To the tune "He Had it Coming" from the great musical "Chicago"!
Randy Rainbow is brilliant click the link below
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Thursday, October 12, 2017
So you will know and never forget
This multiplied by many is what we have placed in a mentally disturbed man's hands; a man who cares nothing for anyone but himself. I have posted before both the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but like the Holocaust we MUST be reminded of its devastation lest it happen again. This time we are thirty seconds to midnight. This is not a game played by youths in their backyard. This is real life, real culture, real innocent human beings who will yet again be blasted into oblivion if the impulsive and sick evil that is Trump gives an order no one can reject.
This time more nations than simply the US have the bomb. Some are friendly and some adversarial. What could possibly go wrong? Everything! I urge you not only to watch the Youtube below but send it to everyone you know. Let them decide if this presidency of a severely sick utterly immoral mendacious man is worth saving at the risk of the elimination of hundreds of thousands and maybe millions more innocents. 35,000 or more US troops are in S. Korea, Japan and Guam. They will bear the impact too. Once a blast levied at North Korea is made a response will be demanded by China and even Russia its allies. No one will survive a nuclear war. It is unwinnable.
This time more nations than simply the US have the bomb. Some are friendly and some adversarial. What could possibly go wrong? Everything! I urge you not only to watch the Youtube below but send it to everyone you know. Let them decide if this presidency of a severely sick utterly immoral mendacious man is worth saving at the risk of the elimination of hundreds of thousands and maybe millions more innocents. 35,000 or more US troops are in S. Korea, Japan and Guam. They will bear the impact too. Once a blast levied at North Korea is made a response will be demanded by China and even Russia its allies. No one will survive a nuclear war. It is unwinnable.
Watch so you will know and never forget!
The Aftermath Of The Atomic Bombing Of Hiroshima
White House Briefs Congress on Iran Decertification Plan. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
I post below the White House press core link to the story above.
My Comment:
Iran, is complying with the Obama administration-forged nuclear agreement
and has been internationally
verified
not
to be building
nuclear
bombs
.
Thus,
severe economic sanctions against them were lifted. If this utter non-comp
s met
i
s imbecile, jerk president
Trump
with zero ethics and zero morality does something to decertify the Iran Agreement forged by Obama
administration
and European experts (which I am NOT sure
Trump
can do but let
s say he can) then Iran will begin again to build nukes, will in fact build them, ally with N. Korea
which has them
while Pakistan, too, has the bomb. These nations plus Russia
,
which has a
huge stash
of nukes/hydrogen bombs,
are ALL adversarial or semi-adversarial nations
to the United States
. What could possibly go wrong
?
The rippling effects are mind numbing.
Feast your eyes
at what the California Wine Country climate change related fires have
wrought. See the thousands of homes and acres burned to the ground
eradicated from the face of the earth with people incinerated in them.
The land there is rather like what a Hiroshima size bomb did and what
the land looked like after it was dropped. The thousands of nukes and
hydrogen bombs the US, Russia and other nations have now carry a thousands
of times larger payload and destructive power. Once exploded, aside
from the massive damage they would inflict, they would carry radiation
poisoning into future decades. Those humans bombed, if they survive,
would have burns and wounds all over their bodies with no hospitals or
doctors to treat them. Future cancers will develop and will emerge in
genetic generations later assuming there will be any generations later.
Those bombed die, too, from disease as infrastructure is erased.
Radiation will spread all over the world and parts of the earth will be
bombed into the Pleistocene Age.
I urge, again, all to view the Hiroshima explosion. Google it yourself
on Youtube. I paste one still picture of it underneath the Wine
Country burning to see the devastation of the nuclear blast dropped by
the US (the only nation to have dropped a nuke) showing you in real time
what this means.
In
summation: The nuclear bombs and hydrogen bombs some nations possess
today could inflict thousands of times more massive damage than the
Hiroshima bomb did which was small by modern standards. This is what
this unfit for the presidency, crackpot, president Trump will create--a
part of the world bombed into the Pleistocene Age!
STOP Trump and his Republican Congress before he and they eradicate us all! Send this to anyone you choose.
RESIST AS YOU HAVE NEVER RESISTED BEFORE!
California Wine Country burning
Hiroshima August 5, 1945 Sunday, at 6pm Eastern Standard Time
Sunday, October 08, 2017
Thursday, October 05, 2017
Paper towels -- Puerto Rico, Houston and Las Vegas
The obstacle I face today is a lack of descriptive words to reflect the insanity that is Trump and his shameful presidency. After the eloquent and capable President Obama comes a simpleton, incurious, unethical, and smarmiest women-abusing man to ever occupy the most powerful and most prestigious office in the world. I do not know what to say anymore that effectively describes my disgust for him and the cringe-worthy acts by him that will compose each day. Each morning I fear to turn on the news. Who can effectively explain every new behavioral idiocy of this incompetent, unfit and malevolent excuse for humanity whose finger rests on a nuclear button that can eradicate our planet and the life on it? I am ashamed and I am embarrassed at what I know will be his next stupid act for all the world to see and to laugh at. I do not laugh. I cry that this demented mendacious man is at the helm of our government with his small hands near a button that could obliterate billions of amazing evolutionary years that produced our magnificent planet earth. Our fate hangs with this incompetent, explosive know nothing leading our nation and I feel powerless to get this flypaper that is stuck to our body politic off!
