NO WORDS JUST TEARS

14 elementary school children massacred and one teacher - No words just tears

 I must write something and yet there are no words or if there are I cannot right now express or find them.

With all the injustice in this country and now this massacre  -- the height of injustice.  I can think of one word -- children, children, children. 

Texas governor Abbott should be fired i.e. thrown out of office with umpteen Republicons going with him like Ted Cruz and many others who suck at the breast of the NRA and gun manufacturers. Money the mother's milk of corruption.  The NRA means money in these unconscionable elected officials' pockets -- mainly Republican but not always exclusively Republican yet mostly Republican.

These were 2nd, 3rd and 4th graders. This is worse than shootings all over the country every day. One cannot minimize this and put it in the same category as all the others sad as those shootings were and have been. This is Newtown II. Children, barely out of the crib cut down in senseless slaughter.

I must collect my emotional self; perhaps more words will follow but now there are no words just tears.

 

Staggering: Supreme Court Leak Shows Justices Preparing To Overturn Roe

 

This is what happens when you have minority rule as a result of colossal gerrymandering and vote fixing. The majority on the issue of abortion in this country is well defined and in huge numbers wants abortion to be kept safe and legal.

Funny how Republicans when abortion is not legal turn their backs on the result of having a child that is not wanted either because of major birth defects,  rape, financial hardship or the god awful occurrence of incest?   When the life of the mother is secondary what happens to that child when abortion is illegal? Republicans wash their hands of the responsibility for the care and maintenance of an unwanted or for that matter a medically compromised child. Worse still is the thought of mandating a juvenile or a child to have a child.

If one can believe a Republican woman said that making abortion illegal presents a good opportunity for the mother to have a child and they further say that child could cure cancer. This is where their lack of intelligence presents stupidity as the result of this heinous decision. It will stand with the abhorrent Dred Scott  Supreme Court decision as one of the worst court decisions in US history. 

What if that unwanted child does NOT cure cancer but becomes a serial killer? The two possibilities are of equal merit.  I would go out on a limb and say having an unwanted child produces unwanted results. It is more likely that child will suffer the negative ramifications of his/her birth. 

So what does that mean for the majority in this nation? It means that the Democratic/Independent Progressive voting  MUST be gotten out en masse!!  Support Democrats up and down the ticket and hope we all live to see the day when quack abortionists and the deaths they wield to women do not become the rule.

David and Goliath

 Short of being in the middle of the Ukraine and Russian war crimes war I can only accept what those I trust who have been there are saying. We are still a democracy and free speech is our best shot at truth telling. I was skeptical of Secretary of State Blinken's statement yesterday after the Kyiv visit that Russia is failing in its war aims, and Ukraine is succeeding.  I trust our advocates of free speech to tell the truth and know for sure Putin is a consummate liar just like Trump. The visit yesterday of our two highest secretaries -- Secretary of State Blinken and our military expert and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin -- were shining examples of American commitment to Ukraine's winning this war for the protection of democracy and to crush the authoritarian war criminal Putin and his authoritarian state. In view of the powerful support of the US, other democracies and the Ukrainian superb resistance I am believing Blinken's statement that Ukraine will be there long after Putin's demise. [applause applause]

I hope as the days pass and Ukraine wins it will be the world's win and Ukraine will go down in history as the greatest victory since David fought Goliath. This time a Ukrainian win will be a phenomenal victory for democracy and those who study war will marvel at the Ukrainian success and superb perseverance against the bloviating mammoth Russia for a very long time. And, oh by the way, in France the rightwing extremist fascist Marine LePen [yes, that is how she spells her name] lost by a very large margin. We breathe a sigh of relief!  Onward, to defeat in this country our own fascist threat, the Trumpians and their Republican allies who want power so much they are willing to take democracy down to get it.  Do not let them.  Vote Democrat up and down the ticket!

The crime of war

War is so bestial and so horrific, and so damaging it is a wonder to me that nations would consider war as an option to solve differences between nation states.  I also thought WWII taught mankind a war crimes lesson.  Humanity has been taught that the horrific war crimes committed by nations when they are at war will be prosecuted as they were at Nuremberg and in modern times by the ICC (The International Criminal Court -- The Hague.) 

