Roundup April 26, 2021

Information and my reactions of news.

I begin this roundup with my thoughts on comments from conservatives about restricting voting for those who are uninformed or ignorant of civics and issues.

An article in the Washington Post reported on comments made by an Arizona Republican member of their state legislature. State Representative John Kavanagh (R) stated, on CNN, that, “Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they’re totally uninformed on the issues. Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.” Of course, he later tried to walk back his words, but that’s to be expected from those who make ignorant statements showing the truth of their beliefs.

An article in USA Today, used in the Washington Post article, on remarks made about voting, gave some more examples. From the article, “For example, Andrew McCarthy stated in National Review: “It would be far better if the franchise were not exercised by ignorant, civics-illiterate people.” Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, warned of the dangers of voting by the “uninformed.” Kevin Williamson, also at National Review, asked whether America “would be better served by having fewer — but better — voters.”

Who are these ignorant and civics-illiterate voters? It’s minorities and the poor who these conservatives are crying about. You know, the people who came out and voted for Joe Biden. Those votes have scared Republicans so badly that they have come out openly for voter suppression by writing and enacting laws to the advantage of Republicans in future elections.

If we use their thinking we must then examine a group overlooked by these “patriots.” That group would be the white supremacist racists, QAnon believing, Trump-loving, LGBTQ hating, REPUBLICANS! These Republicans consider themselves true patriots, defenders of the Constitution, moral and ethical Christians, and the only segment of society capable of determining the direction of American life.

They’re not educated, civics-aware voters. They can’t be. For instance, followers of QAnon are people mentally incapable of using critical reasoning skills (including Republican luminaries Representatives Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene). This is clearly demonstrated by their idiotic beliefs of the conspiracy theories espoused by QAnon. What critically thinking person could believe that Democrats are/were running a child sex ring out of the basement of a pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C.? How can “good” Christians categorize those people who deserve the love of Jesus Christ and the rest, like the LGBTQ+ community, who will burn in hell, be educated voters? How can white supremacist racists who want all minorities dead or removed, just as Hitler wanted all Jews exterminated, be educated voters (consider too the number of white people they’d kill for siding with minorities over their white America dreams)?

Certainly these Republicans should be allowed to vote. Of course, they are excused by the commenters I wrote of above. I’m sure that Republicans can’t see any problems with those voters and the democracy they’d have in power. Wait, make that dictatorship, since they want Trump and a family dynasty he’d institute.

That makes John Kavanagh, Andrew McCarthy, Michael Watson, Kevin Williamson, and others of their ilk, to be nothing short of bigoted hypocrites. Apparently they believe the U.S. Constitution doesn’t extend to all the people. Now, that’s ignorant! They and those like them should be the ones denied the right to vote if anyone should be.

Now we move on to an article on heavy.com about a Tennessee man, Sam Johnson. Johnson is the CEO of a company called VisuWell, a telemedicine platform company. It seems Johnson decided to harass an LGBTQ teen boy who chose to wear a dress to his prom. Johnson took offense at the teen’s appearance, telling the teen that he shouldn’t be wearing a dress. The teen’s boyfriend, who was recording the interaction on his phone, related that Johnson made comments, “You look disgusting, you look ridiculous, you look like an idiot…” In the end Johnson was thrown out of the hotel this occurred at, as well as being told by others to leave the teen alone.

What a bigoted sob! Where the hell do people get the idea that they have the right to harass anyone, for any reason. Obviously, they were not taught to mind their own business when they were growing up. That or they decided they could make anything their business, as Johnson clearly did in this case.

Now, Johnson told Newsweek that the was no truth the accusations. He said he was just handling “obnoxious, loud behavior by this group of teens.” Funny, that’s not what we see in the video – which Johnson says (without proof) was edited. I’m willing to bet that if you asked Johnson, he’d tell you he is a “good” Christian too. In reality, he’s a sick, twisted, coward for his inability to allow people to express themselves. To me, his petty behavior is why we have hate crime laws in America.

