An Open Letter to Senator Josh Hawley

From Senator Hawley's Facebook page today.

SENATOR JOSH HAWLEY WANTS ACTION, NOT APOLOGIES FOR WOJ F-BOMB

He posted it on his Facebook page today with this:

Hey ESPN - don’t make Adrian Wojnarowski apologize. He’s just saying what he really thinks. Call out the NBA. You know, your job

To which I resond:

Dear Senator Hawley,

Could and would you please do some real, actual work for the citizens of Missouri, Senator? Please? Actual work. Things that help us. Stop this obvious, pitiful, pathetic posturing and see to it hospitals across the state have enough personal equipment for this pandemic and/or work on improving our infratstructure, as just two easy, fast, important examples?

I can't believe we have to say this. I say again, I-70 needs improving, updating and widening, for pity's sake, from St. Louis, all across the state to Kansas City. How dare you waste time on this while we have real, actual needs. What the absolute heck. Get busy. Do actual work. Stop grandstanding. Please.

Your rant here and this issue is about an NBA TEAM.

May I point out to you, sir, that THERE IS NOT ONE NBA TEAM IN THE ENTIRE STATE OF MISSOURI?

How ironic, how hypocritical can you get, sir? Hopefully no more or worse than this.

This news broke yesterday.

Missouri again breaks record for 

most COVID-19 cases

Meanwhile, this news broke today.

California, Florida, Texas report new single day high coronavirus death tolls

These all have the potential to effect Missourians.

It's surprising you're not embarrassed by this post but that you proudly put it out there, instead. This is insane. It shows your deeply skewed, very wrong priorities or a lack of priorities at all.

Get to work. For the citizens of Missouri. Again, for pity's sake, top the grandstanding. 

Please.

It's hard to believe anyone has to even say this.

Best Supreme Court Nominee Money Can Buy

From Daily Kos today.

On This Supreme Court Nominee

Quote of the Day -- On This President

And note the source. It's not from some Right Winger. Not by a long shot.

"It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about President Trump’s inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence."

--George Will, columnist, author 

From his column:

Trump has a dangerous disability

Links:

George F. Will - The Washington Post

George Will - Wikipedia

Quote of the Week

From Facebook.

"...let's get this straight. A rabidly anti-gay congressman with ties to the KKK, who recently voted to let mentally ill people have access to guns and who wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, had his life saved by a Black Lesbian law enforcement officer and another Black cop, when he was shot by a mentally ill person, and is currently under hospital care that is being paid for by government-funded health insurance. 

There's a lot of irony here. (and hypocrisy).

Is it too much to ask and hope that Republicans see it?"


---Julie E. Marine

Signs of Hope, In Spite of This President and Congress

What so many of us need just now, hope. Hope of any and every real, tangible sort. So here you go, here we are:

Crowd Scientists Say Women’s March in Washington Had 3 Times as Many People as Trump’s Inauguration

Defiant Voices Flood U.S. Cities as Women 

Rally for Rights

Pictures From Women's Marches 

on Every Continent

The Radical Possibility of the Women’s March

‘Real America’ helped make Saturday’s protests the biggest in U.S. history

Even local signs of hope, literal and figurative.

Best part of KC Women’s Rally? The signs — and the passion to fight Trump

So let's not lose hope, folks. We have to keep working. We have to keep fighting. We have to stay positive. We can't let negativity or cynicism overtake us.

Additional links:

In Solidarity: Women's Marches Across the World - Video - NYTimes.com

January 20, 2017: Wear Black Day

Well, there we have it.

It's final.

Donald J. Trump will be sworn into the Presidency, January 20, 2107, about a month from now. The ugliness is now staring us squarely in the face.

So what do we do?

Anything?

Here's an idea. Let's make this a thing.

January 20, 2017, Inauguration Day in Washington, DC. Since it's going to take place and Donald J. Trump is to be sworn in as our 45th President, let's do this.

Let's all wear black.

We can't all go to Washington. We can't all be there and protest, much as we'd like and much as he, Trump, deserves.

So let's do the next best thing.

Let's all of us, coast to coast, wear black.

Head to foot.

Let's show our quiet, even silent protest at this misogynist, sexist, racist, emotional man-child being foisted into the highest and most powerful government position in the nation and the most powerful position in the world. Since the Electoral College goes through with this and does vote him in, let's show our cohesion.

Let's "put it out there", to the nation and to our fellow Americans and to the world that we're concerned and that we in no way supported, then, nor support now this petulant, unthinking man in the White House.

