I kind of got focused on the Donald again while waiting for the insurrectionists to get together this weekend for fun and games in the Capitol. Sounds like they want to get the old gang back together, kind of like a high school reunion. They’ve modified the prom theme “Starry Nights” to “Turn Out The Lights” to more accurately portray their intention to leave democracy in the dark in their wake.
In an attempt to appear to look like normal folks, the organizers have asked the returnees to leave their MAGA duds at home. I’m hopeful that the organizer also requested they leave their guns, knives, bombs and other implements of torture behind. I know this puts the group at a real disadvantage of knowing who the other lemmings are, but I’m sure they’ll be able to just look for people frothing at the mouth and self identify.
As I understand it, the group is still determined to right the wrong of the majority of Americans finding Joe Biden more presidential than the Donald. They continue to foment the “big lie” that aliens from space and other countries manipulated the vote total by 8 million or so votes to throw the election away from their candidate. The Donald continues to do his part by waddling from venue to venue to separate the rubes from their money by saying anything that convinces the crowd that they alone hear the truth.
If you are a candidate who is willing to say anything to stir up a crowd, what does that say? If you promise to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S., and use Mexican money to do it, what happens when you can’t deliver on your promise? How do you appease the people who voted for you and the wall, and then were disappointed? How do you backtrack on your promise to deport 12 million aliens?
Forget the part that the voter should be smart enough to know that the promise was a physical impossibility. What happens after four years of constant prevarication and obfuscation? Do the voters that aren’t card carrying cult members peel away and vote for the other candidate? Do the fence-sitters just become disillusioned with the whole process and stay at home? Do the “fool me once” crowd search the horizon for the next “prophet”?
Salesmen and hucksters prey on the uninformed and the “wishful thinkers” every day. That’s why the Consumer Protection Agency was formed. Seems like we’re in desperate need of a Voter’s Protection Agency. It’s not like The Donald is masking his lies in obscure language. He’s speaking his mind right up front of everybody, and unfortunately, the feedback he’s getting is only fueling his egomania. His statement, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”, speaks to The Donald’s mental state. He believes he is infallible. That’s not a good quality for a leader of 330 million people that are as diverse as we are in America.
The world has a very bad history with infallible leaders. Normally I would do a separated at birth caption for this, but maybe this is more an argument for reincarnation.
Would Mussolini have been drug through the streets if he had had the Donald’s hair? Hard to know. Let’s hope we don’t get that close to history repeating itself to make a comparison.
While I like to rant about things out of my control, like the pollen, I also feel entitled to rant about other things as well.
One of the things that should be in everyone’s control is parenthood. Whether or not to have a child should totally be up to the parents. I guess in a perfect world we would want two happy well adjusted people who really loved children and would do right by them to be parents. Failing that, at least one of the parents should meet that criteria. In my mind, you have to have the mother’s total 100 percent buy in, or it’s a nonstarter. I don’t think I’m being sexist, or old school, I think I’m being pragmatic. If the mother can’t commit to 100 percent love and devotion to a child, she should have an out.
No, I’m not talking about adoption or orphanages. The horror of state run orphanages and places like depicted in the Magdalene Sisters are well documented. The potential mother should have a choice about when to exercise her lifetime commitment to raising a child, if ever.
Obviously what got me started thinking about this again is the law in Texas making abortion vigilantes out of the anti-abortion folks. They want to punish the mother and anyone associated with a woman exercising her rights over her body. How mean, how hateful, how non-Christian, how non-conservative.
Non-conservative, you say? Yes, because, while the Repubs have created their “Big Tent” by drawing in every hateful nut job in America from bigots to misogynists under the label of “conservative values”, actually being a fiscal conservative has not come in to play. How so, you ask?
As far back as 1972, the Rockefeller Commission determined that a liberalized abortion policy superseded a reduction in crime eighteen years in the future. The statistics were further confirmed in a study done by Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago and John Donohue of Yale University in 2001. Their study concludes that the states with a high abortion rate have also experienced the greater reduction in crime. You can’t argue the facts, unless you’re a Republican political candidate.