I wonder if he would be considered to be a person who would make an educated and responsible voter the Republicans want?

Just these two articles alone show the problem with so many people (all Republicans maybe?) in our country. Their ignorance and hatred for all they disagree with leads them to condemn others and decry the inability of those they oppose to be less human and capable than they are. Are Democrats and the left perfect? Nope, not by a long shot. But, they shine compared to the morons I’ve written about in this article. If they are so determined to force people to follow their beliefs only, then maybe they should all relocate and create their own country of bigoted, racist white people. I suggest Antarctica.

Until next time

The Nation’s Wreckage

Trump’s Shame!

Well, it’s been a while. I went dark, initially unintended and later by choice, when I spent two different periods hospitalized in late October and early November 2020. I was already at the point where I was sick and tired of the disaster of Trump and his administration. I did keep an eye on what occurred since the election, waiting for today now that President Joe Biden has replaced the, in my opinion, criminal Donald Trump.

The four years of Trump’s administration has been a train wreck unequaled by any period of U.S. history, to include the American Revolution. He and his followers no longer have a stranglehold on the nation. His Congressional Republicans have had power stripped from them, as it should be, for supporting and promoting all that Donald Trump did to America. Some of those Republicans insisted on continuing to find some way to keep Trump in office after he lost the election. Each one of them should be removed from office as they are unfit to serve. A few, like Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, need to be investigated for any criminal actions and if found, they should be arrested and tried. Even now some of Trump’s congressional lackeys remain faithful, like Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, both QAnon nuts, and continue spouting their nonsense as they worship a disgraced Trump.

Our Capitol was engulfed in a riotous insurrection by members of Trump’s band of ignorant racists and conspiracy believing fools. They were unable and unwilling to accept the election results. After being riled up and sent to the Capitol by Donald Trump, they attempted to stop our constitutional government from carrying out their lawful duties. These followers do nothing but whine about how the 74 million of them have had the election stolen from them. They demand Trump be given his rightful second term, that he “won” by a landslide. Never mind that over 80 million Americans voted for President Joe Biden. They don’t deserve to have their votes matter I guess. These “Americans” trashed the Capitol, causing the death of five people, including a Capitol Police officer. I’m thinking had the Capitol Police formed a line and opened fire things would have been different. After five or six fell to a flurry of bullets, the rest would turn and run as fast as their little legs could move in the opposite direction. Many likely peeing themselves as they ran. Luckily for them there were sympathizers among the Capitol Police who ushered them into the building and allowed them to run wild.

The real animals among Trump’s supporters, groups like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the generic white supremacists, have screamed loudly for their members to rise and start a civil war to remake America into their dreamed of Whites Only nation. They’ve lost access to social media for their fomenting of violence. Some, as with many other insurrectionists, have had their wake up call as the FBI arrived and arrested them for their criminal actions. Let them stand in court and be judged and to, hopefully, spend many years in prison for their attempted coup to save their twisted and mentally ill (or deranged) “leader” Donald Trump. Maybe they can request a cell next to Trump’s? Each of these groups are poster children for enacting a domestic terrorism law(s) to place them where they belong, outlawed and driven back under the rocks from which they squirmed out from under. The great majority of these lowlifes are as cowardly as Donald “Pathological Liar” Trump.

Yet, such law(s) would not be in the spirit of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Such law(s) would empower government to decide what organizations are to be labelled terrorist organizations. Imagine another administration of a Trump-like president using the law to silence opposition groups and persons. Americans can not, and should not, trust any government with such power. So, the nation must allow these “patriot” groups to exist and to be allowed to run their mouths. Should they cross the line into criminal speech, we must let law enforcement bring them before the bar of “justice” for punishment. But, this begs the question of whether or not we can trust law enforcement to do their job, something we haven’t been able to do throughout most of 2020.

