This is the kind of cruelty and ignorance we have look forward to as the religious right imposes their belief system on the rest of us.
In what must be one of the cruelest episodes related directly to the unyielding and narrow-mindedness of the religious fanatics of the right, I had difficulty composing myself while sitting in a local diner and reading this story in the WaPo. I feel compelled to point out that it is precisely this kind of ignorant, cruel, legislation that we will (all) have to live with as the religious right and their minions on the SCOTUS continue get their hooks into the American justice system in this country. Religion is the absolute pinnacle of ignorance and the imposition of their will on to the American public will only bring further regressive and extremist laws imposed upon an unwilling and majority of Americans. This is what we will all have to look forward to all because of their imaginary deity and his cruel, inhumane demands.
As I realize this is not easy to read or hear, I believe it is necessary for all to understand that this is the AmeriKa they will force upon us as a result of their fanatical desire for power.
Not A Sound Concerning The Killing Of Our Children At Schools!
I recently called into a Christian radio station show (which shall remain unnamed, at least for now) and listened while hosts couldn’t stop gloating over the recent Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade by the lying religious zealots on the court. They were simply over the top with enthusiastic praise to the “Lord” for his intervention – finally! Of course, no one mentioned the fact that it took some FIFTY YEARS before the “Lord” saw fit to take up the argument and finally settle the matter but I guess that’s par for the course since it took him FOUR HUNDRED YEARS to finally intervene and help the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt! (Gee. Thanks.) Apparently he’s got a major backload of prayers to answer! (Let’s not bother to mention that abortion is mentioned NOWHERE AT ALL in either Hebrew or Christian scripture, but moving on…..) The phone was answered by someone appointed to screen their calls and when asked the nature of my question I said I wanted to know how the Religious Rights’ overwhelming support of the GOP comports with their absolute resistance to gun control, in light of the extraordinary amount of school shootings and student deaths. I was extremely interested in how they were going to substantiate their position on this seemingly stark dichotomy in the value of life? I wonder if you, Dear Reader, can wager a guess as to how they reacted?
Those of you that guessed that they immediately proceeded to engage me in an on-the-air sensible debate about how they see the issues and their future plans of taking on the gun lobby can return to your seats; I’m afraid they did nothing of the kind. In fact, what they did do was hang up after telling me they were putting me on hold, at which point I called two or three more times and they continued to pick up the phone and hang up without speaking a word! Apparently they wanted absolutely nothing to do with this obvious and blatant hypocrisy on this most urgent, lethal issue.
As a kid growing up on Long Island in New York I can’t remember a single time when we had to practice an Active Shooter drill in my entire school career. In fact, before the “Texas Tower Shooting” in 1966 we had never even heard of such a thing and even afterwards we never engaged in such a drill or even thought about it again. Of course now, after corrupting the original meaning behind the Second Amendment and essentially giving the gun and firearms industry complete carte blanche on the manufacture and distribution of even the most lethal weapons available – including assault weapons that are manufactured for no other use than to kill people – the problem has become unsolvable and all we can get from our Republican “representatives” and their phony-baloney supporters in the Religious Right are “thoughts and prayers” and a lot of lip service about how no law enacted would have prevented the mass murder of our students. Keep in mind that after the Sandy Hook mass-massacre of kindergarten and first and second grade students – babies, really – and six heroic teachers, the entire GOPrefused to lift a finger to do anything to prohibit this from happening again. Not a single thing. Again, nothing but their vacuous and useless thoughts and prayers, as if their mythological creator had no ideas about how to circumvent such egregious, pointless violence aimed at the most innocent of our population. Even more reprehensible is the fact that they hide behind “god” in order to facilitate their slavish, obsequious, bootlicking of the gun manufacturing industry.
The fact is we can no longer send our children to school and be 100% certain of their returning home alive. That’s where we are today a direct result of the efforts of our corrupt representatives falling over themselves for the blood-soaked dollars stuffed into their pockets from the gun industry! The GOP provide the thoughts and prayers, the rest of us provide the grief, anguish, and despair. Not a fair trade at all.