There has been no action yet that sparks as much incredulity as Trump's visit to the Hurricane Maria devastated once beautiful nation of Puerto Rico in his feeble attempt at consoling inconsolable grief. Our president says, though, they should be happy that it was not Katrina. He says he will forgive Puerto Rico's debt. Don't -- forgive the pun -- bank on it. The lack of empathy that is Trump is staggering. It forces me to wonder what was done in to him in his youth to make him the most pathological president in our nation's history and one who has zero capacity to feel for less fortunate others who were not born with a proverbial gold spoon in their mouth. One's station in life sometimes, in part, is created but sometimes it is simply directed by luck. Donald Trump was lucky he was born into inheritance wealth and through the corrupt machinations of his own doing built an even greater fortune on the backs of others he did not pay or, in the alternative, when his businesses failed he merely filed for bankruptcy to avoid the loss.
His actions upon visiting Puerto Rico were, for me, the telltale icing on his poisonous psychological cake. The gall to actually throw paper towels at the Puerto Rican people as if he were throwing fish to a seal at SeaWorld was jaw dropping. Just what did he want them to do with those paper towels?
All of our modern day weather tragedies, as I have iterated many times, can be laid at a Republican Party's feet and its treacherous feeble Republican presidents' continual denial of climate change and the lack of development of technologies to rectify it. Denying this science creates the monstrous hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, fires and floods we see all the time. The damage and upheaval to lives is massive. Blame can be laid at a Party that denies the science that decades ago, based on evidence, predicted those awful weather events would occur.
The shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada was done by a sick man who could get his hands on weapons of war and attachments to make those weapons into more lethal rapid fire ones because he could. It is as easy as a Google click away or attendance at a private gun show held continuously throughout the year for someone to create another 1929 Al Capone St. Valentine's Day Massacre except this time on a Vietnam War scale.
What can we do with those paper towels Trump threw at the crowd? We can dry the tears of those in Puerto Rico as they bury their dead and try to reconstruct a new life, soak up the water flooded streets in Houston and wipe up the blood of 58 innocents because a sick man could get his hands on explosives and weapons of war without anyone blinking an eye at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Gun regulation in Nevada and many states is lax. Because it is lax many more people will continue to be slaughtered by guns. That horror could happen to any of us.
I think paper towels are not up to these clean-up jobs. Perhaps someone should have told Trump that before he insultingly flung them into the crowd in Puerto Rico! Shame on him and those who support him. I suggest you stock up on paper towels, you may, in fact, need billions of them.
RESIST AND SAVE THE NATION
There has been no action yet that sparks as much incredulity as Trump's visit to the Hurricane Maria devastated once beautiful nation of Puerto Rico in his feeble attempt at consoling inconsolable grief. Our president says, though, they should be happy that it was not Katrina. He says he will forgive Puerto Rico's debt. Don't -- forgive the pun -- bank on it. The lack of empathy that is Trump is staggering. It forces me to wonder what was done in to him in his youth to make him the most pathological president in our nation's history and one who has zero capacity to feel for less fortunate others who were not born with a proverbial gold spoon in their mouth. One's station in life sometimes, in part, is created but sometimes it is simply directed by luck. Donald Trump was lucky he was born into inheritance wealth and through the corrupt machinations of his own doing built an even greater fortune on the backs of others he did not pay or, in the alternative, when his businesses failed he merely filed for bankruptcy to avoid the loss.
His actions upon visiting Puerto Rico were, for me, the telltale icing on his poisonous psychological cake. The gall to actually throw paper towels at the Puerto Rican people as if he were throwing fish to a seal at SeaWorld was jaw dropping. Just what did he want them to do with those paper towels?
All of our modern day weather tragedies, as I have iterated many times, can be laid at a Republican Party's feet and its treacherous feeble Republican presidents' continual denial of climate change and the lack of development of technologies to rectify it. Denying this science creates the monstrous hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, fires and floods we see all the time. The damage and upheaval to lives is massive. Blame can be laid at a Party that denies the science that decades ago, based on evidence, predicted those awful weather events would occur.
The shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada was done by a sick man who could get his hands on weapons of war and attachments to make those weapons into more lethal rapid fire ones because he could. It is as easy as a Google click away or attendance at a private gun show held continuously throughout the year for someone to create another 1929 Al Capone St. Valentine's Day Massacre except this time on a Vietnam War scale.
What can we do with those paper towels Trump threw at the crowd? We can dry the tears of those in Puerto Rico as they bury their dead and try to reconstruct a new life, soak up the water flooded streets in Houston and wipe up the blood of 58 innocents because a sick man could get his hands on explosives and weapons of war without anyone blinking an eye at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Gun regulation in Nevada and many states is lax. Because it is lax many more people will continue to be slaughtered by guns. That horror could happen to any of us.
I think paper towels are not up to these clean-up jobs. Perhaps someone should have told Trump that before he insultingly flung them into the crowd in Puerto Rico! Shame on him and those who support him. I suggest you stock up on paper towels, you may, in fact, need billions of them.