Donald Trump couldn’t even handle attending the inauguration, instead he slunk out of town on Air Force One while he was still the President. Off to his digs in Palm Beach, Florida. There he will lick his wounds and, some believe, try to control the Republican Party. He told American he’d be back during his farewell speech before boarding Air Force One for his flight to flee Washington D.C. What he may be able to accomplish to that end is anyone’s guess. Certainly, as we have seen, there are plenty of Republicans in federal and state government willing to back his idiocy. The Republican Party is dead, yet they don’t know it or believe it. Even Trump has, or is, considering whether to set up a new party to compete against the Republican Party. Now that would be good, in my humble opinion. What better way to split the conservative voting in the country? His speech to CPAC was nothing more than a repeat of all his lies he has sold those believers in his views. Maybe the Republicanj party should be declared a domestic terrorist organization?

President Joe Biden has his work cut out for him. He has two years before the mid-term election in which to get his agenda in place. As with all presidential terms, the mid-term elections could flip Congress back to opposition control. Then, it’s the usual roadblocks to getting anything done. Both parties operate this way when the President is in the other party. At least he can undo Trump’s Executive Orders. That’s a good start, but with the pandemic still raging and there being a shortage of vaccines, work must focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, not only in America, but worldwide. Many third world nations are stuck depending on the first world nations to aid them in their fight to survive. Humanity demands that every able nation aids those lesser able nations in saving their populations. We will have to wait and see what happens. Beyond the pandemic itself, President Biden must act to aid those who have suffered and are suffering. Men, women, and families have lost their income, some their homes. Many more live on the streets of the country with little hope of help by states already stretched thin and running out of money. Over 500,000 Americans have paid with their lives, how many more will Joe Biden allow to die? How will he aid and protect those who are homeless, those who are so far behind in their rents that landlords are begging for an end to the eviction moratorium (which ios on the brink of happening), those who are food insecure even if they are lucky enough to have a job, and those in the country who have lost the hope for a better life? It’s only been through citizens who have grouped together to aid those in dire straits that the much less fortunate have some chance to get to tomorrow.

I expect in many ways we will see business as usual. The filthy rich will continue to get richer off the sweat of workers. The poor will continue their struggles for daily existence and those in the middle will be expected to pay the bill for getting the country back on it’s feet. I’d like to see changes, like the filthy rich being taxed heavily. I’d like to see corporations be taxed heavily as well. That could be done by just preventing corporations from having so many deductions that their tax bill is negligible. It is far past time these rich people and corporations pony up a fair share. Yet, I doubt the Democrats will have the spine to take on their super donors and corporations. Hell, we know they’re just conservatives under a different name.

In the end we just have to wait and see if all the wreckage is cleaned up. For the record, I didn’t vote for Biden. I’m a socialist, why would I vote for a conservative? I’d prefer, as I have said before, that the governmental system in the United States collapse and a true peoples democracy replace it so that human rights and equality are the absolute law of the land.

Until next time

American Racism: Still Going Strong

Will it Ultimately Destroy us?

Racism has been a part of the fabric of white America for over a century before the Declaration of Independence stated that “all men are created equal”. What the document failed to say is that the “equal” meant not what it should mean. The white men writing the declaration meant that only white men were created equal (and even that was a lie).

White America made the unspoken declaration that racism was acceptable, so much so that racism became deeply intrinsic to the nation. Decade after decade over the past 244 years it has been a large part of White Americans behavior. Regardless of where on the timeline of America we look, we can find plenty of racist behaviors, both societal and institutionally.

Racism, for this article, is defined at dictionary.com as:

• a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
• a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
• hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

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It’s a different place

America today doesn’t seem to be a nation that makes much sense to the rest of the world, let alone Americans. Hell, let alone me especially!

There is a definitive change in our society, pandemic aside for the moment. It is debatable whether this change is good or bad. I guess it will really depend where you stand and look at it.

I stand in the middle, looking outward at the many angles of life that drive the existence of our country. In many cases I do not like what I am seeing, primarily because of the political situation America is currently confronted with. That situation is our President, Donald Trump, and all the ugliness he has brought forth to, as he sees it, rule the United States.

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