Who among us would believe that, had it happened in a school where the children of our elected officials attended, that we wouldn’t see some form of action or immediate response from the very same demented hypocrites in the GOP? Is the money they receive worth the lives of our children? And where exactly is the response from the Religious Right about the blatant murder of our children by individuals that should never have been allowed to even consider owning a firearm? Would the same miscreants selling Jesus everyday to their mindless assemblies have us believe the fiction that we are completely and utterly helpless to protect our children in any way?
The Religious Right MUST be called out on this outrageous hypocrisy. As I’ve often said, the GOP and the Religious Right are adamant that a woman must have a child when impregnated regardless of the circumstances however, once the baby is born, that’s where their concern ends. Women, you are on your own from that point on up to and including the murder of the very same children while attending school. Does multi-zillionaire Joel Osteen, John Hagee, Franklin Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, T.D. Jakes, Jim Bakker, and, my personal favorite, Kenneth “Four Jets” Copeland think that Jesus would approve of their sycophantish subservience to the gun industry?
Where are their voices? Where is the outrage at the complete absence of action to protect the children of this country? It amounts to nothing less than their complicity; they are, for all practical purposes, accomplices after the fact.
I recently watched a YouTube video by Paulogia, a former Christian now fighting the good fight against the enemies of reason, rationale, and science. In it Paulogia was replying to challenges made by three Christian apologists; Mike Winger, Red Pen Logic, and InspiringPhilosphy to the argument as to whether Jesus’ body ever made it into a tomb. Now I am not a Bible scholar, nor am I a historian per se, but I have been reading and researching Christianity and Christian history for some 30 odd years or so and I do not believe you have to be a Bible scholar to weigh in on such religious claims. This topic in particular lends itself to enough reason as to conclude that Jesus was never in a tomb to begin with not only entirely plausible but highly likely.
Remember that when Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover festival the Romans were already on high alert. The Jews of the 1st century were always hostile to the occupation of the Romans, complete with their standards depicting their Caesars as divinities and, sometimes in an act of pure provocation, even putting them in the Temple. Never were the Romans more ready for riot and disorderliness than during the high festivals such as Passover. And the Galilee, specifically where Jesus came from, was considered nothing less than a hotbed of sedition and rebellion. Pontius Pilate, who under normal circumstances would have resided in Caesarea in the splendor and comfort of his palace, made it a point to be in Jerusalem for the Passover feast in order to quash any potential unruliness or rioting that may have broken out. Keep in mind that when Jesus entered the city it was – supposedly – to an enthralled crowd of thousands of Jews screaming “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mark 21:9) This would have already aroused the suspicion of the Roman troops in the area as the crowds were essentially pleading with Jesus to save them from their plight under Roman rule. “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking “Who is this?” The crowds were saying “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.” (Mark 21:10). This could be seen as bad enough however Jesus immediately enters the Temple and proceeds to turn the tables and cause even more commotion, this time violently.
Now Pontius Pilate was already known as a particularly cruel and brutal governor (or procurator, as his Roman title was) and had already been involved with – or the cause of – a number of particularly brutal episodes with Jewish crowds where hundreds or even thousands of Jews were slaughtered by Roman troops. He is referred to as such by Flavius Josephus and Philo of Alexandria as well as other contemporaneous authors however the Gospels gradually turn Pilate from the sole pronouncer of the death sentence on Jesus (Mark) to a milquetoast forced by the Jews to pass sentence on an innocent man or face the wrath of the Emperor, Tiberius. This is where the Gospels writers turn the tables from the Romans to the Jews as the purveyors of deicide and thus begins a two-thousand-year history of antisemitism and violence against Jews. It is much more conceivable – and likely – that having referred to himself as the King of the Jews, a very specific crime of sedition, Pilate sentenced Jesus to death, had him scourged and crucified, without even a morsal of remorse. He wouldn’t have had lost a moment of sleep over sentencing a rebellious Jew, instigator of turbulence and potential rioting, or had given it another thought. It is also highly likely, given his demeanor as described by the contemporaneous authors previously cited, that he would have allowed Jesus’ body to be removed from the cross.