RESIST AND SAVE THE NATION
Wednesday, October 04, 2017
The Essence of Gun Control
An email friend of mine sent me her nephew's post:
> The first car was built in the mid-1880's, at approximately the same time that the first fully automatic gun was made. Approximately 15 years later, when cars started to become more prevalent, Chicago and NY required testing before being allowed to drive cars. The first age restriction was placed for driving cars in 1909. It took the US, in total 15 years to start getting serious about determining who is qualified to drive. From there, we now have restrictions on the size of engines, speed limits, vigorous training and licensing testing, and regular license renewals, with testing. While at the same time, it took nearly 55 years to enact the Federal Firearms Act, which began the firearm dealer licensing system. Seems logical, after all, back then cars must have been used on what seems to have been a regular basis to conduct mass killings, whereas guns must have been there so people can shoot out the tires of those trying to run them down.
>
> I agree with the right to bear arms. Most argue against the slippery slope of regulating or taking away parts of that freedom. Really? That ship has sailed. Why not bear nuclear arms? Oh yeah, they weren't around when the second amendment was written, and that would just be plain old stupid. But what about people having cannons in their front yards, after all, cannons were around then? Oh yeah, we have that thing called common sense. But let's get back to cars. Clearly since regulations were faster there and have better evolved. If I have a couple of drinks and happen to be pulled over, even though I haven't hurt anyone or intended to hurt someone, I can have my license pulled and be put in jail. I have no clue if similar laws exist where gun holders in public have similar consequences. If someone leaves a bar with a gun, and a police officer sees them, is the gun confiscated? Is their right to use a gun is taken away for a while? Does the gun owner goes to jail? I really don't know the answer to that, and don't feel like looking it up right now.
>
> I'm tired of going into movie theaters and looking at the exits, not so I know where to possibly run in the event of a fire, but in an event of a shooter. When going into a theater with my family, I literally run through options of where to run, and how many of them I can get on the ground and lay on top of to shield them from gun fire. This is not normal. Why do my kids have to go through active shooter drills at school? Somehow we look back at ducking under desks as crazy, but we are back at it, for a much more real and random scenario. The first thing in every college tour these days has the tour guide boasting about not being anywhere on campus without having at least two emergency call boxes visible. At a recent freshman orientation I literally listened to the head of public safety who was previously a chief of police for one of the largest police forces in the world, discuss active shooters and other safety concerns. He even had the head of the local FBI field office in attendance. This is not normal!!!
>
> So here's the solution. Stop playing partisan politics. Stop feeling like the answer always needs to be in the extreme in order to protect something. Give me a break. If a hunter needs an automatic weapon to kill a bear, they are not a good hunter. Enact stronger gun controls. Background checks, safety testing, regular license renewals, restrictions on number of rounds, restrictions on types of weapons, no silencers. If a gun is allowed out in public, open carry must be required. What's the point of a concealed weapon? If a bad guy sees someone with a gun, they may think twice before shooting. Why have them start shooting and then realize that there is going to be a shootout.
>
> Enough is enough!!!!! I can't even imagine what my kids will have to deal with when they have kids.
> The first car was built in the mid-1880's, at approximately the same time that the first fully automatic gun was made. Approximately 15 years later, when cars started to become more prevalent, Chicago and NY required testing before being allowed to drive cars. The first age restriction was placed for driving cars in 1909. It took the US, in total 15 years to start getting serious about determining who is qualified to drive. From there, we now have restrictions on the size of engines, speed limits, vigorous training and licensing testing, and regular license renewals, with testing. While at the same time, it took nearly 55 years to enact the Federal Firearms Act, which began the firearm dealer licensing system. Seems logical, after all, back then cars must have been used on what seems to have been a regular basis to conduct mass killings, whereas guns must have been there so people can shoot out the tires of those trying to run them down.
>
> I agree with the right to bear arms. Most argue against the slippery slope of regulating or taking away parts of that freedom. Really? That ship has sailed. Why not bear nuclear arms? Oh yeah, they weren't around when the second amendment was written, and that would just be plain old stupid. But what about people having cannons in their front yards, after all, cannons were around then? Oh yeah, we have that thing called common sense. But let's get back to cars. Clearly since regulations were faster there and have better evolved. If I have a couple of drinks and happen to be pulled over, even though I haven't hurt anyone or intended to hurt someone, I can have my license pulled and be put in jail. I have no clue if similar laws exist where gun holders in public have similar consequences. If someone leaves a bar with a gun, and a police officer sees them, is the gun confiscated? Is their right to use a gun is taken away for a while? Does the gun owner goes to jail? I really don't know the answer to that, and don't feel like looking it up right now.
>
> I'm tired of going into movie theaters and looking at the exits, not so I know where to possibly run in the event of a fire, but in an event of a shooter. When going into a theater with my family, I literally run through options of where to run, and how many of them I can get on the ground and lay on top of to shield them from gun fire. This is not normal. Why do my kids have to go through active shooter drills at school? Somehow we look back at ducking under desks as crazy, but we are back at it, for a much more real and random scenario. The first thing in every college tour these days has the tour guide boasting about not being anywhere on campus without having at least two emergency call boxes visible. At a recent freshman orientation I literally listened to the head of public safety who was previously a chief of police for one of the largest police forces in the world, discuss active shooters and other safety concerns. He even had the head of the local FBI field office in attendance. This is not normal!!!
