"Why Mockingbirds and Sacred Cows?" you ask. That's easy. In my favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee dared to challenge the sacred cows of 20th Century America, many of which still wander the pastures of our minds befouling our political discourse and bulldozing our societal maturation.
Besides, I firmly believe that a generous helping of roast sacred cow, well-done, is the best response to the question, "Where's the beef?"
Pipe Bombs Sent to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and CNN Offices
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CNN’s offices in Manhattan were evacuated after an explosive device was sent there, a law enforcement official said.CreditCreditJeenah Moon for The New York Times
But…but…but it's the Democrats that are violent. If Fox "News" and the Liar-In-Chief say so, it must be true.
If you believe that, I have some beachfront property in Death Valley that I'll let you have for a very good price. I'll even toss in a set of gently-used water wings.
Oh, and if you don't get your ass out to to vote the right-wing hate-mongers out of office next month, you can expect to see many more headlines like the one above.
So, dear voters, here's a question for you to ponder.
What kind of America do you want - an America that lives up to the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, or an America that says Jefferson and the founding fathers were full of shit when they signed the Declaration of Independence and ratified a Constitution that established America as a nation of laws, not of men?
It's your choice, dear voters, a choice, I remind you, that was given to you by those same, wise or full-of-shit founding fathers.
Q: Who are Trump supporters, and why do they support him?
A: With the exception of the self-serving politicians in Congress, Trump supporters are primarily psychologically immature and insecure people with a need to feel superior to others. Trump's constant stream of insults and attacks is warm and provides them with a false sense of importance and security, which they eagerly lap up. 😎
Trump and his supporters care more about milking the poor than they do about feeding babies born to poor women in developing countries. That's why they want to force them to drink Milk that comes from these boobs.
Starting with the first book of the Bible, one message is clear and unambiguous. People are to care for one another.
8And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.
9And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? 10And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
–Genesis 4:8-10 (King James Bible)
It is equally clear that people who do not care for others will lie when confronted with their lack of compassion. They will even quote, misquote, or cherry-pick scripture passages in order to justify their actions.
But when it comes to talking out of both sides of one's mouth while harming others, smiling, Bible-twisting. Mr. Sessions is a rank amateur compared to his boss.
In the past month Donald Trump:
created a "zero tolerance" policy that denied refugees their legal right to petition for asylum and denied them entry at designated border crossing points. Those who then entered illegally were arrested and separated from their children.
falsely blamed the Democrats for passing a law which he claimed was forcing him to do this, despite the fact that there is no such law, and the one law he cited was actually passed by a Republican Congress.
sent over 2,300 children to detention facilities spread around the country with no plan (or intention, apparently) to reunite them with their families.
said that only Congress could address the issue; but, in the face of mounting public pressure directed toward him, he issued an executive order which he said would stop family separation.
link to source
That order, like everything Trump says and does, is duplicitous. Yes, it will stop family separation, but it simply replaces one atrocity with another. Now America will detain whole families indefinitely with no plan to resolve the problem of their plight. And, of course, this executive order came after he had loudly proclaimed, "You can't do it by executive order."
Like Cain in the beginning, Donald J. Trump is a liar who is not his brother's keeper, and America finds itself saddled with a president who needs a keeper.
You have the right to remain ignorant. Anything you believe without provable facts to back it up can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion. You have the right to a free, public education. If you do not take advantage of it, or if you choose to substitute mythological, religious dogma for education, no one will give a shit about what you say except for those who share your ignorance. With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about matters of substance?
Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has filled top positions in her department with former employees of for-profit colleges that have been under investigation.
WASHINGTON — Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees.
The unwinding of the team has effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked.
Janusz Korczak was born Henryk Goldsmit in Warsaw on July 22, 1878. During his youth, he played with children who were poor and lived in bad neighborhoods; his passion for helping disadvantaged youth continued into his adulthood. He studied medicine and also had a promising career in literature. When he gave up his career in literature and medicine, he changed his name to Janusz Korczak, a pseudonym derived from a 19th century novel, Janasz Korczak and the pretty Swordsweeperlady.