We do know that there were instances where victims of crucifixion were allowed to be taken down and buried according to Jewish law or custom and this was Paulogia’s original comment on his Twitter blog. However, in most instances, this is not the case. One of the principal reasons and desired effects of the sentence of crucifixion was specifically for the public at large to see the effects of defying the Romans or causing mayhem or disorder. The site of a decaying corpse – being eaten by birds, dogs, literally falling off the cross – was the very best illustration that this could be YOU. Jesus, as a seditionist, rebellious instigator of Roman rule, and by declaring himself to be the “King of the Jews”, as inscribed in three languages on the titulus over his head confirms, it is extremely unlikely – and in my opinion, highly improbable – that his body would have ever been taken down. He simply would have decomposed until his bones were on the ground, then tossed into a common grave for such victims.
Now let’s dispel some of the more highly unlikely occurrences at this point in the passion narrative. First let’s dispense with the myth of Pilate releasing a prisoner as a Roman “tradition” (Mark 15:6). Besides the fact that there is absolutely no historical evidence of such a tradition in either Rome or Israel should close this loop once and for all however for the chosen subject for such clemency to be an acknowledged murderer and seditionist carries the story into the realm of fantasy. “Now a man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection.” (Mark 15:7) In my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, we have a colloquial saying for such a story: “no f’n way, not in a million years!” I think it serves us well here as the chances of Pilate, in his infinite brutality, releasing a murderer of Roman soldiers or citizens is just beyond what any reasonable mind can absorb. This simply never happened. It is nothing more than a device used to put the blame of Jesus’ death on the Jews and away from the Romans. “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves. Then the people as a whole answered “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matt 27:24-25)
Mission accomplished.
Next the idea that “Joseph of Arimathea”, literally synthesized out of thin air sashayes onto the scene as a “friend” of Pilates and walks off with Jesus’ body only hours after his death is simply inconceivable. As previously stated, this is out of the question; Pilate lets one seditionist go (Barabbas) and another to be taken down from the cross after only hours after his death. This can only be the need to get Jesus off of the cross and into a tomb from which he can later be resurrected. It isn’t even necessary to debate the fact that Arimathea is a total and completely mythological place, never having appeared on any map, ancient or modern. The place simply never existed and doesn’t to this day.
As far as the “witnesses to the resurrection”, no one ever saw Jesus “resurrecting”; they simply went to an empty tomb. Additionally, none of the four gospels tell the story the same way. “Matthew” tell us Mary Magdalen was there with the “other” Mary. (Mt 27:59-61) “Mark” says it was Mary Magdalen and “Mary the Mother of Joseph”. (Mk 15:46-47) “Luke” says “The women from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the entombment. (Lk 23:53-56) and, finally, “John” ever the embellisher, says it was “Nicodemus and Joseph” that wrapped the body and placed it in a tomb, “at a garden near where Jesus was crucified”. (Jn 19:39-42)
No one ever witnessed the actual reanimation of his body. The tomb was empty simply because Jesus never actually occupied a tomb.
“[The Church] esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind.”
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”
Pastor Greg Locke, of Mt. Juliet’s Global Vision Bible Church, near Nashville, previously told his congregation that he considered Democrats to be “baby butchers.”
Yes, baby butchers. This all for allowing a woman, perhaps a couple, her/their right to choose how to conduct their pregnancy. Of course this insane accusation conjures up visions of…well, you can imagine. “You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don’t care how mad that makes you. You can get as p***ed off as you want to. You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. They are God-denying demons that butcher babies and hate this nation.” he said in one of his many off-the-rails sermons to his congregants. Even in and among the supernatural world religious minions, Greg Locke is a stand-out. Whether it’s witches in his congregation or demons speaking to him, he wants you to believe he’s all-in on Jesus!
Well I have a declaration for you, Mr. Locke: you can not be a Christian and belong to the Repugnantcan Party; sorry, can’t be done. Jesus simply would not have you. Beyond their inherent racism; their contempt for immigrants, African Americans, and, of course, women, is their policy of handing out guns; assault rifles, huge-capacity magazines for carry ridiculous amounts of ammunition, to any shit-kicking a-hole that wants one. They will not lift a finger – even in view of the unspeakable events we’ve watched unfold in Newtown and now in Uvalde, TX – in order to stave off future events of gun violence. They watch while children are murdered seemingly without a clue as to how to stop this insanity or even slow it down. ”We already have enough gun laws” they’ll tell you. ”None of the gun laws would have prevented this” they ”reason”. “We need less doors and more armed personnel in our schools.” And so it goes on and on while we get only the benefits of their ”thoughts and prayers” which, as you can see, have had absolutely no success. Besides, which American politician’s prayers is Jesus listening to anyway? I’m sure that’s a very short list.
