Businessman In Chief?

If the following poster is true, if all true, this is where it starts getting, first, very dangerous for the nation, honestly and second, crystal clear that this Trump Administration is all just a big business deal for him and his cronies.

I'm hoping this is all cynical and untrue but I have my concerns it isn't. The Donald is and always has been very much a businessman first and last, through and through, his entire life, as we all know.

A Letter To Santa From Trump's America (guest post)

I saw this yesterday and thought it very true and pretty darned complete.

A letter to Santa from Trump's America

Dear Santa,

We've been naughty. We elected a woman-degrading, racist-appeasing, megalomaniac to be President of the United States. There are many reasons this happened some understandable, some vile. I wouldn't blame you for removing the United States from your Christmas Eve flight plan altogether this year, but just in case you decide we are worthy of a few gifts I'm sending you a Christmas list because there are a few things we really need:

• the wisdom to rediscover those truths that once seemed self-evident but have proven not to be: that we are all equal and deserving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;
• the courage to stand up for people who are mistreated because of their race, religion, gender, sexual-orientation, or country of origin;
• the confidence to stand up for ourselves when others wrong us;
• the foresight to nurture the foundations of our children's futures: education, the environment, and empathy;
• the strength to speak out against tyranny;
• the insight to discern fact from fiction;
• the self-awareness to admit what we do not know;
• the curiosity to never stop learning;
• the passion to make art or support those who do;
• the freedom to speak and write what is on our minds, including the freedom to rebut the statements of others no matter how powerful they may be;
• the humility to admit when we are wrong;
• safety in our homes and neighborhoods;
• protection from mass surveillance and other forms of oppression;
• food and shelter for those in need;
• health and longevity (particularly for Ruth Bader-Ginsburg);
• peace in our communities and around the world;

And if you are feeling really generous, a couple of tickets to Hamilton.

Sincerely,

An American who still believes

Overnight

Entertainment Overnight -- A New Voice

Everything comes back to you

The Trump Administration

What you get when you place people against government, IN your government.

Insanity.

Link:  Oh Dear God. They're Giving Rick Perry Nukes.

Betsy DeVos and the Plan to Break Public Schools

Entertainment Overnight -- Holiday Version

Happy holidays, everyone.



Hoping you have a great week.

How Bizarre the Trump Pre-Presidency Already Is

Check this out.

Donald Trump isn't even president yet, isn't yet sworn in, he's still only president-elect and already, his presidency just keeps getting more and more bizarre.

Already, he's thrown a broadside at China--twice, and now this. The following is absolutely what has already taken place, in the last few days.



Really.

God help us, folks. God forgive his voters, his supporters and God and the Heavens above help the rest of us.



Link:  How 2016 is turning into George Orwell's '1984'

Quotes of the Day, Donald Trump Edition

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool." --William Shakespeare

"A wise man knows he knows nothing."    --Socrates

Donald Trump says he doesn't need intelligence briefings

The actual quote is that he says he doesn't need daily intelligence briefings because--his words--he's "...like, a smart guy."

Fact is, he's not even LIKE a smart guy.

If you're Vladimir Putin, wouldn't YOU want this guy as your opponent?

Quote of the Day -- On Hope

"Given that the US just elected an idiotic and incompetent reality-show host, it's almost unimaginable that eight years ago the same country elected an acclaimed author and former president of Harvard Law Review. 

This is a reminder that history does not move in a straight line, and if enough people work hard enough, good times will come again."

--Andy Borowitz

Quote of the Day -- Sunday Edition

Think about it.  Then let's maybe do some things about it. All of it.

Entertainment Overnight -- Winter Light

Seems Accurate

Here's hoping he proves us wrong.

An Insightful Article, Dealing With Kansas City's Own Now-Gone Twinkies Plant

Remember Kansas City's Twinkies plant? The Hostess plant?

Sure you do.

And remember how, just before it closed and was sold off, the owners said it wasn't profitable because of the Unions and because of the workers' demands?

Yeah, well, bullshit.

How the Twinkie Made the Superrich 

Even Richer 

Here's your "class warfare" for you, folks. And I can tell you, the "upper class" is winning.

Again.

Some more.

If anyone, anyone is in the middle- or lower-class and against Unions, they're at least mistaken. Wildly mistaken.

If not stupid.

National and International Human Rights Day!

Yes sir! Today is National Human Rights Day! Celebrate! Get and be aware! Spread the information!

Human Rights Day - Official Site

Human Rights Day was established in 1948, and ever since that auspicious day it has stood as the first major stride forward in ensuring that the rights of every human across the globe are protected. From the most basic human needs such as food, shelter, and water, all the way up to access to free and uncensored information, such has been the goals and ambitions laid out that day.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was a shout across the world by the leading countries in the world, stating loud and clear that no matter where we live, what we believe, or how we love, we are each individually deserving of the most basic fundaments of human needs. Every year Human Rights Day marks conferences around the world dedicated to ensuring that these ideals are pursued, and that the basic Human Rights of every person is made a priority in the global theater.

Human Rights Day - Wikipedia

Human Rights Day – Dec. 10 – It’s Everyone’s Day

Human Rights Day and Threats to Your Rights around the WorldToday

Human rights under increasing attack worldwide

Human Rights Day: Four Freedoms for Children

The Problems of the World Today

Human Rights Issues | Amnesty International USA

Human Rights Day Facts 2016: How To Donate To Refugees And Others In Need

How to Celebrate Human Rights Day

The first and foremost way to celebrate Human Rights Day is to take some time to appreciate the effect that this resolution has had on your world and life. Look around your neighborhood and see the effects on a local scale, the charitable works being done to promote the health and well-being of those who are less fortunate.

