The New Jim Crow Republican Party

What's going on right now, folks. They're trying to, anyway.

(Click on the picture for bigger, easier viewing and reading).

Where We Are Now and Some of, a Lot of How We Got Here

Some of the poignancy of Rush Limbaugh and his passing. Ms. Cox Richardson is particularly enlightening today.

Heather Cox Richardson

February 17, 2021, Wednesday

The crisis in Texas continues, with almost 2 million people still without power in frigid temperatures. Pipes are bursting in homes, pulling down ceilings and flooding living spaces, while 7 million Texans are under a water boil advisory.

Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, put on Facebook: “The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!... If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! [sic]…. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts…. I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves!... Bottom line quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!” “Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish [sic],” he said. 

After an outcry, Boyd resigned.

Boyd’s post was a fitting tribute to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who passed today from lung cancer at age 70. It was Limbaugh who popularized the idea that hardworking white men were under attack in America. According to him, minorities and feminists were too lazy to work, and instead expected a handout from the government, paid for by tax dollars levied from hardworking white men. This, he explained, was “socialism,” and it was destroying America.

Limbaugh didn’t invent this theory; it was the driving principle behind Movement Conservatism, which rose in the 1950s to combat the New Deal government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and promoted infrastructure. But Movement Conservatives' efforts to get voters to reject the system that they credited for creating widespread prosperity had little success.

In 1971, Lewis Powell, an attorney for the tobacco industry, wrote a confidential memo for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce outlining how business interests could overturn the New Deal and retake control of America. Powell focused on putting like-minded scholars and speakers on college campuses, rewriting textbooks, stacking the courts, and pressuring politicians. He also called for “reaching the public generally” through television, newspapers, and radio. “[E]very available means should be employed to challenge and refute unfair attacks,” he wrote, “as well as to present the affirmative case through this media.”

Pressing the Movement Conservative case faced headwinds, however, since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforced a policy that, in the interests of serving the community, required any outlet that held a federal broadcast license to present issues honestly, equitably, and with balance. This “Fairness Doctrine” meant that Movement Conservatives had trouble gaining traction, since voters rejected their ideas when they were stacked up against the ideas of Democrats and traditional Republicans, who agreed that the government had a role to play in the economy (even though they squabbled about the extent of that role).

In 1985, under a chair appointed by President Ronald Reagan, the FCC stated that the Fairness Doctrine hurt the public interest. Two years later, under another Reagan-appointed chair, the FCC abolished the rule.

With the Fairness Doctrine gone, Rush Limbaugh stepped into the role of promoting the Movement Conservative narrative. He gave it the concrete examples, color, and passion it needed to jump from think tanks and businessmen to ordinary voters who could help make it the driving force behind national policy. While politicians talked with veiled language about “welfare queens” and same-sex bathrooms, and “makers” and “takers,” Limbaugh played “Barack the Magic Negro,” talked of “femiNazis,” and said “Liberals” were “socialists,” redistributing tax dollars from hardworking white men to the undeserving.

Constantly, he hammered on the idea that the federal government threatened the freedom of white men, and he did so in a style that his listeners found entertaining and liberating.

By the end of the 1980s, Limbaugh’s show was carried on more than 650 radio stations, and in 1992, he briefly branched out into television with a show produced by Roger Ailes, who had packaged Richard Nixon in 1968 and would go on to become the head of the Fox News Channel. Before the 1994 midterm elections, Limbaugh was so effective in pushing the Republicans’ “Contract With America” that when the party won control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1952, the Republican revolutionaries made him an honorary member of their group.

Limbaugh told them that, under House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Republicans must “begin an emergency dismantling of the welfare system, which is shredding the social fabric,” bankrupting the country, and “gutting the work ethic, educational performance, and moral discipline of the poor.” Next, Congress should cut capital gains taxes, which would drive economic growth, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and generate billions in federal revenue.

Limbaugh kept staff in Washington to make sure Republican positions got through to voters. At the same time, every congressman knew that taking a stand against Limbaugh would earn instant condemnation on radio channels across the country, and they acted accordingly.

Limbaugh saw politics as entertainment that pays well for the people who can rile up their base with compelling stories—Limbaugh’s net worth when he died was estimated at $600 million—but he sold the Movement Conservative narrative well. He laid the groundwork for the political career of Donald Trump, who awarded Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a made-for-tv moment at Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address. His influence runs deep in the current party: former Mayor Boyd, an elected official, began his diatribe with: “Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute!!”

