Hillary.

I really didn’t know much about her.  Like Al Mascitti I felt I would vote for her because the alternative was worse..  I have just finished reading KILLING THE MESSENGER, The Right Wing Plot to Derail Hillary and Hijack Your Government,   which clued me on to many of the things I felt about her were not true at all.. in fact they were concocted and fanned by a right wing noise machine which actually existed just to bog the Clinton’s down.

How could I have missed this?  It was written by a founder of the “right wing conspiracy” who later developed a conscious, and came over to the other side…

One can’t make stuff like that up.

Brock the author was commissioned by one of the 90’s wealthy right wing financiers of the movement to build a major hit designed to ruin Bill and Hill before they really got started on a national level. As Brock dug deep into their dealings, lives, and character, he found, as an investigator of integrity, that indeed all the Little Rock stories were completely manufactured.

Basically any of the alleged scandals occurring before 1992, cannot be believed.  They were made up, with willing participants, well coached, then publicized.   So says the guy who made them up….

So if none of the stuff being said is true, who then…. is Hillary?   A short cliff-note version biography, I believe, is in order…

Chicago suburb.
Goldwater Girl in 1964
Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Democrat in 1968 dedicated to public service.
Wellesley College –Senior Class President
Yale Law School — with honors
Yale Child Study Center — post graduate
Summer Jobs included working for Mondale, McGovern, Judiciary Committee,
Faculty Member — Razorback’s Law School
Worked Jimmy Carter’s campaign 1976
Appointed to part-time chairman of the Legal Services Corporation by President Carter.
Chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee
Co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families
Served on the boards of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, Arkansas Legal Services
Children’s Defense Fund
Served on the Boards of TCBY and Walmart
The National Law Journal — named one of the most powerful lawyers in America
Task Force on National Health Reform (1993)
Won New York Senate Seat 2000 — 55 – 43%
Reelected 2006
2008 Primary Campaign against Obama
2009 Secretary of State.

Truly there never has been a more balanced and well versed human being to run for office. It is no wonder that wealthy conservatives who could never compete or find anyone capable of competing, would seek to create innuendo to tarnish the glory herein.

It is impossible to believe that someone whose primary concern was working with children for most of her early life, could ever be the Killary of Benghazi as Republican idiots make her out to be… It’s as if someone trashtalked Mother Theresa or imprisoned Nelson Mendala without cause, because they otherwise have a profound impact and would be successful and loved worldwide…

And she has been vindicated in every one or the charges… No one in my memory has gone through such scrutiny.  There is no … “there”…. there……

When you swear that someone has to be guilty despite all evidence to the contrary, what does that make you?  Don’t worry, you are in good company. The Pharisees and Sadducees felt the same about someone 2000 years ago.

And that is what all voters have to realize…  If someone stepped up and accused you every step of your way for silly accusations which had no merit, were not true, yet were repeated over and over and over, you probably , being a lesser person than her, might actually come to believe them yourself, having heard them for so long….

When the guy who created them, writes a book to say “yeah, we created them; they aren’t true”… it might be wise to listen and then re-evaluate your analysis.

Because if you don’t… you’re living a lie.  A lie you got tricked into believing which one day you’ll realize how easily you got played…

It’s really not hard to verify.  You should check it out yourselves, and like me, realize that you too were indeed played by some real creeps…

Does Still Supporting Trump Make You Morally Unfit To Run For Office?

It depends on your definition of morals…

If you don’t believe in God,  perhaps you can argue you are morally fit to run for office.

If you think women are things, to be used and tossed away when done, perhaps you can argue you are morally fit to run for office.

If you think skin color should be the sole determiner of ones rights and future, perhaps you can argue you are morally fit to run for office.

If you think that wealth gives you privilege and the right to do as you please and suffer no consequences for your actions, perhaps you can argue you are morally fit to run for office.

If you think laws should only be obeyed when thye suit your favor, and disregarded when they suit someone elses at your expense, then perhaps, you can argue you are morally fit to run for office…

If you think you should have total control over all natural resources so you can sell them to others who may need them to survive and make set your price high knowing they must pay it, then perhaps, you  can argue you are morally fit to run for office…

But none of these are my morals.. Mine are set higher and as their foundation, tend to be routed in the texts of the worlds three greatest religions, all hinged on the same God…

Based on MY morals, which basically come from this one line:  “love the Lord your God more than anything else, and love your neighbor as much as you do yourself”,  I have found the following Republicans not morally fit to run for office, and of course this is based solely on their support for what can only be called the true anti-Christ, Donald Trump for President.

Republican Party Chairman  Charlie Copeland

Republican Nominee for Governor  Colin Bonini

Republican Nominee for Congressperson  Hans Reigle

Republican Nominee for Lt. Governor  La Mar T Gunn.

State Senate Candidates

• Cathy Cloutier:   District 5
• Anthony Delcollo:  District 7
• Carl Pace:  District 14
• David Lawson:   District 15
• Brian Pettyjohn:  District 19
• Gerald Hocker:  District 20

State House Candidates

Kevin Hensley:  District 9

Judith Travis:  District 10

Jeff Spiegleman:  District 11

Debbie Hudson:  District 12

James Louis DeMartino:  District 14

James R. Startzman, Jr:  District 19

Stephan Smyk:  District 20

Mike Ramone:  District 21

Joesph E. Miro:  District 22

Timothy Conrad:  District 24

Michael Nagorski:  District 25

Janice Gallagher:  District 29

William Outten:  District 30

Jean Dowding: District 31

Patricia Foltz:  District 32

Charles Postles:  District 33

Lyndon Yearick:  District 34

David Wilson:  District 35

Harvey Kenton, Jr:  District 36

Ruth Briggs King:  District 37

Ronald Gray:  District 38

Daniel Short:  District 39

Timothy Dale Dukes:  District 40

Richard Collins:  District 41

=====

Don’t take my word for it. Click the links and ask them. Ask them why they think they are morally fit yet still support Donald Trump?… After all, maybe your values are different and not based on those underlying the world’s three main religions….