>
> So here's the solution. Stop playing partisan politics. Stop feeling like the answer always needs to be in the extreme in order to protect something. Give me a break. If a hunter needs an automatic weapon to kill a bear, they are not a good hunter. Enact stronger gun controls. Background checks, safety testing, regular license renewals, restrictions on number of rounds, restrictions on types of weapons, no silencers. If a gun is allowed out in public, open carry must be required. What's the point of a concealed weapon? If a bad guy sees someone with a gun, they may think twice before shooting. Why have them start shooting and then realize that there is going to be a shootout.
>
> Enough is enough!!!!! I can't even imagine what my kids will have to deal with when they have kids.
Tuesday, October 03, 2017
CHIP Expired Today. Insurance For Nine Million Children...Poof.-- Daily Kos
"While
Trump tweeted about football players and Republicans in Congress
salivated over tax cuts for the already insanely rich, the Children’s
Health Insurance Program expired today.
The GOP cannot govern and MAGA sucks."
Sorry Kids
The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) – formerly known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) – is a program administered by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides matching funds to states for health insurance to families with children. The program was designed to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid.From Vox:
CHIP funding won’t simply run out on October 1 because of the way the program is financed. Federal money is distributed as a lump sum to the states annually, and they then have two years to spend it. So most states will have money left over next month, even if no new federal funding is coming in. But it is nonetheless a perilous position for the program, and some states are staring at big funding cliffs soon.Arizona, North Carolina and the District of Columbia are expected to run out of funds by December. Minnesota ran out of funds today.
The GOP cannot govern and MAGA sucks."
Sorry Kids
Monday, October 02, 2017
Guilty -- to some of it but not all.
Nevertheless this is BRILLIANT!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/10/01/donald-trump-sporting-spirit/1PsCjpb5EyocjzFEdoNneL/story.html
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/10/01/donald-trump-sporting-spirit/1PsCjpb5EyocjzFEdoNneL/story.html
Science and Sanity -- BLAME
I
am going to attach blame for our latest disasters. I blame Republicans
for climate change and man's contribution to it as they advocate for
filthy fossil fuels. I blame right wingnuts denying man's contribution
to this human life and planet destroying science affirming reality.
Houston, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and hundreds more disasters
from tornadoes, to hurricanes, floods and droughts I lay at the feet of
these Republican Cretans so big oil can line Republican pockets. As
usual it is all about the money. The Drumpf presidency is about it as
well. It is milking the US of all the cash it can get away with sucking
at the breast of the US taxpayer no matter how unethical and even
allegedly illegal the conflicts of interest may be!
I blame the Nevada massacre on RIDICULOUSLY lax gun laws. Nevada, the
capital of sin city, has an open carry law except in casinos of
course. Assault rifles are not illegal. NO ONE BUT NO ONE needs an
automatic or semi-automatic assault rifle much less Congress to vote on okaying silencers!!!!
These are weapons of war not for civilians carrying them to create
mayhem on innocent people. The NRA is a moral sewer and Trump is their
biggest supporter. SHAME ON HIM AND THEM!
Can
you imagine Las Vegas if the gd shooter had silencers on his weapons?
If one cannot see the shooter they can at least hear from where the
shots may be coming. A silencer would make that impossible. The remedy
is to take Republicans, defeat them by the hundreds all over the nation
in 2018 and finally let science and sanity prevail!
Sunday, October 01, 2017
"Donald Trump has 'dangerous mental illness', say psychiatry experts at Yale conference Mental health experts say President is 'paranoid and delusional'
Would you want your
son, daughter, husband, wife, relative or friend to die in a war waged
by this deranged malevolent misfit that is Trump?
Recommended viewing
Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's "Vietnam" is a 10 part documentary on the Vietnam War shown on PBS. This is one of the most complete, fairly treated, historically accurate documentaries I have ever seen on the Vietnam War as only the great Ken Burns can do it. This one is done with Lynn Novick and possesses the gift for combining the realities of the Vietnam war from Eisenhower through the Ford administrations comprising five presidencies for nearly 20 years and includes the historical, sociological, and psychological aspects of the war with background music from that era of conflict. It is a brilliant work. No matter where one falls on the scale of opinion of the war this documentary will not fail to present a complete and balanced chronology of one our nation's most divisive eras and a war that evokes controversy to this day. One might say this nation really never got over its effects and that our nation has never been the same since it.
The work brought back to me the issues from that era. Both the anti-war movements and those who supported the war are most fairly reflected. There was almost no one who experienced the war who was not conflicted by it.