Like Boyd, other Texas politicians are also falling back on the Movement Conservative narrative to explain the disaster in their state. The crisis was caused by a lack of maintenance on Texas’s unregulated energy grid, which meant that instruments at coal, natural gas, and nuclear plants froze, at the same time that supplies of natural gas fell short. Nonetheless, Governor Greg Abbott and his allies in the fossil fuel industry went after “liberal” ideas. They blamed the crisis on the frozen wind turbines and solar plants which account for about 13% of Texas’s winter power. Abbott told Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity that “this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.” Tucker Carlson told his viewers that Texas was “totally reliant on windmills.”

The former Texas governor and former Secretary of Energy under Trump, Rick Perry, wrote on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s website to warn against regulation of Texas’s energy system: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business,” he said. The website warned that “Those watching on the left may see the situation in Texas as an opportunity to expand their top-down, radical proposals. Two phrases come to mind: don’t mess with Texas, and don’t let a crisis go to waste.”

At Abbott’s request, President Biden has declared that Texas is in a state of emergency, freeing up federal money and supplies for the state. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent 60 generators to state hospitals, water plants, and other critical facilities, along with blankets, food, and bottled water. It is also delivering diesel fuel for backup power.

Link:

Heather Cox Richardson - Letters from an American

One Week In

 One week into this new Joe Biden Presidential Administration. This is where we are. Already.

1. We can now ignore Twitter
2. The White House briefing room is not an Orwellian nightmare of lies
3. We are now confronting white domestic terrorism
4. We are not paying for golf trips
5. There are no presidential relatives in government
6. The tenor of hearings is sober and serious
7. Qualified and knowledgeable nominees have been selected for senior spots
8. We have a first lady who engages with the public
9. We have not heard a word from presidential children
10. We are now tough on Russian human rights abuses
11. We get normal readouts of sane conversations between the president and foreign leaders
12. The White House philosophy is to underpromise and overdeliver, not the other way around
13. Manners are in, bullying is out
14. You feel calmer after hearing the president
15. Fact-checkers are not overworked
16. Quality entertainers want to perform for the White House
17. We have seen the president’s tax records
18. The president is able to articulate policy details, coherently even
19. The worst the press can come up with is the president’s watch
20. We have a White House staff that looks like America
21. We have a national covid-19 plan
22. Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony S. Fauci is liberated, sounds happy and even looks younger
23. Fauci, not the president, briefs on the science of covid-19 and efficacy of vaccines
24. Masks and social distancing in the White House
25. The White House has policy initiatives and proposals, not merely leaving it all to Congress
26. The administration is committed to releasing information, not covering it up, on the slaughter of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
27. The Muslim ban is gone
28. It is the Republicans not the Democrats who are in disarray
29. The national security adviser has not been fired for lying to the FBI
30. No Soviet-style fawning over the president by his subordinates
31. The president takes daily, in-person intelligence briefings
32. The president does not care about Air Force One colors
33. We have a president familiar with the Constitution
34. Real cable news outlets get high ratings, others not so much
35. President Andrew Jackson is out of the Oval Office, Benjamin Franklin is in
36. Voice of America is back in the hands of actual journalists
37. We get memes about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), not crowd size
38. We are back in the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization
39. Instead of running it like a business, the new administration will try running government competently
40. We have a president who doesn’t think military service is for “suckers” and who doesn’t send his “love” to people assaulting law enforcement
41. The secretary of treasury nominee has her own Hamilton lyrics
42. Amanda Gorman is a household name
43. More than two-thirds of Americans approve of the White House covid-19 approach.
44. No more work-free “executive time” in the presidential living quarters
45. We have a churchgoing president “who has spent a lifetime steeped in Christian rituals and practices.”
47. The vice president’s spouse does not teach at a school that bars LGBTQ students
48. The White House takes the Hatch Act seriously
49. The administration wants as many people as possible to vote
50. The president will talk more to our allies than to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Not perfect, certainly. But it's good. It's very good. It's a huge, huge improvement.

Good on you, America. 

No, great on you.

So Proud of Our Kansas City Star

Wow.

What can you say but "Wow"?

Our own local paper, the Kansas City Star stunned me and I feel, probably lots of us this week. Their report, their reporting, their confession was just that, stunning. You likely know of what I'm writing. It's this.