ATTN: Bonini, Reigle, La Mar Gunn, Lawson, Pettyjohn, Hocker, Hudson, Smyk, Lopez, Miro, Ramone, Short, Grey, Dukes, and Collins! Your Candidate Is A Racist and So Is Your Party! You Still With Them? IF SO, Don’t Expect To Stay With Us, You Racist!!!!! Get The Hell Outta’ Here !!!

 

My original plan for this article was to focus on our agenda to help small businesses and entrepreneurs.

This week I’d planned to propose new steps to cut red tape and taxes, and make it easier for small businesses to get the credit they need to grow and hire.

Because I believe that in America, if you can dream it, you should be able to build it.

I’ll be talking a lot more about our economic plans in the days and weeks ahead.

But today, I want to address something I hear from Americans all over our country.

Everywhere I go, people tell me how concerned they are by the divisive rhetoric coming from my opponent in this election.

It’s like nothing we’ve heard before from a nominee for President of the United States.

From the start, Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia.

He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America’s two major political parties.

His disregard for the values that make our country great is profoundly dangerous.

In just the past week, under the guise of “outreach” to African Americans, Trump has stood up in front of largely white audiences and described black communities in insulting and ignorant terms:

“Poverty. Rejection. Horrible education. No housing. No homes. No ownership.

Crime at levels nobody has seen… Right now, you walk down the street, you get shot.”

Those are his words.

Donald Trump misses so much.

He doesn’t see the success of black leaders in every field…

The vibrancy of black-owned businesses…Or the strength of the black church… He doesn’t see the excellence of historically black colleges and universities or the pride of black parents watching their children thrive…And he certainly doesn’t have any solutions to take on the reality of systemic racism and create more equity and opportunity in communities of color.

It takes a lot of nerve to ask people he’s ignored and mistreated for decades, “What do you have to lose?” The answer is everything!

Trump’s lack of knowledge or experience or solutions would be bad enough.

But what he’s doing here is more sinister.

Trump is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.

It’s a disturbing preview of what kind of President he’d be.

This is what I want to make clear today:

A man with a long history of racial discrimination, who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far reaches of the internet, should never run our government or command our military.

If he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans?

Now, I know some people still want to give Trump the benefit of the doubt.

They hope that he will eventually reinvent himself – that there’s a kinder, gentler, more responsible Donald Trump waiting in the wings somewhere.

After all, it’s hard to believe anyone – let alone a nominee for President of the United States – could really believe all the things he says.

But the hard truth is, there’s no other Donald Trump. This is it.

Maya Angelou once said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

Well, throughout his career and this campaign, Donald Trump has shown us exactly who he is. We should believe him.

When Trump was getting his start in business, he was sued by the Justice Department for refusing to rent apartments to black and Latino tenants.

Their applications would be marked with a “C” – “C” for “colored” – and then rejected.

Three years later, the Justice Department took Trump back to court because he hadn’t changed.

The pattern continued through the decades.

State regulators fined one of Trump’s casinos for repeatedly removing black dealers from the floor. No wonder the turn-over rate for his minority employees was way above average.

And let’s not forget Trump first gained political prominence leading the charge for the so-called “Birthers.”

He promoted the racist lie that President Obama isn’t really an American citizen – part of a sustained effort to delegitimize America’s first black President.

In 2015, Trump launched his own campaign for President with another racist lie. He described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals.

And he accused the Mexican government of actively sending them across the border. None of that is true.

Oh, and by the way, Mexico’s not paying for his wall either.

If it ever gets built, you can be sure that American taxpayers will be stuck with the bill.

Since then, there’s been a steady stream of bigotry.

We all remember when Trump said a distinguished federal judge born in Indiana couldn’t be trusted to do his job because, quote, “He’s a Mexican.”

Think about that.

The man who today is the standard bearer of the Republican Party said a federal judge was incapable of doing his job solely because of his heritage.

Even the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, described that as “the textbook definition of a racist comment.”

To this day, he’s never apologized to Judge Curiel.

But for Trump, that’s just par for the course.

This is someone who retweets white supremacists online, like the user who goes by the name “white-genocide-TM.” Trump took this fringe bigot with a few dozen followers and spread his message to 11 million people.

His campaign famously posted an anti-Semitic image – a Star of David imposed over a sea of dollar bills – that first appeared on a white supremacist website.

The Trump campaign also selected a prominent white nationalist leader as a delegate in California. They only dropped him under pressure.

When asked in a nationally televised interview whether he would disavow the support of David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Trump wouldn’t do it. Only later, again under mounting pressure, did he backtrack.

And when Trump was asked about anti-Semitic slurs and death threats coming from his supporters, he refused to condemn them.

Through it all, he has continued pushing discredited conspiracy theories with racist undertones.

Trump said thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks. They didn’t.

He suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination. Perhaps in Trump’s mind, because he was a Cuban immigrant, he must have had something to do with it. Of course there’s absolutely no evidence of that.

Just recently, Trump claimed President Obama founded ISIS. And then he repeated that nonsense over and over.

His latest paranoid fever dream is about my health. All I can say is, Donald, dream on.

This is what happens when you treat the National Enquirer like Gospel.

It’s what happens when you listen to the radio host Alex Jones, who claims that 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings were inside jobs. He said the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there.

Trump didn’t challenge those lies. He went on Jones’ show and said: “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

This man wants to be President of the United States.

I’ve stood by President Obama’s side as he made the toughest decisions a Commander-in-Chief ever has to make.

In times of crisis, our country depends on steady leadership… clear thinking… and calm judgment… because one wrong move can mean the difference between life and death.

The last thing we need in the Situation Room is a loose cannon who can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction, and who buys so easily into racially-tinged rumors.

