Say goodbye say hello

Republicans are doing anything they can to get Brett Kavanaugh, a sexual/alcohol abuser and misogynist.

The FBI report is in.   I knew that last night.  It will be inconclusive.  McConnell knows he has the votes.

 

They will move it out of committee onto the floor on the weekend.  Murskowski will fold, Collins will fold and so will Jeff Flake and two Democrats from conservative states Heitkamp and Manchen although as of this writing Heitkamp is a "NO."  They will have the votes and Kavanaugh will be on the Court.

Say goodbye to legal abortions that save lives and welcome to the back alley abortion where women die of toxemia; say goodbye to gay marriage and gay rights, rights for persons of color and Hispanics or any kind of affirmative action, in general; say goodbye to your lakes, rivers and streams loaded with toxic chemicals and pollutants a great deal for the petroleum industry and chemical companies.  Say good bye to union rights; say goodbye to limiting billions in bought legislatures, say goodbye to health insurance and welcome back preexisting conditions for which insurance companies will deny you insurance; say goodbye to Medicare, Social Security and more; say goodbye to women's rights and a return to the Mad Men days of the 1950's where women are treated like pond scum and marital rape is legal; Say hello to permanent climate change, ice caps melting and oceans rising; the list goes on and on and on.

Say hello to more voter suppression, say hello to more gerrymandering, say hello to more unjust violence against black men, more black men in private prisons that are already busting from overpopulation and more violence against gays which is already happening.  Say hello to a president who will be granted immense power,  is guilty of many many financial crimes the size of Everest and is guilty of collusion with a hostile power Russia.  Start welcoming Russia's Putin into your homes and maybe even Kim Jong Un with whom Trump said he was in love. 

Say hello to an America where the 2% wealthiest have it all but want more and the rest of us get nothing; say hello to a congress and presidency that is now riddled with horrific corruption and will remain that way because Kavanaugh will provide the 5th SCOTUS vote that will say a president cannot be indicted so there will, in fact, if the Congress remains Republican, a presidency imbued with unbridled power as Republicans capture the third branch of our government, the Supreme Court. Trump will be able to do anything even shoot someone in Times Square and not answer for it.  Say hello to a president who is a financial and Constitutional alleged criminal and allegedly guilty of treason against his own country.  SCOTUS soon will make it illegal to take a federal case into state court allowing for unlimited pardon power and will obliterate the 14th Amendment.  All Trump's children allegedly guilty of so much will get away with it all as he will.  There will soon be many more hair pulling rights fought for so dearly that will end. 

SCOTUS was our court of civil civil rights protection and its last resort.  Now so called "conservatives" will take cases to lower courts and lose just so they can take it to the Supreme Court and win.

I don't know about you but that is a nation in which I do not want to live so where is that window from which I would like to jump.

IF YOU DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRATIC NOVEMBER 6, 2018 THIS WILL NOT BE AN AMERICA YOU KNEW AND I SUSPECT IN WHICH MOST OF YOU WOULD NOT WANT TO LIVE.

YOUR LIFE DOES DEPEND ON IT SO VOTE DEMOCRATIC NOVEMBER 6, 2018 AND RESIST!

Trump, Russia and Hate

I wondered if anyone saw a fabulous "On Assignment" with Richard Engel. He talks about definite ties between Russia/Putin AND Trump. It gives a little history back to the good old anti-Communist days of Ronald Reagan. You know something is wrong with a progressive if those days begin to look good to me. 

It is CHILLING that the American Rightwingnut Christians extremists across the nation see no problem with a US tied to Russia. They rather like it ESPECIALLY at gun shows galore and most especially Russia's attack on LGBTs. 

Attacks on LGBT human beings are normal in Russia as were attacks on Jews during the era of pogroms the very reason my grandparents got out and came here. They never knew when they would be attacked. Same thing with gays. More worrisome is attacks here are up. Thank you Mr. Trump for your most humane influence (I JEST) on American culture. Nothing but the very best haters. 

It is time to unite against this cancerous curse of Trump that has invaded our nation. I KNOW we are more than Trumpian Republicans; I know we are better than Trumpian Republicans and I know we must loudly and strongly say so! RESIST!

Chad Ludington’s Statement on Kavanaugh’s Drinking and Senate Testimony

 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/us/politics/chad-ludington-statement-brett-kavanaugh.html

Chad Ludington, a Yale classmate of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s who said he often drank with him, issued a statement on Sunday saying the Supreme Court nominee was not truthful about his drinking in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

Here is the full text of the statement:

I have been contacted by numerous reporters about Brett Kavanaugh and have not wanted to say anything because I had nothing to contribute about what kind of justice he would be. I knew Brett at Yale because I was a classmate and a varsity basketball player and Brett enjoyed socializing with athletes. Indeed, athletes formed the core of Brett’s social circle.

