Month: June 2018

25 Years Of “RBG”, Ruth Bader Ginsburg In August, 85 Years Old And No Intention Of Retiring Before 2021 At Earliest!

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Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, bless her heart, is finishing 25 years on the Court, and 38 years in total in the federal court system, having been appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, and then elevated to the Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

She has become a “rock star”, often called “the notorious RBG” in recent years, after the publication of a biography by a scholar in 2015.

She has survived bouts with colon cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer in 2009. and the death of her husband in 2010, days after their 56th wedding anniversary.

Through it all, she has stood up for the rights of minorities, women, gays and lesbians, the disabled, workers, consumers, environmentalists, and all other causes that fight against the enemies of civil rights, civil liberties, and social justice.

At age 85, she has had a stent put in her right coronary artery, and she has had a strict regimen of exercise for many years.

The question is whether Ginsburg can hang on and stay in office until 2021, when she would be 88 years old, and hopefully, a Democratic President could replace her after 28 years on the Court.

Ginsburg herself has said she plans to stay to the age of 90, the age that former Justice John Paul Stevens, now 98 and thriving, was when he left the Court in 2010.

Donald Trump Reversal A Political Ploy As Republicans Run Scared For November Elections

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Donald Trump’s reversal on the issue of separating asylum seekers at the border from their children is not based on principle, but on hysteria in Republican ranks on the upcoming midterm elections. They are about to suffer in four and a half months the biggest repudiation in modern history. And if that does not happen, God help the United States of America, as we descend into Fascist dictatorship!

And it will be illegal to incarcerate parents and children together after a 20 day period, and there is no answer as to how to bring over 2,300 children separated from their parents in the past two months back to normalcy.

It is feared that many of these children will never be reunited with their moms and dads, and the psychological damage long term done to these children, some of them infants and toddlers, but even those who are older, including preteens and teenagers, is incalculable.

What Trump and Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, Kirstjen Nielson, John Kelly, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have done is against human rights and international law, and is a war crime that should lead to the arrest, trial, and incarceration of all involved for a life term.

This is American Fascism at its worst, and all those who support such policies, including Fox News Channel, and its despicable anchors, including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham, are to be condemned, and should be boycotted by all advertisers, therefore putting them out of business.
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Already, airlines and many other corporations have made clear they do not want to have anything to do with the whole corrupt, immoral, unethical, and illegal actions of the Trump government.

This disaster insures that Donald Trump will rank at the very bottom of all Presidents in future assessments by scholars and experts.

And as far as the Republican loyalists among voters, let us take their children from them without just cause, and see how they react.

These ignorant, uneducated, prejudiced, biased, despicable excuses for human beings should not be catered to, anymore than those who supported Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy or Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany or Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union.

The cancer of the Trump Presidency is on the road to being excised, and the Trump Family, father, children, and son in law, need to be held accountable, along with their henchmen mentioned above, and pay for their crimes against mothers, fathers, and children trying to escape certain violence and death from Central America, and being treated as if they are criminals, for wanting the same opportunities as generations of immigrants in the past, who saw the Statue of Liberty as the image of American welcome to those oppressed!

The Most Despicable Family Ever In The White House: The Trump Children Are As Unethical And Crooked As Their Father!

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There has never been a family quite like the Trumps in the White House.

The Trump children are as unethical and crooked as their father.

They have no sense of propriety, no sense of morality, no sense of public image.

They are as arrogant as their father, thinking they are entitled to do whatever they want, and to hell with public perception.

Donald Trump, Jr; Eric Trump; Ivanka Trump; and her husband, Jared Kushner all do not care about the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, as they continue to make money in an illegal and unconstitutional manner.

The two sons do not care about endangered species, as they brag about their hunting exploits in Africa.

Ivanka Trump keeps on working at getting patents and trademarks in China, making her millions on cheap labor in China and other Asian nations, and defying her father’s actions on tariffs with China.

Jared Kushner owns real estate, and unethically and often illegally forces tenants out of their homes, and fails to fix the faults in other tenants’ apartments.

