... “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” 

Though my own words are insufficient this is who we are but we must reclaim it, take it back from that ugly incompetent leader in our midst and his henchmen who would keep us from it forever.  RESIST!

My letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell--With all Deliberate Speed

Senator McConnell: I remain shocked and incredulous that you refused to send two bills to the floor which would shore up our electoral security at this most threatening time. I think you have shown a side of you that is unethical, self centered and one who does not give a damn about this nation except to secure your own next election and power. This time you will ​not​ secure it. This above any other obstruction you have done remains the most egregious and almost, I dare say, treasonous.

We have been told many times by our intelligence services and now Republican Special Counsel Robert Mueller how Russia, a nation you and Republicans thought an adversary for so long, has been involved in breaching this nation's democratic electoral system the essence of what our democracy is all about. They will continue to do so both here and in Western Europe, Australia and all free democracies of the ​world.​

Russia does not give a damn about our nation, Trump or you except to use you as compromat useful to their goals and that is sowing division among us and electing a president Trump who takes the authoritarian Putin's side over ​the​ best information of our national intelligence agencies. Putin has method to his madness and that is to recoup what Russia during Gorbachev's Glasnost (a freeing up of Russia's autocratic norms) lost. Communist Russia fell and lost its empire. It lost the Eastern European nations like Poland, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, ​East Berlin, ​the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and more. Putin, a former KGB agent, wants his empire back, the glory it would bring to him and wants Russia on top of the international power pile. He is using his best efforts at subverting this nation, the crown jewel of democracy by sowing extremist nationalist discord, electing an American president Trump who kisses Putin's ring, dismembering NATO and more. He is doing this not only to us but to all western democracies. The Republican Party, you in particular and, of course, Trump, are helping him do this.

Moreover, Steve Bannon's original wish for supporting a populist right wing white racist autocrat Trump and his power broker Putin is to make America white again. His nefarious goal is part of the strategy too. You by not allowing election security legislation are helping all of Putin's goals. Please, quoting Joseph Welch at his finest moment during the Army/McCarthy hearings against phony red bating by Joseph McCarthy "At long last​, sir,​ do you have no sense of decency left?"

I, with intensity, ask you as part of a Republican Party which used to be against Russian domination to bring these pieces of legislation to the floor to secure our national elections which at this moment and beyond Russia is trying to subvert and are at risk. Our nation and all democratically elected nations are in peril. If you can do nothing else for our democratic humanity do that. We are all in danger including you! I believe you will lose your 30 year seat in 2020 because you are now on the wrong side of history! Bring this election security legislation to the floor with all deliberate speed before it is too late!​​

Neal Balks At Using New New York State Law To Get Trump Tax Returns

Just called his office and lambasted his worker that he should ABSOLUTELY get Drumpf's tax returns from the NY law just signed by Cuomo to do so. So why is he balking? Trying to get it from the courts? Don't hold your breath. Call his office and demand he use the NY law to get Drump's taxes he's avoided since he ran for office. Why because he has numerous things to hide and WHY does not Neal want to get his taxes? I don't know it makes me wonder how clean they all are. Getting them through the courts takes too long. 

His Washington number is: (202) 225-5601 Tell him to absolutely get Trump's taxes from the NY state law. State taxes often mirror federal taxes.

Oversight of the Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election: Former Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III Wed, 07/24/2019 - 8:30am

Mueller will testify on July 24 R 8:30 a.m. in an open session before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The two chairs of those committees, Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff, announced Mueller’s appearance. He will appear separately before both committees, according to a Congressional aide."

If you can't watch it then tape it.

Hearings and Markups

https://judiciary.house.gov/hearings-and-markups

THE SQUAD

The attacks on the so called "Squad" of Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts have been viciously stoked by Trump and the Republicans. They are attacked, in my view, because the forces of entrenched power as well as the politics of hate find them ever so threatening. I am donating when I am able to one and ultimately all of these Congresswomen because they stand for what is moral and right, because they stand against the forces of hate, and because they stand for returning our nation to the international reputation it had before the worst president in American history unfortunately landed through the forces of deception in the oval office where he besmirches its very ground. One does not have to agree with every position these great Democratic congresswomen have but one MUST defend their right to the freedom of speech to say what their opinion is. Standing up to power takes guts and determination. It is not only their right to stand up for what is ethical, moral and right it is their and our obligation to do so! 