Yes, we support him, as far as it goes, as President, but only because we must. We only support him out of acknowledgement of this reality, this ugly, sad, even dangerous reality that the Electoral College got him into the presidency.

But that's as far as it goes.

January 20, 2017.  Wear black.

Dipping My Feet Into Our New National Reality

Since Tuesday last week, I've been too shocked and surprised and disappointed and even scared for our country and depressed to listen to the news, understandably. An emotional, racist, misogynist and science- and climate change-denier, among other things, being elected to the highest office in the nation and most powerful position in the world.

This helped. A bit.  (Warning: expletives. If you really don't care for them, don't watch to the end. You'll see what I mean).



Good luck to us all. God help us.

The Real Eric Greitens, Part IV

And this may be one of my, to date, favorite "real Eric Greitens" videos out there. It's not good quality video since it's video of a video on someone's television but it gets the message across.


To borrow a phrase, "I'm lovin' it."

2016: The Year Guns Took Over Election Campaigns

It really does seem as though this campaign year, 2016, has been the year guns, somehow, inexplicably, took over in our election campaigns. They've nothing whatever to do with the office the candidate is running for but there they are, the men, the boys and their guns.

This was the first one I was aware of locally, here in Missouri. Mr. Eric Greitens, former Navy Seal--he wants to make sure you know--goes out in the countryside and "blows things up real good."


As if that weren't enough, unfortunately, a candidate I'm for very recently--just this week, I believe--released this video.


I ask you, what does assembling an automatic weapon, especially one meant for the battlefield, have to do with running a government, a bureacracy efficiently, intelligently and at small a cost as possible?  The boys seem to have to have their guns and show them off.

Tell me we're not getting more stupid.

This seems to be further proof, further reason More Women Need to Lead the World.

The Real Eric Greitens, Part III

Speaks for itself. Here's the real Eric Greitens, from another former Navy Seal on KTRS 550.

The Real Eric Greitens, Part II

Here's more of the real Eric Greitens, as promised, Part II. This is from a radio show with a Navy Seal, giving the lowdown on the man.

The Real Eric Greitens, Part I

I'm loving all the "real Eric Greitens" ads that are coming out. Here's the first.



I love this spoof.

So Who Does the Missouri Fraternal Order of Police Endorse for Governor?

So who does Missouri's Fraternal Order of Police endorse for the state's next governor?

Do they endorse the gun-totin', shoot 'em up, extreme Right Winger who hates President Obama and all he represents and who also, by the way, has no government experience?

Koster Endorsed by Missouri Fraternal Order of Police

Don'tcha' just love irony?

On Donald Trump, Our National Politics and All of Us

Just the average statements and opinions of Donald Trump alone show it all to be an indictment, not just of his ignorance and crudeness but yes, of our political system and so many of us, honestly, who would support this man for the highest leadership position of the nation.

Most People Don't Recognize the Bizarro Election World We've Stepped Into

I don't think most Americans recognize how truly unprecedented and even, honestly, bizarre a world we've entered now, this go 'round with our 2016 presidential election cycle. And it's this headline, last evening, that brought it home to me:

It Looks Like Jeb Bush is About To 

Drop Out

Mind you, it's speculation but between John Ellis' popularity--and lack of it--and so, the corresponding lack of money (see headline, below), it does at least look bad for him, if not politically fatal.  This is from none other than what should be his own people, the Wall Street Journal, last evening:

Jeb Bush Has $10.3 Million on Hand, as Fundraising Slowed

I won't get into the details of his money, any reader can do that on their own. The fact is, if, in this mish-mash of Republican candidates, the "chosen one" of the big money Republicans and traditionalists not only can't make it but is over-run by the likes of the very misogynist and racist Donald Trump and the extremely simplistic, even empty Dr. Ben Carson, well, folks, it means very, very bad things for this nation.

Mind you, it should be clear from this writer and blogger and blog that the last thing I'd personally or politically want is for a Republican of the last 30 years, at least, to win any presidential--or even Congressional--race in our country. But the fact is, if more middle-of-the-road, mainstream---however dumbed-down---John Ellis Bush can't make it in a campaign with the likes of his competition, it bodes badly, very badly for the race itself but for the nation at large. 

Again, from last evening, look at what his toughest competition are doing in the last 24 hours:

Trump, Carson threaten to boycott next GOP debate

Yes. They're running to be president of the United States yet they're threatening to boycott the only debates the party has scheduled. Check that out:

(CNN) Republican front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson are threatening to pull out of the next Republican primary debate if the hosts don't agree to their demands.