No other Presidential children have ever conducted themselves like this.

So one can hope that eventually, Karma will occur, and all of these despicable children and son in law will face justice and time in prison!

June 19, 1953–The Beginning Of Awareness Of Public Affairs For This Author

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On this day in 1953, this author gained his first awareness of public affairs at the age of 8 and a half, an age that most people will remember as their first major memory of life outside their own family life, and learning about the outside world.

On that day, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, accused atomic spies, were executed, an event still debated 65 years later as to its justice.

This author was watching television, and recall the shock he experienced over the execution that took place that evening.

So that was the beginning of awareness of public affairs, and it has continued through good and evil events for the past 65 years.

And to wake up this morning and witness the US government arresting mothers and fathers for trying to escape violence and threats of death in their homelands, and wishing to seek asylum, and being treated as criminals, and their children being taken away from them, even infants who are nursing, ails his heart and soul.

It makes him wonder what has happened to this nation, the country of the Statue of Liberty and place of refuge for immigrants, that we have now demonized these desperate people who just want a better life, and are being horribly mistreated by the likes of Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, Kirstjen Nielsen, John Kelly and other racists and nativists who pursue the evil policies of a President who hopes all of us will give in, and allow him to become the first authoritarian leader in American history.

The answer is that knowledge is power, and that the American people will continue to resist, and the news media, bless them, are part of our constant effort to expose the truth and to pursue justice, and take down and prosecute the evil leaders who are destroying all semblance of unity in this nation!

Decent people in organized religion, and lawyers, doctors, social workers, educators at all levels, and just Americans who care about more than their economic wealth, will unite to overcome this cancer in our midst.

We cannot give up the battle, as otherwise it will consume us!

The Surrender Of The Republican Party To The Cult Of Donald Trump Seems Complete

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The Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George H W Bush, Gerald Ford, and even Ronald Reagan is gone.

So is the party of Robert LaFollette, Sr., George Norris, Nelson Rockefeller, Mark Hatfield, Clifford Case, William Scranton, and innumerable others who served as Governors or US Senators.

The Republican Party of 2018 has sold its soul to the idea of maintaining office at all costs, and all principles, morals, and ethics have totally disappeared.

No one, literally no one, who is running for election now or in the near future, is willing to gamble losing his or her position of power.

Only those who are dying, as John McCain–or not running for reelection, such as Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona—or not in office or those who have journalistic integrity despite their Republican or conservative credentials in the past—have the willingness to speak up. Or the most recent example of South Carolina Congressman and former Governor Mark Sanford, a strong conservative Republican, who lost his party’s primary despite his conservative credentials, because he had the “nerve” to criticize Donald Trump!

The only way to purge the party future is for all officeholders, or most of them, who are facing election and staying silent, to be forced out of office by the voters in the midterm Congressional and state elections in November 2018.

This is, and it is not meant to sound dramatic, but this is the only hope for American democracy, that the Democrats have a massive, overwhelming victory.

If not, we are living in a period where the Constitution and Bill of Rights are being destroyed before our eyes, with most Americans not caring, or complicit by silence and lack of interest and participation in voting, in the downfall of the American experiment as the great constitutional democracy America was meant to be!

We are living in a time of a cult, a mass worship of a very flawed, evil human being, who has no concern for the future, but only for his own material wealth and stroking of his ego.

We have a very sick, mentally deranged individual who has the capability of destroying the planet, or caving in to the whims of other totalitarian leaders who he wises to emulate.

If there is a history to be written in the future, however, Donald Trump will be condemned as the most despicable, evil leader we have ever manufactured!

June 17 In American History

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Today is Father’s Day and the birthday, also, of my oldest son, David, who was born on Father’s Day, a coinciding event that occurs rarely.

But it is also a major historic day in American history in a number of ways.

1775–Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston, actually at Breed’s Hill location nearby, second battle of developing American Revolution against Great Britain.

1856–Republican Party opens its first National Convention in Philadelphia.

1885–Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, arrives in New York Harbor, will be installed in 1886.