How can the Republicans, “true conservatives”, ignore the study commissioned by one of their own? The study conclusively points out that unwanted children become society’s burden in the future. It would seem that true conservatives should be in favor of molding a society where the “unwanted” children would not be disrupting classrooms, creating crimes of varying degrees of sophistication and violence before finally being moved into the prison system. The average cost to house a criminal in prison is $32,000 a year. It would seem that true conservatives would prefer these children to be taxpayers, not taxtakers.
The only rationale that I can come up with the Republicans disconnect from a demonstrable conservative issue is the “holier than thou” elements they’ve attracted over the years. These folks would like for us to turn back the clock to the “Scarlet Letter” days. Rather than a letter sown onto their dress to signify their sin of fornication, the “modern” Christians would prefer the woman have a child to carry as a constant reminder of her sin. I think all of the concern about “fetal pain” and the “beginning of life” are just red herrings designed to draw us away from their true motivation. These people want the woman to pay for her sin, and they are not content to wait for Judgement Day. They want her to pay now, and in the hereafter. They want her to wear her sin.
I’ll finish this one up by saying I’m for free, on demand birth control, whatever shape it takes. There should be a Planned Parenthood office every hundred feet if necessary to keep unwanted children born. Bob Barker used to end each show by reminding everyone to have their pet spayed or neutered. Are we more concerned about unwanted pets than we are children? God, I hope not.
I was thinking about the January 6th trials and all of the protestations about unlocking iPhones and the emails of Congress critters and other officials. That’s not to mention the hubris involved in ignoring subpoenas.
As a result of losing the 2020 election, the Republican party seems to want to just tear up the Constitution and leave no “rule of law” available to the common man. I realize that there are many people in our society that are so afraid and confused all of the time that they will happily give up their freedoms for the promise of safety. I might be scared and confused but I still want the insurrectionists held accountable. All of them.
Sadly, the current Republican party is willing to make the promise of “safety” to gain total control of our society. The fact that the Republicans are actively stoking the fires of domestic terrorists to allay the fears that the Republicans created should not be ignored. Of course I suspect that the Repubs are adapting Nelson Mandela’s quote “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” to their own needs.
We all realize that no democratic government has ever been able to keep its citizens completely in the dark forever. Even in the most repressive times, the government can’t even keep its secrets safe from cyber terrorists or whistle blowers. Look at the supposed harm whistle blower Bradley Manning is alleged to have done. Millions of records of government misdeeds were released into the ether, and all of the government’s anti-terror methods in place could not prevent their release. In spite of the calls for his execution for treason, it appears that the records released were more embarrassing than damaging. The truth came out and the Republic has survived, as it will when the January 6th insurrection trials conclude.
I guess I am ruminating on the safety issue posed by the January 6th insurrection. I’m also trying to make sense of the responses that it has drawn from some of the congress people. Honestly, I can’t think of how you could be hunkered down behind a bench in the House with a mad, frothing mob trying to rip the doors off and feel comfortable that it was “ok” because “they’re our guys”. The audacity to relate the event as just “normal tourist visits“, is beyond the pale.
Did the insurrectionists have playing cards like the soldiers in Iraq did to identify the high value targets? Clearly there were targeted members of congress, but what if you bore a likeness to one of the targets? Was Mike Pence’s brother in danger because he looks like the man destined for the gallows? What a tableau that would have been, Greg Pence screaming “No, no, you want my brother” as the crowd drug him to the hangman’s noose.
Mobs are by definition uncontrolled. Have the Republicans factored that any loss of life, any collateral damage to their side is acceptable as long as they return to power? I sense that the Congressional hearings are giving us that answer. Somewhere along the way being a good American loyal to the Constitution and willing to uphold the oath taken to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution got thrown into the ashcan. Fealty to the Donald and what he represents seems to be the only consideration.
We are all aware that it’s impossible to stop a guy willing to blow himself up in the pursuit of a cause. Maybe that explains some of the Republicans reluctance to rein in the lunatic portion of their constituency. I started to say “fringe” here, but I don’t think they’re the fringe anymore. Polls indicate that lunatics or lunatic lites are running the Republican party now. Maybe some of the more reasonable Republicans have found themselves in a position of riding the tiger. Sad. Who would have ever thought that the party of Reagan would ever have to fear “God Fearing” Christians?