We know crimes committed by the German state in WWII rose to the level of war crimes much like Justice Stewart defined pornography as "I know it when I see it" to determine what is profanity.  War crimes, similarly, committed by nations at war are so horrific, so serious, so obvious and so beyond the definition of civilized humanity that, indeed, it too falls under the conclusion like pornography--I know a war crime when I see it.  Still, those nations prosecuted by the Hague give civilized man a yardstick to measure atrocities when they are committed by persons engaged in war and give humanity a place to prosecute those crimes in the International Criminal Court. "The International Criminal Court the (ICC) investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community those of: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression."  Do we know a war crime when we see it?  Yes, but to extract from that the ability to try, convict and punish those who have committed war crimes is, especially in the instant case of Russia's reprehensible crimes against humanity against the sovereign nation Ukraine we need a definitional format of just what the war crime(s) is (are).  We are helped by the media with their voluminous reporting and photographing the many atrocities committed by Russia commanded by and at the direction of Vladimir Putin against the innocent civilian population of Ukraine.

The media and photography give the mind's eye truth to asking the court to press charges against Russia for war crimes.  "Western and Ukrainian leaders have accused Russia of war crimes before, and the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has opened a probe to investigate the conflict." "But the latest reports ratcheted up the condemnation even further, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some Western leaders going so far as to accuse Russia of genocide." I concur with this request.  Yes, I know war crimes when I see them.  The Maripol bombing in general but in particular of a hospital by Russians and a pregnant woman succumbing to the attacks is yet another example of a war crime.  Hundreds maybe thousands of civilians have been raped.  "Russian soldiers have raped girls as young as ten and branded women’s bodies with swastikas," a Ukrainian MP has claimed.  Lesia Vasylenko said children had been left with wounds from serious sexual assault, adding: “Russian men did this.”  It comes as Russian troops are accused of massacring, torturing and raping hundreds of civilians on the outskirts of the capital Kyiv in Bucha and in Irpin. 

To my mind war is so lethal, so barbaric, and so inhuman that war itself should be labeled a war crime.  Man's inhumanity to man I was always told is a permanent condition of mankind.  If one looks at the concentration camps of WWII, and looks at Ukraine now there can be no doubt that war itself is a war crime.  50 million people died in WWII.  Yes, I said 50 million.  What kind of mental contortions have to be constructed to allow man the ability to do that to the innocent of other men.  As I see it, those NATO nations should act to defend Ukraine and give them all the weapons they need to defend against the Russian beast despite Ukraine not being a member of NATO.  The crime of war should bring with it a potential for the redress of grievances.   Justice, justice, justice I cry so that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice the oft quoted line speaks.  I wake up, take a shower, then think on the crime of war and ask where can the Ukrainian go to find justice and how long will it take?  It will take as the song said to the twelfth of never and that is a long long time. 

In the meantime give those Ukrainians what they need to fight Putin's plague and watch as this time justice may bend toward justice even within the crime of war!

 

A reason to hope and a time to kvell?

Russia has agreed to talks with Zalensky and according to MSNBC reporting Ukraine is entering into these talks from a position of strength!!! I hope that is correct. I do not want to wax euphoric .... YET.

Democracy and Ukraine it seems, so far, are winning this war. Russia underestimated the strength of Ukraine.  If Russia were winning they would never enter into talks. Could the good guys be victorious? I surely HOPE SO as do the many democratic states in Europe. This is the most positive I have been since the invasion of Russian aggressors almost a month ago when I knew the Ukrainians would launch a patriotic defense of their land but could Russian numbers in the end prevail. 

Keep praying for Ukraine or do what you do by asking a higher power to overcome the imbalanced strength of the Russian Goliath.

