We’ve had a bit of inconvenience today from a large pine tree falling over the power line that feeds our electricity here to the house. Trees and limbs and whose responsibility it is to keep things trimmed away from power lines has filled our morning conversation. All of this tree talk put me in mind of the old adage about, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
Well, of course it would. The laws of physics are not suspended because there’s no one there to record the event. The fact that a sound unrecorded doesn’t mean that the sound didn’t occur, spring boarded my brain into thinking about sights that previously have gone unrecorded.
I’m talking about the police wearing body cameras. Let me tell you, I’m a big, big fan. I’m a big believer that the guilty must do their penance. That said, and I’m admitting I’m a sinner, I believe all law enforcement everywhere should wear body cameras. I also believe there should be strong penalties to personnel who, “forget to turn the camera on”, or suffer “malfunctions”.
We have the opportunity now to correct a lot of wrongs that have been perpetrated by the folks who are pledged to “protect and serve”. I realize I am painting with a very broad brush, but I’m going to keep on stroking. Since the police reflect the society they are drawn from, that means that some of them are going to be scared to death all of the time, some of them are abusers of power, some of them are physically unfit for the job, some of them are psychologically unfit for the job, and hopefully, most of them are qualified, good public servants. I’m hoping the body cameras weeds out all but the best, with a minimum of civilian carnage during the process.
In case you think I have wildly overstated the problem, let me relate two recent items in the news. The first is the very disturbing body cam footage of a suspect who was being brought to the hospital by the police for a drug issue. The suspect was handcuffed behind the back and posed no threat to the officers. The footage shows the suspect being tasered over twenty times by the three offices while at the front door of the hospital. From the footage, you see no physical threat to the officers. You do see three white officers and one large black suspect.
Previous to body cams, both sides would have to tell their side of the story in court. In this case, suspect dies en route to jail, and so his side of the story would have never been told without the body cams. Why the officers decided to take the suspect to jail instead of leave him at the hospital for treatment, which was their original destination, will be one of the many questions they will have to answer.
My second news item relates to the murder trial of George Floyd, the man killed by police for passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. The new part of the footage for me was seeing the police take a suspect that was handcuffed and in the back of a police car and drag him back out into the street to inflict further punishment and eventually death on the suspect. The real time footage was so disturbing that a 911 operator monitoring the neighborhood surveillance camera called her supervisor to send a police supervisor to the scene.
The body cams and a whole bunch of cell phones caught the murder in real time. As the trial proceeds we find that there were a LOT of cameras taking video of the murder. The accused can do nothing but watch his misdeed over and over again as witness after witness is called to testify as to what they saw.
Weeding out the unfit for service is what I’m hoping the body cams will do for society. Whether it’s psychologically or physically, society deserves nothing but the best from their police.
As we’re finding in the Derek Chauvin trial, if a tree falls in front of a body cam, we’ll hear it.
Last night I chose to get up and channel surf to see if I could lull myself to sleep via the droning of nonsense. I was fortunate that I was able to find some nonsense right off, it’s just that the message was not sleep inducing. It seems that the Mormon Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, decided somewhere along the way to exclude children of same-sex couples from receiving the church’s blessings. What a bunch of mean spirited wacky doodles.
As usual, my thoughts go first to the child. Imagine attending church with your parents, believing whatever tripe that religion churns out with regard to their heavenly standards, and then being told that because your parents don’t measure up, you’re going to be denied heaven. How cruel is that? And what is the child supposed to do, go home and kill their parents so they can receive God’s love? Clearly the Mormon’s homophobia didn’t go any further than sending a message to the gay community that the gays are not welcome, and to prove it, we’ll deny your children any thoughts of Heaven.
Hypocrisy is an easy topic when discussing religion, and I usually like to use the Bible to give an example of where practice varies from preaching. Luke 18:16 says, “But Jesus called them unto him, and said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.‘”Now, I know not every Bible scholar knows every verse, and every verse is open to interpretation, apparently, but this one looks pretty clear to me. It’s also not the only time in the Bible that the phrase, “don’t prevent children from seeking my love”, appears. So, to see a policy put in place that directly contradicts the teachings of Jesus, one questions the validity of the religion to make any interpretations.