The problem is that Christians like Mr Locke are perfectly ok with the unforgivable carnage their policies cause as long as it gets abortion off of the rolls of legal medical procedures and so they vote overwhelmingly for the ”More Guns” crowd. Unfortunately, the ”More Guns” crowd also comes with the ”More Death” crowd to our school children while they are ”safely” tucked away in their classrooms. Only I don’t remember doors being a problem when I went to grammar school or junior high school or high school and we had lots of doors leading into the schools and, yes, some of them were even unlocked or – heaven forbid – open! We even had windows so you can see inside the school! What I DO remember is that we didn’t have 300,000,000 guns in the hands of, in some cases, very scary people, people that should never be candidates for gun ownership.
The Republicans of today would have you believe that there simply isn’t anything we can do to circumvent the murder of our children in schools because there are too many doors and not enough armed guards! And we also know that Evangelicals vote overwhelmingly for Republicans. Meanwhile, back in the imaginary realm where the spirits and demons play, Pastor Greg is whipping his crowd into a frenzy over abortion rights and paying absolutely no mind to our BORN children being murdered in schools. That is one consistent thing about the GOP and the Religious Right; they care passionately about the unborn but they don’t give a hoot about them once they are born. The problem with this of course is ”What would Jesus do?” Do we mean to believe that he would be ok with voting for people that facilitate the arming of our population at the expense of public safety? At the expense of the lives of children?
What do you think? Should we put pressure on the Religious Right to help protect our BORN children by protesting the GOP’s addiction to gun money?
When Will the American People Finally Wake Up to the Blood on their Hands?
It is beyond time – well beyond time really – for the America people to wake up and take responsibility for the senseless carnage perpetrated against the people and CHILDREN – for goodness sake, CHILDREN – in the United States by gun violence! Specifically I call on the Religious Right, the Fundamentalist Christians of Amerika that financially support, vote for, and are complicit with, the GOP and their immoral policies that ultimately result in the senseless deaths of our people and our children. Amerikans can no longer send their children to school each day and even reasonably expect that they will return home ALIVE!! Our children can’t even attend school and expect that they are protected by us; their parents, teachers, elected officials, and all for the efforts of the Republican party and their selling out of the Amerikan people in order to preserve the cash flowing into their pockets from gun manufacturers, the NRA, Conservative politicians, and the Religious Right. Yes, the Religious “Right.” You phony snake-oil salesmen! You don’t get to support these scum and then exonerate yourselves from the horrors of their policies. You have the blood of these children on YOUR HANDS TOO! Let me hear you say it you phony sycophants: What Would Jesus Do? You fucking hypocrites! You fucking Philistines! I curse you and your families and your houses! Joel Osteen, Ken Ham, Jerry Falwell, Franklyn Graham, and the purveyors of the man-made scripture you preach to the helpless for which they get NOTHING and all the rest of you pernicious hypocrites, you will not – YOU CAN NOT – wash their blood off of your hands! You care so much for the lives of the unborn but not at all for the lives of the born! You purveyors of vacuous, religious nonsense! You false prophets! You have been exposed for the egregious villains you are! Now we can truly see you for who you are! Empty vessels of inequity! Jesus WOULD NOT know you – DOESNOT know you! You are the very Anti-Christs you have forseen!
I can just hear Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Chuck Grassley, Majorie Taylor Green, Donald Trump and the miscreants that support and follow them saying ”Unfortunately todays gun laws wouldn’t have done anything to stop this.” Yes, Ted, you lying piece of shit, but you have had the opportunity the CHANGE the GUN LAWS and you willfully decided not to! You have had the power to CHANGE the gun laws for YEARS and you and your immoral party have refused to do so time and time again knowing that it is only a matter of TIME before this happens again and you’ll be sending out your useless and vacuous ”thoughts and prayers” to yet even more grieving, heart-sick, and broken families. I can only hope that someone will send those same reprehensibly phony thoughts to your family some day. And You, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Cavanagh, Amy Barrett, et al. You fucking phony ”Judges”! You are not JUDGES!! YOU ARE POLITICAL OPERATIVES in black robes. Nothing more! You are responsible for perpetrating more violence and injustice in this country than any ten of the most debased criminals!