The truth in Black and white: An apology from The Kansas City Star

Today we are telling the story of a powerful local business that has done wrong.

In it, rather famously now, the paper confessed and admitted to racism, horrible racism from them over the years when reporting on minorities in the area--specifically, Black Americans.

I'll only post the beginning of the editorial.

Today we are telling the story of a powerful local business that has done wrong.

For 140 years, it has been one of the most influential forces in shaping Kansas City and the region. And yet for much of its early history — through sins of both commission and omission — it disenfranchised, ignored and scorned generations of Black Kansas Citians. It reinforced Jim Crow laws and redlining. Decade after early decade it robbed an entire community of opportunity, dignity, justice and recognition.

That business is The Kansas City Star.

To repeat, there's no word that describes this any better than stunning.

This took guts. This took courage. Just freaking wow.

They could have recognized their past faults internally and vowed to never repeat such things, sure. But this? Confessing to the supporting of Jim Crow laws and redlining and segregation and other obscenities, however legal?

Stunning. Nothing short of stunning.

It went national, too, it was that big a story. This was from the New York Times.

Kansas City Star Apologizes for Racism

NBC News.

Kansas City Star apologizes for decades of racist coverage

Daily Kos.

'We don’t need stories about these people': Kansas City newspaper confesses to tradition of racism

You get the idea. It was covered nationally from virtually every media outlet.

I think there are two huge things to take from this, too, besides the fact that, as I said above, they didn't have to do this cleansing so publicly like this. 

The first is that this was an important move for them, the Star, the newspaper, to own up to but it's much more than that. We all need to own up to what and how we've gotten to where we are. We all, as a people and as a nation, need to know how we got here, where we are today. We need to know our nation's history, our full national history. We need to really know all the details about slavery and our Civil War, sure. But that's for starters.

We all need to also know about our Reconstruction and the failure of it, our failure and how that impacted African-Americans then.

We all need to know, really know about Jim Crow laws, what they were, what they did, the fact that they were legal and the deep, deep damage that they did to those same Americans, African-Americans. That's a great deal to know there alone.

Then there's the "redlining" the Star's story mentions and its corresponding segregation, legalized, thank you very much.

If, as a people, you are kept away, legally, from the best housing and jobs, good education and so, consequently and understandably, also kept away from better paying jobs and careers?  Is it any wonder the wealth of Black Americans today is, still, to this moment, a fraction of white America?

And that's how we got now, here to where we are. It's why still, to this day, so many Black Americans do not and even, for a lot of them, cannot still live wherever they wish. It only makes sense. It's a natural outgrowth of all that then-legalized racism and hate and ugliness. It's why do many cities in the United States--including, of course, our own Kansas City on both sides of the state line--are still so very, very segregated even though that legal segregation was made illegal decades ago now.

So, again, wow. Kudos to the Star.

In their article, they made a great and important point of saying that their paper, over the years, highlighted white people's accomplishments but virtually never Black people's.

In the pages of The Star, when Black people were written about, they were cast primarily as the perpetrators or victims of crime, advancing a toxic narrative. Other violence, meantime, was tuned out. The Star and The Times wrote about military action in Europe but not about Black families whose homes were being bombed just down the street.

Even the Black cultural icons that Kansas City would one day claim with pride were largely overlooked. Native son Charlie “Bird” Parker didn’t get a significant headline in The Star until he died, and even then, his name was misspelled and his age was wrong.

It reminded me of a KCPT PBS broadcast on Kansas City's own Charlie "Bird" Parker. Lonnie McFadden made the very fair and important point that Winston Churchill, of all people, is on our Country Club Plaza.

But not Bird.

How else can we heal? How else can we repair centuries long wrongs and racism if we don't examine ourselves, see where we are, see what we did, see what those ramifications are and then apologize for them and look to rectify them? We must do this as a society. We're long, long overdue.

Anyone, any American who thinks we don't owe Black Americans reparations should, again, study our national history.

And read this article, too.

Four Years Ago Now: 2 Notes

 I posted these two things 4 years ago now on social media. First, a quote.

"America died on Nov. 8, 2016, not with a bang or a whimper, but at its own hand via electoral suicide. We the people chose a man who has shredded our values, our morals, our compassion, our tolerance, our decency, our sense of common purpose, our very identity — all the things that, however tenuously, made a nation out of a country." 