In 1912, Korczak established a Jewish orphanage, Dom Sierot, in a building which he designed to advance his progressive educational theories. He envisioned a world in which children structured their own world and became experts in their own matters. Jewish children between the ages of seven and fourteen were allowed to live there while attending Polish public school and government-sponsored Jewish schools, known as "Sabbath" schools. The orphanage opened a summer camp in 1921, which remained in operation until the summer of 1940.
Besides serving as principal of Don Sierot and another orphanage, Nasz Dom, Korczak was also a doctor and author, worked at a Polish radio station, was a principal of an experimental school, published a children’s newspaper and was a docent at a Polish university. Korczak also served as an expert witness in a district court for minors. He became well-known in Polish society and received many awards. The rise of anti-Semitism in the 1930's restricted only his activities with Jews.
In 1934 and 1936, Korczak visited Palestine and was influenced by the kibbutz movement. Following his trips, Korczak was convinced that all Jews should move to Palestine.
The Germans occupied Poland in September 1939, and the Warsaw ghetto was established in November 1940. The orphanage was moved inside the ghetto. Korczak received many offers to be smuggled out of the ghetto, but he refused because he did not want to abandon the children.
On August 5, 1942, Korczak joined nearly 200 children and orphanage staff members [who] were rounded up for deportation to Treblinka, where they were all put to death. [emphasis added]
Today in America, not a single Republican member of Congress appears to have the courage to risk his or her political life for the sake of the country and its children by taking meaningful action against Trump's efforts to turn America into a dictatorship.
In light of what is happening in today's world, you have every right to be afraid. But you have a choice.
You can be afraid of the imaginary bogeymen Trump manufactures and the right-wing propaganda machine promotes 24/7; or you can be afraid of and take steps to stop the real threat. You can oppose the enemies within, Trump and his enablers, all of whom have chosen greed, self-interest, and party over the Constitution, the country, and the rule of law.
Phase two has begun. Photo: AFP Contributor/AFP/Getty Images
Every now and again, when I find myself buried in the latest blizzard of invariably disturbing news emanating from the Trump White House, I go back and remind myself of the core narrative. I read Plato’s Republic again, the prism through which I first raised the alarm about Donald Trump’s emergence. The prism is essentially how a late-stage democracy, dripping with decadence and corruption, with elites dedicated primarily to enriching themselves, and a people well past any kind of civic virtue, morphs so easily into tyranny.
When Plato’s tyrant first comes to power — on a wave of populist hatred of the existing elites — there is a period of relative calm when he just gives away stuff: at first he promises much “in private and public, and grant[s] freedom from debts and distribute[s] land to the people and those around himself” (or, say, a trillion-dollar unfunded tax cut). He aims to please. But then, as he accustoms himself to power, and feels more comfortable, “he suspects certain men of having free thoughts and not putting up with his ruling … Some of those who helped in setting him up and are in power — the manliest among them — speak frankly to him and to one another, criticizing what is happening … Then the tyrant must gradually do away with all of them, if he’s going to rule, until he has left neither friend nor enemy of any worth whatsoever.”
This is the second phase of tyranny, after the more benign settling-in: the purge. Any constraints that had been in place to moderate the tyrant’s whims are set aside; no advice that counters his own gut impulses can be tolerated. And so, over the last couple of weeks, we have seen the president fire Rex Tillerson and Andrew McCabe, two individuals who simply couldn’t capitulate to the demand that they obey only Trump, rather than the country as well.
And because of this small gesture of defiance, they deserved especial public humiliation. Tillerson was warned of his impending doom while on the toilet — a nice, sadistic touch. McCabe was fired hours before his retirement, a public execution also fraught with venom. What kind of man is this? We have become numb to it, but we should never forget how our president is a man who revels in his own cruelty. Revenge is not a dish best served cold for him. It’s the reddest and rawest of meats.