I call on ALL Amerikans to rise up and throw these so-called ”CHRISTIAN” hypocrites out of office and take control of our country and re-establish laws of safety, morality, and compassion which we lived with for so long before our government was overtaken by corporate and phony religious fanaticism!!
In trying to parcel out yet another school shooting where four more American children are murdered in their school, I began to anticipate Congress’ response, i.e., their total lack of a response. Sure the standard ”thoughts and prayers” are a given and, to be sure, that has provided some badly needed relief (in the minds of the gun manufacturers) especially those from Ted Cruz, Jeff Pawley, and the other Christian Republicans. However in considering these publicly-elected miscreants I began to ask myself: If one votes for someone that allows the murder of our children to persist without so much as lifting a finger, do I also have their blood on my hands? Projecting that out to other issues, I began to ask myself more questions. The next natural conundrum seemed to be racism. I thought: if I vote for a Senator or Congress person that enacts legislature that makes it harder for people of color to get to the polls and vote, does that make me a racists as well? Furthermore, should I prioritize my own personal issues according to my needs or according to the more important civil needs of, in these cases, pblic safety or equal rights for all?
And so, I put these questions to you: when you vote for someone that supports or legislates laws or policies that are harmful or detrimental to all or a particular class of Americans, do you share in the culpability of these policies and laws. In other words, do you have blood on your hands? what do you think?
Will the voters of DeSantis, Abbott, Kemp, et al hold them accountable for the deaths of their constituents?
In their rush to follow their “Dear Leader’s” request to reopen their states in order to try and save his election, it is abundantly clear that the science-denying Red State Governors Coalition unleashed the deadly virus in an even more devastating manner, greatly spiking both the rates of cases as well as deaths in their states. And all just to try and get their economies going in order to turn around Pseudo-President Trump’s disastrous campaign. Again; lives lost, deaths of men, women, and children, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, all to prop up the campaign of the most incompetent and narcissistic – and dangerous – Pseudo-President Russia ever elected. Never mind the fact that Trump’s campaign is in the very state in which it finds itself solely as a result of his own, inept and incompetent management of the worst pandemic the U.S. has seen since the Spanish Flu of 1918, culminating in the deaths of upwards of 150,000 Americans.
The question is: will the voters of these mean-spirited and heartless sycophant remember to repay their incompetence at the polls? Anyone?
Is Donald J. Trump a Benedict Arnold? Many question his obsequiousness to Vladimir Putin.
It’s been called treasonous by a U.S. Congressman and veteran of Iraq. A former Navy Seal and now a emergency room doctor lables Trump either a coward or Putin’s puppet in an ad by the Lincoln Project, a political action committee started by prominent Republicans including George Conway, the husband of Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. Former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul calls Trump’s anemic response to any of Putin’s emboldened moves against US interests “a sign of worsening things to come.” Former National Security Advisor for President Barack Obama Susan Rice is equally suspicious of and puzzled by Trump’s obsequious behavior towards Vladimir Putin. I’m sure the rest of the world is puzzled as well, especially our Nato allies. Puzzled and concerned.
The question puzzling all these people & entities is: why is it that the Pseudo-President, Donald J. Drumpf (I like to use his real name before his grandfather changed it; it seems so much more fitting somehow) always seems to defer to Vladimir Putin and Russian interests? Drumpf contradicted U.S. intelligence reports of Russian interference in the 2016 election in front of the world in Helsinki when he declared that Putin told him Russia did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. election and so, there it is, no interference. Everyone in the entire world already knew that the Russians did, in fact, interfere in the election and to Drumph’s advantage. In fact, I would go so far as to surmise that the blitzkrieg-style hacking campaign conducted by the GRU out of St. Petersburg was a total and complete success for Putin; he actually succeeded in getting Drumpf elected. Granted, this is speculation however I have no doubts that repeatedly putting 15,000 or so false or misleading messages in front of 150,000,000 Americans on FaceBook more than likely did actually have an effect on people’s voting. Keep in mind that Drumpf won the election on the smallest of margins with Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan going to Drumpf with a total of about 106,000 votes between the three states giving him all 46 Electoral College votes and putting him over the top. In fact, he actually won Michigan with a margin of just around 11,000 votes or 3/10 of one percent! And Drumpf actually lost the popular vote by margin of approximately 2,000,000 votes, not exactly a mandate from the people. Is it really so outlandish to conceive that the Russians could have changed or influenced the votes of just 106,000 people across three states out of a vote tally of 123,724,157 total votes? We’re talking an infinitesimal difference approaching one-millionth of one percentage point in a country where approximately 28% of the people – over a quarter of the population – believe the Bible as literal truth? I think not. In my opinion, Drumpf is in office entirely through the efforts of both Russia and FaceBook. We would do well to remember this as we approach the next election.