--Neal Gabler

And he was correct, of course. So very correct as we learned in these last 4 years. He was every horrible thing we all warned the nation of. And more.

And then there was this also from four years ago.

And it was all true. Hate, fear, racism, misogyny, homophobia, prejudice, self-interest---all those won four years ago now.

Fortunately, whoever wrote this was also correct on that last part. Americans, decent Americans, all got together and poured out to register to vote and then vote, too, to rid our nation of this man, this scourge on the nation.

We did it. We did, in fact, get together and correct this mistake!! Great job, America.

Now, #Throwthebumout

Meanwhile, these uglinesses are going on now, not a complete surprise, given how self-serving and greedy Republicans repeatedly show themselves to be, nation be damned.

'Naked Political Ploy': Outrage—and a Top DOJ Official Resigns—After Barr Memo Aims to Bolster Baseless Trump Fraud Allegations

GOP In Disarray: GA Senators Demand That Election Chief Resigns To Placate Trump

Stay strong, America. Stay the course. Don't let them win.

Where We Are Now, America, With Racism, Systemic Racism and Very White Privilege

So get this straight, America.

An innocent Black American was killed.
On the streets.
Unarmed.
By yet another rogue police officer.
Shot 7 times.
In the back.

So naturally, rightly, people were out protesting.

Then a young, very young, 17 year old man, white man, 20 miles away, drove to Kenosha, to the protests.

He crossed a state line to do it, too.
With his assault rifle.

Which is illegal.
And he ended up shooting 3 people.
Killing two.

And he walked away from it.

And now people are defending him, saying he's innocent and should go free.

Right.

Got it.

And some of Americans don't think systemic racism exists.

In fact, Nikki Haley, at the Republican National Convention, says racism doesn't exist in America.

Sure.

Quote of the Day -- Presidential Edition

Truth.

Thanks, Republicans!

The--Very--Racist History of Banking In Our United States

What so, so many Americans don't know. Or ignore. And/or disavow.



Also ignoring the segregation that got us here and the poorer schools and far less opportunities for jobs and so, better pay.

Sure.

Let's ignore or deny all that.

Quote of the Day -- On Race in America

William Faulkner wrote these very insightful, telling, even indicting lines all the way back in 1956. They could not be more true of us, then as well as, sadly, even now, today, this much father along in 2017.

That’s what the white man in the South is afraid of: that the Negro, who has done so much with no chance, might do so much more with an equal one that he might take the white man’s economy away from him, the Negro now the banker or the merchant or the planter and the white man the sharecropper or the tenant. That’s why the Negro can gain our country’s highest decoration for valor beyond all call of duty for saving or defending or preserving white lives on foreign battlefields, yet the Southern white man dares not let that Negro’s children learn their ABC’s in the same classroom with the children of the white lives he saved or defended.

More should read the entire, brief article:

Southern Harm, by William Faulkner | Harper's

Additional link:

The White Man's Fear of the Educated Negro

The Ugliest, Most Dangerous, Most Untrue Advertisement I've ever seen.

A friend posted this on his Facebook page today. It says it's from the NRA.


And what he said about it is dead on, too, no pun intended.

Beware folks, the NRA is advocating basically a civil war with this ad that is nothing short of stochastic terrorism. They are calling for gun owners to make a violent response to freedom of assembly, a First Amendment right. This is a message to incite domestic terrorism. The use of words like "assassinate" are a dogwhistle to the faithful gun cult.

Liberals hate that the rightwing is so misinformed. The Right Wing has marketed the message to hate Liberals. 

This may not end well. 

I have seen many Right Wingers saying lately that Liberals should be rounded up and shot. or worse. with folks inciting people to take action on that. 

We are all Americans and we should be working together to make America a better , more equitable place. Liberty, equality and fraternity.

This video inciting hatred of neighbor on neighbor is a most shocking and unpatriotic piece of propaganda. 

It is stochastic terrorism and should be branded a hate crime.

--Richard Trombly

If there is any silver lining, so to speak, on these clouds of ugliness, it's this.

Fewer and Fewer Americans Own Guns

American gun ownership drops to 

lowest in nearly 40 years

Fewer Americans Own Guns, 

But Those Who Do Own More Than Ever

Fewer Americans Own Guns, 

But Those Who Do Own More Than Ever

Here's hoping sanity and intelligence and calm, rational thought and true patriotism wins out, ultimately.

