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Monday, August 12, 2024

Sanders to Trump: You lose support every time you talk about healthcare – so 'go for it'

As Sen. Sanders points out, the U.S. is the outlier. Most other countries in the world have a living wage, affordable or no-cost healthcare, paid family leave, and other policies Trump is trying to label "radical." It won't work. America is ready to join the civilized world. You tell 'em, Bernie!

Sunday, August 04, 2024

It’s Sunday

Frank Sinatra and Tony Mottola bring us this beautiful song.
Have a peaceful and quiet day.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Happy Hump Day

Here's Engelbert with his 2021 remake of his 1988 classic "One World."

Though I have no idea what Enge's politics are, I do know from listening to him talk that he believes in love and peace. I believe in those things too.

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Come Saturday Morning

It's been quite a week! Take a breether, relax, regroup and recharge body and mind for whatever next week may have in store.

Friday, July 26, 2024

DA Bragg Urges NY Judge to REJECT Trump's Attempt to Toss his 34 Convict...

Words Have Consequences

Violence, killing, war - these are not matters to be spoken of lightly. Yet Trump and his MAGA cult members routinely speak of some people needing to be killed and of the need for a civil war to protect their values (perverted as those are) and what they perceive as their liberties and way of life.

And yet, words have consequences. Beyond January Sixth and its ongoing ramifications, Trump's violent rhetoric has the predictable result of inciting terrorism. Yesterday an unnamed man was arrested and held in Las Begas after a months-long spree of harassing and threatening the lives of judges, D.A.s and others in the justice system nationwide who have been involved in legal cases, civil and criminal, against Trump.

The fellon that MAGA proclaimed to be their presidential nominee does not just have a decades-long record of criminal and dangerous behavior behind him, he represents a clear and present danger to our nation in the here and now. For all his painfully obvious mental deterioration, he knows all too well what he is doing when he calls for real, physical violence.

In April, Trump lost an appeal seeking to suspend a series of law suits that seek to hold him liable for January Sixth. Curiously, these suits attract little if any attention from the corporate media, though presumably they are ongoing. Incitement to violence is also a crime. I am no clairvoyant, yet it is not difficult for me to see more indictments, stemming from the actions of his cult members like the one in Las Vegas, in Trumps not so distant future.

Links
Rolling Stone: Trump Allies Sure Are Talking A Lot About Civil War (Opens in a new browser window)
Talking Feds [YouTube channel]: Pro-Trump LUNATIC Arrested for Threatening Judges (opens in a new browser window)

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Those people…The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.

Fred C. Trump III with then Pres. Donald Trump in the Oval Office, 2018

Just when you think you've heard the worst about Donald Trump, something worse comes up.

In a forthcoming book by his nephew, Fred C. Trump III, the former president and wannabe dictator is quoted as telling Fred that he should let his disabled son die and then move down to Florida.

Now maybe I'm biased, seeing that I myself am disabled, but I take exception to that attitude. It reminds me of something a doctor - a doctor mind you - told my recently widowed mother when I was lying comatose in his hospital and not expected to recover: "Throw her in a custodial care facility till she dies of pneumonia. You're young. You can have other children."

Trump's attitude does not surprise me. We've seen glimpses of it before. Remember his 2015 mockery of reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffered from a congenital joint condition? If I had known nothing else about Trump, that act of cruelty and disrespect alone would have caused me not to vote for him.

Kovaleski was a stranger and a grown man. Here he's suggesting that his own flesh and blood, a teenager, be "allowed to die" since, after all, he has multiple disabilities, including mental defacits. In other words, he's not a person at all.

In 2024, if that were the only thing I knew about Donald Trump, it would cause me not to vote for him.

Links
Time: My Uncle Donald Trump Told Me Disabled Americans Like My Son ‘Should Just Die’ (opens in a new browser window)
The Guardian: Trump told nephew to let his disabled son die, then move to Florida, book says (opens in a new browser window)
The Guardian: Trump nephew reveals Uncle Donald’s racist outburst in new book (opens in a new browser window)

President Biden's address to the Nation, July 24 2024

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Police violence claims another life

The American system of policing is fundamentally flawed. Hardly a week goes by without a report of some cop, somewhere, shooting dead a citizen, usually a person of color, frequently a teenaged black boy.

The latest incident is particularly shocking since the victim, a black woman named Sonya Massey, called the police for assistance because she believed there was an intruder in her home. On the officer’s body cam video, he can be heard verbally abusing Sonya and then threatening to kill her before fatally shooting her in the head.

His own words and action demonstrate that this man should never have been in any job dealing with the public, certainly not one as demanding of intelligence, quick wits, patience and empathy as that of a law enforcement officer.

As one man quoted in the Guardian report points out, for years the Defense Department has been sending surplus armaments to city and town police departments. Our civilian police do not need tanks. They need the ability to cope calmly, rationally and with a touch of sympathy with distraught people who call for their help.