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Category Archives: My Opinion


November 14, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

 November 14, 2021

Comment: The GOP (in all of its iterations) which has done nothing for the people since the 1800’s. It has continuingly lied about everything to keep power and enable its big money donors. The GOP did not want social security to become law (where would a lot of us be without it?) Right now, they are backing the insurrectionists and Trumpian lies to gain and maintain power. With the upcoming midterm elections, they are obstructing any initiatives that will gain votes and make the current administration look bad. We should all remember that what they do affects all of for better (if you make 500 thousand annually or more) or worse if you earn $150 thousand and less annually. MA

Last night, Trump’s disgraced former national security advisor Michael Flynn spoke at the “Reawaken America” conference in San Antonio, Texas, designed to whip up supporters to believe the 2020 election was stolen and that coronavirus vaccines are an infringement on their liberty. Flynn told the audience: “If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.”This statement flies in the face of our Constitution, whose First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” James Madison of Virginia, the key thinker behind the Constitution, had quite a lot to say about why it was fundamentally important to make sure the government kept away from religion.

In 1772, when he was 21, Madison watched as Virginia arrested itinerant preachers for attacking the established church in the state. He was no foe of religion, but by the next year, he had begun to question whether established religion, which was common in the colonies, was good for society. By 1776, many of his broad-thinking neighbors had come to believe that society should “tolerate” different religious practices; he had moved past tolerance to the belief that men had a right of conscience.

In that year, he was instrumental in putting Section 16 into the Virginia Declaration of Rights on which our own Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—would be based. It reads, “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”

In 1785, in a “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments,” he explained that what was at stake was not just religion, but also representative government itself. The establishment of one religion over others attacked a fundamental human right—an unalienable right—of conscience. If lawmakers could destroy the right of freedom of conscience, they could destroy all other unalienable rights. Those in charge of government could throw representative government out the window and make themselves tyrants.

Madison believed that a variety of religious sects would balance each other out, keeping the new nation free of the religious violence of Europe. He drew on that vision explicitly when he envisioned a new political system, expecting that a variety of political expressions would protect the new government. In Federalist #51, he said: “In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.”

Right on cue, Flynn’s call for one religion runs parallel to modern Republican lawmakers’ determination to make their party supreme.

The 13 Republicans in the House who were willing to vote yes and give Democratic president Joe Biden a win with the popular bipartisan infrastructure bill are now facing increasing harassment, including death threats from Trump supporters. Although he talked about passing his own infrastructure bill, former president Trump opposed the measure on Biden’s watch, and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene called those voting for it “traitor Republicans.”

Meanwhile, Republicans remain silent about the video released by Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), showing a cartoon version of himself killing a Democratic congresswoman. Sixty Democratic representatives are sponsoring a bill to censure Gosar; not even the Republican Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), has condemned the video.

It turns out the plot to overturn the election of a Democratic president was wider than we knew. New information from a forthcoming book by ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl reveals that Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows was deeply involved. On New Year’s Eve, Meadows emailed to then–vice president Mike Pence’s top aide a memo outlining how Pence could steal the election for Trump.

On Friday, Meadows refused to testify before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, ignoring a subpoena. His lawyer, George Terwilliger III, said that Trump had told him not to testify on the grounds of executive privilege, but as far as I can tell, Trump has not actually made that claim over Meadows’s testimony.

That did not stop Meadows’s lawyer from taking to the pages of the Washington Post to try to defend his client. His op-ed was quite misleading both about precedent and about the limits of executive privilege: as the committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and vice-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said, “there’s nothing extraordinary about the Select Committee seeking the cooperation of a former senior administration official. Throughout U.S. history, the White House has provided Congress with testimony and information when it has been in the public interest. There couldn’t be a more compelling public interest than getting answers about an attack on our democracy.”

But Terwilliger insisted the committee was out of bounds in demanding that Meadows testify. He indicated that the only reasonable compromise between the committee and Meadows was for the former chief of staff to answer written questions.