Someone detached from reality should never be in charge of making decisions that are as real as they come.

It’s another reason why Donald Trump is simply temperamentally unfit to be President of the United States.

Now, some people will say that his bluster and bigotry is just over-heated campaign rhetoric – an outrageous person saying outrageous things for attention.

But look at the policies Trump has proposed. They would put prejudice into practice.

And don’t be distracted by his latest attempts to muddy the waters.

He may have some new people putting new words in his mouth… but we know where he stands.

He would form a deportation force to round up millions of immigrants and kick them out of the country.

He’d abolish the bedrock constitutional principle that says if you’re born in the United States, you’re an American citizen. He says that children born in America to undocumented parents are, quote, “anchor babies” and should be deported.

Millions of them.

And he’d ban Muslims around the world – 1.5 billion men, women, and children –from entering our country just because of their religion.

Think about that for a minute. How would it actually work? People landing in U.S. airports would line up to get their passports stamped, just like they do now.

But in Trump’s America, when they step up to the counter, the immigration officer would ask every single person, “What is your religion?”

And then what?

What if someone says, “I’m a Christian,” but the agent doesn’t believe them.

Do they have to prove it? How would they do that?

Ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, America has distinguished itself as a haven for people fleeing religious persecution.

Under Donald Trump, America would distinguish itself as the only country in the world to impose a religious test at the border.

Come to think of it, there actually may be one place that does that. It’s the so-called Islamic State. The territory ISIS controls. It would be a cruel irony if America followed its lead.

Don’t worry, some will say, as President, Trump will be surrounded by smart advisors who will rein in his worst impulses.

So when a tweet gets under his skin and he wants to retaliate with a cruise missile, maybe cooler heads will be there to convince him not to.

Maybe.

But look at who he’s put in charge of his campaign.

Trump likes to say he only hires the “best people.” But he’s had to fire so many campaign managers it’s like an episode of the Apprentice.

The latest shake-up was designed to – quote – “Let Trump be Trump.” To do that, he hired Stephen Bannon, the head of a right-wing website called Breitbart.com, as campaign CEO.

To give you a flavor of his work, here are a few headlines they’ve published:

“Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy.”

“Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?”

“Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement’s Human Shield”

“Hoist It High And Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage.”

That one came shortly after the Charleston massacre, when Democrats and Republicans alike were doing everything they could to heal racial divides. Breitbart tried to enflame them further.

Just imagine – Donald Trump reading that and thinking: “this is what I need more of in my campaign.”

Bannon has nasty things to say about pretty much everyone.

This spring, he railed against Paul Ryan for, quote “rubbing his social-justice Catholicism in my nose every second.”

No wonder he’s gone to work for Trump – the only Presidential candidate ever to get into a public feud with the Pope.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Breitbart embraces “ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas.

Race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim and anti-Immigrant ideas –– all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’”

Alt-Right is short for “Alternative Right.”

The Wall Street Journal describes it as a loosely organized movement, mostly online, that “rejects mainstream conservatism, promotes nationalism and views immigration and multiculturalism as threats to white identity.”

The de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump Campaign represents a landmark achievement for the “Alt-Right.” A fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party.

This is part of a broader story — the rising tide of hardline, right-wing nationalism around the world.

Just yesterday, one of Britain’s most prominent right-wing leaders,Nigel Farage, who stoked anti-immigrant sentiments to win the referendum on leaving the European Union, campaigned with Donald Trump in Mississippi.

Farage has called for a ban on the children of legal immigrants from public schools and health services, has said women are quote “worth less” than men, and supports scrapping laws that prevent employers from discriminating based on race — that’s who Trump wants by his side.

The godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism is Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In fact, Farage has appeared regularly on Russian propaganda programs.

Now he’s standing on the same stage as the Republican nominee.

Trump himself heaps praise on Putin and embrace pro-Russian policies.

He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and of giving the Kremlin a free hand in Eastern Europe more generally.

American presidents from Truman to Reagan have rejected the kind of approach Trump is taking on Russia.

We should, too.

All of this adds up to something we’ve never seen before.

Of course there’s always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, steeped in racial resentment. But it’s never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it, and giving it a national megaphone. Until now.

On David Duke’s radio show the other day, the mood was jubilant.

“We appear to have taken over the Republican Party,” one white supremacist said.

Duke laughed. There’s still more work to do, he said.

No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed… Racists now call themselves “racialists.” White supremacists now call themselves “white nationalists.” The paranoid fringe now calls itself “alt-right.” But the hate burns just as bright.

And now Trump is trying to rebrand himself as well. Don’t be fooled.

There’s an old Mexican proverb that says “Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are.”

We know who Trump is. A few words on a teleprompter won’t change that.

He says he wants to “make America great again,” but his real message remains “Make America hate again.”

This isn’t just about one election. It’s about who we are as a nation.

It’s about the kind of example we want to set for our children and grandchildren.

Next time you watch Donald Trump rant on television, think about all the kids listening across our country. They hear a lot more than we think.

Parents and teachers are already worried about what they’re calling the “Trump Effect.”

Bullying and harassment are on the rise in our schools, especially targeting students of color, Muslims, and immigrants.

At a recent high school basketball game in Indiana, white students held up Trump signs and taunted Latino players on the opposing team with chants of “Build the wall!” and “Speak English.”

After a similar incident in Iowa, one frustrated school principal said, “They see it in a presidential campaign and now it’s OK for everyone to say this.”

We wouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior in our own homes. How can we stand for it from a candidate for president?

This is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump. It’s a moment of reckoning for all of us who love our country and believe that America is better than this.

Twenty years ago, when Bob Dole accepted the Republican nomination, he pointed to the exits and told any racists in the Party to get out.

The week after 9/11, George W. Bush went to a mosque and declared for everyone to hear that Muslims “love America just as much as I do.”