It’s not like the Mormons are without their other peculiarities. Multiple wives and overloading the welfare roles with children supported by the state are a couple of the traits that have dogged the Mormons for years. While the “official” church has tried to calm the public opinion towards the church in the last few decades, there are still many outliers that give rise to the public questioning whether Mormonism is a religion or a cult.
One of the more famous cases of “extreme Mormonism” is Warren Jeffs. Imagine being a religious leader and being placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. Warren Jeffs gained worldwide attention in May 2006 when he made the list. He made the Top Ten list for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in Utah. The charges in Utah related to his taking underage girls and “marrying” them to his favored male followers. He was also charged with incest and sexual conduct with minors.
Jeffs was found guilty of sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault of children, some as young as twelve. When an investigation was led into Jeff’s FLDS Church’s YFZ Ranch, it was revealed to be nothing more than a breeding ground for child brides for the elder loyal followers. Young males were routinely forced out of the compound, eliminating competition for the elder males. A very sick situation indeed.
My religious philosophy is a simple one, it has but one dictum, “Do unto others as you would have done to you”. It’s easy to see how if the Mormon church could apply the Golden Rule first, they’d avoid a lot of the other notoriety, controversy and potential jail time.
One of the great sources of pride for Georgia and Atlanta specifically is the Georgia Aquarium. Sadly, not everything associated with the aquarium has been a source of pride for Atlantans. Over the years, at least five Beluga whales have died while under the care of the aquarium. I struggle with the choice of words between “died” or “killed”. I feel I could use the strong invective, kill, because I don’t believe whales should be held in captivity. I believe the confined space that is dictated by housing an animal in an attraction gives rise to a number of physical illnesses. We can only guess at what the mental stresses of being confined in such a small area does to their psyche.
As vast as the Georgia Aquarium appears to us visitors, we humans would tire eventually of being confined to the space devoted to the whale sharks. Imagine how confining and frustrating the aquarium is to the whales. It would be like putting one of your guppies in a teacup. It wouldn’t be long before the guppy would be belly up.
The sad part of this story is that I have been to the Aquarium and recognized the absolute joy that the school children express when visiting the exhibit. The exhibits are amazing and very educational. No problem there. Where I draw the line is the confinement of a species that would have the oceans of the world as their playground, if they were free. The fact that the whales are mammals, and very likely as intelligent as humans, is the decider for me. Dolphins and whales have the ability to not only learn for themselves, but pass that information on to others. The ability to teach was originally thought to be just a human ability.
To me, the more we learn about the ocean’s mammals, points out that incarcerating them is morally wrong. Like the wrongfully convicted man, the captured whale or dolphin spends his days locked away from his friends and family in conditions that are less than ideal. The fact that the dolphins and whales are put in a “sideshow” type environment is even more cruel than how we treat convicted humans.
There has been a great deal of controversy stirred up by the CNN documentary, “Blackfish”. The documentary tells the story of how Seaworld went about capturing its whales for its exhibits, and the care of the whales after captivity. The bulk of the documentary focuses on the orca, or killer whale, Tilikum. Tilikum was involved in the deaths of three people and there is graphic footage of one of the trainers being attacked. It is shocking stuff, and the interviews of the various trainers that were willing to talk is heartbreaking.
The trainers loved the whales and certainly loved their jobs. What transpired over time was the trainer’s realization that what they were doing was morally wrong, and in the case of Tilikum, deadly. The trainer’s were greatly concerned that the offspring of Tilikum were potentially as deadly as their dad, and those offspring would be sent off to perform at other sites around the world. The trainers saw this as another compelling reason to release the orcas back into the wild. Seaworld didn’t see it that way.
Seaworld has stuck to their guns and continued to feature orcas in their shows. To the dismay of their shareholders, less and less people are coming to their shows. Eventually the Seaworld folks will have to decide if they will change their policies based on public opinion.
Maybe we could get a “Whitefish” documentary for the Georgia Aquarium’s Beluga whales.
Dreaming big is what the Bush family is all about. From Prescott’s attempt to overthrow the government to Poppy’s subversion of the laws in Iran-Contra, the end always justifies the means. Like their royal kin, the Bush’s perceive accountability to be only for the lesser-born, the hoi polloi.