In recent days I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale. When I watched Brett and his wife being interviewed on Fox News on Monday, and when I watched Brett deliver his testimony under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, I cringed. For the fact is, at Yale, and I can speak to no other times, Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker. I know, because, especially in our first two years of college, I often drank with him. On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer. When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.

I do not believe that the heavy drinking or even loutish behavior of an 18- or even 21-year-old should condemn a person for the rest of his life. I would be a hypocrite to think so. However, I have direct and repeated knowledge about his drinking and his disposition while drunk. And I do believe that Brett’s actions as a 53-year-old federal judge matter. If he lied about his past actions on national television, and more especially while speaking under oath in front of the United States Senate, I believe those lies should have consequences. It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges.

I can unequivocally say that in denying the possibility that he ever blacked out from drinking, and in downplaying the degree and frequency of his drinking, Brett has not told the truth.

I felt it was my civic duty to tell of my experience while drinking with Brett, and I offer this statement to the press. I have no desire to speak further publicly, and nothing more to say to the press at this time. I will, however, take my information to the F.B.I.

I hope it is not too late

 

 

 

 That is EXACTLY right.   Kavanaugh is a beast if he thought it was so smart to put that in his yearbook for all time. Are we supposed to say HA HA?  NO, I say I think I want to throw up at the thought of putting this sickening slime on the most powerful prestigious court of intellect and wisdom in the now so called "free world." How did we sink so low? I place the blame everywhere in an anything goes culture! The blame as I have thought for a long time must be placed in many parts of our culture.

I loved the late Sixties throwing off the stagnant, hypocrisy of the Fifties.  I thought the late Sixties to be an era that meant a humanitarian sea change for the poor, the sick, the elderly, the sad and the dispossessed bestowing those rights that had been given to everyone else but held back from particular others whose skin was a different color or whose orientation was different from the majority.

I thought the Sixties meant love and not hate. I thought it meant instead of killing human beings we would help them out of poverty and war. The only thing our sad excuse for a president that was used by him and now his SCOTUS choice, Kavanaugh, was unbridled, lewd, licentious and lascivious, talk and behavior that said if it feels good do it no matter who it hurts. NO, to me the Sixties meant the freedom to conduct one's physical life without fear of physical harm, shame or guilt that lead to suicide. It meant a release of the bonds of social servitude.

As usual our species took it to the heights of Everest allowing many to hurt especially weaker women and weaker people anyway they, the privileged white few men, wanted. The metamorphosis of the Sixties did not mean that to me. I never thought about the political right with presidential support morphing it into a permanent culture of hate.

What have we become as a nation? This administration has ushered in the unbridled debauchery of Rome at its worst -- the barbarians at the gate. I blame myself too for thinking there would be finally in this nation a humanitarian example to the world and not begin the potential destruction of a nation. I did not mean this to be so. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. . After the barbarity of Trump we must right a host of wrongs including those to our planet.  I hope it is not too late!

"Jane Fonda in Five Acts"-- Life on her own terms

This is a documentary about the life of Jane Fonda, daughter of film star, Henry Fonda, whom I knew well from his movies of previous eras.  I grew up knowing both of them in their professional roles.  This is an excellent documentary of Jane, who grew up a shy lonely child enduring her mother's suicide and her father's coldness morphing into a fulfilled woman becoming an activist for humanitarian causes. It spoke to me.  Later in life she sees herself not defined by the men she was with or to whom she was married but by her own personal measure and by her own deeds. 

We see and listen to this documentary told by Jane as she progresses into the various phases of her life looking at her life through the lens of not only the three different men she wed and but also in her early years through the strained almost sterile relationship she experienced with a father who could act in film but was unemotional and uncommunicative in life.  This documentary is the opposite of that. 

It is a highly emotive documentary reflecting the pain in her early years because of a father she thought did not love her and the suicide of a broken mentally ill mother whom she never got to know.  Through a child's immature eyes one could see why she thought herself deficient in some way even physically unattractive as her father kept chastising her for being overweight.  She was in reality thin and later bulimically very thin but still incapable of not only receiving love from either parent but loving herself.  Later, finally, on her own in the final scenes she escapes being defined by the men she wed or her sad relationship with her father but defines herself in her own right.  She visits her mother's grave for the first time one snowy winter day to apologize for not trying to understand her mother if only to embrace her and tell her she understands her mother's own tormented background and loves her unconditionally. 

The documentary takes us on her life's journey through the men she married, the films she starred in and the political life she embraced.  Her first marriage to French film director Roger Vadim with whom she had a child, to political left wing activist Tom Hayden with whom she had one child and finally to billionaire and media mogul Ted Turner.  Jane was a subsidiary of all of her marriages taking second place to the whims of what she thought the men in her life wanted her to be. 