I’m guessing that most members of Congress feel pretty safe everyday doing their job, unless their office is near MTG. It’s the difference in the narrative of what they are willing to do, or not do for the American people to keep us safe that worries me.
I’d love to see some of these congressional pseudo-patriots stand up for what they did and tell the American people, “Yeah, I did it. I tried to overthrow the government because my guy lost. I did it and I’m glad and I’m willing to serve whatever punishment is dictated because I’m proud of what I did.” That’s where real bravery is displayed, not in some convention hall in front of frothing sycophants.
I caught a news blurb that got stuck in the back of my brain. I kind of let it marinate there and went on about my business. My guess is that it would have died of loneliness, like most of my thoughts, but then it popped up again on CNN, and then The Daily Show. Once I saw it on The Daily Show, I knew it was legit.
As the story goes, the Donald has been telling his supporters that if he is not magically reinstalled as the rightful President (for Life) then his supporters should stop voting in the upcoming elections, “If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ‘22 or ‘24. It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”
Being one who was able to do a fantasy in my head that involved a backroom deal between Trump and the American oligarchs to destroy the Republican party forever and just go full scale Fascist, I’m reassessing my thoughts. In poker terms, I think the Republicans are now “pot committed”. They have too much invested in the psycho wing of the party to cut them and Trump loose. No backroom deals, no fantasies, just full on let the crazies have their way if it keeps “us” in power.
In my mind, the Republicans now have at the top of their ticket a candidate that says out loud what all of them are thinking. No more double speak, no more Newspeak, just comes right out and calls a spade a spade. The current party platform loses the “47%”, “welfare mother”, “welfare Cadillac”, references to the minorities and goes ahead and calls all non-whites murders, rapists, and welfare cheats. We all remember that the Donald got the ball rolling by calling all of the Hispanic immigrants rapists and thugs at his announcement speech.
In truth, I thought the “build a wall around the country”, ban all Muslims, etc. was so over the top that the everyday Americans would quickly see through the sham of the Trumpo-Fascist theory and it would be exposed early on. Imagine my surprise to find that the neo-Republicans had found a new savior. A savior who would say mean, hateful things at the top of his voice on a daily basis criticizing the people who were not “like us”. Blaming “them” for all of the world’s shortcomings and inciting his followers to invade the Capitol to maintain his regime.
In “Trump World”, the Donald doesn’t have the time or inclination to be politically correct, he’s too busy setting up his next scam. Besides, his followers shouldn’t be required to have to translate to get his message. For most of the Donald’s followers, thinking is real hard. Considering all arguments before making a decision requires the intellect to navigate a two-step process. It appears that there are not many intellectuals at Trump rallies. If so, they are standing off to the sidelines directing the Schutzstaffel in their next moves.
I don’t think that all actions at a Trump rally are orchestrated. I suspect that some of Trumpists get caught up in the moment and their half a wit doesn’t allow them to forecast the outcome of their actions. “l’m just too dumb to know better“, seems to be a common excuse given at the insurrectionists trials.
I don’t think the same can be said for the other Trump supporters using violence to get their message across. I think Trump is calling for violence from the lectern, and the fact that the Republicans in Congress will do nothing to put an end to it says everything. The current hierarchy of the Republican party believes in winning at any cost. Even if that cost is the “Shining City On A Hill”articulated by Ronald Reagan.
This could get ugly folks. The Chicago riots in 1968 were college kids upset about segregation and the war in Vietnam, among other things. The riots of 2024 and beyond could be because some little rich kid didn’t get his way. And let me remind everyone, even “Soccer Moms” are armed to the teeth these days.
There is a condition in America that needs to be addressed. It is a condition that the issuance of a “pass” or a pardon would correct. I’m talking capital punishment, or more literally, murder that is sanctioned by the state. I’m against it, and I stand with most civilized peoples of the world.