No one with these instincts for total domination over others is likely to moderate the longer he is in power. Au contraire. It always gets worse. And so Tillerson has been replaced by a fawning toady, Mike Pompeo, a man whose hatred of Islam is only matched by his sympathy for waterboarders. Pompeo has been replaced in turn by a war criminal, who authorized brutal torture and illegally destroyed the evidence, Gina Haspel. Whatever else we know about Haspel, we know she follows orders.
Gary Cohn has been replaced by Larry Kudlow — a sane person followed by a delusional maniac Trump sees on Fox, who instantly thought up ways for the president to cut taxes further without congressional approval. And the State Department, indeed the entire diplomatic apparatus, has, it seems, been replaced by Jared Kushner, a corrupt enthusiast for West Bank settlements who no longer has a security clearance.
Then the president’s legal team was shaken up — in order to purge those few who retain some appreciation for the rule of law in a constitutional republic and to replace them with conspiracy theorists, thugs, and the kind of combative, asshole lawyers Trump has always employed in his private capacity. Trump is self-evidently — obviously— preparing to fire Mueller, and the GOP’s complete acquiescence to the firing of McCabe is just a taste of the surrender to come. “Now I’m fucking doing it my own way!” was how he allegedly expressed his satisfaction at the purge, as his approval ratings from Republicans increase, and as the GOP’s evolution into a full-fledged cult gathers pace.
And then last night, we saw McMaster fall on his sword, replaced by John Bolton, an unrepentant architect of the most disastrous war since Vietnam, a fanatical advocate for regime change in Iran, an anti-Muslim extremist, and a believer in the use of military force as if it were a religion. And this, of course, is also part of the second phase for Plato’s tyrant: war. “As his first step, he is always setting some war in motion, so that people will be in need of a leader,” Plato explains. In fact, “it’s necessary for a tyrant always to be stirring up war.”
Trump somewhat confused us on this score at first, because of his contempt for the Bushes and the Iraq War and his use of the term “America First.” For many excited (but utterly conned) conservative realists, he seemed to be returning to an older Republican non-interventionism. But of course, we now realize that his campaign screeds against the Iraq War were just his strategy to take out Jeb Bush and appeal to middle America; and that “America First” can also mean pure nationalist aggression overseas.
And everything we know about Trump’s character tells us that war is probably the only aspect of foreign relations he intuitively understands. He cannot exist as an equal party in an international system. He has to dominate other countries the way he does other human beings. And, when you look back, you see this has been obvious all along. On trade, he has long been rhetorically at war with our closest neighbors and trading partners, and now he has unveiled the contours of a major trade war with China; we already have a renewed and deeper presence in Afghanistan; and we have long been supporting the Saudi monarchy’s proxy and inhumane war with Iran in Yemen.
The real possibility of a nuclear conflict with North Korea is getting more real by the day (can you imagine Bolton’s counsel for the Kim Jong-un meeting?); and with Bolton in place, the groundwork for ending the Iran nuclear deal is also finally complete. And what’s noticeable in all this is the irrelevance of the Senate. They refuse to reclaim their treaty-making powers with respect to trade (they could end Trump’s China shenanigans overnight); they have abdicated any influence on foreign policy and war just as they have done nothing to protect the special counsel. They are just like the Roman Senate as the republic collapsed. The forms survive; there is nothing of substance behind them.
When the U.S. detonates the Iran Nuclear Accord, the European alliance, in so far as it still staggers onward, will reach crisis point; and the Iranian regime will likely accelerate its nuclear weapons program. They’d be crazy not to. At which point, the path to war starts (or rather is very hard to stop). Kushner is the key figure here, I suspect. His support for the Israeli hard right (he doesn’t just support the West Bank settlements, he funds them) and his very cozy relationship with the new Saudi prince/dictator both point in one direction: war with Iran. Getting the Americans to launch such a war is Jerusalem’s and Riyadh’s wet dream – which is why the reports of the Crown Prince’s boasting about Kushner being “in his pocket” are far from implausible.