Vadim emphasized her body cajoling her to act in mindless goddess films such as Barbarella.  Her leftward political turn and her own growth came as mine did during the Vietnam turbulent years of the Sixties.  Though combative I loved that era.  It infused her life and my own life with cerebral meaning. Her films were many. I am not able to list them all here but her notable films and ones which impacted my own life and hers were ones filled with social commentary.  They were "They Shoot Horses Don't They," a dance marathon film about the torturous Great 1929 Depression and the average people it crushed, "Coming Home," an anti Vietnam war film of the Sixties, "Julia," a profound look at the evils of fascism and Nazi Germany,  "China Syndrome," a statement on the dangers of nuclear power and  "On Golden Pond," coming full circle acting with her elderly father, Henry Fonda, reflecting the great depth of their own tortured relationship, Henry Fonda's explicit iciness to her and Jane's plea for love from him. 

This is a biographical documentary film for our time as the social split occurring in the late sixties between the left and the right has gotten argumentatively worse in this toxic Trumpian era.  Trump is a reflection of our broken nation and is a man who capitalizes on that brokenness. I loved this documentary because it takes me back to my own metamorphosis during the late Sixties at a university known for its Berkley-like leftist political slant at that time.  I went from a high school girl who questioned nothing to a woman decades later who questions everything as Jane Fonda's later films encourage one to do.

I urge you to see this biography and think about your own human development and what it means to take a political stand even if the ridicule one faces is smothering. I was not a radical at that time but I did love the anti-war radical leftists and black rights advocates including MLK and Malcolm X who had the fortitude to put their lives on the line for humane moral causes and a fierce desire to save their people and humanity from the death that those of privilege and power often deliver!

Now in her 80's Jane Fonda has found a new zest for life as she plays her last act going through it on her own terms.

Left wing money? I am in mourning today

Really, Judge Kavanaugh, really?  That accusation by Judge Kavanaugh of a left wing money cabal should have been met with strong push back from the Democrats on the Committee.  So the right doesn't drown their Republican candidates in money? No not much!  What was Citizens United all about anyway?

The left wing money is eclipsed 10 fold by right wing money of Koch, Adelson, Mercers, Richard Mellon Scaife and many other billionaires and corporations because the Supreme Court in their infinite wisdom decided corporations are people doncha know.  Republican billionaires and corporate money drown out Democratic opposition and, yes, even fix elections through the horror and inequities of the gerrymander not to mention a conservative Sup. Court demolishing the Voting Rights Act.

Republican candidates' money is the sewer upon which Republicans float!  Get real Judge Kavanaugh.   Judge Kavanaugh, you lie!

I believe Dr. Ford in triplicate!  Kavanaugh could not say he wanted the FBI investigation of the multitude of things the veracity of which could be found because he does not know what truth his friend Judge the only other witness in the room would say under oath!  It's obvious.  Democrats do not know how to fight.  They should be screaming the opposition of Kavanaugh who is going to negate ALL those equal rights fought for so hard over centuries for women, persons of color, Hispanics, immigrants (except white ones from Europe), the disabled, and the LGBT community.

I am in mourning today!

A NON--sexual analysis of Brett Kavanaugh by David Brock a former right wing conservative operative turned truth teller. Inbox x

David Brock on NBC: “I used to know Brett Kavanaugh pretty well. And, when I think of Brett now, in the midst of his hearings for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, all I can think of is the old "Aesop's Fables" adage: "A man is known by the company he keeps." And that's why I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy: Vote no. Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and personally. Brett actually makes a cameo appearance in my memoir of my time in the GOP, "Blinded By The Right." I describe him at a party full of zealous young conservatives gathered to watch President Bill Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address — just weeks after the story of his affair with a White House intern had broken. When the TV camera panned to Hillary Clinton, I saw Brett — at the time a key lieutenant of Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating various Clinton scandals — mouth the word "bitch."

But there's a lot more to know about Kavanaugh than just his Pavlovian response to Hillary's image. Brett and I were part of a close circle of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media. And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of the Senate and the American public serious pause.

Call it Kavanaugh's cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author, and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.

At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke. In a rough division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network, Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman, known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for partisan advantage.

When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation, we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not illegal.)

Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the elves" — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than Brett Kavanaugh.

That critical flow of inside information allowed Starr, in effect, to set a perjury trap for Clinton, laying the foundation for a crazed national political crisis and an unjust impeachment over a consensual affair.

But the cabal's godfather was Ted Olson, the then-future solicitor general for George W. Bush and now a sainted figure of the GOP establishment (and of some liberals for his role in legalizing same-sex marriage). Olson had a largely hidden role as a consigliere to the "Arkansas Project" — a multi-million dollar dirt-digging operation on the Clintons, funded by the eccentric right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and run through The American Spectator magazine, where I worked at the time.