Now we learn that the Pseudo-President was told perhaps as long as a year ago that Russia was paying a bounty to Taliban forces to kill American and American Allied soldiers! Or perhaps, and I’m not sure which is worse, he doesn’t bother to read his Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) so he wouldn’t have known about it! Even worse, his advisors seem completely unwilling or unable to bring it up to him or make sure he is aware of this most egregious violation of international law. What do you call a president that doesn’t even bother to read the PDB, the single most important daily document in the country while he sits in the residence watching cable news and Tweeting to his followers? For me incompetent comes to mind fairly quickly, and dereliction of duty, sure, that passed through the grey matter as well. But why, many are asking, would the so-called President of the United States of America, the most powerful country ever to grace the Earth, fold like a cheap suit to a country that President Barack Obama labled a “regional power” and one that has the total gross domestic product of Texas? When asked these questions the administration chooses to kill the messenger and has started a vitriolic campaign against both the New York Times for reporting it and the unidentified leakers that gave the information to the Times. And what, you ask, was the Pseudo-President’s response? Do you really need to ask? Fake news. A hoax. All started by the “disgraced” NewYork Times, as Drumpf commonly characterizes the paper of record for the last 150 years. My reaction? Anytime Drumpf characterizes anything as a hoax or fake news I immediately know it’s probably true and this time is no exception. My “Spidey-senses” are off the charts on this one; I just know it’s true somehow just like I know in my heart that the Mueller Report didn’t exonerate him and found complicity between his campaign and Russia and that, somewhere, out in the ether, there’s a pee-pee tape. But it gets worse, much worse.
During this same period of time, while either in full understanding that Russia was putting a bounty on the heads of American soldiers or in ignorance of it because he was derelict in his duties and didn’t bother to read the PDB – and his advisors were too incompetent or too afraid to point it out – Drumpf has repeatedly tried to get Russia back into the Group of 7 over the objections of the other members. Putin is desperately trying to get Russia back onto the world stage after losing miserably in Afghanistan and after the complete decaying of the Soviet Union, and Drumpf seems to be doing everything he can to assist him. Furthermore, he has pulled U.S. troops out of Syria against the advice of “his generals” as he refers to them, leaving a void that was, of course, filled by Russia. He has also recently announced his intention to draw down U.S. Troop levels in Germany as well, again much to the chagrin of his military advisors, Germany, much of Eastern Europe, and Nato. And who is simply delighted at this prospect? Survey says: Vladimir Putin!
We have never had a president that defers to Russia the way Drumpf does, never. And the most enigmatic question is: why? As as a former KGB agent, Putin is well aware of and certainly an absolute expert in the use compromat, the use of compromising information against an adversary. Knowing Drumpf’s less-than-stellar career in business (he bankrupted casino(s), for goodness sakes. I’ve coached Cub Scouts that can run a casino profitably), his credit record with the major banks (not too pretty good. Not a single U.S. bank will lend him money), and his record of womanizing and divorce is it really beyond the pale to conceive that Putin has information about him that Drumpf would definitely want to keep from the public that he has so completely and totally bamboozled? If he is the business Svengali that he professes to be why does he so desperately want to keep his financial records from the public? Why is he so averse to releasing his education records to the public? He says he went to Wharton but refuses to allow any disclosure of his records there. Even though he knows “all the good words” and has “a really good brain?” Doesn’t add up. Doesn’t seem to make sense.