While a lot of the countries still have death penalties on their books, most have given up the practice. Of the 35 countries in the North and South American continents, 7 have the death penalty, but only 2 of them, the U.S. and St. Kitts, still execute people. Of the 49 European countries, only one country, Belarus, has the death penalty and executes. It would seem that the more secular European countries are more forgiving than their Christian cousins in the Americas. I am at a loss as to why.
We know that America always wants to be number one, and currently we’re number six on the execution hit list behind such widely regarded human rights advocates, China, Iran, Saudia Arabia, Egypt and Iraq. That list is from 2019, and, who knows, the next totalitarian president might feel the need to “Make America Great Again” by using the gas chambers. After all, if you look at what constitutes a capital offense in some countries, you could see how a President with a complete disregard for the rights of the individual might react. Some capital offenses in other countries are: homosexuality, drug trafficking, apostasy, perjury, corruption and adultery. Who knows if the next Trumpian president might let the last two slide? It will probably be a matter of “do as I say, not do as I do”. Which I guess brings me around to my point.
For a supposedly “Christian” country, we ignore the teachings of Jesus, a lot. I mean, “Thou Shalt Not Kill” made number one on the list of things that we’re not supposed to do if we expect to wind up in Heaven. There were no qualifiers to the commandment as I recall. No exceptions carved out for killing for your country, or allowing the state to punish by using the death penalty. “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, simple, straight forward, to the point. In fact, the sentiment is further reinforced in the Bible in Romans 12:19 “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Now from that verse, it’s pretty clear to me that the Lord is saying, “Don’t worry about it, I got it”. Sure as heck works for me.
I mean we’ve experienced “Death Race 1998” when George W. Bush raced to outdo his brother Jeb in extracting vengeance for the people of their respective states. W put to death 154 prisoners for the people of Texas, while Jeb contributed 21 for Florida. W did not allow any clemency hearings during his term as governor. W declared that he was not smart enough to overrule a jury, no matter how compelling new evidence of innocence might be. I hope someday that the Bush family faces a judge with the same sense of fairness and compassion that they have exhibited to others.
The “compassionate conservative” could not even be dissuaded from his role as God’s executioner by arguments that capital punishment actually costs the state far more than keeping the prisoner locked up. How easy is that? Keep a commandment and costs down at the same time? Seems like a no-brainer to me. But then, I don’t claim to hear God talking to me.
Maybe that’s the answer. People that hear “voices” should be eliminated from making capital case decisions. Until then maybe we could just follow the written word.
As my dear old Granny used to say, “even a blind hog will root an acorn every now and then”.
The “blind hog” theory can be applied to a lot of professions. I think one profession/industry that has done more disservice to the world by ignoring the tools at hand, is the automobile industry. Before you think I’ve dropped third gear, let me elaborate.
Most of the world’s ills are being rightly laid at the feet of the oil industry. Our stock market fluctuates daily due to the battle between emerging green energy and the old guard. People all over the Middle East are killing one another, and folks everywhere else are helping them do it, to get to the oil. People in South and Central America are suffering cancer rates and birth defects that are epidemic due to the oil industry pillaging their countries and not cleaning up the environment. Dirty air is everywhere, the polar caps are melting and according to most scientists, we are on the precipice of destruction. How did we get here, why did we get here?
It seems that a very self interested man, one John D. Rockefeller, was the fellow who convinced Henry Ford to abandon his efforts on an engine that ran on alcohol, and instead focus on the gasoline engine. Other car manufacturers of the period were developing electric cars, even Ford, but they all abandoned their efforts when Ford started mass producing his Model T. We’re talking early 1900’s here, 1908 to 1910.
Over a hundred years ago, the automobile industry had the capability that powers today’s Chevrolet Volt. Rather than following an environmentally safe path of electric, or even alcohol fueled vehicles, they were influenced to instead follow the path of environmental destruction we are currently on. Sadly, even the “father of electricity”, Thomas Edison, is tainted by this mess, as he worked for Rockefeller at the time.
So, how does a “hog” that is feeding at the right trough, get influenced to change to a trough that is long term less desirable? Well, I guess I should point out, “hogs” are notoriously short-sighted. Ford wanted to be the preeminent car manufacturer, and he was willing to abandon better designed, more efficient engines to please his benefactor, Rockefeller.