Both Ted and Brett had what one could only be called an unhealthy obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary. While Ted was pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions by pedaling the same garbage at Starr's office.

A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common decency.

Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.

Like millions of Americans this week, I tuned into Kavanaugh's hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with great interest. In his opening statement and subsequent testimony, Kavanaugh presented himself as a "neutral and impartial arbiter" of the law. Judges, he said, were not players but akin to umpires — objectively calling balls and strikes. Again and again, he stressed his "independence" from partisan political influences.

But I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is — because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun rights. 

But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and, if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon the rest of us."

KANGAROO COURT

Witnesses who knew Brett Kavanaugh such as his roommate, Mark Judge and others such as Rameriz's (the second accuser's) roommate tell a different story.  Kavanaugh if not an alleged alcoholic was a big drinker and though a sober saint was alleged to be a nasty drunk. Kavanaugh's friend Mark Judge was known by John Heilman of "Morning Joe" because he was a bartender during those days in DC. He said last night on the "Last Word" he knew Mark Judge who came into the establishment to be a raving drunk, mean, and nasty.  Bring in the book written by Judge entitled "Wasted" which names a drunken character in the book as Bart O'Kavenaugh.  One does not have to know Dickens to see whom this character portrays. One can know a person by the company he keeps.

Add to this Michael Avenati's devastating interview on Rachel Maddow last evening vowing to reveal a third and security cleared believable accuser of Kavanaugh and there is a witch's brew of filth. Brett Kavanaugh should not be sitting on a lifetime appointment to the most prestigious and influential Supreme Court of the United States and as an ultra right wing "conservative" inflicting great damage on women, Hispanics, the poor, the powerless, persons of color and the LGBT community.

The explosive commentary of Michael Avenati who has a penchant for telling the truth and getting things done.  He says that Mark Judge and Kavanaugh were joined at the hip and poses a series of questions he wants Kavanaugh and Judge to answer.  They are about the following:

• The attorney Michael Avenatti claimed on Sunday that he had "significant evidence" that Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, participated in sexual misconduct in high school.
• Avenatti said he had evidence that at multiple house parties in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge would target women using alcohol and drugs "in order to allow a 'train' of men to subsequently gang rape them."

https://nypost.com/2018/09/23/avenatti-says-he-represents-woman-with-credible-information-about-kavanaugh/

There were statements in Kavanaugh's year book which were dastardly comments he thought funny about a woman whose reputation they besmirched.  There are other quotes I will not print here as they are too disgusting to print.

I aver Kavanaugh is NOT what he appears to be. This is a man Republicans choose to sit on the most prestigious most influential life-appointment position in the land.   Urge those senators who may be on the fence and even ones who are not to vote no for an alleged sex offender and an alleged even ultimately criminally indicted man as a Supreme Court justice.   He should not make SCOTUS a kangaroo court! 

RESIST

Climate Change Comes Home To Roost In North Carolina. Breached swine lagoons. Overflowing coal waste ponds. Sewage in the streets. The hellish aftermath of climate-fueled Hurricane Florence. Deny science at your peril

  SCROLL DOWN

 

 

 

This is UNBELIEVABLE!! Truly I am at a loss for words usually not a problem for me but holy god this is mind numbing. Those who do not believe in science will die by it. Science does not care if you believe that the tooth fairy causes global climate change. The laws of physics will prevail and do what the laws of physics will do.

If scientists -- 98% of them -- say the gouging on fossil fuels creates global climate change then you know what? I BELIEVE THEM!! Survival of the fittest rules! Raw sewage are in these waters along with coal ash waste from coal plants el presidente loves so much and from the deregulation of toxic waste creating a toxic stew meant to kill. Add to that hog fecal matter and my advice is to ask your "stable genius" Drumpf to send you some White House water!

According to the article above "There are water inundated homes, many still boarded up from Hurricane Matthew two years earlier. [Florence] swallowed farm operations, killing millions of chickens and turkeys and overflowing open pits full of hog feces. It flooded coal ash ponds, sending the toxic byproduct of burning coal into area waterways. The smell of human waste tainted neighborhoods; in the small town of Benson, 300,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled into the streets." Science -- deny it at your peril!

RESIST AND VOTE DEMOCRATS IN STATE, LOCAL AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, FEDERAL RACES TO SAVE YOUR STATE, YOUR NATION AND YOUR LIVES.  Send this to anyone you choose!

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hurricane-florence-climate-change_us_5ba53abae4b069d5f9d2a909    Read this link and weep.  Keep voting Republican and you will be voting for sewage to contaminate you, your children, your grandchildren and their children -- if you have them -- even into the next century!

I am in awe

A good year to all, of course, including those who are not Jewish and I wish those who fast on this solemn day an easy one.

I am not religious but having been raised in the Jewish tradition I am still awed by and in love with the sights and sounds of it.