As a side note.  Thoughts about the Ukrainian people.  My grandparents emigrated from Ukraine from the towns of Shepatovka and Sluvuta (at the turn of the 20th century) to overcome Russian pogroms (organized attacks) and the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.  What a smart move!  Had they stayed they probably would have ended up in Babi Yar, a pit where they tossed dead Jews.  Over 33,000 Jews were killed and tossed there in over a week's time.  I never knew my grandfather but I can only kvell (Yiddish for beam with pride) at the foresight he had to get on a boat to America, to him, a strange land.  I was told he was fiercely patriotic and loved this country.  His progeny reflected the success for which he had hoped.  It and other branches spawned doctors, businessmen and women, teachers, a diplomat at the presidential level and many college graduates.  Oh yes, by the way, Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is Jewish. So much for the Russian fake news that Ukraine was invaded by Nazis and that the Russians are engaged in a defensive war against them.  That falls into the category of Russian bulls&^%.

The moral of that story is trust NOTHING Putin says and pray for the good democratic people of Ukraine to prevail!!

ANOTHER GOP BEAST

GOP Sen. Mike Braun Says Interracial Marriage Should Be Left To The States.  

The link below is about our kindly empathetic GOP.  If it were up to Indiana Senator Mike Braun the ugly position above would be law. He walked it back by saying he got the question wrong. If anyone believes that I have a bridge to sell you.

Why doesn't the vile, sickening, putrid Republican senator from Indiana set up his own Nazi state somewhere the art of being an empathetic human is non existent?  Another dirtbag in the GOP.  These GOPers crawl out from the bottom of the sea. Question: How many GOPers agree with him? Answer: Many. 

 

Vote Democratic Blue everywhere! 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mike-braun-interracial-marriage_n_623a3627e4b0c727d4848948

THE RUSSIAN CHALLENGE AND THE NATO MANTRA

Dissecting the international upheaval is a challenge. In truth, whether Putin will attack Ukraine I do not really know. I suspect he will push forward because what I do know and have said often is that Russia in the end wants a reemergence under its power the Russian Eastern European block nations before the fall of the Soviet Union. Crimea was first, now it is Ukraine, soon I suspect Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will be in his sights as is Bulgaria. The Nazi horror Hitler is Putin's teacher. Little by little Hitler emerged as a potent force for the annexation of German hegemony through the appropriation of nations one by one on the pretext of protecting German speaking people. Chamberlain got it wrong. Hitler wanted the whole of Europe and would stop at nothing. The Sudetenland land was first, then Poland, Czechoslovakia and beyond were under German authoritarian aegis. He did not stop at the Sudetenland. Hitler was stopped by Russia because the Russian winter was a prohibitive factor. Make no mistake Hitler wanted Russia too. Hitler wanted the world. The allies and the Russian winter ultimately defeated him before Hitler could have won it all and now our allies must remain united and not repeat the Chamberlain debacle by allowing Putin to gain little by little what he wants by invasion. NATO was designed in the face of Nazi defeat to never let another power reach for global domination. Putin does not want NATO to stop him now. It must not be sanctioned that one nation by merely overpowering other nations surrounding its borders can again do the same just because it wants to. Our NATO allies must hold fast stopping Russian aggression or the west will see a reemergence of the attempt at world domination and authoritarian leadership. We are now at an inflection point. Domestic right wing extremism in our midst makes for a very dangerous situation with a nuclear power flexing its Russian muscle saying do not let NATO or anything else threaten Russian power. The US can play that game too and should flex its own threatening muscle in response. Perhaps extreme sanctions can stop the Russian state. My first inclination is to say no it will not but the NATO powers should remain together saying as NATO's mantra said that an attack on one nation is an attack on all.

The unethical SCOTUS Clarence Thomas

 

Every single day there is yet another accusation that sets my hair on fire as to the unethical reality of, this time SCOTUS and the steep cliff the opposition to all things extremist right must climb to expose and eradicate these unethical influences to yet another institution of our division of power nation--the Supreme Court.