Happy Fourth, y'all.

Right Wingers: Who You Gonna' Hate Now?

Okay, so it's January 20, 2017, inauguration day. Donald J. Trump is sworn in President. (shudder)

So my question now, today, to all Right Wingers, Republicans and Obama haters:

Who are you going to hate now? Well, besides the Democrats and Liberals (or is that "libruls"?) and Progressives and--gasp--Socialists, that is.

After hating the Black man in the White House for 8 years, thinking he's going to take your gunz and impose Sharia Law and betray and destroy the nation, who are you going to rail about now?

After seeing headlines from Right Wing sites like the following for the last 8 years:

Obama runs $100M vacation tab on taxpayers

Obama's Indifference to White 'Deaths of Despair'

Is Obama an Agent For A Foreign Power 

and Foreign Invader

BREAKING: Obama And Sadiq Khan 

Just Passed Online Sharia Law

WARNING: Obama Opens First 

Concentration Camp In US

All Armed Americans To Be Detained 

In FEMA Camps Starting In 2017

Obama's 6-part plan to declare martial law 

in America

So, after all this nonsense, repeatedly, for the last 8 years, who are you all going to hate after today?

Who's your big bogeyman now?

The American History Precious Few Know--Or Want To Recognize

There is a fantastic, very brief article, column, really, in The New York Times today, telling of yet more American history that, again, so few Americans know or even want to acknowledge or recognize. And it's very recent American history, at that.

As the column shows, it's still not just relevant to today but extremely so.

The Horror of Lynchings Lives On

The time when African-Americans were publicly hanged, burned and dismembered for insisting on their rights or for merely talking back to whites is nearer in history than many Americans understand. The horror of these crimes still weighs heavily on black communities in the South, where lynching memories are often vivid. The anguish is made worse by the realization that some of the killers are still alive and may never be prosecuted.

Consider Walton County, Ga., where the Justice Department is investigating the infamous Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching of 1946, in which a white mob tied up four black citizens — one of them pregnant — and shot them more than 60 times at close range. The killers were never brought to justice. The crime resurfaced three years ago when a white man in his 50s said in an interview with the N.A.A.C.P. that he had grown up hearing adults talking about the killings and that some of those responsible were still alive. He also said that the local police had ignored evidence that he had given them.

The Moore’s Ford Bridge case, often described as the last mass lynching in country, stands out for its wanton brutality and for the fact that one of its victims was George Dorsey, a World War II Army veteran who had recently returned to Georgia after serving five years in the Pacific. A study released last month by the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization that has been researching racial terror lynchings for several years, finds that black military veterans were disproportionately singled out for assault because Southerners viewed them as a particular threat to white supremacy.

This report adds to “Lynching in America,” a sweeping study of racial terror released by the organization last year. That study was based on a lengthy review of local newspapers, court records and historical archives as well as interviews with local historians, survivors and victims’ descendants. In the end, researchers counted 4,075 lynchings — about 800 more than have shown up in previous surveys. That so many killings were missing from the historical record illustrates the extent to which lynchings — sometimes carried out before hundreds of spectators — have been erased from public discourse.

The report about black veterans argues persuasively that former soldiers like Mr. Dorsey were targeted for assault because black men in uniform challenged the white supremacists’ idea of black inferiority and were seen as potential leaders in insurrections. Southern states reacted to this fear during the 19th century by making it a crime for African-Americans to own firearms.

Newspapers fanned the flames of hatred through sensational stories that portrayed black veterans as participants in a national “race war.” Local elected officials often worked hand in hand with the mobs, giving the public advance notice of these killings. By the time of the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching, the report says, thousands of black veterans had been attacked, and many either narrowly escaped or were put to death by mobs.

Understanding the persecution that black veterans suffered from the Civil War period through World War II is crucial to understanding the nightmare of terror that extended to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the racism that pervades the country today. This report is especially relevant given that white supremacist groups with roots in the Jim Crow era have recently come marching out of shadows, emboldened by the poisonous rhetoric deployed in the Trump campaign.

The report is also especially relevant because an entire political party--the Republican Party, as we know--is still, to this day, using very "Jim Crow"-like laws like voter ID laws, to disenfranchise Americans, Black and poor Americans.  They also used ending the still-necessary Voting Rights Act as well as gerrymandering, all so it can put and keep votes in "their column."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the racism in this nation is till not just here but pervasive and extremely so.