Rockefeller was willing to do anything to increase the demand for his product, even to the point of destroying other industries. Rockefeller went so far as to finance temperance movements to influence Congress to pass Prohibition, and thereby close all of the distilleries. Rockefeller’s ruthlessness has continued on to this day. Follow up on Chevron’s lawsuits in Ecuador and other areas in Central and South America to see their callous disregard for human life. John D. would be proud.
What does a world look like with vehicles running off of batteries recharged by alcohol burning generators? Obviously, a lot cleaner than we see now. Is the question that Americans can’t get past, “Does it really work?” Well, look at our train systems. Millions of tons of freight are moved daily by trains powered by electric motors. Can the train’s two power systems, electric motor and diesel generator, be more efficient than the truck’s one diesel engine?
According to the Department of Transportation, a truck uses a gallon of diesel to move a ton of freight 59 miles. That same gallon of diesel moves a ton of freight 202 miles on a train. That’s nearly four times as efficient. Where did we go so wrong with our transportation?
To my mind, we ignored science, were “blind” to what science told us, and then piggishly pursued the same path, even after we knew we were wrong. With the electric car revolution, it looks like the public has finally “rooted an acorn”. Even though I love my muscle cars, I love my planet more. Here’s hoping we don’t get drug off path again.
I happen to read Elizabeth Warren’s book, “A Fighting Chance”, this week. Let me tell you right off, the best candidate for president was not in the race in 2020. I am so impressed with Elizabeth Warren’s accomplishments and her dedication to public service that I’d start a fan club. That is, if I didn’t mind cleaning eggs and toilet paper off of my house everyday. For some bizarre reason, people around here will get up in arms to protect their oppressors. I don’t know why Elizabeth Warren brings up that emotion in some folks, but it cuts across economic lines.
Jamie Dimon, the billionaire head of JP Morgan Chase, would certainly be the leader of the mob of people hoping to remove Elizabeth Warren from any post of influence. What confounds me is how he can get people he has foreclosed on, the people Elizabeth wants to protect, to follow him. Well, they say a horse will run back into a burning barn. I guess folks like to think that the wealthy made all their riches fairly and they deserve to have Congress give them the breaks and favors they demand. I don’t see it, never have, never will. I just know if we don’t find a way to fix the system, we’ll be bailing out the rich folks again somewhere down the road.
Elizabeth’s book is about her life, which all of us with humble beginnings should identify with. The fact that she had the gumption and drive to make something of herself should serve as an example to us all. The fact that she balanced motherhood with getting an education and a career is doubly admirable. I am so impressed. Whether or not she has Indian blood in her or not, I can’t see that the question should reflect on her abilities. She was a Harvard law professor when she began her work setting up the Consumer Protection Agency. I think the Cherokees would be happy to claim a part of that bloodline.
The Consumer Protection Agency was the dream of Progressives who felt that the common man should have more protection in their dealings with the powerful corporations. The average man can’t compete with the bank’s ability to hire cadres of lawyers to decipher a mortgage closing statement developed by a cadre of lawyers wanting to obscure the advantages put in for the bankers. One of the stated goals of The Consumer Protection Agency is a mortgage statement that is one page long, in plain English. How can that be bad for the common man?
Elizabeth Warren’s rise to Senator is detailed in the book. Her Senate run comes after her rejection as Director of The Consumer Protection Agency. The “Old Guard” and the bankers felt like giving Elizabeth the power of an independent agency to wage war against the vested interests was more than they could bear. Who knows how far they were willing to go to make sure that President Obama did not appoint Elizabeth as director. Maybe a Senate seat was the swap off. Don’t know. I’m just certain that it will not prevent Elizabeth from continuing her fight for all of us. Read the book and feel better about being an American. It doesn’t all have to be “me first”!