We on the rational side of things political must depend on savvy others to advocate and mount a legal offense to these egregious unethical sins this time by the Supreme Court in the person of one of its justices, Clarence Thomas and his wife's membership and advocacy for right wing legal cases that are to be brought before this court for adjudication. What will happen to the extremist right wingnut Clarence Thomas and his dance with the extremist right wing of his wife's political advocacy?  This is yet another attempt at packing the Court with justices who will influence the outcome of legislation brought before it such as the affirmative action programs of many educational institutions that the right has been chafing at the bit to eradicate.  Ginni Thomas, Clarence Thomas's wife, has been a vociferous advocate for these right wing causes which will demand attention by this Court yet again ensuring the decisions of the court of litigation brought before it will list to the often extremist political right.  This Court, above any other, has become an arm of the extremist political right wing ensuring the outcome of its various cases even before the cases are argued.  Justice Thomas is a flagrant abuser of an ethical code of justice that ensures blind justice uninfluenced by political causes and opinion.  It is just plain unethical and wrong.  Justice Thomas must recuse himself from sitting and judging on cases in which his wife is intimately involved.

I attach a link to an article by Demicia Inman of The Grio entitled "Clarence Thomas" wife supported rioters before the siege: ..." 

 

 

"https://news.yahoo.com/clarence-thomas-wife-supported-rioters-231103492.html

God's Work

Historian Howard Zinn, my political example at Boston University upon whose every word I hung always said to us that it did not matter how difficult the fight or how entrenched the opposition was who was advocating for racist, inhumane and even cruel policy one must simply keep on keeping on to oppose those who want to cement hate through law. One hopes to realize that the arc of the moral universe will be on one's side.

The slain civil rights workers in Mississippi, Cheney, Goodwin and Schwerner, the bludgeoning of the black youth Emmett Till by white racists accusing him of merely looking or whistling at a white woman and the explosion of a bomb by the Ku Klux Klan on September 15, 1963, at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11) are all examples that seemed impossible to confront.  They were all gruesome murders.

Zinn said you never give up even when the things for which you are fighting are beset with seemingly intractable opposition of zero character and even less moral fiber. It did not matter. He said you march ahead with confidence in the rightness of your cause and simply never give up. Even If it takes another 50 or a 100 years one passes the baton to the next generation when your day is done to keep your humanitarian principles alive so that you know in the end, as Dr. King said, that the arc of your moral universe will bend ultimately toward justice.

The murderers of all three Black men -- George Floyd, Ahmed Aubury, and Dante Wright, were found guilty by a preponderance of white jurors. Those verdicts convicting white officers and white civilians just 20 or even 10 years ago would have seemed impossible. And so we trod on hoping one day that the myriad of voter suppression laws Republicans in state legislatures have unconscionably enacted to stymie Black and other minority voters will one day be overturned so that we can say as John Kennedy would have said God's work on earth is truly our own.

Jim Crow 2.0

No Republican is going to see how magnanimous Kirsten Sinema is. They are just going to play with the hundreds of state changes favoring Republicans and Whites now that no federal law is going to help Blacks ensure equality. Thanks, Justice Roberts, for ruining the 1965 Voting Rights Act so that persons of color yet again yet another time are put in the pillory and brutalized as they were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with voting requirements such as the grandfather clause, literacy tests, segregation laws, or any other impediment Blacks could not overcome. Jim Crow is alive and well in 21st Century 2022 America. Oh yes, include this in the Critical Race Theory manual because it is designed to do the same things as reflected in the American South in the 1870s and beyond. The vote is the only vehicle Blacks would be able to use to gain justice and now, even that, is compromised yet again to favor this time the US dwindling population of Whites. Do you realize how much time and energy Whites have expended to gerrymander everything? Answer: LOTS. And so, yet again, in 2022 persons of color still have to fight for those things that should be rightfully theirs and which Whites take for granted. In this era of Jim Crow 2.0 count me on the side of those trying to secure the arc of a moral universe as this white is on their side. I am sure I will not march alone. If I were Black how angry and dispirited would I be? Answer: VERY!!