Kol Nidre is sung the evening before the day of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish lunar calendar.  Jewish holidays begin on the evening before the day they are  celebrated.  Kol Nidre, I have always thought, is one of the most beautiful chants in Judaism sung the night before.  It means literally "All Vows."  It is a most plaintive and solemn chant sung at the beginning of the end of the Days of Awe -- 10 days beginning on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) and ending on Yom Kippur dedicated to prayerful repentance for ones sins and a promise not to man but to God to do better.  It is said on Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed asking the giver of all life to bless us with another year of it.

These days are dedicated to thought and reflection.  It is for us to take a kind of inventory of one's less laudable actions hoping on Yom Kippur one will be forgiven for them by a higher power who we ask to inscribe us in the Book of Life.  Kol Nidre is a song to make null and void all previous vows made not to men but to God.  They are vows we are permitted to erase and new ones, better ones made. Yom Kippur is a plea to a higher being no matter whom you think that being to be which has a dictate over the life and death of all. I wish all a long life, a good life, a happy life and that those unhappy times we all face in life we do so by our search for meaning in them.

In the concentration camps during the Holocaust -- the murder of the 6+ million Jews of Europe -- no matter the tortures inflicted by their cruel masters, no matter that death hovered around them like a dark fog bringing to those who were its prisoners -- most of them -- the slap of it but not by the prisoners' own hands.  Most wanted to live.  The question to me always was why with torture, sickness and sadness all around them did they choose not death but life.  Why was suicide for them usually not an option?   The German 19th century philosopher Schopenhauer tells us the strongest force in all humanity is "the will to live" and they tried to do so.  Some overcame the most bestial conditions and lived.  I am in awe of that. 

When I look around our nation and, indeed, the world hate is spewed from every corner of it.  Our nation has devolved into two camps who will not even talk to each other and whose leader promotes and basks in his discordant conduction.  How can the life of a nation prevail when hate courses through its veins poisoning our life-giving awe inspiring democratic system threatening to end it?  We must -- all of us -- try to do better and rescue it.  I am in awe of this life, this planet and the decent human beings that occupy it risking their own lives to save others.  A relative whom I loved died of ALS.  Even with his torturous affliction his license plate read "I luv 18."  It is significant, because it is the numerical value of the word Chai in Hebrew, which means life.   He loved life no matter the vicissitudes of it.

I am in awe of this planet, I am in awe of all life that surrounds it, and I am in awe of us who to strive to do better and sew a tapestry of love and not hate; of unification and not division.  I am in awe of that.  May those who strive to make a fairer, more just world be inscribed in the Book of Life.

Whos Next:Who's Next? -- an ode to Tom Lehrer by Lauren Mayer -- Brilliant, dedicated to Trump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRjWrCf79ao

Brett Kavanaugh -- NO!

Please call and/or email the senators below and urge them to vote NO on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.  "Ms.  Ford revealed her identity on Sunday in The Washington Post after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) confirmed on Thursday that she was in possession of a letter accusing Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting a woman in his high school years. Ford alleges that Kavanaugh was “stumbling drunk” at a party in the 1980s when he pinned her to a bed, groped her, ground his body against hers and attempted to pull off her clothing.  Her accusation against Judge Kavanaugh is credible.  The FBI gave her a lie detector test and she passed.  She should be given a chance to testify before Congress.  Do not make a Clarence Thomas, a completely silent Supreme Court Justice accused credibly (there were three more witnesses willing to testify but silenced by an all male committee of the time) of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, mistake again." 

David Brock: I knew Brett Kavanaugh during his years as a Republican operative. Don't let him sit on the Supreme Court.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/i-knew-brett-kavanaugh-during-his-years-republican-operative-don-ncna907391

Please call or email all the senators on the list below and ask them to consider voting against Brett Kavanaugh to protect the Supreme Court's independence and integrity.

DEMOCRATS
Sen. Joe Donnelly (D, IN) 1-202-224-4814
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D, ND) 1-202-224-2043
Sen. Doug Jones (D, AL) 1-202-224-4124
Sen. Joe Manchin (D, WV) 1-202-224-3954
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D, MO) 1-202-224-6154
Sen. Bill Nelson (D,FL) 1-202-224-5274
Sen. Jon Tester (D, MT) 1-202-224-2644
REPUBLICANS
Sen. Susan Collins (R, ME) 1-202-224-2523
Sen. Bob Corker (R, TN) 1-202-224-3344
Sen. Jeff Flake (R, AZ) 1-202-224-4521
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R, AK) 1-202-224-6665

STORMS ARE BREWING

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hurricane-florence-approaches-carolinas_us_5b9b77e8e4b04d32ebf73804

"Hurricane Florence Brings Life-Threatening Storm Surge To The Carolinas"

No climate change? Right? NO WRONG!!! As usual the US pays attention to science deniers and now are we and the world are in a MESS. As I always say science does not care.  The physical world will do exactly what the scientists predict it will do. Al Gore was dead on right!! Climate change caused by man in the form of fossil fuels is slowly but surely killing us with extreme weather events all over the nation and even the world.  Stupid science deniers along with their extremist religious fanatics lose ALL the time and we the believers in rational thought, science, and those who advocate for freedom FROM religion call the shots correctly. 