In a letter to CNBC, which is hosting the next debate, the two candidates said they would not participate in the Oct. 28 debate "if it is longer than 120 minutes including commercials and does not include opening and closing statements."

Facebook political/social satirist Kona Lowell  said it very well last evening:

So Trump and Carson demand that the next debate last only two hours. Fine. Let's analyze this. That's 120 minutes. There are 13 candidates. That means each candidate would get 9.2 minutes. Subtract time for commercials. Include an opening/closing statement for each candidate. That leaves just enough time for Trump to call someone a loser and Carson to compare lowering student loan debt to the Holocaust.

And unfortunately, in America, things are ranked, and often won, simply by how much money one has. With our Citizens United rules from the Supreme Court and very legal campaign contributions--what would be, in the rest of the world, bribes--government representatives win and lose, live and die by how much money they take in.

So John Ellis has 10.3 million dollars on hand.

Very scary Ted Cruz has 13.5 million.

Kooky Ben Carson has nearly the same as John Ellis at 11 million.

Everyone else in this money race is an "also ran" and so, irrelevant.

I'm telling you, folks, this Republican presidential race for 2016 was bad and is getting worse and worse all the time. John Ellis Bush was more of a moderate who tried to be extreme Right Wing, by voice only, in order to get votes and win.

That Donald Trump and Ben Carson are leading the pack, leading this field of candidates both in money and popularity should scare anyone who knows what's good for most all of America, and so, the entire nation.

Link: Who's winning the 2016 GOP money race?

The Way Republicans Used to Think and Be

Long, long ago, they used to be for the nation, as a whole, not just for the advancement of their own political party.

It would be nice if we---they---could get back to this.

Further Insanity from The Donald

The number one most popular person, nearly unbelievably, in polling regarding the race for the White House, for the presidency in 2016 and he now said the following stupid thing:

Trump: I Will Absolutely Use A Nuclear 

Weapon Against ISIS

Oh, yes he did:

NEW YORK, NY – In response to a question regarding his policy on ISIS, Republican presidential candidate and billionaire Donald Trump told Meet the Press on Sunday that as Commander-in-Chief, he would authorize the use of nuclear weapons to combat Islamic extremism...

Mr. Trump said he’s already conferred with a number of high-level active military officials and has put together a comprehensive strategy to defeat the Islamic State within his first one hundred days in office. “It starts with the deployment of four or five of our Ohio-class nuclear submarines to the Persian Gulf,” Trump said. “We’re going to hit them and we’re going to hit them hard. I’m talking about a surgical strike on these ISIS stronghold cities using Trident missiles.”

The Trident is a submarine-launched ballistic missile equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs. With a payload of up to fourteen reentry vehicles, each carrying a 362-pound thermonuclear warhead with a yield of 100 kilotons, a single Trident has roughly seventy times the destructive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Not only is he willing to use nuclear weapons and on the Middle East but read that last sentence---"a single Trident (missile) has roughly seventy times the destructive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki..."

Insane. Truly insane.

More:

Trump’s plan to use thermonuclear weapons against ISIS-held areas such as the Syrian city of Al-Raqqah would result in an astronomically high number of civilian casualties, according to CNN military analyst Peter Mansoor. “Al-Raqqah alone has a population of over two hundred-thousand people, the vast majority of whom are not affiliated in any way with the Islamic State,” Mansoor said. “A strike of this magnitude would not only result in the loss of millions of innocent lives and infrastructure, but it would set diplomacy and stability in the region back at least a hundred years.”

Not to be done there and certainly not to be outdone, The Donald also thinks it a good idea to have our military, our American soldiers, in the war theater, too:

Trump's foreign policy plan includes 

boots on the ground

So not only does he think he can rather willy-nilly bring about the use of nuclear warheads on the Middle East, on the planet, but that American soldiers should also be "on the ground" there, too, if---heaven forbid---he should be elected president.

To whom does any of this, any of it, make any sense?

More Reports From Brownbackistan Today

Once again, Kansas and Republican Governor Sam Brownback are in the news--never in good ways, dependably, unfortunately, even tragically. And once again, it's from and in The New York Times‎. Seems the good Guv wants to get his hands on the state courts:



Courts Budget Intensifies Kansas Dispute Over Powers

The fight between Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas and the state’s judicial branch has escalated, with the governor last week signing into law a bill that could strip state courts of their funding.