Biden's speech -- a legacy that lasts

Yesterday, the president gave a magnificent speech with just the right intensity and emotion. Mr. President, I loved the speech! Now let's all of us, each and every one of us, who love fairness, justice and democracy go out and scream: I'm mad as hell and I am not going to be lied to anymore. We MUST all of us support our democracy and the plethora of humane and enduring principles that form of government reflects. We must be a smart people, a humane people and one that does not shirk conveying those principles loudly and with a passion that meets the moment. We must do this because we care about what we leave to the next generation in the pursuit of power not because it makes individuals great but because it makes our nation great. What we show to the next generation and to all the generations after that the promise that is the American experiment will be the legacy that lasts. "We have a democracy, ... " Benjamin Franklin said to a woman who asked him what form of government the Founders created, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT. YES, WE CAN AND YES WE MUST!

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. One of the most profound orations in history.

My Comments: Abraham Lincoln possessed gifts.  He had the gift of  writing, the gift of oratory and the gift of leadership with the ability to translate those gifts into saving the unity of a democratic nation.  I urge you to read his words at the link below and then to contribute your mighty efforts to saving our nation with your voice because the people's voice enmasse is, in the final analysis, the only thing that can withstand the immediate onslaught of corrupt, mendacious and authoritarian men and women bent on the overthrow of our Democracy, a gift awarded to us by our Founders, brilliant men of the eighteenth century. 

In its place they plan for an autocracy from which they fallaciously think will emerge a much easier form of government governed by the whim of one man and one Party.  That form of government will crush out free speech and it will crush out dissent.  All challengers to the anointed man, the Dear Leader, will be snuffed out as well.  It will eradicate a system in which no man is above the law because one man, the Dear Leader, will be above the law.  We will be relegated to an eternal civil war because one leader and one Party cannot be omniscient and know it all.  They will suppress all dissent. The elements of a Fascist tyranny will be the rule. It is said "...  that where people burn books they will also burn men."  We the people must take it upon ourselves to fight any and all attempts at insurrection and any and all attempts at violent subversion of our nation by raising our voice loudly against the forces of hate and division. 

Our people in our time and in this place are called upon to stop our descent into madness.  As John F. Kennedy instructed in his own inaugural address of 1961 over a century later that ... "God's work here on earth must truly be our own."

LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second-inaugural.htm

Reflections on the life and death of author Joan Didion Inbox

 

Joan Didion, author of “The Year Of Magical Thinking” has died.  According to her obit in Huffington Post "Didion, whose writing shaped American literature for decades, was also famous for her novels “Play It As It Lays" (1970) and “A Book Of Common Prayer” (1977), as well as essays such as “On Keeping A Notebook,” “Why I Write” and “Goodbye To All That,” many of which ended up in her book of essays, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” (1968).

"She won several Lifetime Achievement Awards, and in 2006, she was a Pulitzer finalist for her 2005 memoir “The Year Of Magical Thinking,” about the death of her husband, John Dunne, and her subsequent mourning."

My Comments:  What a life Joan Didion had. It perhaps was divided into the life with her husband John Dunne whom it can be certain to say she loved and then after the death of Dunne when she had to deal with his death and then the brutal illnesses of her daughter which must have tortured her soul until the daughter died. Her grief did not even end there.

The Year of Magical Thinking I think was a profound statement of her life after John's Death of a heart attack while eating dinner and after her daughter's sad ordeals. Those of us who have known tragedy in our lives surely can relate to our attempts at prayer and its hope that magical thinking will cure our loved ones and strike down the impossible sadness in our soul's response to their life and ultimate death.

An Excerpt from In The Year of Magical Thinking:

"Life changes fast.

Life changes in the instant.

You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

The question of self-pity.

Those were the first words I wrote after it happened.

For a long time I wrote nothing else.

Life changes in the instant.

The ordinary instant.

Didion says: "At some point, in the interest of remembering what seemed most striking about what had happened, I considered adding those words, "the ordinary instant." I saw immediately that there would be no need to add the word "ordinary," because there would be no forgetting it: the word never left my mind. It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened, absorbing it, incorporating it, getting past it. I recognize now that there was nothing unusual in this: confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred, the clear blue sky from which the plane fell, the routine errand that ended on the shoulder with the car in flames, the swings where the children were playing as usual when the rattlesnake struck from the ivy. He was on his way home from work -- happy, ..."