Florence is only the first during this hurricane season there WILL be more!  Just wait until a hurricane, tornado, extreme flooding, and/or drought comes to a theater near you.

RESIST FANATICAL RELIGIOUS CRACKPOTS AND BELIEVE IN SCIENCE IT JUST MAY SAVE ALL OF OUR LIVES.  CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL, IT IS TRUE AND IT IS COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU.

RESIST AND VOTE DEMOCRAT IN NOVEMBER, 2018!!  Send this to anyone you choose!

Climate Change and Health: Infectious Diseases -- READ AND HEED!

Our brain dead Fuehrer places his bets with the ignorant of ignorant those who deny science. You know what though? Science doesn't care. It will do what the scientists say it will. Deny it at your peril, at your children's peril, and your grandchildren's peril. They with us will pay the price!

https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/climate-change-and-health-infectious-diseases?utm_source=advocacy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=general&utm_content=reality-now-newsletter mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT1RZMU9Ea3hPR016WVdNMyIsInQiOiI1NXRzWUluZytlR1pFeFM4UEdJWXRTOHFqWTgrTmM3djU1WmVlRjhTTlJKTWNpVlU3QUNkd3pnWHN6VEhwNk51VElsUWRDWktiWnJTSjU4Y1grZ

Leasing our soul

 

Trump Administration Rushes To Lease Federal Lands

The Department of the Interior is quietly preparing to offer hundreds of thousands  of cres of public land for leasing to energy companies.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-administration-lease-federal-lands_us_5b98f9b5e4b0511db3e7cd19

Every day is another outrage. Leasing Federal Lands means that oil rigs could be cropping up on these gorgeous lands too. What have you done to us, America? Trump is our national nightmare. Every day in so many ways he is upending this gorgeous nation with its beautiful Federally protected lands. Of what twisted form is this president's heart of stone made? How can he live with himself and how can his allegedly sane children live with him, support his policies, get up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror?

The metaphor for Trump is his throwing paper towels at human beings in Puerto Rico going through one of the worst weather catastrophes this nation has seen killing nearly 3,000 people. That was an insult supreme and thinks he is an unsung hero for his treatment of Puerto Rico while his administration transfers millions from FEMA who could help people to ICE who imprisons those who look to this nation to save their lives.

In the end this beast does not care really about anyone but himself but especially he does not care about human beings born with brown skin. He is our Shakespearean tragedy. My heart breaks and my eyes fill with tears. Even I, a doubting Thomas, pray to God to save us from this ugly tragedy!

"EPA May Slash Obama-Era Methane Restrictions: Report"

 

"The Trump administration’s move is the latest effort to undo much of Barack Obama’s work to address climate change."

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-administration-methane-restrictions_us_5b972695e4b0511db3e561ef

To save corporate cash like they do not have enough they are doing these unconscionable acts. Are these people OUT OF THEIR F&*king minds???? Don't they have children???? My jaw just fell on the floor and there is a HUGE MONSTER hurricane that is going to decimate our southern east coast and god knows where else!!!!! No climate change -- NOT much! Sickening. Science does not care that Drumpf and his henchmen are an IDIOTS. SCIENCE WILL DO WHAT SCIENCE WANTS AND LET SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST PREVAIL! THEY ARE IDIOTS!

Apologies for the profanity but I can't help it.  What he has been doing rolling back all of President Obmam's attempts to stem climate change is disastrous and murderous.  This man MUST MUST MUST be legally taken down.  If  you care about human beings meaning you, your children, your grandchildren and their progeny and people you care about you MUST see this is an abomination.  Everyone is at risk.  This is life and death.  Think of it as a nuclear bomb over decades that will kill life on the planet.  The planet ultimately will survive because life finds a way but human beings won't!

CALL YOUR CONGRESSMEN AND WOMEN, CALL THE WHITE HOUSE, CALL THE EPA.   PHONE NUMBERS CAN BE GOOGLED AND TELL THEM TO STOP THIS MADNESS BY TRUMP AND HIS EPA.  IF MILLIONS CALL IT CAN HAVE AN IMPACT EVERYONE'S LIFE INCLUDING OUR NATION'S LIFE DEPENDS UPON IT AND THEN SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE!

