Reconstruction Era

FINALLY, LYNCHING IS DECLARED A FEDERAL CRIME, AND LEGISLATION NAMED AFTER EMMETT TILL!

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The crime of lynching, the hanging and butchering of a human being by a mob, most often utilized against African Americans, and particularly in the Southern States, but sadly against other groups, including Jews, Catholics, and Hispanics, and in other parts of America, has existed since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War.

But finally, Congress has passed Lynching legislation, making it a federal crime punishable by 30 years in prison, and the law is named after Emmett Till, the 14 year old lynched in Mississippi in 1955, for the supposed crime of flirting with a white woman, with his body desecrated, and causing shock around the nation.

The vote in the US Senate was unanimous, and only three Republican Congressmen voted against the legislation.

The white woman who lied about Emmett Till making a pass at her is still alive, and she should face prosecution for what became a heinous crime, perpetrated by her now dead husband and another man, both of whom were found not guilty in a disgraceful mockery of a trial in Mississippi in 1955!

The Emmett Till lynching helped to motivate the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

And there is a museum which commemorates the Lynching issue, located in Montgomery, Alabama, the heart of the “Old South”, named the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement To Mass Incarceration!

Enforcing 14th Amendment, Section 3, Will Eliminate Threat Of Donald Trump Being President Again!

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A simple solution to the threat of Donald Trump running for President again is to enforce the 14th Amendment, Section 3, as passed and added to the Constitution after the Civil War and during the Reconstruction Era.

Congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee, the Chairman of the Judiciary Subcomittee on the Consitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties has proposed a measure to enforce this section of the 14th Amendment, and Senator Amy Klobucar, Chair of the Rules Committee, has done so in the Senate.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment reads as follows:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House remove such disability.

The US Attorney General could move to enforce this section of the Constitution before a three judge panel. Such individual would be disqualified from holding public office, once clear and convincing evidence that an office holder or former office holder engaged in insurrection or rebellion. Such individuals would also forfeit all benefits derived from their service in federal office, and would be prohibited from obtaining contracts with the federal government. And a former President would not be considered such for the purpose of receiving benefits under the Act.

Additionally, members of Congress who were involved in inciting and promoting what happened on January 6, 2021, would face the same penalties and lose their rights to serve or gain benefits from their past service!

Voting Rights Extension 2006: 98-0 In Senate! Voting Rights Extension 2021–Rejected By Republicans!

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Today is the 10th Anniversary of the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington DC.

It is very clear what Martin Luther King Jr. would say if he was alive today–total anger at what the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, has done–to work to destroy the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 under Lyndon B. Johnson, and reaffirmed as recently as 2006, under President George W. Bush, when the US Senate voted 98-0 to renew it, with full backing of the Republican President and his party unanimously.

But now, in the age of Donald Trump and a Republican Party morphing into the old segregationist Southern Democratic Party from Reconstruction times to the 1960s, we are stunned to see not one Republican Senator—not even Mitt Romney, nor Ben Sasse, nor Lisa Murkowski, nor Susan Collins—willing to vote to overcome the filibuster tactic. This vote was just to consider and discuss and debate a Voting Rights Act to restore the damage done by the US Supreme Court in 2013 in Shelby County V Holder, and by many Southern and Western states legislatures since then, to restrict the right to vote, the bedrock of a democracy!

The Republican Party has lost its credibility completely as a serious alternative conservative party, and now is just a bunch of power seeking, phony so called “religious’ people, who are out to promote white supremacy, nativism and misogyny! They are out to promote election subversion and voter suppression and deny the right to vote to millions of Americans!

The party will not recover long term if it does not abandon Donald Trump now, and there is no sign of that occurring!

Lawsuit Against Donald Trump And Rudy Giuliani And Right Wing Hate Groups Under Ku Klux Klan Act Of 1871

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A lawsuit against Donald Trump, Rudy Guiliani, and two right wing hate groups has been filed in court under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, passed to deal with domestic terrorism in the South during Reconstruction after the Civil War.

This law was passed and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant, and now, the NAACP and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi is taking the fight to hold Trump, Guiliani and the terrorist groups in the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021 accountable under criminal law.

So these two racist demagogues will face trial and prosecution for their inciting the attack that caused the death of seven people, including three Capitol Hill Officers, and caused great damage to the Capitol Building, the symbol of American democracy!

And every member of Congress who participated in the scam about a corrupt Presidential Election of 2020 must also face similar lawsuits and trials, including Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who claims that there was no Insurrection on January 6, 2021. For trying to promote that fake news alone, Johnson should be punished with expulsion and a prison term, as a disgrace to his state and to the institution of the US Senate!