1932–“Bonus Army” veterans of World War I march on the US Capitol, demanding veterans benefits in midst of Great Depression under President Herbert Hoover.

1954–The end of the Army-McCarthy hearings, which leads to the Senate censure of Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin for his misbehavior.

1972–The Watergate Break In occurs, the beginning of the downfall of Richard Nixon, the most corrupt President until Donald Trump.

2015–Nine African American worshipers at Emmanuel AME Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, are murdered by a 21 year old white racist gunman.

All of these events are tied together–the promotion of freedom, liberty, principle, social justice, civil rights, and the rule of law.

All of these principles are under attack in 2018!

Trump’s No Limits Lying: The Korean War Return Of Remains Of Veterans To Their Parents!

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Donald Trump is the most massive liar ever in American political history.

One could say that every person lies, and that every politician lies, and that every President lies.

It is part of the human condition, one could say.

But Donald Trump lies on the average of 6.5 times a day, over 3,000 times in office since January 20, 2017, and he has no shame or caution about the preposterous statements he utters in person or on Twitter.

He knows there are enough gullible people that he can say anything and have millions of people believe and accept what he says.

He knows about the “Big Lie” technique of Adolf Hitler, who promoted lies so regularly that it became like a religion to believe him, and to justify the war crimes that occurred in Nazi Germany.

But it takes a specially dishonest person to promote what Donald Trump said after the summit in Singapore with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Trump tells us that he asked Kim Jong Un to arrange for the return of remains of Americans who died in the Korean War of 1950-1953, as Trump has had so many appeals from parents of such soldiers to do so, or so he says.

Only stupid people would take this seriously, as the average American who served in the Korean War and died there would now be 87, assuming they were 20 when they died in the war.

That would mean their parents had to be born around 1910 on the average, to have a 20 year old son in the war in 1950, which means such parents would have to be close to or over the age of 110!

How many people in America, let alone the world, live to be 110, or even 100?

Infinitesimal numbers, almost non existent, is the answer.

Trump is so totally wrapped in his own narcissism that he truly believes people will believe this BS!

How can anyone be anything but totally appalled by this no limits lying?

Trump’s Crime Against Children And Parents At The Mexico Border: A Crime Against Humanity, For Which His Administration Should Be Prosecuted!

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It is enough to make any decent human being vomit to witness what is happening at the US border with Mexico in Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, where immigrant migrant children are being ripped from the arms and protection of their mothers and fathers by border agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who are acting like Nazi Gestapo agents.

Babies being breastfed by their mothers; wailing toddlers; children of older age; and preteens and teenagers are being effectively incarcerated by order of the racist, nativist government of Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions and others in the Trump regime, in former Walmarts and newly planned “Tent Cities” in the hot summer in Texas, reminding us of former Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio who set up such inhumane conditions, and was pardoned by Donald Trump!

And Jeff Sessions has the gall to quote the Bible in defense of the inhumanity being practiced, and Bible Toters are promoting child abuse, creating emotional damage to children which will last a lifetime, and will likely cause mental trauma that may lead to these children as adults to commit crimes in revenge for their mistreatment.

One can be certain that many parents will never find their children again as record keeping and accountability are not evident, and that there will be many cases of their babies being sold into slavery, and that sexual abuse will occur, including mixing boys of prepubescent and teenage years together, encouraging bullyism and abuse by older against younger.

The horrors of what is going on makes Trump and his government ever more lacking in ethics, morals, common decency, conscience, compassion or empathy!

The so called “family values” claim of the Republican Party is a mockery, and yet we see little reaction by Republican Congressional leaders and those in Texas!

This is a massive violation of human rights that cannot be allowed to stand, as what Trump is doing is against international law, and stains the image of all decent Americans, that we allow such abuses to go on for any amount of time without immediate rectification!

Trump and his cabinet advisers involved in this crime against humanity need to be removed and prosecuted for what they have done to our nation and its people!

Could The Equal Rights Amendment Become The 28th Amendment? The 27th Amendment As A Case Study

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Lo and Behold!