All of these developments, I bet, have reached a new intensity because of Robert Mueller’s cumulative legal cornering of Trump, especially the special counsel’s recent crossing the line into the finances of the Trump Organization. At that point, I suspect Trump realized he was more vulnerable than he previously believed, and went on full offense everywhere. I was long a skeptic of Trump’s alleged conspiracy with Russia in 2016, but every single development in the last few months keeps pointing in the same direction — and it isn’t Trump’s exoneration.
Yesterday, we discovered that Guccifer 2.0, Roger Stone’s online pen pal, is actually a Russian agent. Trump’s initial refusal to say — even through his spokeswoman — that Russia is clearly responsible for the release of a nerve agent in a country which is one of our closest allies was simply staggering. As is his continued refusal to confront seriously the threat Putin clearly poses to democratic elections in the West. The extraordinary leak of the warning from his national security team not to congratulate Putin during the recent call is yet another sign, it seems to me, that even those working closest to the president want to alert the world about the threat to our national security that is coming from the Oval Office itself.
Part of me, of course, has long worried and hoped that my assessment of Trump as truly the tyrant of Plato’s imagination is melodramatic overkill. I’m given to excitability, even catastrophism. I’ve been wrong before. And there are many ways in which American life still seems the same. Political tribalism didn’t begin with Trump; neither did the appeal of populist authoritarianism, or the celebrification of politics. We still hold elections — even if the president asserts that they are all rigged against him. In November, we have a chance to use the ballot box to save this country, and there are some signs that a wave is building. The courts still have some independence and feistiness; the media is still free, if now accompanied by a full-bore state propaganda channel.
But I worry that the more Trump is opposed and even cornered — especially if he loses the House this fall — the more dangerous he will become. If Mueller really does have the goods, and if the Democrats storm back into congressional power, then Trump may well lash out to protect himself at all costs. We know he has no concern for the collateral damage his self-advancement has long caused in his private and public life. We know he has contempt for and boundless ignorance of liberal democracy. We know he is capable of anything — of immense cruelty and callousness, of petty revenge and reckless rhetoric, of sudden impulses and a quick temper. We also know he is commander-in-chief, who may soon need the greatest distraction of all.
War is coming. And there will be nothing and no one to stop him.
I'm going to go out on a limb today and say that every one of the talking heads on TV has overlooked the obvious when it comes to Donald Trump. Liberal, conservative, or moderate, pundit after pundit talks about Trump's addiction to cable TV, especially Fox "News," his show business savvy, and his propensity for creating situations that force the ratings-hungry media industry to constantly focus on him and him alone. They delve into the details of his conflicts withevery person who has left, resigned, or been fired from his campaign, his administration, or both. Despite reporting on the entertainment/infotainment style of his behavior, they have missed this: Donald J. Trump acts as if he actually believes he is Connor MacLeod, the immortal Scottish swordsman from the 1986 movie Highlander.
In 16th-century Scotland, Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) appears to be mortally wounded in a fight but survives. The arrival of a stranger (Sean Connery) reveals the truth: Connor is one of a select group of Immortals who can only be killed by decapitation and who are destined to battle each other for supreme power. Through the centuries they have lived secret lives, stalking each other until one final confrontation in present-day New York City. link to source
While it may be more than just an interesting coincidence that Trump's mother was born Mary Anne MacLeod on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland, let's put that aside. Instead, I ask you to consider the obvious parallels between Trump's attitude and behavior toward others with any claim to power and those of the fictional Connor MacLeod.
Connor MacLeod's timeline spans over four centuries. Along the way he meets and becomes friends with many other immortals until the time comes when the rules governing immortality compel him either to kill those friends or be killed in their common quest for supreme power.