I ask if you can afford to contribute to their agenda because their positions on issues should be all of our positions on the issues then do so by googling their Congressional web sites.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN SWAMP OF CORRUPTION AND HATE.  VOTE DEMOCRATIC BLUE IN 2020 UP AND DOWN THE TICKET AND SEND THIS TO
ANYONE YOU CHOOSE IN ANY STATE IN THE NATION AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED UPON IT BECAUSE IT DOES!

THE MUELLER REPORT

MSNBC THE MUELLER REPORT IS EXCELLENT!! IF YOU HAVEN'T TUNED IN AT 9:00 P.M. TONIGHT 7/21 THEN GET IT ONLINE OR IF IT IS REPEATED A SECOND TIME!! IT GIVES YOU A SUPERB SUMMARY OF THE REPORT AND RECENT EVENTS!!
SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE.
THEN IN 2020 VOTE BLUE UP AND DOWN THE TICKET!
RESIST THE DEMAGOGUE TRUMP!

House Democrat introduces articles of impeachment against Trump--500 "likes"

I want to "like" that 500 times! Of course what will happen with it? I never get my hopes up with the Beast. The snake slithers out of everything! I loathe, detest and hate that man. God forgive me I hate to hate. I even made exceptions with Bush but not this evil sewer and his corrupt administration. I can't forgive what he, a former Democrat, has done to catapult the goodness of our nation that which brought people to its shores from around the world; that which truly made our nation great and powerful he is catapulting it into ruin. It shows he does NOT give a damn about ideology and probably did not understand even ideological manufacturer Bannon's rationales. He tapped into what was already simmering in our nation from 2007 the year of the Great Recession under Bush to the election of the first person of color Obama the Good.

There was a fever in the land, he saw it, he felt it and damn the torpedoes he would use his Apprentice skills to attain immense power and the wealth he knew it would bring. He, I will admit, is a master of the con and so was Adolph Hitler!

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-democrat-introduces-articles-impeachment-trump/story?id=64380733&fbclid=IwAR1Hak9rN_AeIu9XRQ3zgU5Xw59iN_9aV3QFYlEOcu7sydygkgoYRUAXTmw

Text of House Resolution 489 -- A Masterpiece

H. RES. 489

Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

July 15, 2019

Mr. Malinowski (for himself, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Ted Lieu of California, Mr. García of Illinois, Mr. Carbajal, Ms. Omar, Mr. Krishnamoorthi, Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, Mrs. Torres of California, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Pressley, Mr. Raskin, Ms. Jackson Lee, and Mr. Espaillat) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

RESOLUTION

Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress.

Whereas the Founders conceived America as a haven of refuge for people fleeing from religious and political persecution, and Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison all emphasized that the Nation gained as it attracted new people in search of freedom and livelihood for their families;

Whereas the Declaration of Independence defined America as a covenant based on equality, the unalienable Rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and government by the consent of the people;

Whereas Benjamin Franklin said at the Constitutional convention, “When foreigners after looking about for some other Country in which they can obtain more happiness, give a preference to ours, it is a proof of attachment which ought to excite our confidence and affection”;

Whereas President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists”;

Whereas immigration of people from all over the Earth has defined every stage of American history and propelled our social, economic, political, scientific, cultural, artistic, and technological progress as a people, and all Americans, except for the descendants of Native people and enslaved African Americans, are immigrants or descendants of immigrants;

Whereas the commitment to immigration and asylum has been not a partisan cause but a powerful national value that has infused the work of many Presidents;

Whereas American patriotism is defined not by race or ethnicity but by devotion to the Constitutional ideals of equality, liberty, inclusion, and democracy and by service to our communities and struggle for the common good;

Whereas President John F. Kennedy, whose family came to the United States from Ireland, stated in his 1958 book “A Nation of Immigrants” that “The contribution of immigrants can be seen in every aspect of our national life. We see it in religion, in politics, in business, in the arts, in education, even in athletics and entertainment. There is no part of our nation that has not been touched by our immigrant background. Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.”;

Whereas President Ronald Reagan in his last speech as President conveyed “An observation about a country which I love”;

Whereas as President Reagan observed, the torch of Lady Liberty symbolizes our freedom and represents our heritage, the compact with our parents, our grandparents, and our ancestors, and it is the Statue of Liberty and its values that give us our great and special place in the world;