As one who was involved in the anti-war movement of that time it brought back memories I have stored for all these years and it does it through the eyes of the soldiers who fought it, thought it was worth fighting, as well as those soldiers who joined veterans against the war groups opposed to it. It also touches on figures we remember today such as John McCain a tortured and beaten for six years POW as well as others who fought it and eventually opposed it like Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. It includes the famous opposition to the war such as Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Jerry Rubin, Rennie Davis, Oliver Stone who fought in the war and groups such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other groups who were sometimes violently against it. It includes the Kent State massacre as well. It is the fullest most complete rendition of the the historical events leading up to the American involvement in the war and also includes interviews of North Vietnam vets and their perspective on it. It brings you through the present era which shows a relaxed Communist state employing some capitalist enterprise to propel Vietnam economically into the 21st century.
The end of the series will captivate and includes the fleeing of the South Vietnamese trying to get away from the north who ultimately won the war and the creation of the Vietnam memorial in Washington which has one of my own friend's name on it.
"Vietnam" is a beautiful, poignant remembrance of the war and the names on the Vietnam Memorial who died for this controversial cause. I highly recommend viewing it.
Saturday, September 30, 2017
A View from the End of the American Empire -- The Intercept
Interesting article I recommend reading.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Insomnia
Trump has been
relatively silent on gays
except for transexual people not being allowed to serve in the military
which
is, of course, bad enough. I believe he executive ordered that not
because he cares anything about an issue for or
against trans people but because it was red meat thrown to his ugly
extremist base to lock down their votes. I have been wondering, though,
when he was
going to address the larger population of gays and write a noxious
Executive Order(s) negating larger gay rights issues or
even negate gay marriage itself despite the Supreme Court granting gays
that right and many others rights as well. A
Constitutional crisis could even ensue as he challenges the Court
through Executive Order granting to himself essentially dictatorial
power.
What
bothers me in the extreme, however, is the primary win of religious
fanatic and removed-from-the-bench former Judge Roy Moore of
Alabama who won the primary over the Trump-supported Luther, a
Dickensian name, Strange.
Trump does not, of course, give a rat's petuti about either of the
Republican primary candidates but cares that the
candidate, Luther Strange, whom he supported, lost. Naturally, now he
is effusively
supporting Moore because it is in his interest irrespective of the
irrational noxious religious extremist beliefs Moore holds and even
though Moore defied a judicial court order, the rationale for removing
him from the bench. Moore does not believe in our Constitutionally
mandated separation of church and state but rather wants to wed the
state to Christian belief exactly what our Founders wanted to avoid.
The
moment I have been waiting for, I say
facetiously, is when the culture wars rise again with gays as the
electoral pinata,
Muslims right behind them along with Hispanic children of
"undocumented" immigrants who know no other country because they were,
well, children even babies when they arrived here. Most importantly, of
course, the civil rights gleaned over centuries of persons of color
stand to be eliminated by this rancid Republican minority as Jim Crow
laws give way to voter suppression and a watering down of the 1965 Civil
Rights Act by SCOTUS ruling we are a post-racial nation doncha know.
Oh, yes, just ask the people of Ferguson, Missouri how post racial this
nation is.
Gays
have acquired rights in many ways -- some in the states, some by
winning
referenda but most emphatically by the Supreme Court. Persons of
color have achieved their rights we know through the shedding of blood
from centuries
of civil rights struggle. Now the immigration amelioration of DACA is
at risk too. Young adults both Muslim and Hispanic alike do not know
which way their future might
be determined and if it will be determined by a hateful minority who
has skillfully, under the Democratic radar screen, managed to acquire
gerrymandered power they should not have. Minority
rights won through hard fought elections, through vociferous protest,
thorough skillful argument in the
courts, through constitutional amendment and through much emotional
expenditure can be taken
away in an instant.
Many
of the so called "moderate" Republicans are leaving Congress, their Republican Party more divided then ever, because
they do not want to face an even more extreme opponent and worry about
being primaried like Luther Strange. I worry, too, about the more extremist Republicans winning
and filling even more seats in the House and the Senate. The religious extremist Republican Roy
Moore winning the primary in Alabama is a discredited judge removed from the bench who wants
homosexual acts criminalized, gay marriage eradicated, the Christian religion institutionally
solidified and horrifically calls for Muslims like Representative Keith Ellison legally barred from
seeking Congressional seats. This rancid man is a
KKK policy supporter. I am afraid that the Republican Party will win
more seats through extremists running for and winning office to usher in a new
era of minority discrimination and hard fought for rights taken
away. All of us -- gays, persons of color, Muslims, Jews, women and
most assuredly Hispanic immigrants' rights are at risk by poisonous
Republican extremists gaining even more power as moderate Republicans head for the exits.
What can be given can be taken away. That is what gives me insomnia making me toss and
turn waking me up at night!
RESIST!!
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
FAT MAN
Rachel Maddow
interviewed Joe Cirincione, an expert in nuclear weaponry. The
interview was chilling. I paste it below because you and everyone
you know, everyone you love, everyone you care about or even do not care about must know what a
president with no ethics, no values and no intellect is doing. Trump is
taking us -- all of us -- to the abyss.