The Realm of the Extremist Right

I convey my fervent hope that senators vote a decided no on the Kavenaugh SCOTUS nomination.  I ask those who oppose it as I do to contact their senators by phone and/or email.  If you know others in other states especially red ones please ask them to contact their senators as well.  For a number of reasons I oppose the nomination.  I quote a letter to the editor by a Susan Gibbs whom I thought best stated some of my beliefs.  She said:

"It is imperative that we have an independent judiciary. President Donald Trump has hand-picked Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court to do his bidding. Judge Kavanaugh is ready to change settled law, change the Constitution and take away rights we all enjoy among them health care. Millions will be denied it and ultimately die.  Moreover, he does not believe that charges can be brought against a sitting president. He will help Trump escape prosecution and consolidate power.

Judge Kavanaugh will not protect our clean air and water and will vote consistently with big corporations. He will take away women's rights, worker's rights, immigrant rights, consumers rights, LGBTQ rights and many more. He will sway the court in President Trump's favor if he is charged with multiple crimes against the American people. Senators should oppose this nomination."

I thought this letter summed up my reasons in opposition to Judge Kavenaugh's appointment to SCOTUS perfectly.  There are more reasons that make the affirmation of Judge Kavenaugh more than troubling and mendaciously suspicious.  He had a very hard time answering yes or no as to whether he spoke with a law firm attorney Kasowitz who is defending Donald Trump.  During his first day in the confirmation process he garbled his way through a non-answer answer.  It was not clear.  In his second day of sworn testimony he answered a definite no.  I suspect that he was lying as he had during the Bush administration when an email was found to prove he lied in his response to an issue of Democratic email stealing.  Perhaps if not confirmed for SCOTUS he could be impeached as a justice on the US Court of Appeals for perjury. 

Furthermore, as we know thousands of pages of Judge Kavenaugh's opinions have been withheld.  Thousands more given to Democrats with little time to review them.  The most problematic for me is that I suspect Judge Kavenaugh will rubber stamp the Trump administration's roll back of environmental pollution rules and the denial of science reported climate change.  It is no secret that many across our flood water choked nation are losing their homes and livelihoods due to climate change.  Yet another potential Category 4 hurricane is due to strike our North Carolina coast.  Our once pristine waters now are becoming again polluted because of the rollback of necessary environmental laws.  For these reasons it should be enough to vote a decided NO on Judge Kavenaugh's confirmation. 

In addition, however, Judge Kavenaugh was not on the original list Donald Trump was given.  Judge Kavenaugh was added, I must submit, because he was one who could be trusted to affirm presidential power and be a get-out-of-jail-free card for Donald Trump.  A reactionary turn to right wing extremist powers of hate, science denial, voter suppression and corporate elevation now are in a position to completely control the face of American power in a Republican attempt to control yet another branch of a division of powers government, the Supreme Court.  As President Obama said: How hard can it be to say that Nazis are bad?  Very hard if they are now a part of the so called Republican base.  Yet another reason to vote a resounding no on Judge Kavenaugh before our nation moves into another realm of the extreme right.   SEND THIS TO ANYONE YOU CHOOSE.

A clear and present danger

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korea-still-making-nukes-trump-admin-now-taking-much-n907651

Perhaps this is the story Anonymous had in mind. (See link above) Trump's insipid statements of praise for the N. Korean strong arm dictatorial leader, Kim Jong Un, while Kim produces in hiding and in secret more nuclear weapons to potentially eradicate nation states including a good part of the US and its allies.

If Trump knows this, and I suspect he does, one should fear immensely the opportunity he may be planning to nuclear strike first while Mueller is coming closer and closer to implicating him and his corrupt administration including his

​family​

. N. Korea presents the perfect opportunity for an unhinged president to go rogue to obscure Mueller's pristine investigation against

​his administration and ​

him.

Trump is a clear and present danger to the survival of our nation. He must be removed by any legal means necessary

​.​

God help us!

RESIST AND SAVE YOUR CHILDREN, YOUR GRANDCHILDREN, YOU AND YOUR NATION AS IF ALL THEIR LIVES DEPEND UPON IT BECAUSE THEY DO!

WOWOW ... Senator Whitehouse is amazing!

This is one of the greatest opinions for a SCOTUS decision EVER. He is TRULY presidential!!! Gorgeous speech and 100% accurate! Everyone should hear this!!
 


https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4746953/senator-whitehouses-opening-remarks-supreme-court-hearing

The Changes of Fall

The leaves will soon turn.  I feel a fall wind colored Democratic blue approaching.  Dare I hope an electoral blue tsunami propelled by progressive Democrats, persons of color and women is hovering ready for us to feel its forceful winds of change?  Democrats are, it seems, throwing caution to that wind unafraid of promoting their progressive ideals that help all people.  After all, to quote our inarticulate president what have we got to lose when a deplorable Trump and his lackeys afraid of Trump repercussions run rough shod over our democracy alienating democratic nations who heretofore were allies and kicking the teeth out of NATO?  Democratic moderation does not work.  It elects Republicans who are divisive and stand for the opposite of humanitarian policies for which Democrats do stand.