Whereas other countries may seek to compete with us, but in one vital area, as “a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world, no country on Earth comes close”;

Whereas it is the great life force of “each generation of new Americans that guarantees that America’s triumph shall continue unsurpassed” through the 21st century and beyond and is part of the “magical, intoxicating power of America”;

Whereas this is “one of the most important sources of America’s greatness: we lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people — our strength — from every country and every corner of the world, and by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation”;

Whereas “thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge”, always leading the world to the next frontier;

Whereas this openness is vital to our future as a Nation, and “if we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost”; and

Whereas President Donald Trump’s racist comments have legitimized fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) believes that immigrants and their descendants have made America stronger, and that those who take the oath of citizenship are every bit as American as those whose families have lived in the United States for many generations;

(2) is committed to keeping America open to those lawfully seeking refuge and asylum from violence and oppression, and those who are willing to work hard to live the American Dream, no matter their race, ethnicity, faith, or country of origin; and

(3) strongly condemns President Donald Trump’s racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color by saying that our fellow Americans who are immigrants, and those who may look to the President like immigrants, should “go back” to other countries, by referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as “invaders,” and by saying that Members of Congress who are immigrants (or those of our colleagues who are wrongly assumed to be immigrants) do not belong in Congress or in the United States of America.

An Obligation

There are no words left anymore to describe the sickening epithets, moronic tweets and corrupt actions of Trump.  He now goes against Democratic women who have the unmitigated gall to critique his holiness.  His policies including the roll back of regulations allowing corporations to pollute air, water and anything else they can get their lobbyist hands on that spells corporate money guaranteed to kill generations most especially children, denied climate change dooming this planet to certain destruction, made lobbyists of money king, nuked Obama's Iran nuclear deal because it was, of course, Obama's opening this nation and the world up to nothing less than nuclear war.  In Hitlerian Fascist-like fashion he is exploiting the white part of the American population's racist fear of the country's metamorphosis into brown and whose cruelty against asylum seekers is a crime against humanity -- a return to those heady concentration camp days of 1942.  He exploits untruths of hot button words like Communist and Socialist which do not describe the squad of women of color he critiqued but did allow them to hit bullseyes as they addressed Trump's vicious and yes, of course, racist lies against them.

The trajectory of Trump's life has been spent in a courtroom suing those whom he has perceived to critique him, or to defend against the illegalities he has allegedly committed to accumulate cash and its attendant side car of power. His life has been a trajectory of greed, lies, abuse of women and a desire to beat the system no matter how illegal his attempts are and walk away with billions he should not have. The fact that he became a national leader -- our leader -- who loves dictatorships and is the so called "leader" of the free world is all of our immense misfortune. He is a curse on our nation and a curse on the world. He made lucky men out of the world's worst men -- Putin, the true Communist tyrant Kim Jong Un, the murderous bin Salman, and others who think they died and went to heaven laughing all the way to wealth and power while, accumulating a powerful ally, a treasonous US president named Donald J. Trump.   Again, I quote Christ in whom right wing nationalists and extremists profess to believe but their actions say they do not. I again say to the hypocrite of hypocrites, Donald Trump: "What profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul." Right wing extremists do not answer to me but allegedly answer to the Jesus Christ in whom all of them say they believe.

The pied piper of hate Trump said what he did because the Democratic Congresswomen had the gall to criticize him. They love this nation and its democracy as I do but loathe what it has become under Trump. We are under Trump an unethical sewer where so many have been fired or left there is no room on TV computer panels to list them all.  The worst fox is guarding the chicken coop.  Trump promised to drain the swamp but in fact he is the swamp.   I hope the progressive four and a Democratic House, Senate and Presidency in 2020 ultimately can right Trump's immense wrongs which is sinking our ship of state and get across to the American public it is not a sin to criticize a leader and, in fact, in a democracy it is an obligation to do so!

INTELLIGENCER: "... Trump Says Only Trump Supporters Deserve Free Speech"

"Trump’s invocation of “free speech” is consistent: His entire goal is to promote supportive views and suppress hostile ones. And the willingness of virtually the entire conservative movement to support or tolerate his cynical conscription of free speech to intimidate the media reveals how little it, too, cares about freedom."