“Poppy”, George Herbert Walker Bush, took his middle names from his financier grandfather Herbert Walker. Poppy grew up in extreme wealth and privilege and went to the finest schools money could buy. After high school, he joined the military and distinguished himself by getting shot down a couple of times while on surveillance missions. Now, around here, we think it’s the heroes that shoot the other fellows down, but not in “Poppy” world. “Poppy” returned home a hero and entered Yale, where he began his career in the secrets business. While at Yale, Poppy joined the secret society, “Skull and Bones”, which later served him well in his tenure as head of the CIA.
Before starting his life in “public service”, however, Poppy had to establish himself as a successful business man. He chose the oil business. Poppy was able to become successful in the oil industry by moving his family to West Texas. If you’ve never been to Midland Texas, let me say it’s not nearly as romantic as portrayed in the TV show, Friday Night Lights. It is flat, barren, windy, and the smell of diesel permeates everything. Only blind naked ambition could carry someone from the scenic beauty of New England to the lunar landscape of West Texas, and apparently Poppy had that in spades. The staunchly conservative Bush found his way working up through the ranks of some of America’s biggest recipients of tax breaks. Dresser, which later merged with Halliburton of Iraq War fame, and Brown Brothers Harriman, took a chance on the young Poppy. Poppy gathered support and knowledge until he was able to drill for oil on his own.
After becoming an oilman, Poppy moved the family to Houston, where he chose, “to give something back”, in the form of running for Congress. He won a Congressional seat, but lost the race for Senate. Thereafter, Poppy became a perpetual Republican “appointee” until running with Reagan as vice-president. Talk about your matches made in Heaven, a brain dead ideologue with acting skills and a “skull and bones” graduate who enjoyed working his connections behind the scenes to get things done. The Iran-Contra scandal was a perfect example of how Bush managed to maintain “plausible deniability” and stay out of jail for his crimes.
After Reagan shuffled off to Buffalo, it was Poppy’s turn. A glance at Politico reveals a few highlights of the the regime of Bush the First:
During his election campaign, Bush denied any knowledge of the Iran Contra Affair by saying he was “out of the loop.” But his own diaries of that time stated “I’m one of the few people that know fully the details …” He repeatedly refused to disclose this to investigators during the investigation and thus won the election. (1988)
Catalina Vasquez Villalpando, (R) Treasurer of the United States. Pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and tax evasion. The only US Treasurer ever sent to prison. (1992)
Iran-Contra Affair pardons. On December 24, 1992, George H. W. Bush (R) granted clemency to five convicted government officials and Caspar Weinberger, whose trial had not yet begun. This action prevented any further investigation into the matter. Those pardoned on recommendation of William Barr (yes that William Barr) include:
Caspar Weinberger Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan
Robert C. McFarlane National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan
Elliott Abrams Assistant Secretary of State to Ronald Reagan
Clair George CIA Chief of Covert Ops
Alan D. Fiers Chief of the CIA’s Central American Task Force
Albert Bustamante (D-TX) convicted of accepting bribes.
Lawrence J. Smith (D-FL) pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying to federal election officials and served three months in jail, fined $5,000, 2 years probation and back taxes of $40,000
David Durenberger Senator (R-MN) denounced by Senate for unethical financial transactions and then disbarred (1990). He pled guilty to misuse of public funds and given one year probation (1995)[
Clarence Thomas (R) The Supreme Court nominee was accused of sexual harassment by former employee Anita Hill, but was approved anyway.
Walter Nixon US Judge. Was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for perjury on November 3, 1989.
I should like to point out that Poppy is considered to be the “good Bush”, even Bill Clinton likes him. I mean the fact that he lied to Congress, pardoned the people who could put him in jail, started a war in Kuwait/Iraq to protect his Arbusto oilfields in Bahrain and routinely sold out the American people to his Arab friends shouldn’t lower our opinion of him, right? It’s not like he tried to start a coup like his daddy did.
While we wait for the next violent insurrection, I thought it might be a good time to discuss America’s royals. The Bush family is tied directly to the royal family of England. In fact, George H. W. Bush picked up an extra link when he married “Barb”, who was also directly related to the rulers of England. In an article in the New York Times, it is related that “Dubya” is a 13th cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
The article also relates that the “royal” blood flowing through “Dubya”‘s veins is six times more regal than the paltry peasant blood running through our veins. The fellow that ran the family tree seems to think that “royal” blood explains the success of the lineage, sort of the “cream rises to the top” theory. I prefer the “them that’s got does everything they can to keep” theory. Children of powerful people are always going to have more advantages than the less fortunate. They in turn will pass those advantages on to the next generation.