Links:

The ghosts and terror of America's 'last mass lynching'

The Moore's Ford Lynching (July 1946)

Moore's Ford Bridge Lynchings: FBI May Have Suspects, 70 Years Later

7 Historical Postcards Celebrating Lynchings In America

Musarium: Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America

Bill Moyers Journal . Legacy of Lynching | PBS

The lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, 1930

Quote of the Day -- Timely

After this election, H.G. Wells' quote seems even more poignant. Carl Sagan pointed this out, too, years ago.

"Civilization is in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.”

--H.G. Wells

An Open Letter To Donald J. Trump

An open letter to Donald J. Trump.

Dear Mr. Trump,

We, a lot of us out here in America, are still baffled how we got where we are just now.

We're baffled you somehow won the nomination of the Republican Party to be their candidate for the presidency, the highest office in the nation and the most powerful office in the world.

Worst, many, many of us out here are still reeling from even the idea that you won this office in our election, let alone the fact of it.

But that is all where we are now.

So, being here, you, sir, need to understand the weight and responsibility that is soon to be on your shoulders.  You need to understand that you are there to lead us, at least for the next four years, politically and morally, at least.

You need to understand, sir, there are things we, as a nation, decided we cannot and will not accept or tolerate. Some of them that fall under this list are the following

--Racism

Unfortunately, you have shown, sir, blatant racist intentions and intent. We, as a nation, as a people, decided long ago we cannot and will not have that in our government nor in our government officials.  We are one people, on this planet, in our country, and we must live and act as such.

--Sexism

You REALLY don't seem to get this one, sir. So to clear this up, I give you the definition:

prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.
Again, we decided long ago this is intolerable. You are to be the leader of the nation soon, sir, of all of us. And over one half of us are women, in numbers, and they are worth every bit of respect as their male counterparts.

--Misogyny

Again, because you have shown a lack of awareness on this point, I give you the definition.

dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.

See just above. This cannot and will not be tolerated.

It needs to be pointed out that you are to be the President and leader of ALL Americans, sir. Rich and poor, Black, brown, white, male, female, all of us. We need to come together, as I pointed out here earlier, since you were elected. We are a nation of immigrants. We are, famously, a "melting pot."

Please, sir, conduct yourself with levity and thought and thoughtfulness and nuance and understanding. The things you say and do will resonate a great deal beyond just you and your former life and influence. You will be covered daily by the press and news media. You must be inclusive with them, as well, and not exclusive. It's not your place to say that any media outlet can't cover you.  You asked and worked for this position, sir. You must soon take on its full mantel. 

A lot of us out here are scared, sir, given what you've said and done on the campaign trail.

You will soon be President of all of us, sir. And for four years.

You will have to act like it.

Finally, please, please remember and always keep in mind that it can and usually does take more strength and character and intelligence and courage to wage and keep the peace than it does to wage war.

God help you, sir, and God help us all.

Links:  

Just two days after Trump’s election, reports of anti-Islam attacks spike

Sign the petition: End the Electoral College

MoveOn Petitions - Abolish the Electoral College

Petition · U.S. Senate: Abolish the Electoral College

Petition to eliminate the electoral college- One vote .

.--We the People

An Open Letter to the World

Dear Planet Earth,

We Americans are sorry.

At least, those of us who knew better, we, the educated and aware who didn't in any way vote for or support Donald J. Trump and any part of his political campaign, let alone a Trump presidency, are sorry.

We're sorry this happened.

We're sorry for you, we're certainly sorry for ourselves and for our nation.

A lot of us can still hardly believe there were enough of us who went for his misogyny and racism and ugliness and ignorance and denial of science and all that entailed, all he entails, and still voted for him. We honestly didn't think there were enough people in our nation who were not educated in college to vote for this guy.

A lot of us, myself included, are still stunned.

So honestly, we're sorry. We apologize.

We apologize for him, we apologize he was elected, heck, we apologize for legalizing bribery, calling it "campaign contributions" and then making those unlimited in quantity with our Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling a few years ago.  We know better, lots of us, but this has all gotten way, way out of control.

We're hoping intelligent, responsible people in our nation and government can help keep him in check, that they can keep him from doing even one of the deeply ignorant, scary things he described while running for this office.