Can one imagine health care for all, a foreign policy that retrieves our loyal alliances, eschewing Putinesque tyranny, and a return to procedural normalcy?  Can one imagine policies in concurrence with the science-based realities of climate change melting arctic ice caps that someday will sink our coasts including Boston.  Progressives will attack climate change instead of withdrawing from a climate agreement that the majority of nations signed but from which our less than brilliant president has withdrawn.  Science does not care if one believes in it or not.  It will do what it will do despite the stupidity of some.   A blue wave could save the planet, your home and your life.  What your eyes see is real and it is truth -- the millions of gallons of flood waters all over the nation, tornadoes in states that rarely encounter them and more of them in states that do, and droughts promoting the onslaughts of devastating fire in the once beautiful California and the west so there is zero protection against rains that will come; ferocious hurricanes like Maria that hit Puerto Rico and a president who simply did not care about people with brown skin.  His efforts amounted to little more than throwing paper towels, an insult to people whose loved ones died -- 3,000 of them -- and not 64 dead as a president who lies all the time pronounced.  Can one imagine a legislature that cares about these things; that cares about children separated from their parents, some forever, by a Republican racist attempt to keep America white denying asylum to the tempest tossed of their own nations where death awaits.  

The Mad Men days of white control of our nation, abuse of women and ignoring minority lives are, in hope, coming to a close.  Even though one can see many persons of color, women and progressives on the precipice of victory our fight should never end.  Persons of color, women and progressives becoming engaged and winning means we all will win.  The force of this nation is in its perpetual motion trying still to fulfill its creed and dream that all men -- all -- are created equal etched in our Constitutional DNA and in the Declaration of Independence as our brilliant Founders said, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights those of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We are engaged in an eternal struggle with those who want to roll back and rip those rights from those who never had them but fought so fervently for them spilling blood to gain rights for their cause. 

The victories of Maria Robinson in my own Massachusetts 6th state district, in the national House by an upset win in Massachusetts 7th District the win taken by a person of color, Ayanna Pressley, and other hopefuls across the nation like progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York defeating a long term congressman and importantly the Florida's governor's race showing Gilliam, a person of color slightly ahead of Republican DeSantis despite Republican racist robo calls against Gilliam.  Republicans win if they cheat, they negatively mendaciously advertise, are saturated with corrupting unlimited money, if they gerrymander districts to suit them and if Democrats and Progressives pay no attention and worse do not vote.

Persons of color, women, and progressives across the nation are diving into hope and running for office.  Democrats are signing up in droves and will vote in November.  Maybe just maybe the nightmare of Trump will come to a cataclysmic end.  In time, perhaps, we will thank the corruption of Donald J. Trump and his corrupt minions for making this progressive blue wave possible.  I am hoping for a fall Democratic wind of change to emerge soon.

RESIST THE REPUBLICAN TRUMP CON AND PURGE REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION FOR ALL OF US.  VOTE DEMOCRAT AND SAVE LIVES!

A MUST SEE

A documentary was advertised, I believe, on MSNBC.  It is entitled "Active Measures."   If you love truth telling documentaries and even if you do not love documentaries but want to know the etiology between Trump and his love affair with Putin's Russia you must see this.   It can be seen though Itunes and Apple TV.  I searched in Apple TV under movies and it appeared.  One can rent it for only $3.99 and it is well worth it to see how the deplorable, corrupt, unethical, bully Trump made it to the most powerful office in the world.  It is, to say the least, a chilling expose of corruption not only of Trump but those in his cabinet and those Republicans who are afraid to, at the highest levels, oppose a man whose corruption knows no bounds.  It is still going on as I write this. 

The documentary is massive in its scope and true in its message.  The liaison between Trump and Russia did not just happen in 2016 but has a history going back decades.  Watch, see and believe what you are seeing and why Putin has Trump "over a barrel."  Then vote Democrat in the November 6, 2018 elections to take our nation back from crooks, thieves, liars, con men and the most unethical filthy administration in this nation's history corrupted by the greatest election con, perhaps, in the history of the world.

I have been told that power does not come from the top down.  Do not expect those who steal elections to renounce their ways.   Power comes from the bottom up; from we the people.  We are still a democracy but are on the precipice of losing it if we do not take power out of the hands of oligarchs and mendacious thieves and place it where it belongs--in the hands of those who want clean, ethical and principled government our Founders envisioned for us.

RESIST AND VOTE DEMOCRAT AS IF YOUR NATION AND YOUR LIFE DEPEND UPON IT BECAUSE IT DOES!!!