The hot, humid temperatures have decreased the people I see exercising about ten fold of late. I’ve not seen many folks on my daily walks around my neighborhood, and I try to walk twice a day, rain or shine. Either they’ve been going to a gym to do their workouts, or they have given up on their New Year’s Resolutions. If they are going to a gym to do their cardio, it’s cool. As long as they wear their mask and respect one another by wiping their sweat off of the machines. No one likes to bathe in someone else’s perspiration, or Covid breath. Well, maybe there are some that do, but they need to do it in the privacy of their own homes.
I’ve noticed that even some of the younger members of our community seem to have picked up a pound or two due during the time of Covid. Not that anybody is keeping track of such, it’s just that no one seems to be immune to weight gain. I guess there could be some people who don’t gain weight like a bird adding feathers, but they are not in evidence on my walks. Looking at the collective group of walkers today, we all seem to be about a biscuit short of blividity, and that’s concerning.
Anyway, weight gain, or loss, is one of the topics I’ve had the occasion to watch first hand, and study for a long while. I’m well aware of the fact that aging reduces the hormones that help burn calories when we’re young. Not easy too accept, but a reduction of caloric intake should offset the loss of hormones, right? I mean, if I go from two quarter-pounders with cheese, large fries and large coke for lunch to a chicken Caesar salad, I should have over compensated for the loss of hormones, right? My scales say, “no”, and not just “no”, but “heck no!” Why?
Some analysts want to point out our “sedentary” life style. They say that since folks don’t live on farms and do hard physical labor every day that that is the reason that America’s BMI is higher than Everest. I don’t see it. New York City had a population of a million people back in 1880. Were all of them blivits? Of course not. In fact, when America entered World War II there were so many potential inductees turned down for malnutrition that the school lunch program was introduced. Now, starvation is a good way to keep weight down, but I don’t think the school lunch program was the impetus for heart disease and diabetes. Ironically, it appears another government program was, though.
In 1971, Richard Nixon appointed Earl Butz his Secretary of Agriculture, and the industrialized farming of corn began. Soon every patch of dirt was growing corn, and contrary to those deeply held Republican ideas of a “Free Market”, corn prices were supported by the government. An over supply did not bring a drop in what the farmers would be paid, so they figured out more ways to over produce. The problem quickly became, what would we do with the surplus corn. Easy. Let’s make it into corn syrup, and add it to every other product that’s made. Don’t let cows or pigs range for food. Force feed them corn for quick growth. The massive usage of high fructose corn syrup, has permeated everything we eat or drink. If we eat anything that is not home grown, then HFCS will be a component of our diet.
Duke University has studied the phenomenon extensively, and has even produced charts that parallel the introduction of HFCS in our diets and the rise of obesity. Now the Duke scientists are talking about the scarring done to the liver by HFCS as being consistent with a heavy drinker. That’s double bad news for a drinker.
So while you’re doing your morning routine and asking yourself, “why won’t those pounds go away”, remember Richard Nixon fondly. I know I do.
We all know there are sounds that are of such a high frequency that the sound is above what human ears can hear. An example of something that produces a sound that can be heard, but not by human ears, would be a “dog whistle”. Now, whoever came up with the idea of marketing a whistle that blew at such a high frequency that only dogs could hear them, was either a genius, or a really, really good salesman.
I mean the true story might be that the Ajax Whistle Factory produced a run of one million whistles that nobody could hear. Imagine all of the board members of the Ajax Whistle Factory sitting around the conference table discussing their eminent bankruptcy when one member picks up the whistle and blows it to emphasize the nature of the problem. All of the members of the board turn and look quizzically at each other except, for Mrs. Schneider, whose lapdog Shotzee is going nuts. Mrs. Schneider gets Shotzee calmed down only to have him riled up again at the blowing of the broken whistle. The Ajax Whistle Factory marketing department jumps on the opportunity to market whistles that only dogs can hear. The rest, they say, is history.
So, how the heck does a dog whistle relate to anything else, anywhere, at anytime? It seems that there is a political term that I had never heard of before that is being used to describe the Donald’s lack of response to being allied with the Klan. It’s called a “dog whistle”.