Terwilliger seems concerned that Meadows will get caught in lies if he testifies. The select committee says that “Meadows has failed to answer even the most basic questions, including whether he was using a private cell phone to communicate on January 6th, and where his text messages from that day are.” That sure makes it sound like they have information on his actions that day, leaving him open to getting caught if he tries to lie. Written answers are much safer.

Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee and member of the select committee, said today the committee would move forward quickly to refer Meadows to the Department of Justice for criminal contempt of Congress.

As Madison foresaw, the Republicans’ attempt to cement their power endangers the country. On Friday, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released transcripts of interviews with officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledging that Trump administration officials stopped them from talking to the public and altered their scientific guidance about the coronavirus, accusing them of trying “to harm our commander in chief, the President.” More than 750,000 Americans have now died from COVID.

Their power play hurts us abroad, as well. Tensions surrounding Russia remain high. Yesterday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked to Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau to reaffirm U.S. support for Poland—a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—as Belarus’s leader Alexander Lukashenko tries to destabilize Europe by forcing migrants over the Polish border. The State Department noted that the turmoil on the Polish border “seeks to threaten security, sow division, and distract from Russia’s activities on the border with Ukraine,” where Russian president Vladimir Putin has recently pushed a large military buildup.

But, as Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) pointed out this morning, “Senate Republicans are blocking the confirmation of our NATO and EU Ambassadors so as to deliberately hamper global security…because they believe global instability will hurt Biden, and hurting Biden is all that matters.”

—

Notes:

[I corrected the spelling of “practice” in Madison’s quotation.]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/memo-trump-attorney-outlined-pence-overturn-election-book/story?id=81134003

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/03/trump-loyalists-doctors-ministers-reawaken-america-tour

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/12/trump-white-house-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows-ducks-jan-6-riot-panel-.html

https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/thompson-cheney-statement-mark-meadows-0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/13/abandoning-executive-privilege-biden-rejects-200-years-history/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/12/politics/house-committee-cdc-covid-trump-administration-response/index.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-death-threat-andrew-garbarino-arrest-gop-pressure-2021-11

Twitter avatar for @ianbassin

Ian Bassin

@ianbassin

New documents show Trump Admin silenced CDC at start of pandemic, tried to alter expert scientific reports, and then tried to delete evidence they were doing so. We were the most prepared nation in the world but now more than 750,000 Americans have died.

House committee releases new evidence from investigation into Trump administration interference with CDC during Covid-19 pandemic

Dr. Jonathan Reiner reacts to President Donald Trump telling the Wall Street Journal that he “probably won’t” get a Covid-19 vaccine booster.

cnn.com

November 13th 2021

18,529 Retweets37,358 Likes

Twitter avatar for @hugolowell

Hugo Lowell

@hugolowell

New: Lawyer for Trump WH chief of staff Mark Meadows says in WaPo Op-Ed that one solution to standoff with Jan. 6 committee is written questions — appearing to suggest Meadows is afraid of perjuring himself

November 14th 2021

2,879 Retweets11,964 Likes

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-resolution/789/all-info?r=26&s=1

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-01-02-0027

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/virginia-declaration-of-rights

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-0163#JSMN-01-08-02-0163-fn-0014-ptr

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When The Ceiling Falls In


The ongoing resistance to voting freedom by GOP governed states and the minority Senate is at once a precursor and retro reminder of the actions under the GOP’s effort to reduce voter participation in our most valued and important activity as a nation. This has been the GOP’s actions since the 1800’s (which was one part of the Civil War reasons to fight our fellow Americans). This is all about power and the ability to create laws that disenfranchise all of us while promoting the well being of the top earners who control 99% of the U.S.’s wealth and pay little to no taxes. If you are being taken in by the rhetoric surrounding this budget fight then you are missing the real issues. The public face of these legislative fights are a cover for the real context which is to control the government by limiting access to voting, installing legal authorities that favor the GOP’s lines of thought. In short the GOP will take us back 100 years when there no middle class and those aspirations for a better life were no more than a pipe dream. The GOP was responsible for the marihuana ban, the “red” scare by Joe McCarthy in the 50’s, the rise of right wing religious sects (who sought (and are still at it) controlling the health rights of women under the guise of saving the unborn. To be clear I have no particular stand on abortion but I have a concern over potential orphans and abused children as a result of unwanted births. The effect of allowing the GOP to prevail could be an America that is good for the minority not the majority or the haves and the have nots. We are within arm reach of a “TOTUS” imagined country where we can be lied to in the face of facts and be expected to believe what we are told. We have to examine closely the actions of ALL politicians and understand which parts of their actions actually work for us or against us and speak out, there is no other way.