Scott Brown: “Carpetbagger” And Multi State Senator?

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Scott Brown served almost three years in the US Senate from Massachusetts, winning a special election to replace Ted Kennedy by defeating Attorney General Martha Coakley early in 2010. Then, he lost the full Senate term to Elizabeth Warren in 2012.

Now, Scott Brown wants to come back to the Senate in 2015, but from New Hampshire, as he turned down the chance to run for the vacant Senate seat given up by John Kerry when he became Secretary of State in 2013.

So Scott Brown hopes to do what has not been done since the 1870s and only twice ever, to serve in the Senate from more than one state, with the record being set by James Shields, who served Illinois from 1849-1855, Minnesota in 1858, and Missouri in 1879. One other earlier Senator, unclear who it is at this moment, also served two states.

So for 135 years this has never happened, and very few “carpetbagger” Senators have served since the Reconstruction Era 150 years ago.

The only major examples are New York’s two “outsiders,” often called “carpetbaggers,” but elected despite not really being New Yorkers–Robert F. Kennedy (1965-1968), and Hillary Clinton (2001-2009).

The only modern example of a Senator trying to be elected from a second state was New York Senator James Buckley (1971-1977) , who tried and failed to be elected as a “carpetbagger” from Connecticut in 1980.

So Scott Brown is fighting history and tradition, and except for New York, the willingness to elect an “outsider” to the Senate, although Brown has had a second home in New Hampshire for many years, while always being in office in the state legislature of Massachusetts, and identifying himself as a Massachusetts resident.

His New Hampshire opponent, Senator and former Governor Jeanne Shaheen, will be a tough opponent, and she is highly favored to win, in a state where the two Senators, two House members, and the Governor, are all women, and all Democrats, except for Senator Kelly Ayotte.

It is ironic that in each race Brown has entered for the US Senate, that his opponent has been a woman—Martha Coakley, Elizabeth Warren, and now Jeanne Shaheen.

Don’t put any betting money on Scott Brown making history in 2014 in New Hampshire!

The Gallup Poll And Gay Marriage

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The latest Gallup Poll shows a growing support of gay marriage among Democrats and Independents, but stagnant among Republicans.

According to the poll, 69 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Independents now support the right of gay men and lesbians to marrry, with both numbers growing rapidly over the past few months.

But Republicans in the poll remain frozen at 28 percent in support, with a lot of this based on evangelical Christian influence on the party, plus the fact that the GOP has NEVER stood for any major reform that promotes civil rights and equality since the 1920s, although they were ahead on reform in the Reconstruction period after the Civil War (Radical Republicans) and the Progressive Era (Progressive Republicans).

Among younger people, particularly, the opposition to gay marriage is small in number, although among older Americans, particularly the elderly who are Christian, the opposition is stronger.

What is clear is that gay marriage is eventually going to be seen as a norm, with the passage of time.

When one looks back 30-50 years from now, one will wonder why such strong opposition existed, similar to those who look back now to 1967, when finally the Supreme Court declared interracial marriage to be constitutional. One will wonder why such a big deal was made over it fifty years ago!

More Political Party Division Today Than Since The Reconstruction Era!

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Newsweek Magazine this week has an article about the massive political divide that exists between the Democrats and the Republicans presently, and comes up with a shocking statement!

The partisan warfare between the parties, with each unable to cross the aisle for support in a bipartisan way, is the absolute worst it has been since the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War, when the Republicans dominated, and depicted the Democrats as the “party of treason”!

Does this mean that the American people are more divided by ideological conflict than during other controversial periods, such as FDR’s New Deal during the Great Depression; the McCarthyism “Red Scare” of the 1950s; the tumult over civil rights and the Vietnam War during the 1960s and early 1970s; and the administration of Bill Clinton in the 1990s?

Unbelievably, YES, as even in these periods of great conflict in the past, there were still the ability of a substantial number of the opposition party to work across the aisle, rather than the “lockstep” mentality of Reconstruction times, and the present period where the concept of cooperation has become totally repudiated, sadly! 🙁

It is tragic, that in the time of the Great Recession, and so many intransigent problems facing the nation, that we cannot have cooperation and bipartisanship! That is what is causing the dangerous levels of extremism that we are seeing with the militia groups and the Tea Party Movement!

Rather than uniting around our common American nationalism, we are dividing based on such factors as race, religion, geographical section, age, and widely varying views of the meaning of the Constitution!

What we need is statesmanship, rather than partisanship, but the likelihood of improvement in the relationship of the two major political parties is not likely at any time in the foreseeable future! 🙁