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/trump-free-speech-twitter-google-facebook-authoritarianism.html?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1&fbclid=IwAR0ZyWJuGBne9TbCpwjGyTPbxr0LIzQlSgeXOrJRsUeKALP5kPYqUqatH0k

RESIST!  SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE.

July 4th -- Before it's too late

uly 4th took on different meanings for me at  different ages.  When I was very young, unlike others with whom I played, July 4th was always sad.  I learned later why it was so.  My sister five years older than I died of birth defect complications on July 4, two weeks after her birth.  My mother never got over the sadness of that date and it permeated our household. 

Later as I grew to learn all the patriotic songs, listened to George M. Cohan's patriotic music, I came to realize the tug of July 4th on my patriotic heart strings and, of course, accepted all the stories, some true and some not so true, about the American Revolution, the birthday of our nation and what it meant for us in our time.  Patriotic holidays and their accoutrements were woven into the sinew of my soul at a very young age concentrating on the positive and leaving the negative realities of the nation's birth such as the demolition of the indigenous Indian population, on the cutting room floor.

I had to wait until my college years in the late 1960's for the questioning of government policy as well as our national history to take shape.   The foundation of it began to crack.  Two issues one foreign (Vietnam) and one domestic (the black experience) began my questioning of our national truths.  Our nation's gravest and, in my opinion, most egregious domestic sin, slavery, was brought into view.  The injustice of the institution of slavery became vivid.  Lincoln freed the slaves but would gladly have repatriated them to Africa if it would have saved the union.  In high school a young woman of color whom I knew told me she was going to run for class office.  She said she knew she would never win.  I asked why and she said "because I'm black."  It shocked me then but surely does not now.   She never did win; a white girl did of course.  I reflected on that in my more mature years finally acknowledging the impact of racism on this nation.  In 1966 she could not win not even in the most academically rich and progressive state of Massachusetts.  The profound injustice in this nation of the experience of persons of color to me could not be denied and still cannot.  We see it everywhere -- in voter suppression, in a return to Jim Crow era poll taxes in some states making it harder even in our more aware time for persons of color to vote.  The right to vote, the most elemental right in a democracy is still, even now, attempted by Republicans to suppress the black vote denying power to a people who have never had enough of it.  The court packed with conservatives through nefarious means recently approved gerrymandering to ensure Republican victory in demographically changing times in those areas of the state that were purposefully drawn that is rigged for them to do so.  This is heinous.

In foreign policy I accepted the myth that this nation in war was always on the side of right.   That could certainly be said for WWII.  Since that time, however, things changed.  Vietnam I learned was based on a lie, the Gulf of Tonken resolution, and worse supported a fascist-like regime of Thieu and Ky.  Our enemy the Viet Cong won.  In the late 1960's I protested that war and now cringe at the loss of 58,000 American lives and probably a million Vietnamese, as well as the defoliation of a nation by the release of Agent Orange which kills trees but also kills humans and produces human deformity even to this day. Fast forward to 9/11 when a president took a nation to war with Iraq, a nation that did nothing to us, provoked a civil war and the introduction of Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization, never before seen in Iraq.  With the invasion of Afghanistan a 17 year old war continues.  Thousands of lives have come to an end because of it.   How many more will and to what purpose?

Paragraphs could be written about our latest worst and most democracy erasing corrupt so called president, Donald Trump.  From his support of the worst of dictators on earth to the accepting of Russian influence to elect him, Trump has probably done the most to destroy this Republic Benjamin Franklin asked us to keep.  The worst of this most nefarious, mendacious and misogynistic "president" is his crimes against humanity- the inhuman treatment of those seeking asylum here trying to escape from certain death in their country of origin.  Human beings including thousands of children are subjected to concentration-like imprisonment separating parents from their children.  There is disease in these camps, hunger, malnutrition, and stench with no place even to bathe despite the Trump administration lying telling us it is not so when it most definitely is so.  Is this the patriotism Washington and our Founders created or is it one they feared?