I
believe most, especially if one is under a certain age, have no idea of
the reality of nuclear war. Many, I fear, because of the
American losses of war post WWII want to blast an enemy
into oblivion, regain our face in the world and cheer as if it were Tom
Brady
throwing an 80 yard pass for the win. There will be no winning a
nuclear war and North Korea is, face it, a nuclear powered nation with a
leader possibly as unstable as Trump. North Korea will never give up
its nuclear weapons and as stated in "Arms Control Association" and
written by Kingston Reif, "Trump has declared his ambition to “greatly
strengthen and expand” U.S.
nuclear weapons capabilities and has criticized the 2010 New Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, suggesting he may be looking to
change nuclear policy in significant ways." The possibility that each
power, North Korea and the US will get their wish and explode one as one
head of state taunts the other authoritarian dictator provoking the
possibility of conventional and nuclear confrontation not decreasing it.
We
are one minute to midnight, a book written by Michael Dobbs, explaining
in detail the Cuban missile crisis of 1960. It was as close to a
nuclear war as this nation has ever come with an adversarial power as
mighty
as our own. Luckily, then, for us, that we elected a president who had
a
brain, soaring intellectual curiosity and a penchant for empathy. The
crisis was
averted by the Soviet Union (at the time) dismantling the nuclear
weapons in Cuba 50 miles off our coast and the little known compromise
of the US dismantling its nuclear weapons in Turkey pointed at
Russia. These were two powers that understood what devastation nuclear
war could bring and who did not spew puerile taunts to one another like
teenagers proving their manhood but through back
channel negotiation saved the world from an unwinnable nuclear exchange
and its unspeakable destruction. There is no winning a nuclear war.
My
fear is the aggressive among us do not know nor understand the
devastating blow a nuclear explosive exchange would have. Therefore,
along with Rachel's interview of Joe Cirincione, I am enclosing, too,
what the detonation of a nuclear device meant in 1945 with bombs called
Fat Man and Little Boy that were deployed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Japan to end WWII. The nuclear bombs then were far less destructive
than what our nation possesses now and our nation has thousands of
them. I
urge everyone to watch no matter how difficult to hear the interview
and view the other links below I am enclosing to see. Then forward it
to all you know, to all you care
about and love so they can see what the explosion of a nuclear device
really means. Tell them to forward it to all they know hoping that
eventually
this warning can circle the globe.
Donald J. Trump is no joke. He is
mean, he is an ethically barren mendacious monstrosity and he is an
incurious man with feeble intellect. He is taunting an authoritarian
Kim Jong Un who is simply deliriously thrilled to show his power and
explode a nuclear device on our allies, our territories and on our
mainland if possible. The poisonous cancer inducing radiation alone from a nuclear blast
will spread around the world as the testing of these bombs both above and
below ground has shown. The destruction will be enormous and
unspeakable.
The
people have seen to it to elect the madness of Trump. We, all of us,
are one minute to midnight and no one nuclear bomb shelter will save all
of humanity. "Now I become death destroyer of worlds" -- J. Robert
Oppenheimer, the head of the Manhattan project that developed the
nuclear bomb, said quoting from the Bhagvad Gita after viewing the bomb's test.
Watch and learn what we could face and then RESIST as strongly as you can with whomever you can to avert this now nearly all too certain devastating possibility.
Rachel Maddow Interview of nuclear expert Joe Cirincione: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Hiroshima Dropping of the bomb August 6, 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Seconds from Disaster Nagasaki atomic bombing August 9, 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Trump: Fans Should Boycott NFL Games Over National Anthem Protests, Trump Says -- My Comment
Huffington: The president said he wanted NFL owners to “get that son of a bitch off the field,” an implicit reference to Colin Kaepernick and others who have protested like him.
My Comment: This Cretan president will do anything to create division in our nation. There happens to be something called free speech in this country. Black players justifiably so are protesting the killing of innocent black men often by white police. This nation has a long history of white men killing black men while facing no punishment for it. The latest incident of the white policeman killing the black man the white cop was allegedly heard saying I'm going to get this N%$#@. That black man had no gun but was shot point blank dead by the white cop and the judge found the white copy not guilty. So what else is new?What is not new is a person having the right to say and do anything non violent that is a political statement. Kapernick the person to whom Trump was possibly referring has every right to protest what he did. Better that this know nothing president criticize his supporters who carry Nazi and Confederate flags or the KKK the real entities of true hate and anti-American sentiment.
Friday, September 22, 2017
The Madness of Donald Trump
Matt Taibbi the Great states as only he can in his article in pertinent part for "Rolling Stone Magazine" link below:
"We deserve Trump, though. God, do we deserve him. We Americans
have some good qualities, too, don't get me wrong. But we're also a
bloodthirsty Mr. Hyde nation that subsists on massacres and slave labor
and leaves victims half-alive and crawling over deserts and jungles,
while we sit stuffing ourselves on couches and blathering about our
"American exceptionalism." We dumped 20 million gallons of toxic
herbicide on Vietnam from the air, just to make the shooting easier
without all those trees, an insane plan to win "hearts and minds" that
has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease –
including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with
misshapen heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our
real American legacy, well out of view, of course."
While
I am at it I might mention a well crafted documentary as only Ken Burns
can create. He creates a 10 part series with Lynn Novick "The Vietnam
War" on PBS. They chronicle it from its beginning in 1955 during the
Eisenhower administration to its end 20 years later by Gerald Ford. The
Vietnam war spanned five presidencies: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson,
Nixon and Ford and cost 58,000 American lives.