In 2008, John McCain told his own supporters they were wrong about the man he was trying to defeat. Senator McCain made sure they knew – Barack Obama is an American citizen and “a decent person.”

We need that kind of leadership again.

Every day, more Americans are standing up and saying “enough is enough” – including a lot of Republicans. I’m honored to have their support.

And I promise you this: with your help, I will be a President for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. For those who vote for me and those who don’t.

For all Americans.

Because I believe we are stronger together.

It’s a vision for the future rooted in our values and reflected in a rising generation of young people who are the most open, diverse, and connected we’ve ever seen.

Just look at our fabulous Olympic team.

Like Ibtihaj Muhammad, an African-American Muslim from New Jersey who won the bronze medal in fencing with grace and skill. Would she even have a place in Donald Trump’s America?

When I was growing up, Simone Manuel wouldn’t have been allowed to swim in the same public pool as Katie Ledecky. Now they’re winning Olympic medals as teammates.

So let’s keep moving forward together.

Let’s stand up against prejudice and paranoia.

Let’s prove once again, that America is great because is America is good.

Thank you, and may God bless the United States.

Amy Joyner-Francis

It is with deep personal sadness that I write this.  All of us who send our children out the door every morning, never thinking it may be the last time we see them, are deeply affected.  All of us uttered when we heard:  that could have been my child.

The tragedy has now broadened.  Three more families are having their lifelong dreams snuffed out with the arrest of those responsible for the death of that child..

Recently the talk shows were abuzz with one of the lawyers’s statements trying to woo public opinion towards sympathizing with the newest victim, the one arrested, and take our minds off the previous one, the one who died.

That man is just doing his job.  He is being paid to represent the best interest of his client and he is doing what he is being paid to do.  Getting angry at him for doing his job, though human, is not in society’s best long term interest.

The cause of death, it appears was congenital heart failure, and the lawyer’s argument that his client could not know about the flaw and was just having a little fight, never intending to kill her target, is probably accurate.

Yet, had the “little” fight never occurred, she would be alive today.

This is ultimately for the courts to decide.  What we need to decide is what will we do about this.  That is very important.  A very horrible, horrible thing happened in that school. Justice must be meted out.  In that courtroom battle we will be spectators only. We will have no impact on its verdict.

But we can do a lot of things.  One of the first, is to vow that this can not happen again. The second is after making that decision, to begin working on preventing any other occurrence.  We should do it because we know our child could be the next one.

Everyone on social media, on talk shows, in any public forum, has their opinion on what is needed to prevent the next re-occurrence.  Some ideas are good; some impractical. They’ve been rehashed over and over so there is no point in me adding the same.

Because if you sit back and listen to them?  They all start with…….”Somebody should do something about……”

Better security.  Cellphones.  YouTube.  Bullying.  Conflict Management. Better parenting. More religion.  Better teaching.

And the lists tend to go on and on…. If you are like me, you probably saw the problem was in the first paragraph, not the second…. Wanting “someone” else to do something instead of you being the force of change….

And that is where this murder or killing, for me was different than all the others… I came to the conclusion that before my child or any other gets similar treatment, I need to work of doing something to fix this problem…

This tragedy is deeply depressing… It IS a sign of hopeless times.  And there is nothing worse in the human condition, when you have exercised all your options, and know there is no hope left in you, for you.  Things so much bigger than you have brought this down upon you.  It was pointless, pointless, pointless.  There is no redeeming factor here.  A very wonderful child, who we would all be happy to have our children behave like her, is not here anymore.  And to make things worse, her killer, is not some horrible, horrible human being, a maniacal, bloodthirsty, psychopathic, destroyer of human life… She too, is very much like our some of our own children… Anyone of which could possibly make the same decision under duress as did her, and instigate what they thought would be a minor fight for whatever reason, that went horribly wrong.

Four lives ruined, because of a fight…

It is all so senseless. So pathetic. So tragic in the deepest way.

So what are you going to do about it?  Yes.  I said “you”.  What are you going to change in your own life that may at some future point in time, prevent a similar fight or argument that might also produce a similar morbid result?

Because that in essence, is what these things happen for.  Though they happen on their own, outside of our world, outside our influence, they turn out to become a reality check on how little control we have over our fate. They become a reality check on how much we coast through our lives, preoccupied with things we think are so important, but when confronted by such events they are but minuscule compared to the loss of a child’s future.

And if… “you” don’t do something, or change, or do anything different to make a difference in some small way in the future, then there is no redeeming value in the loss of Amy…. But… if you make a point, any point, some point, just something different, to change something in the future, then believe it or not, there is some redeeming value in this action.

Now this is a hard topic, especially for her extended family.  For them this is superfluous; nothing will bring Amy back.  Nothing will fill that hole that remains for the rest of their earthly lives.  Which brings back anger, hurt, rage perhaps, at least once every … single… day.  But the rest of us can swear that this girl did not die in vain.  The rest of us can swear that this girl woke us up. That this girl made us change in ways so that the world did become a little better for some people… The rest of us can swear that we will make positive change in our lives, her memorial… That she touched something in us that changed us; something that would still be inert, had this horrible tragedy not happened.

If I’ve lost you by this point, you are probably wondering what on earth could you possibly do to honor this person appropriately with your life choice?