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The Big Lie and Education


October 16, 2021Heather Cox Richardson

On October 8, the executive director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, told a teacher to make sure to follow Texas’s new law requiring teachers to present opposing views on controversial subjects. The Carroll school board had recently reprimanded a fourth-grade teacher who had kept an anti-racism book in her classroom, and teachers wanted to know what books they could keep in their own classrooms. “Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979,” the curriculum director said. “And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust,” the director continued, “that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives.”The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of about two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population—about six million people—during World War II. “How do you oppose the Holocaust?” one teacher said. “Believe me,” the director said. “That’s come up.”The Texas legislature passed another law that is going into effect in December. S.B. 3, known as the Critical Race Theory bill. It specifies what, exactly, social studies courses should teach to students. Those guidelines present a vision of how American citizens should perceive their nation. They should have “an understanding of the fundamental moral, political, and intellectual foundations of the American experiment in self-government; the history, qualities, traditions, and features of civic engagement in the United States; the structure, function, and processes of government institutions at the federal, state, and local levels.” But they should get that information in a specific way: through the Declaration of Independence; the United States Constitution; the Federalist Papers, including Essays 10 and 51; excerpts from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America; the transcript of the first Lincoln-Douglas debate; and the writings of the founding fathers of the United States; the history and importance of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964; and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.While they managed to add in de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America—and I would be shocked if more than a handful of people have ever read that account of early America—there are some pointed omissions from this list. The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees Black voting, didn’t make it, although the Nineteenth Amendment, which grants women the right to vote, did. Also missing is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, although the Civil Rights Act of the previous year is there. Topics explicitly eliminated from the teaching standard are also instructive. Those things cut from the standards include: “the history of Native Americans,” and “[founding] mothers and other founding persons.” Under “commitment to free speech and civil discourse,” topics struck from the standards include  “the writings of…George Washington; Ona Judge (a woman Washington enslaved and who ran away); Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings (the enslaved woman Jefferson took as a sexual companion after the death of his wife, her half-sister),” and “any other founding persons of the United States.” The standards lost Frederick Douglass’s writings, the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that forced Indigenous Americans off their southeastern lands, and Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists defending the separation of church and state. The standards lost “historical documents related to the civic accomplishments of marginalized populations” including documents related to the Chicano movement, women’s suffrage and equal rights, the civil rights movement, Indigenous rights, and the American labor movement.The standards also lost “the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong” and “the history and importance of the civil rights movement.” The legislature took three pages to outline all the things that teachers may not teach, including all the systemic biases the right associates with Critical Race Theory (although that legal theory is not taught in K–12 schools), and anything having to do with the 1619 Project.Teachers cannot be forced to teach current events or controversial issues, but if they choose to do so, they must “strive to explore that topic from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.” Supporters of the measure said that teachers should teach facts and not “choose sides.” The lawmakers who wrote the new standards said they had been crafted to eliminate redundancy. In 2019, the state wrote standards to teach character traits—courage, integrity and honesty—and instructions to include particular people or events could simply duplicate those concepts. “If you want to talk about courage, talk about George Washington crossing the Delaware, or William Barret Travis defending the Alamo,” a member of the state board of education said. Editing from our history Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farmworkers’ Association—she was eliminated by name—as well as Abigail Adams and Frederick Douglass and the 1924 Snyder Act (by which the nation recognized Indigenous citizenship) does more than whitewash our history. That editing warps what it means to be an American. Our history is not about individual feats of courage or honesty in a vacuum. It is about the efforts of people in this country to determine their own fate and to elect a government that will enable them to do that. A curriculum that talks about individual courage and integrity while erasing the majority of us, as well as the rules that enable us to have a say in our government by voting, is deliberately untethered from national democratic principles.It gives us a school that does not dare take a position on the Holocaust.—Notes:https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/southlake-texas-holocaust-books-schools-rcna2965https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/871/billtext/pdf/SB00003I.pdfhttps://www.kvue.com/article/news/politics/texas-legislature/critical-race-theory-senate-texas-legislature/269-9e40d158-a700-437b-8bf0-8d8a2aaeec92
Kevin Kallaugher Comic Strip for October 17, 2021
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Politicians Lying And Vying For Power