Didion's most profound statement "And then -- gone." "In the midst of life we are in death, ..."

My Comment: Rest in Peace, Joan Didion. Finally your quest for a peace is upon you perhaps what you never knew in life.

More of Joan Didion:   https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4956088

Manchin votes "NO" on Biden's signature Build Back Better bill

 

In one phrase: Manchin, you are an unprincipled boar never to be trusted again. Look at how many people he has burned by his intransigence on the Build Back Better bill. Millions of working class people in his own state of W. VA could surely use the BBB legislation.  W. VA has Manchin at, incredulously, a 62% popularity poll. Why?

To Republicans' joy Manchin loved the attention and to Republicans' credit he kept Democrats on the edge of their seats hoping he had a principled bone in his body and would, in the end, give Biden and the American people the victory they need on this important legislation. That was not to be the case.

Someone needs to look at Manchin's stock purchases. I Would not be surprised if he has bought into big coal.  It is from corporations like that that Manchin takes his marching orders. Certainly there is nothing principled about that!

"Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun January 6 was practice. Donald Trump’s GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election." By Barton Gellman

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/

I link this brilliant article entitled "Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun" ... above.

Barton Gellman from The Atlantic:  "Donald Trump came closer than anyone thought he could to toppling a free election a year ago. He is preparing in plain view to do it again, and his position is growing stronger. Republican acolytes have identified the weak points in our electoral apparatus and are methodically exploiting them. They have set loose and now are driven by the animus of tens of millions of aggrieved Trump supporters who are prone to conspiracy thinking, embrace violence, and reject democratic defeat. Those supporters, Robert Pape’s “committed insurrectionists,” are armed, single-minded and will know what to do the next time Trump calls upon them to act."

Two Minutes to Midnight:

My thoughts:  What on this earth do Democrats, progressives and others of good will in the majority have to do to prevent another insurrection from happening, subverting Democracy to usher in a despotic fascistic totalitarian tyranny? We must act!

I link the brilliant article above from The Atlantic.  I suggest, although lengthy, it should be required reading for all those who care about crushing the treasonous Trumpian grip and maintaining Democracy!   The time is later than you think.  It is, proverbially, two minutes to midnight. 

THE OXFORD HIGH SCHOOL MURDERS OUR CRUMBLING MESS

 

The text Jennifer (the Dickensian name) Crumbly sent to her son was in reference to the fact he was caught on his cell phone searching for ammunition for his brand new gun, a parental Christmas present to their son. The advice to her son should have been given never to search for anything gun related and certainly not carry a semi automatic pistol during school hours on school property.

After school officials reached out to Jennifer Crumbley regarding her son searching the web for ammunition, she texted her son saying, "LOL I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught," prosecutors have said. The Parents Crumbly with their son Ethan Crumbly met in the principal's office after their son's internet search for ammunition and after the suspicious violent things he said and had sketched were discovered. Ethan Crumbly came up with the plausible excuse to school authorities and his gun-loving parents they could believe. He told them he wanted to design video games as a trade. How could any parent get angry at that? He was, after all, planning a career!

THE FATAL FLAW

After the meeting the decision to let Ethan stay in school was made and so was the FATAL FLAW -- THE FAILURE TO CHECK HIS BACKPACK FOR THE GUN during the office meeting with their son and school officials. They would have hit pay dirt, found the gun and realized the potential seriousness of his rantings. If they had done that and, in fact, found the gun in his backpack, police could have been called and arrests of all of them could have been made PRIOR to the dastardly shooting and murders. He was underage to be carrying a loaded gun hidden in his backpack much less carrying it onto school grounds. It seems everything was done for Ethan and his parents' benefit so as not to create a problem for his parents and/or for Ethan. The ONE IMPORTANT THING they failed to do was to CHECK THE BACKPACK!!