So let me give one example before I close and I recognize that not everyone is the same as me, so if this rings hollow, I’d suggest you try what you feel is calling you to do…

But here is one thing.  When you have a crowd of kids in your house, throw together some snacks and call them all together… Tell them you are sad someone had to die in school but you want to teach or tell all of them how they can prevent that from happening to them…. you can tell them that if their friends say they will beat someone up, that getting an adult involved beforehand, can fix the problem of why they want to beat that person up, without having anyone get hurt as a result.  You can tell them stories of when you were little, and regrets you carry to this day. You can tell them that hurting someone just to be on YouTube is wrong; that if they watch those things, they are making others want to do it more… Best bet is for them to say doing that is stupid and to talk their friends out of it.  You can tell them how easy it is to die, and how horrible one feels if one accidentally kills someone; how afterwards their life becomes horrible and worthless when it could have been great and fun.  You can tell them that a good rule is that if they wouldn’t want someone to do something to them; they shouldn’t ever do it to someone else…

You should make it clear you love them; both your kids and their friends.  You don’t have to say it, but if you treat them with respect, they will know.  And if you did that, and followed through all the way through High School, and beyond, and you did just that little thing for Amy, …. then in a small mysterious serendipity sort of way, something good did come out of her murder whether that killing was intended or not….

And if all of you did it… there would be more good than if just one… And if you put what you were doing on Facebook or Instagram, inspiring other parents to do the same, and they did it, there would be a lot more good than if you hadn’t, and if they got results so it spread, then the possibility out there still lurks that great positive change all over, came about because of the horror of what took place in that school bathroom..

And if, when you are very tired after a long day of work… just want to put you feet up, turn on the TV and zone out for a nap, but don’t, and instead talk to your kids and their friends one more time, asking how they are, how their day went, and what they wanted to do in their future….and you did it, because something inside of you said only through your actions will redemption come through Amy’s passing, then regardless of how much you hurt, regardless of how close you were to her, regardless of how hopeless this made you feel… it was not in vain……

And if all of you can do that…. we are well on our way making sure another child, never, ever, gets killed in school. Period.

 

 

 

 

Equaling Out Income

The income imbalance is gigantic.  You may have see this before.  It is our income imbalance as seen in three perspectives… What it is… versus what we think it is,… versus what we would like it to be.

So what would it take to make it like we would like it to be?

Obviously we would take the top 20% down from 85% ownership to around 30%… a  drop by 55% of the nation’s wealth. That would be divvied up though not equally, among the other four 20%….

So what if we used those numerical principles to tackle income inequality?  Then instead of wealth, simply use the same alignment picked by most Americans to figure out a theoretical income distribution?

In 2007 prior to the Recession American families brought in $7..723 trillion dollars….  one half of that went to the two 20% with incomes over $100,000..

If our aim were to move the slider from 50% down to 35%… then this is how much a percent of national income, the top 10% would take…   From 50% to 35% is 15% and fifteen percent of $7.7 trillion is $1.1 trillion dollars each year…

So basically to get the middle class back to where it was in the past, we need to take $1 trillion a year from the top 10% and give it back to everyone else…

America is roughly at 315 million people. and they live in 123 million households… If we lop off the top 20%, we have 80% left which is 252 million people or 98.4 million households…

Giving us 25 million households giving up their $1 trillion to be split up with 98.4 million households.

The average given would be $40,000 given up by 25 million households per year. And if spread across America’s other 80%, it would average………………..$10,204……

The economic value of that total gets reflected by the memory that the wealthy don’t spend the $40,000 into the economy; they lock it away in stocks. But an yearly extra $10,000 in the hands of the stressed 80%, gives a big boost to economic demand.

And this does not get us to equal. It is just where Americans think the levels inequality SHOULD be.

In fiscal 2014, the federal government collected nearly $1.4 trillion from individual income taxes, making it the national government’s single-biggest revenue source. (Along with corporate income taxes and payroll taxes, other sources of federal revenue include gasoline and cigarette taxes, estate taxes, customs duties and payments from the Federal Reserve.)

WE are saying this now needs to be raised to $2.4 trillion with ALL that average increase borne by the top quintile… As a rough estimate (since they are actually paying near a 25% real tax rate now), because we need double the intake of income, doubling their rates up to the 50% level for the highest margins, would bring us close to parity. Exactly to the level to which Ronald Reagan cut taxes in his first term.

THAT, should give you an indication of where we were at one time, and how bad things have been allowed to slip away from the middle class.

I should add, there is only ONE candidate who is addressing this issue…All other candidates are pandering to those who already “have”…..

Sharpening Our Focus…….

There is general agreement today that American society is top heavy.  We live in Bizarro World‘s Soviet Russia.  Our Congress is semi-capitalist instead of Communist, but certainly it is not there to represent our interests, which are those of We, The People. Our elite (primarily our largest investors) control all of Congress’ perks while we wait in line for daily bread. Gigantic tax breaks for the wealthy are easily and quickly passed, and services for the rest of the 99% are cut to pay for them. Though we too are taxed (lightly), our money spent, does not come back to us; it rises to the top and stays there.

Ironically this is the exact opposite of what every American child learned about his country if he grew up in the years after WWII… while there still was a communist Russia.  Everything we learned was bad about Soviet Russia, is now happening to us to some degree…. Mass surveillance; rigged elections; rigged judicial systems; loss of our class wealth.

But the big difference we learned was that in America, power rose from the ground up.  We elected our representative and they were beholden to us. Today despite on how we vote, big money first vets and then funds our representatives. We go through Communist-like fake elections to put a rubber stamp on one of the two candidates selected, but long before we do, they were the ones who first picked who runs.

We can see this personified by our educational policy.  The communists of Russia had a state system to which if you did not comply, you were shot. We have something similar but instead our punishment is that our school doesn’t receive Federal funding unless comply with the Politburo’s wishes…

This was decreed from the top and is still in place despite our representatives voting 60 to 10 to support of “Opting Out”.

It all goes to show the now blatant view that whatever We, The People want, does not matter.

And that is a colossal failure of democracy. Democracy was simply a government designed to do whatever its people want; not the opposite of their desires.  .

If we want to change this, we need to take a page from our own founding fathers and create millions of small conversations across America regarding  the direction our future evolves out of the issues affecting us, and not be deflected towards flaws in our candidates’ personalities…

Currently our media is devoted entirely to personalities… Carson’s lying?  What does that have to do with how well we live 4 years from now?  Who is winning in Rubio’s and Jeb’s tit for tat?  Plenty of conversation but no information on how our lives will be better 4 years from now.  Tomorrow our media will use the most popular High School social analyses to determine who *(they think) won the debate tonight.