 

The measure, at the end of a lengthy bill that allocated money for the judiciary this year, stipulates that if a state court strikes down a 2014 law that removed some powers from the State Supreme Court, the judiciary will lose its funding.

 

The 2014 law took the authority to appoint district court judges from the Supreme Court and gave it to the district courts themselves. It also deprived the state’s highest court of the right to set district court budgets. Critics said the law was an attempt by Mr. Brownback, a Republican, to stack the district courts with judges who may be more favorable to his policies.

 

The budget bill that Mr. Brownback signed on Thursday was related only to the judiciary. He said he wanted to ensure that the courts would remain open while lawmakers sparred over the larger budget issues. Lawmakers have been debating how to fill a $400 million shortfall, which will most likely require tax increases that Mr. Brownback and many in the conservative-dominated Legislature oppose. If a budget is not passed by Sunday, state workers may be furloughed.

 

But in passing a separate budget bill to keep the third branch of government from shutting down, Republican lawmakers took the opportunity to insert language that would shield the 2014 law.

 

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Matthew Menendez, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, which is helping to represent a Kansas judge who is challenging the constitutionality of the 2014 law. “It seems pretty clear that these mechanisms have been an effort by the governor and the Legislature to try and get a court system that is more in line with their philosophy.”

 

Richard E. Levy, a constitutional law professor at the University of Kansas, likened the measure in the judiciary budget bill to Congress’s passing a law outlawing abortion and then telling the judicial branch that it will lose its funding if it finds the law unconstitutional.

 

“That kind of threat to the independence of the judiciary strikes me as invalid under the separation of powers principle,” Mr. Levy said in an interview on Friday.

Can you imagine what the Republicans would be saying and, in fact, how loudly they'd be screaming if a governor in Kansas tried to pull such governmental stunts while they were in office?

What part of "small government" is this, exactly?

How "conservative" is this?

Let's be clear here, Governor Sam Brownback is a power-hungry, governmental abuser. There's nothing he doesn't want to get his hands on and control and/or change and to his and his political party's and their supporter's own benefit.

The fact is, if a governor from the Democratic Party tried to do or did all the things he's either done or tried to accomplish, he and his entire Republican Party would be screaming that they're "big government" kooks. There is nothing remotely small government or Conservative about this guy, what he's done, what he's doing or what he is trying to achieve. And it's all for himself, his own temporary power, his political party and the wealthy and corporations in Kansas it can benefit.

Kansans need, desperately, to vote all these Right Wing extremists out of office, post haste. The damage they and the Republican Party have put on that state has been bad enough already, as we keep seeing.

Quote of the day -- on Republicans, their work and goals

From a Facebook friend:

They shoot down young men in the streets, some handcuffed and shot, some surrendering and shot, some running for their lives and shot, and we sit there.

They pay our workers less than a living wage and we watch, but action is missing. They try and curtail our votes or liberties and we watch TV and sigh 

They insult our intelligence with saying public education does not work, but we were once the envy of the globe through public education. 

They buy up our duly elected officials through a system of graft and payoffs and call it, lobbies.

They Gerrymander districts to disenfranchise our votes and elections and we sleep in apathy. 

They poison our rivers and fresh water supplies, through fracking and no one seems to give a frack.

They overcharge for medical help, and put us in debt to keep healthy and we allow this. They pass anti democratic voting laws to curtail votes from elders, students and minorities. They want white voters only then they can pass laws for holding down the rest.

They rewrite US history to make us more docile, by covering up the fact that dissidence formed our union, and social progress occurred and justice served, through our civil disobedience, as we watch football and allow it.

They disrespect women, and pay them less, and treat them as chattel or call them sluts for wanting birth control covered by insurance, and we nod off.

They disrespect our leaders that have a populous agenda and we watch and shrug. 

They cry foul when wages are raised, and work hard at convincing us 7.25 an hour is a living wage. 

They push us for more weapons in the hands of whites, but beware if a minority is caught with one. 

They send more people to prison over less, than any country in the history of mankind and we scratch our heads. 

They are called the Republicans and Tea baggers, and if they have their way democracy will die, and we will become an oligarchy, with these sick ass greedy monsters like the Koch's in control... Is this America? Or is it time to hit the streets make them see what our powers are, the Powers of the People..

Rise up and let them hear us, or watch them smash us into John Birch, KKK, and ALEC loving fools..

--Robert Barker