OUR NATION AWASH IN OVER 300 MILLION GUNS

Living in a gun culture, making guns seem oh so attractive and legislating everything in the states' power not to abridge gun owners' rights is part of the cultural toxic brew of our nation that led to the murders. It is what led to not thinking to search for and find the weapon in Ethan's backpack, disarm him and call the police who could have arrested him for a minor being in possession of a semi automatic firearm on school grounds yet, arrest his parents for negligence and thereby save lives. What a tragedy in our 300 million gun-saturated cultural mess.

THE TRUE REMEDY

Okay, I'll say it and risk conservatives and their sympathizers blowing their stack but what the heck I can say anything. It is still as of today a free country.

Repeal the Second Amendment!! Yes, there I've said it. Rewrite the glorious Second Amendment to create it as our Founders, I believe, meant it to be.

The Second Amendment as written states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Place the emphasis on a "well regulated Militia" meaning the right to possess a gun was not guaranteed to everyone. If, however, you were a member of a well regulated militia like, for example, the National Guard or the police you were guaranteed the right to a gun. Otherwise, how could one ward off a radical insurrection perhaps like the January 6th radical onslaught of the Capitol by the extremist right wing of the Republican Party?

To provide for the common defense of the Republic and the State should be the main rationale for firearm possession in our now crumbling pistol-packing nation; the one our nation's right wing fascist-like extremist guerillas who attacked the Capitol want to dismember.

Abortion a Command or a Choice

 

The following is a letter I sent to the Supreme Court after reading a heart rending story entitled "I Wish I'd Had A Late-Term Abortion" By Dina Zirlott linked below.  I ask you not to second guess the rationale for a woman to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term before you read the article.  I think after reading it you will understand why she titled it as she did.

 

Because I spent many years at Children's Hospital dealing with my own physical maladies I many times saw birth defects of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus in infants.  It was a shock to my system and to my young eyes.

My letter:

Dear Justices:  If you think you have already formulated your opinion on this volatile issue think again.  Do not second guess this excruciating rendition of a woman's life gone haywire after she had been brutally raped.  This article linked below entitled "I wish I had a late term abortion" by Dina Zirlott will, I think, or it should render you incredulous not that the author wanted a late term abortion but that nature committed the cruelest act dealing her and her fetus in the final stage of pregnancy knowledge of its most difficult medical reality.  It should render all of you at the very least to understand that the reasons for an abortion are at once voluminous and at other times unique.  

In the end, to ask no to command a woman to proceed with a pregnancy that is excruciatingly difficult for both the unborn child and the woman cursed to bear a hopelessly deformed child it should lead you to reflect on your decision and then think again knowing that you cannot possibly know all the realities of a pregnancy.   This case should lead you to keep abortion a legal choice because no one should be commanded to bring a pregnancy into the world that both the mother and child suffer an impossible medically compromised fate.  In the final analysis whether or not to have an abortion should be a choice that only the woman carrying the child can make because circumstances command her to make it.

 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/late-term-abortion-rape_n_5c630b8de4b0a8731aeabbd6

Rittenhouse -- right wing extremist

 

Why was Rittenhouse in another state from where he lived carrying an assault rifle? He says he was there to protect businesses like what -- the car lot? He was there, he said, to treat the wounded with his sparse "medical experience"? 

 

Why did the prosecution not bring out the fact that Rittenhouse was/is a member of the Proud Boys rightwingnut extremist white supremacist violent group? My guess is the judge would never have allowed that questioning even though it speaks to the essence of who Rittenhouse is and why he was in Kenosha and why he shot dead whom he did.

 

Why were there no questions about the relationship between the police and him? The police let him run with a shotgun and asked for the help of right wingnut extremist groups and people like Rittenhouse. 

 

This was a miscarriage of justice and a chilling victory and permission slip for right wing extremist supremacist groups to enter the stream of protest groups. Rittenhouse was/is a right wing extremist which tells you all you need to know about the essence of who he is, why he was there and why he shot dead whom he did. He was armed and ready for bear against Black Lives Matter, perfectly acceptable to many in Kenosha and, most especially, to the police.