With the midterms coming poLIticians are all looking to gain control of Congress, one one side it may not be so bad, on another side we may descend into the type of chaos that preceded the “war Between the States”. The recent machinations of Botch and Kevin along with others are a warning sign of what could be. A historic lookback: Germany 1933 where revolt was based on what particular people of color and ethnicity were “reported” to do, had done and will do. This is the “Trump effect”, using bias as fact to achieve a goal. The GOP unfortunately has hitched their wagon to this horse in the hope of gaining control of the government from top to bottom. If we as voters do not pay attention any progress made so far (even with the missteps) will be gone. we should remember that the GOP raised the debt ceiling several times to accommodate the prior administration with no movement on physical infrastructure and added approx. 7Bn dollars to the national debt due to the “tax Reform” which benefitted the top earners and increased the tax burden on the rest of us. Add to that the stream of lies about the upsurge of Covid and unproven or vetted cures as opposed to the eventual vaccines we currently use. With all of last years anti vax rhetoric we lost 700,000 citizens due to misinformation that’s more lives lost than in the Civil War. It is unfortunate that poLIticians have become so callous in their actions as to deny the basic needs of ALL American Taxpayers no matter the race, religion or ethnicity. Our option is the vote where we can attempt to install better representation.

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Legacy of Future debt is: Fallacy


The GOP who raised debt ceiling 8 times to finance the touted “tax cuts” and other misbegotten laws and executive orders are pushing the idea that the proposed spending will saddle future generations with debt. The facts are these funds will be spent over 10 plus years not 1 year as hinted by the GOP. It is well known that many of us do not (with good reason) trust politicians no matter the party however the misdeeds on either side bear remembering when elections roll around again. Bear in mind the two letters in the middle of poLItican is “LI(e)”! To cite a movie line: What we have here is a failure to communicate”, with those words we sum up the relationship between our elected representatives and us, the taxpayers. The daily sucking up to the words of the former president and adherence to the voluminous lies he is spewing daily is the GOP line now. Since our elected officials are following this line of thought for their own gain, it is time that we look seriously at who we vote for and consider some legislation that will limit terms and several of the perks associated with the Congressional offices. If there is no incentive to stay in office for 20 years and retire in ease, perhaps we can get proper legislation and governance. We should be aware that Congress has over the years made rules that benefit them and their personal well being. Now as a group they are telling us (taxpayers) don’t believe the facts and what you see, believe the lies we are telling you and keep us in office or as the former liar said” Only I can save you” while pouring water on you and saying it’s just a little shower! If you are paying attention you will see that the stopping or otherwise affecting the spending needed for infrastructure that is long overdue is not in our best interests. The previous administration did nothing even after raising the debt ceiling and putting us more in debt with “tax reform” which benefitted “them” not “us”! To be blunt the GOP wants to regain control to cover their own immoral acts and commit more much like they did in the 1800’s prior to the war between the states.

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Looks Like Congress!