A famous wit, and governor of Texas, Ann Richards, once said of “Dubya”, “Poor George Bush, he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple”. Truer words were never spoken. People who are born to privilege never know how out of touch they are with the reality of the other 99 percent. To the one percent, the rest of us are just not trying hard enough.
Climbing up two levels of the Bush family tree reveals the progenitor of two presidents, Prescott Bush. Prescott was well connected, married well, and was concerned with American politics. He was so concerned with politics that in 1933, Prescott and a group of other businessmen approached an American general and proposed the use of 500,000 troops to overthrow President Roosevelt.
The quote from BBC, “The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell House & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.” Prescott Bush and the other wealthy financier’s names were redacted from the Congressional records. Clearly something was afoot or they wouldn’t have held hearings, right?
The “Business Plot”, as it was called, was swept under the rug and the wealthy were not held accountable. Justice “looking the other way” is an expectation of the Bush family, it must be something in the blood. But, like we say in the South, “blood will out”, and it wasn’t long before Prescott was back to his old ways.
One of the first jobs Prescott Bush had was manager of a banking conglomerate named UBC. UBC was setup by his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker. One of UBC’s largest customers was Fritz Thyssen, a German industrialist. Thyssen funded Hitler’s rise to power and war efforts. In October of 1942 the alien property custodian seized the assets of the UBC, of which Prescott Bush was a director.
We all know war is good business. It was never proved that Prescott had Nazi sympathies per se, but it is proven that he was a big fan of money. The fact that Thyssen’s German steel was being used against American boys didn’t cross any moral boundaries for Prescott, apparently. A charge of aiding and abetting the enemy during the time of war was not a big enough anchor to sink Prescott Bush’s political future though. Bush served in the Congress and later in the Senate, where he had access to the really big money. Retrospectively, we can see that Prescott Bush was just setting up the new family business.
Due to the raging Covid outbreak in Georgia, I’ve been spending more time internet surfing than normal. I’m using some of my idle time to unravel when the party of compassionate conservatism became the party of rage and ruin. A couple of items seem very telling. On the surface the items appear to have little in common, but I believe there is an underlying theme.
The first item to catch my attention was the interview where the Donald revealed that he is down with torture, water boarding specifically. It is frightening to think that a President would feel compelled to broadcast their willingness to torture their fellow human beings as a qualification for the most important job in the world. I understand that the Donald’s soft upbringing makes him feel that he has a “toughness” disadvantage. I also understand that he doesn’t want his rabid voters to feel that he is too soft on crime, etc. Torture is in another category though.
If you can get past the moral implications, and I can’t, you still have to be able to justify your willingness to break International treaties and the countless studies that torture doesn’t produce the desired result. Study after study have proven that befriending the captive works better for getting the captive to give up information. Yet, there is a dark spot in some people’s soul that can only be satisfied by inflicting unneeded pain on powerless people.
Anyone that gets on board the torture wagon ignores the fact that sometimes Americans are captured, and we would be subject to our own policies. The Donald, in his role as Commander In Chief, revealed to the American forces that, drowning while being tied down is the price they should be prepared to pay for serving his presidency.
With the Donald’s statements, America lost the “moral high ground” and any international support from countries that support the Geneva Convention. Again, I get why a wimpy guy wants to appear tough. I don’t get the willingness to ignore moral values, international law and the safety of our troops to appear to be strong.
My second reveal goes to moral values as well. In fact, the moral in question was number one on God’s list, “thou shalt not kill”. In the waning days of the Trump administration the brain trust decided they had just enough time left to kill one more prisoner. Sensitive to all of the criticisms of misogyny, the Donald decided to kill the only woman he could, legally.
On January 13, 2021, Lisa Marie Montgomery was executed. She was the first woman to be executedby the Federal system in 67 years. Having failed in his coup attempt, the Donald decided he had just enough time left in his administration to slap his fat thumb down on the scale of justice somewhere else.
I know it’s a hard thing for Conservatives to get past the moral judgement, the “holier than thou” thought process that can’t advance beyond Old Testament teachings. The fact that a state sanctioned killing is still against our number one moral imperative seems to be lost on these “Christians”.