One thing I can tell you this: if the Dumocrats think they’re going to bury this after Drumpf is out of office, they’d better think again. One of my greatest complaints about Obama is that he dropped any further investigations about the start of the Iraq war even though anyone with a brain knows that Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, et al., lied us into the war and it should have been investigated and, more than likely, prosecuted. Unfortunately, Obama had his “let’s look forward to the future and not backward” hands-off approach and so no investigation and there are a lot of progressives that were – and still are – incensed about it. Their frustration was made even worse – maddeningly so – by the way the Dems blew the entire impeachment hearings and the Mueller Report. There is a huge resurgence of progressiveness in the country right now and they are not in the mood for letting a potential political criminal walk, and I am at the top of that list. If the Dumos think we’re going to just move on, they are gravely mistaken. Drumpf must be investigated just as any other American would expect to be. If he is the first president to be incriminated and convicted, then let the chis fall where they may.
With “Moscow Mitch” at the helm in the United States Senate there is very little chance of any meaningful gun legislation getting passed of their own accord. Our representatives are going to need some motivation from “we the people” if anything is going to be done about the absurd level of gun violence in this country. For all his constant mumbling about “the American people” and making sure “our” voices are heard, as in the case of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland whom, you’ll remember, Moscow Mitch refused to take up a confirmation vote on until the “American people” had a chance to chime in – right after the election Comrade Trump. This, of course, resulted in the confirmation of ultra-conservative Neil Gorsuch to the court instead. Well I guess the people have spoken. Thanks, “Moscow”…..
However, “Moscow” hasn’t been waiting to hear from the American people regarding the issue of gun control or, if he has, he hasn’t been listening very well since we’ve been screaming it from the rafters for years. America wants gun control; America wants the gun laws tightened up; America wants meaningful, effective, background checks and gun licensing; America wants military-style assault weapons taken off the market, permanently. Seems like, suddenly Moscow Mitch is as deaf as a fence post. Go figure. An overwhelming majority of Americans – and by that I mean 89 – 91 % of Americans – are in agreement on this issue. Ninety-one percent of Americans couldn’t agree on the colors of the flag let alone meaningful gun reform but there it is. And still nothing from Moscow Mitch and the U.S Senate (queue the crickets, please.) So, help me refresh my memory; I’m having some difficulty: what do you call it when a majority of the people are demanding something and the government refuses to act? Oh, well. I’m sure it’ll come to me.
In my complete and utter frustration over the gall of one person (I wouldn’t describe him as a “man”) holding up the possibility of any progress being made on this heart wrenching issue and not a single member of his party raising their voice in any meaningful way, I thought it necessary to take another tack. We’re going to need to hit the GOP where it hurts and, in political circles, that means the pocketbook. And where does the money come from in their pocket books? From their wealthy donors and corporate masters, that’s where. (You’ll have to forgive the dangling adverbs, etc. Writing in the colloquial requires scrapping such grammatical rules.)
Recently Walmart decided to stop selling certain firearms and ammunition in their stores which reach into every nook and cranny of America. In an open letter to their employees, CEO Doug McMillon announced that the nation’s largest retailer would stop selling ammunition used for handguns and military-style weapons, and end the sale of handguns in their stores completely. They would also take the seemingly bizarre step of discouraging their customers from carrying weapons in their stores, even in the “open carry” states. (Yes, dear readers, there really are places where you can carry your Glock down the frozen foods aisle. I guess you just never know when a slightly-grazed antelope is going to spring out of the meat department!)
Now, there can only be one real reason for this abrupt but well-overdue announcement: business. The management – or possibly (most likely?) the shareholders – of Walmart have made a calculated decision: that it is in the best interests of the company to make this bold reversal of policy. After all, McMillon’s raison d’être is improving the financial prospects of the shareholders of the company. That means that this change in policy was seen as such a move and the executive management – including Walmart’s board of directors – agreed. The management of Walmart is betting that this new policy would be offset by any additional goodwill they would realize from their massive customer base. If this is truly the case, then what other companies are out there that might be convinced of this as well? Or more importantly, how many other companies are there that might put the necessary added pressure upon the “Moscow Mitch’s” of the United States Senate to act in kind before they, too, are targeted by their customer base to make a move like Walmart’s? It would seem better (to me at least) to make such changes in policy before the company would be “forced” to against their will.
Ranting About Politics And Religion 