So, again, citizens of our planet, please forgive us. Bear with us. Help us, even, to, again, keep him restrained. If any of your national leaders can get close to him, please, please, for the sake of the planet and all that is good, please try to talk common sense and intelligence into him. It's no small task, we know, and it's not your responsibility but this is a huge job and we likely can't go this alone.

God help us all.

To All Republicans and All Who Support and Supported Donald Trump

An open letter to all Republicans and all who supported the candidacy and possible presidency of this Donald J. Trump.

To you all,

The next four years are on you. They are all on you.

Of course, we will all be subject to the effects of this Donald Trump presidency (I can still barely write, let alone say it). Every utterance from his mouth, every move he makes in this office, him and his Vice President and entire administration, all of it will be on you.

In fact, it already is.

From Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian citizens, all celebrating this win for him to the negative stock market we already experienced between last evening and now, all of it. Everything negative that comes from this man and all his people will be on you.

Any denial of science, any dirtier air, water and soil, any military mistakes, any and all economic downticks, anything and everything is all on you.

Granted, too, I will say, if, by any grace of God there is any improvements for the nation, for the people and not just the already-wealthy and corporations, that occurs while he's in this office, I'll be the first to recognize and acknowledge it. Any of it. Any and all. I expect this "positive list" will be short, if it exists at all but I am not completely hopeless about it.

As I said earlier here...

God help us all.

The Outrageous, Ridiculous False Equivalence of This Presidential Election

Bill has it down. (Note: expletives)



The ridiculous, supposed equivalence of our 2 current, final presidential candidates at this moment is the absolute worst thing of our media and this campaign of the last 2 years.

Trump Supporters

On Hillary, Us and Her Campaign

So much has been said and so much still should be said, of course, about any candidate for the presidency of the United States, but even more needs to be said about the first female to get this far in one of these races and here it is.

Dear Hillary: How Very Dare You!

A bit from the article:

Let me be as candid and transparent as possible: I was a very strong supporter of Bernie Sanders, and until the past four weeks, held out great hope that he would become our next President. Over the course of the past month, I have had to do a great deal of reflecting and ask myself where does this seemingly irrational antipathy for Hillary Clinton come from? Why have I participated in it? After doing some research and looking hard at systemic misogyny, I have had to confront myself with the truth that I bought into a narrative about Hillary Clinton that has been produced, packaged, and perpetuated by mostly the GOP with the help of many democrats and independents.

This narrative is a 30-year-old vilification of a woman who is bright, independent, wealthy, and powerful — a woman who asks for what she wants and needs. How very dare you, Ms. Clinton? How dare you have a mind of your own? How dare you be bright and powerful? How dare you ask for what you want and need? Don’t you know these rights are still exclusively for white, Christian, cisgender, able-bodied, heterosexual men?

My research indicates that the reality — the facts (I realize facts are immaterial when talking to many Trump supporters) — are that Hillary Clinton is one of the most honest politicians tracked by the Pulitzer Prize winning fact-checking project Politifact. I would also call upon Jill Abramson’s piece in the Guardian. Most of you probably know Abramson from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Abramson writes:

As an editor I’ve launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I’m not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising. Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy.

Members of the press, in their misguided attempt to be “balanced”, love to point out that we face a presidential contest between the two least-popular candidates ever. What they fail to do is analyze their own complicity in blindly adhering to the cartoon version of Hillary Clinton.

And it's so true. And it's so tiresome.

The Republicans and Right Wing have been investigating and attacking and publishing and printing and putting out material on first Bill Clinton, and now Hillary for years, undeniably. Virtually every bit has been fiction, at minimum, and frequently, far too frequently, out and out lies, fabrications and untruths. She and her husband have been investigated, honestly, more than any other two people in the entire nation and, very likely, the world.

Far too many have believed some or all of them, too, to all our loss.

This is, again, a hard-working, smart woman who wants good--maybe great?---things for her nation and for the people of this nation. She's been a Senator, she's been Secretary of State and in both she did good to great work. She's tested, God knows she's tested, and proven of worthy mettle.

So let's get over the misogyny. Let's get over the lies. Let's get over the untruths. Let's get over the fiction,  let's elect the first female president of these United States and let's get on with the work and progress or our nation.

Link:  Thinking About Hillary — A Plea for Reason

What Fox and the Right Wing and Republicans Have Done to Media

What Fox and the Right Wing and Republicans have done to the news and media. This, from self-professed Right Winger himself Charlie Sykes. (Click on page for larger viewing, possible easier reading).