I’d like to add a consideration for the Conservative hard liners that might supersede their need for blood, MONEY!!!!
Since 1978, California has spent over 4 BILLION dollars fighting death row appeals. One state, 4 BILLION dollars. The estimate for all states stands at 257 million dollars a year. Now, to the simple minded, like me, we should just say we’re taking the death penalty off the table. We’re going to take that money and repair roads and bridges. We’re going to build better schools and pay our teachers more. We’re going to lower taxes and provide better services. We’re going to do all of that just by following the first commandment.
Again, I am simple minded. I know the bloodlust won’t be satisfied in some of these folks by an appeal for them to follow their religious teachings, that’s why I’m making an appeal to their pocketbook. I’m even ok with them heeding the financial responsibility and calling it their moral responsibility, I am, after all, a pragmatic.
Alas Babylon, when will the Christians start demanding their politicians follow their Christian values?
There has been the very public disintegration of the Lincoln Project the last couple of weeks due to allegations that one of the founding fathers has been inappropriate with underage males. The plot thickens when one of the other founding fathers reveals that he was violated as a youth. It is such a high profile expose that it caused me to wonder what was going on with another famous pedophile.
Back in 2015 there was this guy that was on TV non-stop. It was the Subway spokesman, Jared Fogle. To be honest, normally I’d have some pity for a fellow who had come from nothing, built himself up and then dropped lower than he started. Not this time. If you’ve been living in a cave, or Alabama, for the last fifteen years, you might not have heard his story. Let me recount it for you.
While Jared was in college he weighed about 425 pounds, which I would call a blivit, super-sized. Apparently, he found he was unattractive to the fairer sex, age not-specified at this point, and Jared set about losing weight. The marketing story recounts that Jared ate two Subway sandwiches a day, a turkey with veggies and an all veggies, and that was the sum total of his daily calories.
Jared began walking everywhere he went and through diet and exercise reduced down to 200 pounds. All good to this point. His college dorm mate sent his story to Men’s Health magazine where it was noticed by Subway. Subway took a chance and made an ad with Jared including before and after photos to prove his claim. The ad implied to all of us viewers who struggle with our size, that we were just two Subways a day away from a perfect BMI.
Subway ran about a bajillion ads using Jared as their spokesman, including ads with photos of his 61 inch waist pants. Logic would dictate that the ads were successful, and Jared came out of the decade with a net worth estimated at 15 million dollars. Still all good to this point.
Now we are starting the phase where Jared “wants to give something back”, and he starts his Jared Foundation. The Jared Foundation was a nonprofit designed to raise awareness of childhood obesity. I’ve heard no indication that Jared used his foundation to put himself close to children that had self image issues. I don’t know that we can say the same about his friend and director of the foundation, Russell Taylor.
On April 29, 2015, Russell Taylor, director of the Jared Foundation was arrested after a lengthy and extensive investigation of the child pornography underground. Taylor was charged with the exploitation of children for sexual purposes, which is where we catch up with Jared.
Taylor was using children for his own sexual pleasure and filming the encounters. Somewhere along the way Jared received a lot of the files and expressed a desire to participate. Taylor then acted as Jared’s pimp and located underage girls for Jared, who was willing to travel out of state to have sex with a minor. Part of Jared’s indictment says that Jared asked his victims to recommend other girls who might be interested. He even offered a finder’s fee, inducing children to violate other children.
Jared was sentenced to 15 years in prison with about 1.5 million dollars paid in restitution to his victims. Compounding Jared’s problems, Jared’s wife filed for divorce. It is reported that she received 7 million dollars in the settlement. His children will be grown when he gets out of prison. Hopefully they will have received professional treatment to help them cope with the sins of their father.
I am not in favor of capital punishment, but I get close when it comes to pedophiles. There is a special initiation ritual that “baby fondlers” go through in prison, and it’s not a one time ceremony. It appears that Jared has been initiated at least once. I suspect that at some point Jared will wish he had gotten the chair.
There is no doubt that the other Jared’s crimes will be far more difficult to unpack. Popcorn at the ready, I await the charges.