In the timespan starting with his birth as a presidential candidate through his firing of Rex Tillerson, Trump has politically assassinated many whom he once called friends in his quest for unlimited political power.
Victims of Trump's friendship include Paul Manafort, Michael T. Flynn, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Anthony Scaramucci, Steve Bannon, Rob Porter, Hope Hicks, and Gary Cohn.
Finally, I offer a link to a Reddit web page that brings us back to the subject of Trump's Scottish mother and what his supporters think of my assertion that Trump sees himself as Connor MacLeod.
The Florida Senate's rejection of a ban on assault weapons makes perfect sense given that for over thirty years the GOP has conducted a de facto assault on the country, targeting the electoral system, the press, the judiciary, public education, and any other entity that would temper its greed for money and power.
The Florida Senate on Saturday voted down a bill to ban assault weapons, then immediately pivoted to a moment of silence for victims of the shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school last month.
Many student survivors of the Valentine’s Day shooting that left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School flocked to the State House in the days after the attack to lobby legislators to ban assault weapons and take other measures on gun control.
The bill to ban assault weapons, including the AR-15 used in the school shooting, failed by a 20-to-17 vote. After the vote, Senate President Joe Negron (R) asked senators to take their seats. He said that by the proclamation of Gov. Rick Scott (R) there would be a moment of “silence and reflection” for the Parkland victims.
“Today marks 17 days after those 17 fellow citizens lost their lives,” said Negron, who voted against the ban. “I would ask us to begin reflecting on their lives and the bravery that was shown on that day.”
The body then moved to other legislation on guns. A measure to allow parents to opt students out of a classroom where a teacher is armed failed.
The Florida legislature has long resisted restrictions on guns and has been a laboratory for gun rights legislation that is later introduced in other states. But in the wake of the Parkland shooting, some gun-control measures have quickly advanced in Tallahassee. Budget committees in the House and Senate signed off on a suite of bills that include raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 and mandating a three-day waiting period for most gun purchases.
State Sen. Linda Stewart, a Democrat who introduced the amendment to ban assault weapons, said on the Senate floor that ammunition from assault weapons can blow up inside the victim’s body and that there is no reason for anyone to have them.
“I want us to do today what the kids asked us to do when 10,000 of them came up here on the steps of the capitol and asked us,” she said. “Never again. Please ban assault weapons.”
State Sen. Kelli Stargel (R) argued that banning assault weapons could be a slippery slope. Would fertilizer, used in the 1995 bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building, be banned? Or pressure cookers, used in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings?
“Thoughts and prayers are really the only thing that’s going to stop the evil from within the individual that is taking up their arms to do this type of massacre,” Stargel said.
Jaclyn Corin, the junior class president at Stoneman Douglas High, tweeted that the vote “breaks my heart, but we will NOT let this ruin our movement.”
She then wrote on Twitter: “A MOMENT OF SILENCE WILL NOT SAVE THE LIVES OF INNOCENT AMERICANS.”
The following story from NPR makes me think that maybe, just maybe, America is waking up to the fact that those who wrap themselves in the flag and quote from the Bible make a mockery of the values they claim to hold and the nation they claim to love when they add a list of qualifications to the phrase with liberty and justice for all.
Mike Huckabee Resigns From Music Education Board After Fierce Backlash From Nashville
Mike Huckabee arrives at Trump Tower on November 18, 2016 in New York City. Huckabee quickly resigned from an appointment to the Country Music Association Foundation after an outcry from the country music community Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Change happens notoriously slow in Nashville, a town known to prize convention and tradition. But yesterday, it occurred at lightning speed: In less than 24 hours, presidential candidate, conservative radio host and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was announced as a new board member of the Country Music Association Foundation, the organization's philanthropic arm, before being swiftly forced to resign after a chorus of dissent over the appointment erupted in Music City and beyond.