How
many more will die for this nation's penchant for eternal war? Let's
hope the madness of Trump and his Tweeting partner in madness Kim Jong
Un does not raise the stakes to nuclear war and the end of civilization
as we know it.
RESIST!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-madness-of-donald-trump-removal-25th-amendment-w504149
Autumn Leaves
Someone on my Facebook posted a beautiful picture of autumn leaves with a line from the song "Autumn Leaves" written on it. My
mother loved that song and I believe it was made into a
movie in the 50's with Joan Crawford as an older woman falling in love
with a young man suffering mental illness. I thought when I saw the film as an adult it to be a poignant, sad
and an interesting film for its time.
I
found that song on YouTube done by the great Eva Cassidy who is no
longer with us. I paste it below because it's simply beautiful and I
love it. Sometimes there is, indeed, more to life than politics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXBNlApwh0c
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Reflections on the Days of Awe
"I'm sure there are all sorts of higher powers like electromagnetism and
gravity, and things like that. But I don't believe in a deity, no. I
see no evidence for that in my life or anywhere else in the universe.
Personally, people can believe what they will and they will believe what
they want. I find that most deism, and certainly most theisms take a
fairly narrow view of the universe, and most people’s views of God or
gods seem to be rather impoverished. The universe itself, the physical
world that we can perceive with our senses and grasp with our minds,
seems to be far more wondrous than most people's conceptions of a
deity." -- Ronald Reagan
Our nation's Founders knew the danger of mixing religion with state and were so concerned that they Constitutionally mandated the separation clause. This nation often sounds, at least in right wing world, which controls immense power in our country, like any fundamentalist sect the powers that be say is our enemy. The wars, death and destruction caused by religious belief and its intolerance of those others who have different beliefs is staggering. The many suicides that have been committed because a person simply cannot be that which their religion dictates they should be are astonishing. I joined Ron Reagan's Freedom From Religion Foundation not so much because I have finally reached a conclusion that there is no god but because I so fervently want religion OUT of the decision-making process of the state.
During Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement (the days of Awe) one is supposed to take a look at and reevaluate oneself, make amends for one's bad behavior, strive to do better and hope that a god is pacified enough that he inscribes you in the "Book of Life" to live another year. I do not reserve those efforts in my life to merely those 10 days nor do I base my efforts to do that which is humane and good so a god will will be convinced enough that I am worthy of more years of life rather, it seems to me, like a lobbyist pays a member of Congress to do what he wants. I do things and advocate for things because in my ethical universe the things that I do and for which I advocate are humane, good, and right most especially for the least of us.
I evaluate my conduct every day, am the harshest critic of me and hope I not do unto others that which I would not want done to myself. I hope I will continue that task every day in the days ahead harboring and promoting humane political and social policy hoping the dictates of biological science will see to it that I live at least another year. I will, though, say to those who do believe and to all who do not La Shana Tova -- a happy and most of all a healthy new year.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
There is hope?
I am pasting this latest email below I received from the "Intercept" which is a credible media source.
I
was so depressed over the latest Republican rancid attempt to repeal
and "replace" the ACA a/k/a Obamacare and pass the most draconian health
care bill ever denying coverage to millions that receiving this email
was some uplift. The media yesterday was saying Republicans were close
to having the votes to pass it (i.e. Republicans lied) but according to
the source below maybe not and there is hope for it to end up on the
ash bin of history!!
Thank
you Jimmy Kimmel for being so
passionate about your newborn son's poignant example of why the ACA is
so
important to so many. If a newborn child comes into this world with a
preexisting condition (as Jimmy Kimmel's newborn son did) this dastardly
Republican bill
would not have to pay, in pertinent example, for the baby's heart
surgery because it would be considered a pre-existing condition. It
will make it prohibitive of the child ever getting heath insurance or
making it cost prohibitive for those who have preexisting conditions.
It is an abomination. Kimmel was angry and said so on his show
reaching millions revealing Senator Cassidy to be in essence a liar.
When Republican liars get exposed and the
man behind the curtain uncovered to be a child healthcare predator denying even the most
innocent among us a shot at life the Republicans unethical character is revealed. I could not imagine that the three
Republicans who were cheered when they and McCain voted thumbs down
on the last insane healthcare bill would now support this worse one. I can only hope they won't.
From the "Intercept" by Ryan Grim:
It’s often said about politics that perception is reality. As true as
that can often be, sometimes reality manages to break through. And that
appears to be what’s happening this week to the latest effort by Senate
Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare.
After several weeks of trying, the bill’s authors, Sens. Lindsey
Graham and Bill Cassidy, weren’t any closer to getting the 50 votes they
needed to pass the measure by the deadline of Sept. 30th. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain hadn’t budged, and Rand Paul had added himself to the no column.
So Graham and Cassidy bluffed, and began telling the press they were
extremely close, their whip counts had them right there within striking
distance. Democrats and progressive groups responded with a full-scale
mobilization in defense, and all of a sudden we were shooting with real
bullets again. Except we weren’t. While McCain, a good friend of
Graham’s, is a question mark, none of the others have shown any sign of
wobbling. Without those three, Republicans are short of the votes. Yes,
having 49 votes is close, but it’s no closer than they were in July,
when the effort died last time.