We all know who lost.  The American People… After all this is our country and we too need to be informed; not entertained, not tricked into voting for whom the top echelon wants to be in power..  Imagine a brain surgeon who didn’t know medicine?  Would we go there?  Imagine a plumber who didn’t know plumbing?  Or an electrician who didn’t know electricity?  Or a Math Teacher who didn’t know math?  Would we ask them to do a job for us?

But We, The People (over these past 2 decades which has see the corporatization of all big media), must make decisions as blindly as do High School classmates when voting for a Student Body President… Consequently the same methods that work in high school with uneducated voters are in play for our national elections.  As in who would we like to spend time with? Who acts the part of Chief Exec the best?  Who comes across as snooty or arrogant?   Who is the sexiest?   Our press discusses these; it does not touch on policy that affects Americans like:

• What result will we get if we raise taxes instead of lowering them?
• What is the cost of immigration if we do or don’t seal our  borders?
• What is the cost of not raising minimum wage versus raising minimum wage to $15/ hour?
• Should our property legally be taken because “friends” of politicians want it for development?
• Why is being spied on 24/7 bad for us all
• What will life be under the TPP if it gets implemented? What will it do for wages 15 years from now?

Those of us who modify public opinion need to be wary of the tricks big media is playing.  We need to call them out with facts or ideas that actually help people and therefore indirectly help corporations.  But getting bogged down in pie fights does a disservice to our readers as well as to the nation as a whole.

There is only so much time.  If our time is wasted on inconsequentals, things of consequence do not get done!  Which makes one believe they almost all our pie fights are there only for diversionary purposes…

The Red Cup controversy is only one example…  Everyone is discussing how inane the argument is.  So far in real life I have not found anyone out of roughly a 1000 people who thinks the Red Cup is anti-Christian.  Yet I have heard quite a few media references to it.  But by just bringing it up,  people are wasting time talking about Christmas faux-rage instead of questioning under which candidate they are most likely to get their boss to adequately raise their salary… And as we listen to the media gear up for tonight’s debates… the best explanation for how crazy they sound, is that they are not crazy and know exactly what they don’t want you to ask, and deflect you entirely from breeching that number one question regarding……..

Our salary increases. … That is really what is important.

There is only one national candidate now who is intent on making that happen.  There are a lot more on the local level.. Those are the contenders around whom your discussions need to center  Everything else in the political-media jungle is right now aimed at keeping you from seeing that..

So. How Do YOU Get A Veto Overturned?

In response to Governor Markell’s veto on HB 50, the next step is undertaken.  Many may not know how to get a bill past a governor’s veto.  So here it is.

Step 1:  Bombard the leaders…. Just like dropping bunker-busters where we thought Saddam was hiding, you try to decapitate the opposition by taking out their head… Since we aren’t killing anyone we use different tactics which is political pressure.  First off, understand this. You who are reading this are the front line.  If the front line does not react, then the second through 100th lines will not react as well…

Copy and Paste  or create your own and send as an email to the House and Senate leadership…

Dear_____________;

Please. For the sake of democracy, schedule a special session to override Governor Markell’s veto before the School year begins in September.  A bill passed overwhelmingly in both houses was vetoed solely to appease special interests.

Presient Pro Tempore – Patricia M. Blevins (D)

Phone: (302) 744-4133

Email: Patricia.Blevins@state.de.us

Senate Majority Leader – David B. McBride (D)

Phone: (302) 744-4167

Email: David.McBride@state.de.us

Speaker of the House – Peter C. Schwartzkopf (D)

Phone: (302) 744-4351

Email: Peter.Schwartzkopf@state.de.us

House Majority Leader – Valerie J. Longhurst (D)

Phone: (302) 744-4351

Email: Valerie.Longhurst@state.de.us

Step 2:  Pressure your local representative…  He/she has just finished 6 months of emotionally draining sessions followed by long drives and is finally on break. The last thing they want is to hear from you… Which of course means:  NOW, is the time….

Dear _________________:

I’m am disappointed in Governor Markell’s veto of HB 50.  It was overwhelmingly passed by both chambers.  However our Constitution allows for We, The People to override a special interest’s hold on a governor, by having a special session convene and vote to overide that veto.  Please contact your leadership and demand that this take place before the beginning of the school year so all parents and teachers have clarity and can make plans accordingly.

Step 3:  Become a whistleblower, hero, or troublemaker (same thing, depends on who is doing the calling) for your district’s representatives…  Tom Carper for what little he’s worth now, once gave some awesome advice back when he was governor… “If you want us to do something….. MAKE us have no option but to do it…”  I sat in the audience and went, “wow, brilliant” … He’s saying that he has to answer to people too, and if you have more people and clout, he can tell the others sorry and vote against his friends.. and we all know that though it takes great courage to stand up to your enemies… it takes far greater courage to stand up to your friends…

So we as citizens of this great state, have to make it politically so:,… that no legislator has a chance unless he supports the special session to override Jack’s veto….

And one does that… how?

By getting others on board…   Which since 99% of Delawareans are for the Opt Out Bill, should be easy as long as you try…

Go to your computer and type out one paragraph why YOU think the opt out bill must pass… Make it personal and stick to what you know….  Print 5 copies and go to your front door.

Next, go out your front door…  either left or right and knock on the first neighbor you see home… Do small talk because if you are like most of us, you’ve done nothing but say “hi” since Christmas vacation.   In that conversation somewhere say “did you hear that Governor Markell vetoed the opt out bill?  What’s up with that?”…..  It’s summer so most likely they:  a) haven’t heard; b) have no idea what the opt-out bill is unless they have children; and c) are only interested because it is you, their neighbor doing the talking….