The quote, “If you can’t take their money, drink their liquor, screw their women, and then come in here the next day and vote against them, you don’t belong here.” has been attributed to California politician Jesse Marvin Unruh, Lyndon Johnson and LBJ’s mentor, Sam Rayburn. Regardless of whoever said it first, it appears that the precept has fallen by the wayside.
The nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, Center for Responsive Politics, displays a chart detailing 12,500 lobbyists when queried for the registration year 2020. If that figure is true, it means there are over 250 lobbyists for each U.S. Senator. It is no wonder the Senators always look rushed when they’re interviewed on T.V.
The non-profit non-partisan website, www.stastita.com displays a very comprehensive list of Washington lobbyists by name.
We’re fortunate enough to live in a society that “tries” to keep track of what the lobbyists are attempting to impose on us through our legislators. The website www.opensecrets.org posts a chart with the top twenty recipients of lobbyist money in 2020. Here is a look at the top ten.
Being a person of the “D” persuasion, I feel like my guys are under performing when it comes to taking money from industries that they could be called upon to regulate. I mean really, just two Democrats in the top ten?
I am not surprised to see my two former Senators in the top ten. I guess you become a billionaire by having someone else spend their money on your endeavors.
Many states provide lists of the registered lobbyists and the industries they represent. My state of Georgia provides a very good list of lobbyists, and the representatives who they are lobbying for at http://ethics.ga.gov/. A search of the site “for all” comes back with 1,096 lobbyists representing 28,224 filings for the year 2020.
Now admittedly, these total numbers are inflated as the lobbyist is required to register for each level of state government he intends to influence, but, why would Georgia need a lobbyist based in Seattle Washington? What has the state of Washington got that is so compelling that the people of Georgia need to have their representative’s arms twisted by someone from Seattle?
Searching the list provides company names like Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private-held prison company in the U.S, which is based in Tennessee. Corrections Corp. has changed their name to CoreCivic. Why the name change? Was the original name too accurate and easy to identify that you make your money by incarcerating people?
Having lived in Georgia most of my life, I can assure you that the Georgia legislators do not need outsiders putting bad ideas in their heads, they are perfectly capable of doing that on their own. Long has it been said, “when bad ideas have nowhere else to go, they hold a picnic at the Georgia state house”.
Having all of these outside influencers trying to tell Georgia representatives how to do things seems very counterintuitive to me. I’m sure that every transplant to Georgia has heard more than once “we don’t care how you did it ‘up North’ or wherever.” Traditionally, we Georgians don’t care if you’ve got a better idea or not, if you’re “not from around here” your ideas have no standing.
I would like to see the Georgia legislature listen to the people they represent through a referendum on an issue rather than take the advice of outsiders like lobbyists. Who knows, we might have a better idea for governing ourselves that someone in Punxsutawney. After all, we did get our own groundhog to predict our weather for us rather than relying on outside influencers.
We awaken to the news that two FBI agents have been killed in Florida while trying to serve a warrant. Three other agents were wounded and taken to the hospital. The warrant “was related to suspected possession of child pornography“.It is believed that the recipient of the warrant is dead by his own hand at the scene. If I were a cynical person, I would be happy that he saved the state the expense of a trial by judging himself, but that is taking the low road.
No information has been given about the weaponry of the purported pedophile. With the amount of carnage it sounds like a “welcome to my little friend” moment from the movie Scarface. From what we know now we have an individual that was upset that his perversion was about to be made public and chose what he believed to be a reasonable response in kind. If it turns out he took himself out, I’m ok with that. I do believe if suicide was his ultimate response though, he could have answered the “FBI we have a warrant” with “Just a minute” and gone in the back to end it all.
A Pew Research Study reports that “three-in-ten U.S. adults say they own a gun, and an additional 36% say that while they don’t own one now, they might be open to owning a gun in the future”. Of the people researched, “44% of U.S. adults say they personally know someone who has been shot, either accidentally or intentionally, and about a quarter (23%) say they or someone in their family have been threatened or intimidated by someone using a gun.”
To be honest, the percentage of gun ownership was lower than I thought. The amount of people who know someone who has been shot blows my mind. I’m assuming the survey wasn’t done in Compton. I can’t help but draw the easy conclusion that the proliferation of weapons in our society has something to do with the number of people shot. Occam’s razor anyone?