The next step is to get out there and make a difference, whether it’s simply making a donation to one of the dozens of organizations that work towards this global purpose, or organizing a donation drive of your own to help out those organizations fighting the good fight.

Entertainment Overnight -- In Memoriam

Rest in peace, Greg Lake.

Greg Lake: King Crimson and ELP star dies

Teddy Roosevelt On the Presidency---From Our Own KC Star

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. 

Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. 

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

--President Theodore Roosevelt, Kansas City Star, May 7, 1918

Quote of the Day -- On the President-Elect

From Professor Robert Reich today from his Facebook page.

The 538 members of the Electoral College will meet December 19 to choose the president. Below you will find the list of those presidential electors, by state.

States in which a majority of citizens voted for Trump have electors who will presumably cast their ballots for him. But no federal law requires them to do so.

In fact, the reasons the framers of the Constitution created an Electoral College that could override the will of a majority of voters (who in 2016 chose Hillary Clinton by a majority of over 2.5 million votes) was to avoid

(1) a demagogue, or 

(2) someone controlled by foreign powers, or 

(3) someone incompetent to serve office.

Trump fits all three categories.

Texas elector Christopher Suprun wrote in a New York Times op-ed published Monday that he does not plan to vote for Trump because the president-elect is "someone who shows daily he is not qualified for the office." He urged others to rally behind a Republican alternative.

I ask you to find the addresses of the Trump electors, write to them, and ask them to use their authority under the Constitution to choose someone other than Donald Trump, for all the above-mentioned reasons.

List of United States presidential electors, 

2016

Entertainment Overnight -- In Memoriam

Dec. 5, 2012, one day short of his 92nd birthday.

Dave Brubeck, Jazz Musician, Dies at 91

Entertainment Overnight -- Voices

Terrific voices.

Entertainment Overnight -- Your Wednesday Forecast, Kansas City

I laughed, I cried.

Great Breaking News Out Of North Dakota Today--For Now

Yes, great news:

Army Corps of Engineers Denies Dakota Access Pipeline Route

Mind you, it's temporary. It's great news but it's temporary:

The Army Corps of Engineers has told the Oceti tribe that it will halt work on the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in order to conduct an environmental impact study, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe announced.

We're just a bit over a month away from having a new president installed in the White House, of course, first.  Second, there's the fact that, actually, the president-elect has a financial interest in seeing the pipeline go forward.

Trump Owns Stake In Hotly Disputed 

$3.8 Billion Oil Pipeline

So, no surprise.

Trump stands with Big Oil, backs the Dakota Access pipeline

So sure, it's a win for today. It's good news. I just don't think it's permanent. I expect this pipeline will go forward.

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

A New, Lighthearted Approach To Global Warming

I saw an ad in  The New York Times today for this organization, Save Our Snowmen. It told of a video one could see if you go to their site. So I did. Here it is.


And sure, it's cute and maybe amusing but I wonder if that's what we really need to help gain awareness of global warming and climate change. That is, do we need "cute" to help people pay attention and wake up to what we're doing as people, across the planet?

I guess if it adds people to the cause, it serves a good purpose.

It was followed on YouTube by one the Zurich Insurance also made.



Enjoy your Sunday, y'all and think happy thoughts.

GO CHIEFS!!

Even Glenn Beck Agrees About Trump

Yes, even Right Wing, ugliness- and ignorance spewing Glenn Beck agrees and admits that none other than Donald J. Trump, president-elect (I still shudder), is potentially scary and even dangerous.

Glenn Beck Is Sorry About All That

Quoting:

"I think he could be one of the most dangerous presidents to ever come into the Oval Office."

It's a good, if brief interview and article and it's certainly nice to see and hear some contrition and thought, introspection and even regret from anywhere, let alone a Right Winger like Mr. Beck. It's just that it's too late. Donald Trump is, God help us, President-elect.

Quote of the Day -- God Help Us

Entertainment Overnight -- Favorites

All of that individual style, all of that long gone period.







What a time. 

And we had so much in front of us.

Entertainment Overnight -- Moonlight

America, How Did You Do This?

We all, the world, for that matter, gave you far more credit than this.

Most Dangerous Nation In The World?

There is a terrific article out today over on TomDispatch. It's all about America--what we've been doing for some time, across the globe, what we're capable of and what we may yet do.

The Most Dangerous Country on Earth

It ain't Russia, kids.

The article poses the possibility of whether we, the United States, are, very likely and literally, the most dangerous nation in the world.

Honestly, no hyperbole, I think it's unquestionable.

Given our "yooge" army, our military and all our weapons and what we spend on what we call "defense" alone, that can be argued. Then, when you add in how many nations in the world we have military bases in? Over 700? All interfering in other nations' internal affairs?

Oh, yeah.

We think ourselves the most peaceful, peace-loving people in the world, sure. Standing up for peace and justice and fairness and right and equality. Sure we do.

But the truth? What we actually do? What we've done? What we're doing?

Read the article.

As it states, we just had the head of our own "..leading domestic investigative outfit...", the FBI, interfere in our own national election for our president.

Karma is most surely a bitch, isn't it?

And then, consider these facts. First, we spend more, as a nation, on what we call defense, than any other nation and in huge numbers.

Secondly, we supply more arms to the world than any other.



After repeatedly interfering in other nation's elections, at times assassinating one here or there and just "taking others out", our own investigative unit guides our own election.

The irony is virtually dripping.

You can go way back, at least decades, into what America has done in other nation's affairs or you can go to far more recent history with the Republican Party's and George W. Bush's very chosen war in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein. And then there's all over the Middle East, of course, and Southern and Central America.

So, yeah, America, get over yourself. Look around. You are the biggest threat to world peace in the world.

And you have been for some time.

And you have no intention of stopping.

Quote of the Day -- Timely Proof

"To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence."

--Mark Twain