"I genuinely regret that some in the industry were so outraged by my appointment that they bullied the CMA and the Foundation with economic threats and vowed to withhold support for the programs for students if I remained," Huckabee's letter of resignation read, which was accepted in a statement by the CMA. The organization, which produces a huge festival in Nashville each summer as well as the televised CMA Awards, has yet to offer further comment on its motivation for appointing him.
The CMA Foundation, which invests in music education programs all across the country, made the announcement about Huckabee's appointment late afternoon on Wednesday. Soon after, artists, CMA members and fans began voicing their outrage, most notably Jason Owen, co-president of Monument Records and owner of Sandbox Entertainment, who represents well-known clients like Little Big Town and Kacey Musgraves. Owen, who is openly gay, sent a letter to CMA CEO Sarah Trahern and the director of community outreach, Tiffany Kerns, expressing how the decision to appoint Huckabee meant he would "no longer support the CMA Foundation in any way" and would advise his clients to follow suit.
"[Huckabee] has made it clear that my family is not welcome in his America," Owen wrote. "And the CMA has opened their arms to him, making him feel welcome and relevant. Huckabee speaks of the sort of things that would suggest my family is morally beneath his and uses language that has a profoundly negative impact upon young people all across this country. Not to mention how harmful and damaging his deep involvement with the NRA is. What a shameful choice."
Others soon joined the chorus, sending similar emails to Trahern expressing their anger over the choice of Huckabee, who hasopenly likened gay marriage to incest, has referred to homosexuality as a sin and once escorted former Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis, who refused marriage licenses to same-sex couples, out of jail (in a bit of quid pro quo, one of the very men she denied, David Ermold, ultimately was elected to take her job).
Whitney Pastorek, who manages Kristian Bush of the band Sugarland and is also a CMA member, was among those who addressed the organization directly.
"What a terrible disappointment to see [the CMA Foundation's] mission clouded by the decision to align with someone who so frequently engages in the language of racism, sexism, and bigotry," Pastorek wrote, as reported by the Tennessean. Pastorek now takes some solace in the outcome, and hopes that the industry can move forward in the wake of such controversy.
"What Jason Owen and his team did was brave and inspiring, and I am grateful for every colleague and fan who spoke out alongside them to help set this right," Pastorek tells NPR Music. The development was likewise met with nods of approval from progressive leaders, including Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin.
"Mike Huckabee has staked his entire political career on undermining the rights of LGBTQ people and our families," Griffin tells NPR Music. "His cynical political attacks and discriminatory views do not represent the diversity of country music, and we thank all of the musicians, industry leaders, and fans who spoke out against his appointment to this important role."
This isn't the first time the CMA has had to quickly backpeddle after a divisive action. In advance of this year's awards this past November, a set of guidelines were sent to members of the media asking that questions about "gun rights, political affiliations or topics of the like" be avoided on the red carpet, particularly in the wake of the shooting at the Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas.That action was swiftly met with outrage from artists and members of the media alike, including CMA Awards host Brad Paisley. The decision was reversed.
Now, many in Nashville are hoping the controversy will lead country music to reevaluate. "My hope is that this genre will always be moved to act based on love and inclusion," says Pastorek, "and although it wasn't easy, today feels like a big step in a positive direction."
Behold the face of a hypocrite who claims to believe in the gospel of the New Testament but who preaches vengeance and retribution cherry-picked from the Old Testament.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12)
Pat Robertson and his followers do not understand or they simply reject the gospel passages that clearly define love as a verb, a call to action which charges us with helping those to whom we owe nothing and to do so without reservation or condemnation.
Robertson and his followers are not the only ones who fail to understand the meaning of love.
Offering thoughts and prayers without action does nothing more than to wash the hands of those who claim to follow Jesus of the responsibility with which they are tasked.
Politicians, especially those who claim to be Christian, do so through inaction. Rather than assigning blame for mass shootings to "the dreaded other" as Robertson does, they chose economic self-interest over responsibility, taking money from the NRA and rejecting all calls by the voters to enact meaningful gun reform legislation.