The fact that it’s harder to vote in some places than it is to buy a weapon should be concerning to all of us. Although I do know one political party that fears voters more than gun owners. They are the party that is sitting on HR8 the bill passed through congress in 2019 that is still waiting to be brought to the floor of the Senate. HR8 is a bipartisan bill that tries to put a few common sense laws in place to better protect those of us that haven’t been shot yet.
One of the common sense provisions of HR8 is to prevent people afflicted with a mental disease from owning a gun. People that society deems as possibly a “threat to themselves or others” shouldn’t be allowed gun ownership. If you’re a prominent Senator and admit that 1/3 of your party has slipped over the line, wouldn’t you want to deny them guns? Seems reasonable to me.
If we “did unto others” as we should, the perpetrator in this shooting would have gotten help, and both of the FBI agents would still be alive. Having the ability to get help combats shootings two ways. Hopefully counseling corrects or minimizes the problem. If not, the counseled is denied access to weapons through a strong Universal Background check program.
At some point we have to realize it’s cheaper in the long run to help the troubled, rather than arm them. That would be a “true conservative’s” position, and the Christian thing to do.
In case y’all missed this little news item amidst the kerfuffle of overthrowing our government; since the Insurrection over 30,000 Republicans have de-registered with the party. Small number in the grand scheme of things, but at least those people took the most outward action they could that didn’t involve violence to show their dissatisfaction with the Trump party.
As Impeachment 2.0 begins I’m amazed at how often the Donald called on his minions to breach their citizenship in pursuit of installing a petty dictator. You can Google for the speech, or watch any news show for five minutes and they’ll give you snippets. I watched/listened to the whole thing, stem to stern. If you take out the dog whistles it was typical Donald babble, “I am the victim” drivel. But, the dog whistles were there along with the outright seditious call to arms emanating from Rudy, Don Jr. and that nut lawyer from Atlanta. The Donald’s subtle? reference to “stopping the steal” may have not been as incendiary as the other speakers, but the other speakers didn’t carry the mantle of POTUS.
It’s sad that my ears may have become insensitive to the Donald. Hyperbole has always been the Donald’s Achilles heel. I personally believe both of his feet are made of clay, but I might be judging him too realistically. I’m hopeful that the people going over the Insurrection tapes, videos and emails will use a fine-toothed comb looking for the guilty and not become numb to the blather. Words matter, no matter how sleight the inflection.
The Donald has repeatedly said that he doesn’t have time for Political Correctness. Really it’s the ability to empathize with someone who didn’t grow up with all of the advantages he has had. Political Correctness is that catch all phrase that keeps us from calling people that are different/not white the myriad of names we’ve developed for them over the years.
The Republicans have got a bigger problem with the Donald than Political Correctness. He appeals to the Ronald Reagan, give me a sound bite, make me feel better that I was born in America, totally clueless lemmings that just want to feel good about their accomplishment of having being born in the U.S.A. I know these people, they surround me. One of the nuttiest ones is a congress person from my state who is apparently an accomplice to the Insurrection.
These are the people who when their world crashes around them take solace in the fact that at least God made them White. These people are unconcerned that ninety-nine per cent of the promises made to them by their autocratic leaders will never come to fruition because they’re either illegal, completely impractical, or both. They just want to hear how the “Other” is the problem. Oh and they also don’t want a Hispanic to have a nicer looking yard than they do, even if he works harder at it.
The Republicans have got to figure a way to get the Donald to stop fomenting revolution so that the party can keep his followers eligible to vote. The Republicans can’t win without them. But, the Donald can’t keep pulling back the curtain revealing the true heart and soul of the Republican party or the Republicans will lose the reasonable rational people that call themselves Republicans. Party leaders know that if they cut him lose and he runs as an Independent, they’ve handed the election to the Democrats. If they keep him in the fold but can’t control his message, it may spell the end of the party. It’s not a hard choice if ethics, morality and patriotism actually matter.
The Donald let his arrogance get the better of him in his Capitol speech. If his minions had killed some congress people, maybe a Vice President, I believe his coup would still have been unsuccessful. Without the military behind him the coup would have failed. As it did. It seems dumb, but there is one thing that the Republican party can do now to ameliorate the damage that the Donald has done.
Actually, there’s a one word solution to this problem, I use it all of the time. Sorry. Then act like you mean it.