Still, on July 4th even with this nation's aforementioned national sins I still cry at the National Anthem, God Bless America, the Stars and Stripes Forever and take joy in the fireworks of July 4.  I do so because there is still something to be saved in this nation which in 2008 elected its first black president, in 1965 passed the Voting Rights Act, in 1917 gave women the right to vote, in 2018 the Democratic Party elected to Congress the most women in its history for a Democratic victory with a woman for the second time receiving the gavel of Speaker of the House, in 2015 it bestowed marriage rights to its gay citizens and it sill has press freedom the greatest freedom of them all.   It, despite, the previously mentioned flaws remains a work in progress.  Old Glory and the Constitution for which it stands, I believe, is the freest, strongest, wealthiest most liberated nation on earth and despite our present administration's worst efforts at corrupting it all dooming this nation to planet destruction and even possible nuclear war, I believe, it will still endure despite the strongest efforts of the richest among us to steal it. 

To prevent this we all must vote blue in every state, local, national elections and most of all RESIST this current cesspool of Trump corruption to win the day before it is too late for all of us!

President Trump Said Revolutionary War Troops 'Took Over the Airports' in His Fourth of July Speech

I kid you not:  The idiot speaks!

Scroll down to Ch. 4 News

https://time.com/5620936/donald-trump-revolutionary-war-airports/

What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know

"At 99, Ben Ferencz is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive and he has a far-reaching message for today’s world."

99 years old a Jewish man Ben Ferencz is a marvel. I fell in love with him watching this segment of Sixty Minutes. He is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive. The man is physically agile and his mind is razor sharp. If I could be guaranteed to be like that at 99 I'd be happy. What a wonderful example of humanity.  It is a must see.  Click on the link below.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-the-last-nuremberg-prosecutor-alive-ben-ferencz-wants-the-world-to-know-60-minutes-2019-06-30/

Germany Second Edition -- Hitlerian tactics on our soil

MY COMMENT: My generation in the late 60's had so much hope. We were going to change the nation and the world into a humane place. When I see what happened from then until our present era, I just want to sit back and cry.

Children separated from the safety of the arms of their parents sitting in cages imprisoned in filth, starving and infirm makes me want to jump out a window at the injustice of it all.

How can we let this happen and no one can stop it and arrest the Beast Trump? Our system is lacking that this swamp thing, a man so evil, so corrupt and so cruel cannot be led out in handcuffs for crimes against humanity. Our WWII soldiers gave up their blood and their lives to liberate the camps of Europe only to now find generations later this nation under a Beast has drowned Lady Liberty and erected on our soil a Hitlerian statue made of excrement.  Shame on our nation and shame on the Republican Party that covers their actions in a cloak of religious hypocrisy that allows a man such unlimited power to do such unmitigated evil.  Concentration camps in squalid conditions -- Germany Second edition here in our nation. END OF MY COMMENT

MSNBC: "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday described the abysmal conditions she and other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other House Democrats saw after visiting two immigration detention facilities in Texas, and said she'd learned that Customs and Border Patrol officers told detained women to "drink out of the toilets."
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said that border patrol agents were keeping migrant women in their cells with no food or water and treated them poorly.
She tweeted: “After I forced myself into a cell w/ women & began speaking to them, one of them described their treatment at the hands of officers as ‘psychological warfare’ — waking them at odd hours for no reason, calling them wh*res, etc... Tell me what about that is due to a 'lack of funding'?”
Image
@JoaquinCastrotx
Their visit followed news of a secret Facebook group with over 9,500 CBP agents that was used as a platform to joke about migrant death and post vulgar comments about Hispanic members of Congress.
Tonight on MSNBC, one of the members of Congress who visited the camps, Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.), joined Chris Hayes to discuss what she saw in Texas.
“It’s more than a lack of resources and funding,” she said, “It’s really a lack of treating people like they're human beings, it’s a lack of treating people with dignity and respect that they deserve, and that is part of this problem that isn’t focused on that we need to make sure we focus on.”
According to a Department of Homeland Security internal report contained by NBC News, inspectors warned border agents back in May to arm themselves in preparation for possible riots as a result of the conditions at the detention facilities.
The warnings directly contradict statements from a top Trump administration official who said the reports on poor conditions for migrants were “unsubstantiated.”
Also Monday, the Associated Press released a video of a 12-year-old migrant girl describing conditions at a child detention center to her attorney. The girl was held with her sister in the Clint, Texas center that has come under fire for holding children in unsanitary conditions.
In the video, she described the conditions inside the camp, saying that children slept on the floor and some children were locked away when they cried for their parents. She was not allowed to bathe or play with the other children."