Much of the focus has been on Murkowski, who just a few weeks ago
told her summer interns that helping block repeal last time was the
greatest difference-making vote she’d ever cast, something she’d done on
principle. It’s hard to imagine how she moves from there to the other
side, but even if it were possible, today made it that much less likely.
This morning, Alaskan press reported that the Republican governor was
thumbs-down on Graham-Cassidy. After all, a quarter of the state relies
on Medicaid. Then around lunchtime, he signed a letter with other
governors urging the Senate not to act on Graham-Cassidy.
That led to an unusual experience for me: the chance to inform Graham
himself that the Alaska governor, the man he needed to help persuade
Murkowski to come on board, had come out against his bill. After Senate
Republicans had lunch with Vice President Mike Pence to chart the path
forward, I asked Graham if he (Graham) was disappointed in the
governor’s announcement, and whether he had spoken with him beforehand.
It quickly became clear this was the first time he was hearing about it.
“When was the announcement?” he asked, adding that he doesn’t know the
governor personally.
Later, Murkowski explained to reporters the crux of the governor’s
objection: it wasn’t about ideology or conservative politics. It was
about the cuts in health care spending. In other words, it was about
reality.
“If I get half as much money, flexibility doesn’t help me,” Murkowski
said her governor explained, a nugget of policy wisdom folks might want
to keep close at hand.
With Collins and Paul presumed solid no votes, Republicans can’t lose
Murkowski. Unless a political earthquake hits, they already have.
Meanwhile, Republicans are cooking up a $1.5 trillion tax cut and the children’s health insurance program (CHIP) is about to expire next week.
It’s too bad for Republicans that they likely won’t get a vote on the
repeal-and-replace bill, because they came up with a new plan to amend
it to ban states from pursuing single-payer plans on their own. That’s a
flexible understanding of state flexibility!
AGAIN
PASS THIS ON TO ANYONE OR EVERY ONE YOU CHOOSE!! STILL, CALL, SIT IN
REPUBLICAN OFFICES IF YOU CAN, SMOKE SIGNAL, TELEGRAPH, TELEPHONE, I
PHONE, OR IN ANY FASHION YOU CHOOSE RESIST!
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Suicide
A
discussion of suicide ensued on Facebook. The number of suicides in
this nation is rising. A few in this debate believed that suicide is
not painless; that it hurts.
I
know some close to me who have had a family member end their life and
those family members and friends who had to see that are not okay.
Those affected by a loved one's suicide hurt and are often, if they
cannot get help, devastated for life. The person committing suicide,
I suspect, does not or did not realize the devastating impact that
their death had or will have on those who love them. Perhaps, they do
realize that but are in such physical or mental anguish
they simply do not care or they feel that they are so alone, have no
family or even friends to whom they can turn that the psychic pain, as
they perceive it, make them feel they have no choice but to end their
life themselves.
Life, I believe, is not meant to be lived in such
anguish either physically or mentally. It cannot be about what life should
be. Yet there are others like a relative of mine who was in such torment from
a prolonged painful tragic disease said in a way that he could "I love life!" It is amazing the hardship
some can take while others cannot and succumb to the vicissitudes of life.
Today
where national
situations brought on at the behest of Congressional Republicans and a
Republican corrupt president trying their damnedest this time, unless
some Republicans find a conscience, to tragically pull health care, yes,
their constituents' right to life, from millions who cannot financially
afford the astronomical costs of it. Add to that sickening fact is the
international situation is so fearfully bad that nuclear war hangs like
the the angel of death over the world's head because Trump cannot
negotiate nor are there many left in the State Department to do so. Add
to this are the devastating effects of
climate change some will end their life because a zero ethics
utterly corrupt president and a Republican controlled Congress has made life or soon will make it so unbearable for those who do not
have enough money to bear it and Trump pulls out of the world's Climate Change Agreement. The only peace some people can imagine is a life not here to bear those crushing realities.
There are many contributing factors to suicide. If
Trump and Republicans get what they have always wanted you will be able to watch the suicide rate rise
significantly. This does not have to be so.
This draconian Republican death care bill must
propel each and every one who sees what has been threatened by
Republicans to do to scream, shout, protest, write letters and occupy if
one can Republican offices asking the Congress persons in them -- no
demanding -- they take pity on those who through no fault of their own
will be besieged even killed by this presidential and Republican health
care bill just so Republicans and Trump can have a "win." I ask you
what have they won?
Schopenhauer,
the 18th century philosopher, said the driving most important force of
man is his "will to live"; Victor Frankel, the author of "Man's Search
for Meaning" and a survivor of the WWII concentration camps marveled at
how few suicides there were in the camp in the face of an intolerable
and painful existence. These are points to ponder but our job now is to
ensure through government policy that no one is forced to die or to end
his/her life and that the will to live is, for most of us, our eternal
mandate.
Jam
the phones of the White House and Congress, write letters, send emails,
or occupy Republican offices if you can. The time is short because
Republicans want to ram the death care bill through before September
30th. The life you lose may, in fact, be your own!
RESIST!
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