Ask them what they think?  Just talk. They are human beings and don’t need preached…  You have deep concerns and let them know… Ask them to call or email their rep…. (they probably won’t) but the next time someone knocks on their door summer 2016,  they will get an earful.  Then, if you have time, go on to another house…

Your effectiveness will come from that you are a human just like them who lives in their neighborhood.  You are not some kids hired from Minnesota with tablets and clipped speech asking them to support Corporate American Philosophy.   You will plant a seed and they will question the big questions…   “Why is our government so out of whack?”  “Why is our government voting for the rich few, and leaving millions in the dust?”  “Why is our government doing this to children so friends of theirs, already rich, get richer?”  “Is this the type of America my parents or grandparents fought our nation’s enemies to preserve?”

These thoughts bubble up over time, so even if you did not get an email or letter sent, you alerted a concerned citizen to now mistrust anything the US Chamber of Commerce or Corporate America hitherto says…

And you will like doing it…   all will treat you with courtesy and sincere honesty and you will return the favor…   You are not there to win minds and influence decisions…  99% of people are already on your side… You are there to inform.

So inform them in your own unique way that our government here in the State of Delaware is in dire jeopardy because the will of the people this session was totally ignored by a governor kowtowing to special interests….   If we get ignored now, we will certainly be later ignored when they try to put a cancer-causing power plant in our back yard… or a nuclear reactor… or raise our electric rates 60%… or have us billed monthly for our water to hide a 35% price increase embedded therein…

This debate really is about who runs this country… special interests who can now buy politicians…. or you and me… That is why everyone reading this needs to actually meet and greet their neighborhood….

Then, and only then,  will your legislator truly listen to you… because you have acquired more power than can be wielded by any lobbyists….

The Walmartization of America’s Education

In World War II we  cracked the German’s Enigma Code and were able to decipher all their plans.  Very instrumental in helping us win the war. You may have seen this article that does the same with the takeover of education.

http://cashinginonkids.com/brought-to-you-by-wal-mart-how-the-walton-family-foundations-ideological-pursuit-is-damaging-charter-schooling/

It’s long and illuminating and will be read by the handful of true educational warriors.   But it drew a parallel in my memory discussing how how Wal*marts used to approach small towns and leave an economic wasteland behind, in which they became the monopoly and all others shut down.

We have for a long time berated the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for creating and funding Common Core.  If any good can be said about their massive amounts of money, it is that at least with the Gates’ Foundation, the strings attached are not stretched tight; there is leeway for those recipients to move around.  Not so with the second largest donor to American Education: the Wal*mart Foundation.  To receive their money you have to be very clear in your attention to do away with high paying teachers, and breaking up the union…  And based on most conversations… it really is all about breaking up the union…  (Unions are an antithetic to Wal*mart.  If Wal*mart ever unionizes…poof… its competitive edge is over)

One can say this hard line with lesser dollars is more influential than all of Gate’s money… If you need more than one source of income, and one source has loose ideals and the other’s are very tight, you are going to satisfy the one with the tight ideals because that is the only way you can still have both sources of income…   Just like if you were working two jobs, and one doesn’t care when you show up and the other will fire you if you are ever one minute late, you always give the one who will fire you first priority…Always.  They dictate your life, not the other one, and certainly not yourself.

It might be wise to review the Wal*mart model now, as in how their businesses operate.

Of the 10 richest Americans according to Forbes magazine, four are members of the Walton family. The Walton Family Foundation was established in 1988 and is based in Bentonville, Ark., the home of Wal-Mart.  It it he Walton Foundation that parcels out cash to those who promote its ends, which are indeed the same as the company’s.  How could they not be?

The foundation’s stated mission is to infuse public education with competitive pressure through school choice. The theory is based in retail: If consumers have options, they will choose either higher quality or cheaper products. Merchants who can’t compete will go out of business, opening up space for new entrepreneurs to enter. Through this constant churn of options, the theory holds, quality will improve across the board. In public education, that means flooding the market with schools, aggressively closing those that are labeled as “failing,” and opening up pathways to allow new school operators to take their place...

Although the foundation implies that this market-based model will lead to the improvement of all schools in a system, a different endgame is clear through its philanthropic portfolio: The foundation endorses the eventual elimination of public education altogether, in favor of an across-the-board system of privately operated schools.

Which is also how they run their business.

Wal*mart pulls up into a small town with the promise of jobs.  The businesses in the town fight back but eventually the governing body approves the Walmart going in and it is always by a split vote and always with the majority of one…. And those few who swung and voted for Wal*mart mysteriously all begin renovating their houses with sources of mysterious income.

Once approved the building goes up… In one month, Wal*mart cuts 25% of its initial hires.  Buy 4 months another 25% is gone… Then it tweaks the employees downward in single digits over the course of the first year… So after its initial promise of 300 new jobs to gullible small town council members, in the end it hires a steady 75 jobs… Meanwhile the entire center of the town folds up… Gone are all the retail outlets that have been there since the town was founded. The brick buildings either get boarded up, or sell cheap to some basket weaver and the town begins to die.. The competition is outside its tax base… Within the tax base, all the old income is gone.

Then once competition is eliminated, the prices go back up and there is really no change in savings from those that were there before..

Here is what one of the sub-foundations funded by Walmart says in his sales pitch to wealthy investors…

“Charters are competitors. They steal customers, deplete revenues and increase costs. When charters siphon off kids, they not only take the money that comes with them, they often cause nearby schools to operate under capacity. This increases inefficiencies and per-student costs because all that empty space still must be maintained.

As charters continue to expand, they will force districts to make more and more tough choices on personnel, closing schools and redrawing attendance boundaries, both political poisons. We are seeing this play out in spectacular fashion in some older urban areas.”  Mike Thomas, FEE (founded by Jeb Bush) $4.8 million from Walton Foundation.