Mike Luckovich Comic Strip for October 07, 2021
Congress doubling down since the 1800’s
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Composite Hypocrisy


The GOP is balking against the proposed spending by the DEMS (who are divided themselves). yet they have gone along with an idiot while using his blustering as a cover for their own budgetary acts. These are the actions of self serving politicians, not leaders. The primary job (supposedly) of elected officials is to administer the government in the best interests of the voters and taxpayers not their party and it’s overall agenda. No matter who you affiliate with politically, it should be noted that weight placed on some is also placed on all in someway or another. The party line is not necessarily what the party leaders do for us or to us. We as taxpayers are left to read between the lines and we need to read carefully. The current fight over budgets and funding is purely political and should not even be happening as the Congress has known for years that our infrastructure and manufacturing has been relegated to unimportant because it costs money. Of course it costs money and that money is why we pay taxes (except for the top 1%). Now the GOP is standing in the way of funding for needed infrastructure. Which they could have and should have done when they were in the majority. The uproar or false information about the burden on future generations neglects the fact that the plan is to cover about 5 to 10 years not one year. The current chip shortage possibly could have been a non issue if the US chip makers were not allowed to put the manufacturing in a foreign country that is our biggest rival in manufacturing and world presence. Thank you Congress for doing the Washington 2 step while whistling Dixie!

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Voters make Changes Not Office holders


Many of us have come to believe that our votes do not count, wrong. Our votes do count and the electeds know it. The recent voting law changes are evidence of that. Historically the current GOP has switched sides several times in order to do as little as possible for the voters and that has not changed to this day. As Democrats they did not want social programs put forth by then President Roosevelt, they then became Republicans and evolved to be who they are now but still the anti public good office holders. The writing has never been off of the wall but many of us have just painted over it in the hope of not looking at it but no amount of primer will cover the facts that the current GOP is a culmination of years of misdeeds on behalf of big money against the people who put them in office. there is no greater sin than ignoring the machinations of the current anti voter GOP. TOTUS has allowed and indeed legitimized lying to get in office and lying to stay there. While politicians are prone to hyperbole and disinformation while actively coloring the truth, there are some who still work for the public good. We as taxpayers and voters need to pay attention to the person we vote for rather than the party they work under. There is no greater error than following a party that works against us while pushing the “we work for the people” line. The current political system is about self service with the end game of retiring with a handsome pension after doing 20 plus years of nominal work. This is America, once a poster child of how a country should work but now the real truth emerges in disastrous ways. Thank you TOTUS for making these facts public though you didn’t know you were doing it.

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Against Intelligent Information, We Vote Poorly


Many voters have consistently voted against our own interests because we have a love hate relationship with the government. This rational and irrational relationship has allowed the worst of the political class to assume power and relegate the good things done for us to be coopted and corrupted in their favor while telling us that what they do against us is good for us- we still elect them time after time. In our voting we are as “third world” as any third world country. Solution: investigate and pay attention to all who run for office no matter how long they have been there. Once we do that we will begin to experience the promise of the Constitution. It is never too late to re evaluate your political viewpoint. Remember two letters in the middle tell the story- poLIticians!

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Taxpayer Dole Out 95 Million Annually For Talking Heads


Combined conservative salary for Congress is 94,161,000.00 annually. Taxpayers get little value from 535 talking heads whose sole objective is to stay in office until retirement while doing as little as possible and making idiotic statements and playing politics. Our task is to stop retaining them time after time. Many of us (voters) fail to realize that we can get rid of them anytime by voting for someone else. In these times we are too divided to see the power we have to achieve better representation. This divide is what the politicians want and need to continue their nefarious ways. You can be sure that when confronted these tongue waggers will almost never answer a direct question, their main defense is deflection with a smile. There are a few members who can and most of the time tell the truth or their truth but most follow party lines in order to remain in office with the support of the party. When we (voters) stop buying into the established Racial stereotypes and understand that we (the voters) have the power to get and demand proper government no matter the race, religion or gender is when we will begin to get the government we deserve and is insured by the constitution (which is only 4 pages long, amendments add 19 more pages) long a under read and understood document. The past four years of a wannabe dictator should be enough to unite us all to consider who we vote for and which group is really working for us no matter their errant ways.

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