The proposed Equal Rights Amendment, passed through both houses of Congress by wide margins, and then ratified by 35 states between 1972 and 1977, three states short of the three fourths or 38 states needed to ratify, and abandoned after one three year extension from the original seven year plan, in 1982, suddenly has life again!

Nevada’s legislature became state 36 in 2017, and Illinois just became the 37th recently, and now North Carolina is moving ahead on the measure, even though it is 41 years since the original 35 states ratified it, and 46 years since it was passed by both houses of Congress. Also, as a backup, the states of Arizona, Utah, Florida and Virginia are moving in the same direction.

There is precedent for this great delay in the 27th Amendment, suggested in 1789, and only finally ratified by enough states in 1992, mandating that Congress cannot raise its own pay during the same session of Congress that they enact a raise, but only for the succeeding Congress.

If that can happen 203 years after the original enactment, then why not 46 years?

George Will, the conservative ideologue, is bitterly opposed, as he argues progress has been made for women as members of Congress and in society and in law. from what it was in the 1970s.

While that is true, there is still no reason NOT to put women in the Constitution specifically, as the only mention is the 19th Amendment in 1920, giving women the right to vote long after the first push for suffrage at the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848.

Ranking Vice Presidents And Their Influence On Their Presidents, From Richard Nixon To Mike Pence

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Recent information has made it clear that Vice President Mike Pence is a weak Vice President, apparently intimidated by President Donald Trump, and unwilling to challenge him in any way.

In fact, Mike Pence has fawned over Donald Trump in a very degrading way and manner, that we have never seen in any other modern Vice President.

Until Richard Nixon under Dwight D. Eisenhower, no Vice President ever had much impact on their President.

Nixon became the first activist Vice President, given lots of assignments and work, but never openly fawning on Ike.

Lyndon B. Johnson under John F. Kennedy was not utilized very effectively, but he never kowtowed to Kennedy.

Hubert Humphrey under LBJ knew he had to support the Vietnam War, but did not lose his dignity in the process.

Spiro Agnew under Richard Nixon actually did a lot of work attacking the news media for Nixon, although he was poorly treated and abandoned by Nixon when he caused his own legal trouble, that forced him out of office.

Gerald Ford kept his dignity under Nixon in the eight months he was Vice President, before succeeding Nixon in the White House.

Nelson Rockefeller was given responsibilities by Gerald Ford, more than anyone since Nixon under Ike.

Walter Mondale became the most active and engaged Vice President, totally on the same wave length with Jimmy Carter.

George H. W. Bush, while not a “bosom buddy” of Ronald Reagan, played an important role and had total respect of Reagan.

Dan Quayle was a disaster under George H. W. Bush, and a real embarrassment, but Bush always treated him with respect, nevertheless, and kept him on the ticket for 1992.

Al Gore was very close and involved with Bill Clinton, until the Monica Lewinsky Scandal, which led to a breach never fully healed.

Dick Cheney was almost President in the sense that he was leaned on by George W. Bush in his first term, losing some of his power and input in the second term.

Joe Biden had the closest, most intimate relationship with Barack Obama, at least on the level of Walter Mondale with Jimmy Carter, and they remain close today, as do Mondale and Carter.

And now, Mike Pence, who seems afraid of his boss, Donald Trump, and it seems clear he has no guts to challenge Trump on anything, making him look totally wimpy and weak.

We are in a constitutional crisis, but Mike Pence is not willing to fight for the country and its democracy, but rather for Tyrant Donald Trump, so he will go down in history as a disgraceful Vice President, with no guts or courage to challenge Trump, and take away his authority under the 25th Amendment!

So, in conclusion, ranking the last 13 Vice Presidents in influence, one would say the ranking would be:

Joe Biden and Walter Mondale tied for first

Cheney, Gore and Bush tied for second.

Rockefeller and Nixon tied for third.

Johnson and Humphrey tied for fourth.

Ford, for shortage of time and circumstances, fifth.

Pence might be sixth, ahead of Agnew and Quayle at the bottom of the list.

Our future with Vice President Pence is not promising!