And that is exactly what happens when you allow charters to come into your neighborhood… The end game has nothing to do with whether kids learn.  It is over who will get the money we spend to teach our kids…

Now if charters had a good track record, one might look at them favorably, after all it might benefit kids… But the reality of looking at Charters is like looking at Walmart…  The quality of their merchandise is the lowest quality one is allowed to sell. They underpay their workers which swells up the assistance levels required by the local community.  Instead of good wages, they pay poor wages.  The SNAP and Medicaid programs stay filled at capicity even though the employment rosters show the county’s unemployment has dropped a few notches.  If you want service… forget about it… It takes one hour to shop, and two hours to wait in the only checkout line they will open.

One of their most telling lines comes from their former director who published his views on education…..

“… The only course that is sustainable, for both chartering and urban education, embraces a third, more expansive view of the movement’s future: replace the district-based system in America’s large cities with fluid, self-improving systems of charter schools.”

Smarick (the above quote’s author) offers a “road map” for destroying public school districts. It includes a saturation investment strategy to build market share in a few targeted districts. Once the charter sector reaches a tipping point in student market share, he predicts, traditional districts will no longer be financially or politically sustainable:

“As chartering increases its market share in a city, the district will come under growing financial pressure. The district, despite educating fewer and fewer students, will still require a large administrative staff to process payroll and benefits, administer federal programs, and oversee special education. With a lopsided adult to- student ratio, the district’s per-pupil costs will skyrocket.”

“At some point along the district’s path from monopoly provider to financially unsustainable marginal player, the city’s investors and stakeholders—taxpayers, foundations, business leaders, elected officials, and editorial boards—are likely to demand fundamental change. That is, eventually the financial crisis will become a political crisis. …”

The foundation’s education program pursues this endgame through three major program areas: support for vouchers, both publicly and privately funded; support for charter school start-ups to encourage and enable the rapid growth of the sector; and public policy advocacy, to ensure that the road is clear for expansion with minimal regulatory interference….

The Walton Family Foundation’s flagship strategy for transforming public education was (and continues to be) to allow taxpayer dollars to pay private school tuitions for selected students…

And that is it’s entire end game… Destroy public education entirely.  Then in it vacuum, insert ones investment through charter schools…

Whenever a public official goes against 90% of public opinion, and votes for charter schools or to not allow the opting out of the test which will create the image that public schools have failed…. you know they are in the payment of someone….

We have already asked that Matt Denn the Attorney General have his office investigate Rep. Earl Jacques’s personal funding secretly through a Grand Jury Investigation.   (He has mysteriously renovated his house) .. We hope our Attorney General recognizes the serious of the crime of having ones vote bought, and initiates an investigation to determine if criminal activity was beset by Earl Jacques’s rather bizarre defense of an indefensible position…..

The GIANT Disconnect…..

I would normally be crowd surfing or moshing right now.. But Hurricane Bill shut down Firefly cold…  So I’m doing this because sleep is out of the question….  I’m calling tonight….. Fireflop…..

But sometimes great events happen because outside influences jump up and change ones direction.  That sort of happened today as I stumbled on a link I rarely have perused….

One percent of One percent gave 29% of all fundraising for the off election of 2014……  This is the cataclysmic failure of Citizens United, which said undisclosed cash was the same as spouting off the mouth:  free speech and no limits could be applied…

Which is purely ridiculous…

Because if I say…. you’re crazy and you say to me… no, your crazy… we have some sort of balance or equality… But if you say you’re crazy $1.18 billion times more than I do…. then saying the two are equal is like saying a glass of water and Lake Superior are both equal, because they are both made up of water…

Which is purely ridiculous….

Who are these people?

Just 3…. of them, gave over $10 million.  57 more, gave over $1 million….  which puts us up to $87 million of the $1180 millions that made up 29% of all money spent.  The other 31,916 donors, or one percent of one percent of the population, averaged out $34,250 apiece to the candidates of their choice…..

They’re mostly male, tend to be city-dwellers and often work in finance. Slightly more of them skew Republican than Democratic. The last election cycle set records as the most expensive midterms in U.S. history, and the country’s most prolific donors accounted for a larger portion of the total amount raised than in either of the past two elections.  The 29 percent disclosed to the Federal Election Commission in 2014 is a greater share of the total than in 2012 (25 percent) or in 2010 (21 percent)….

These deep pocketed donors were increasingly playing the role of “political gatekeepers.” Candidates needed their backing — and cash — as did the parties and super PACs that depended on the support of the politically active elite.  So unless one receives their select approval… one is doomed from the start…..

What this means… is everyone we elect, must do the bidding of this small group of people if they wish to continue in office… Now it does not take a rocket scientist or political genus to figure out that in the battle between the wealthy and the middle class, whose side these donors will be on……

Which should make it clear why everyone you know and talk to, thinks our representatives are crazy for voting the opposite of how we think they should vote… “What’s wrong with him?” we mutter.

Well, nothing is wrong with him, except for the fact that he wants to get re-elected…. and he therefore has to vote the way his benefactors want him to vote, even if it goes against the majority of his constituency’s wishes…. Because he knows their is a good chance you will forgive him and vote for him again, and again, and again, because that is what you have always done… But piss someone off who gave you $1 million?  You know that $1 million is going into the campaign fund of someone who will run against you… and you can’t match it….

So Citizens United has destroyed democracy and free speech; not risen up to save it…

Which is why, if we wish democracy to continue to be our form of government…. we need to seriously get behind the Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United, and regulate how much wealthy people can spend to control our government…..

In the now classic words of Mitt Romney…..it is obvious that “you don’t matter”.

Man With Crooked Smile

There was a crooked man,

Who had a crooked smile.

He found a crooked assessment

And threw it on the pile.

He bought a crooked future,

Whose price was every child,

Clamored to get the credit

For every child defiled…..