The concept here is that the people the Donald wants to get his message to, can hear the message over what the Donald is actually saying. Eventually, the Donald whined, “I disavow, I disavow”, after he had been told he’d been endorsed by David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Klan. But the rebuttal was so weak, and took so long to hit the airwaves, that the feeling is that the Donald’s real message got across. It was like the Donald was saying, “I’m with you, Klan members, but you know I have to say I’m not, to get elected”. And like the “silent” dog whistle, the Klan heard the Donald’s message above the din.
I found an excellent example of the dog whistle in Wikipedia, so I’ll just quote directly from there: “You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968, you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff.” Now this comes from former Republican strategist Lee Atwater. Ronald Reagan used,“Cadillac-driving ‘welfare queens’ and ‘strapping young bucks’ buying T-bone steaks with food stamps”, to let his constituents know which side he stood on of the racial divide. In 2012, President Obama was accused ‘of not loving America’ by a Tea Party nut, trying to portray Obama as a Muslim.
It seems like a lot of work to come up with a phrase that will let your target audience know you’re one of them, without alienating the sane rational voters. I guess that’s why these strategists get paid millions of dollars every election cycle to come up with these concepts. Rather than listening for a “dog whistle”, maybe folks could just look a little closer at the Donald’s family tree to reveal more about his true nature. It is reported that his daddy was arrested in a Klan brawl in 1927. In the 1970’s, when the Donald was in his twenties and taking over his father’s empire, the Trumps were sued by the Federal government for violating the Fair Housing Act. They behaved for a while, and then were later sued again by the Feds when they returned to their old ways.
I mean, it’s cool to get mentioned in a Woodie Guthrie song, but not so much for being a racist. Maybe if the state of New York seizes all of his property for his assorted crimes, the Donald could use Guthrie’s, “I Ain’t Got No Home” as his campaign song. The Donald wouldn’t have to worry about blowing his dog whistles any more.
Sometimes you read news and it tickles a portion of your brain that screams out, “If X is equal to Y; can’t Y be substituted in every equation for X?” How was that for vague?
Where I’m going is that if your mission in life is to provide a safe environment for children to grow up so that they can become healthy, productive members of society, does the sexual orientation of the parent determine the ability of the parent?
Recently the Supreme Court dispelled the notion that if X (a good parent) is equal to Y (another good parent) that Y could not be substituted for X. The Supreme Court delivered a unanimous defeat to LGBT couples in a high-profile case over whether Philadelphia could refuse to contract with a Roman Catholic adoption agency that says its religious beliefs prevent it from working with same-sex foster parents.
In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged that Philadelphia had an interest in “the equal treatment of prospective foster parents and foster children.” but went on to further expound that “this interest cannot justify denying CSS (Catholic Social Services) an exception for it religious exercise.”
At issue here is that the city of Philadelphia has refused to send prospective children for adoption to an agency that says, “We will not allow gay parents to apply.” I would like to make a point that there are seven Catholic justices deciding whether to side with their church, but unfortunately this was a unanimous decision. Maybe the age of the decider had more to do with the decision that their religious orientation. This could be another case where society has moved quicker than the Supreme Court in accepting minorities/realities into the mainstream.
It would seem that those paragons of legalese who have spent their lives studying the Constitution would be able to render fair and impartial justice to one and all and would not have tripped up on this fourteenth amendment issue. Being denied even the opportunity to be considered to adopt a child based off of sexual orientation is clearly a violation of the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment:
“No State shallmake or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.“
It’s pretty clear that the denial of opportunity to adopt falls into the samecategory as thewedding cake controversy. One’s sexual orientation should not excludewilling participants from putting in an application and being evaluated for parenthood based off their qualifications, same as applying for a job. Admittedly parenting is the toughest job there is, but does what the parent does, or doesn’t do behind closed doors compromise their ability to raise a happy, healthy, productive member of society? I think not.
What’s going on here is the Catholic church saying, “You want kids, you’ve got to do it our way.” It doesn’t matter how many thousands of lives that could be fulfilled by placing children with qualified parents. To the Catholic church the right parents can only be heterosexual, and the Supreme Court has upheld their mistaken opinion.
I wonder if an orphan was asked, “You can have two daddys or no daddys?” what the child’s answer would be?