PROFESSOR HEATHER COX RICHARDSON -- + MY COMMENT:

 

PROFESSOR HEATHER COX RICHARDSON -- MY COMMENT: CBO GIVES THIS BILL A THUMPS UP! PLUS OTHER ISSUES. START NOW TO VOCIFEROUSLY SUPPORT DEMOCRATS NATION WIDE. GIVE THE CORRUPT REPUBLICAN PARTY A RUN FOR THEIR DECEPTIVE FRAUDULENT MONEY. TELL THEM NO MATTER HOW THEY FIX IT DEMOCRATS WILL MEET THEIR DARK MAGIC WITH SOME MAGIC OF OUR OWN!

 

Professor Richardson

 

Today began with Republican leadership doubling down on its support for Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), whom the House censured yesterday for tweeting a cartoon video of himself killing a Democratic colleague, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and attacking the president, Joe Biden. Only two Republicans voted with the Democrats in favor of the censure.

 

Former president Donald Trump issued a statement praising Gosar and saying the congressman “has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” In addition to the censure, the House stripped Gosar of his committee assignments, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said today that if the Republicans take the majority and he is elected Speaker, he will likely throw Democrats off committees and give Gosar and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was stripped of her committee assignments in February after violent threats against Democratic colleagues, better committee assignments.

 

This morning, on the podcast of Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows went after McCarthy, suggesting that Trump should replace him. Then, on Trump loyalist Steve Bannon’s podcast, Meadows suggested that if the Republicans win control of the House of Representatives in next year’s elections, Trump should become Speaker of the House, which would drive Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “crazy.” Bannon suggested he could hold the position for 100 days and “sort things out” before running for president in 2024.

 

While the Trump loyalists were putting the screws to McCarthy, the economic news continued to be good. A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on Thursday showed that the United States is the only G7 country to surpass its pre-pandemic economic growth. That growth has been so strong it has buoyed other countries.

 

Meanwhile, the administration's work with ports and supply chains to handle the increase in demand for goods appears to be having an effect. Imports through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are up 16% from 2018, and in the first two weeks of November, those two ports cleared about a third of the containers sitting on their docks.

 

Then the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its score for the Democrats’ $1.85 trillion Build Back Better Act. The CBO is a nonpartisan agency within the legislative branch that provides budget and economic information to Congress. The CBO’s estimate of the costs of the Build Back Better Act will affect who will vote for it.

Where have all the conservatives gone -- Liz Cheney in the crossfire

Liz Cheney has been ostracized from the Republican Party in her state of Wyoming. I am not a fan of Liz Cheney but she has shown herself to be a profile in courage. I hope she continues her stint in Congress and does not let the thoroughly corrupt mendacious Trump and those who support him define who she is and who we are. Shame on the Wyoming Republican Party and shame on all of them who do not stand up to that rancid man Trump.

There are no words to define the Republican Party in present time. I hope they lose mightily in every state where they have corrupted the vote. I hope our legal system stands in strong opposition to every ugly corrupt thing Trump attempts. I loathe that man Trump more than I can ever convey. Look at the fracturing of the American public he has done, look at how many lives he has ruined and how many died by his insane inaction against COVID and against the wearing of masks to stop it!  I hope the American people do not let him get away with all the corruption he has perpetrated. He is a sickening man. He is corrupting our nation and attempting to take democracy down and replace it with an authoritarian state placing him at the top for as long as he can. He calls American neo Nazis some good when, in fact, no Nazi is a good person.

Trump can take away a lot of things but I'm not going to let that lying excuse for a human take away my hope. I am hoping by some miracle those Nazi-like extremists to whom he appeals will be stopped. I hope as I did in the late 60's that my left wing slant will have done something humane and good. What I did not count on and failed to see was the nation states west were filled with arch conservative extremist ideologues and the south would always have many intractable racists. I once thought our liberalism and its quest for humanitarian policies of good would take root. Some have with immense struggle.

The great Howard Zinn with whom I was acquainted always said it does not matter what the opposition is. It matters that you oppose them and never stop. So onward I will oppose them with all the strength I have knowing that we want good for those who have never known what good is.