It’s not something that we don’t know about, we just allowed our minds to trick us into thinking that they were no long a threat. White Supremacy cloaked in theological dogma never stopped being a threat. It has been lying quietly like a dormant cancer waiting to corrupt enough cells to stage a surging comeback. It is now making its presence clear and it is daring us to try to stop it from taking what its followers believe is their supreme privileged role over all nonwhites and non-christians..

Once they observed that Minorities and Progressives would not engage in numbers strong enough to thwart them in 2000, 2004, 2010, 2014, 2016, and 2020 they successfully enacted strategies funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers (The Tea Party), billionaire Robert Mercer ( Funded Ted Cruz for President and later DJT and Steve Bannon), anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist ,and thousands of corporate entities under the name of ‘The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives who draft and share model legislation for distribution among state governments in the United States.

These entities and others like them have been working for generations to regain ground they felt they lost when LBJ successfully oversaw the enactment of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation of the 60’s. They sat back and used their religious camouflaged to gain support from Conservative Blacks who continued their alliances to the Republican Party even after the racist white Dixiecrats fled the Democratic Party to support Nixon and Reagan and eventually transform the Republican Party of Lincoln and Everett Dirksen into the racist theologically authoritarian maga party of DJT.

Many Minorities have embraced the religious elements of the party and ignored the racist parts. Many Progressives have stood against Democrats for not being bold when their legislative numbers have not been sufficient enough on the state and local levels to do anything in ‘Conservative Red States’ and they don’t have the number to leverage much of a policy agenda on the Federal level, especially in the US Senate. My point is the woefully educated and informed US electorate now finds itself on the cusp of being totally impotent to stop the will of the ‘American Taliban’. These people are White Supremist who believe the US is a christian nation that was founded to be ruled by whites and the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state is to be completely ignored because man’s law is subordinate to their god’s laws as they interpret scripture.

Here is the bottom line. If any one of the candidates for major state office wins their elections in battle ground states during the upcoming elections, they will have and will exercise the power to hand over the Presidency and control of Congress to DJT and any of his acolytes. They will use the SCOTUS to continue to rule in favor of the rights of states to breach Constitutionally granted freedoms and reimpose laws that that disadvantage nonwhites, women, LGBTQ people, workers, children, and those who lack wealth. Basically 95% of the US population will be negatively impacted.

We are seeing a replay of how the ‘Third Reich’ rose to power, and the forces that stopped them before are now under the thumb of those who are intent on using theology in a play to succeed where authoritarianism has failed miserably before. We have ignored this threat for too long. We have celebrated winning a battle as the war took a turn against us. Now the survival of our liberty and freedom is at serious risk.

Let me say out loud what many believe as we look at what lies ahead on the political horizons. I am not bothered that Biden may face a Democratic primary challenge. Honestly he was supposed to be a one term President. I believe that if Merrick Garland doesn’t indict DJT for planning the January 6, 2021 coup attempt, Biden is assured his one term anyway.

The thing about the attached article I have provided below is this: All the reasons that are outlined for the potential Democratic contenders in 2024 also apply to the GOP/MAGA contenders as well. So if Garland, state AGs, and county DA’s can take DJT out of play they will in fact level the 2024 playing field This scenario works even better if the Democrats can hold the House and secure three to four more Senate seats in the midterms. They can secure voting rights, choice rights for abortion and same sex marriage, as well as expand SCOTUS so the laws won’t be over turned.

Its not as unlikely as talking heads might have thought three months ago. The best thing Biden can do for democracy and his party is not seek another term. Oh and by the way, whoever the Democratic nominee is, they should commit to naming Vice-President Kamala Harris as the next AG to head the DOJ. I understand why Biden chose her as a running mate. Unfortunately, she has also been exposed as not capable of putting together the staff one would expect of the actual President. However, I am certain she would go in and address everything that Merrick Garland appears to be too timid to do. Appearances can be deceiving, but VP Harris would leave no question of her intentions to clean up the religious Conservative White Supremist Nazification of our country and freedoms.

There are plenty of younger Democrats ready to take up the mantle, so Biden, Sanders, Warren, Feinstein and other moderates can take a seat now. By the same token, I am hopeful that people like Stacey Abrams, Pramila Jayapal, Katie Porter, Chris Murphy, Sheldon Whitehouse and others will step up in a pragmatic way, First, they need to secure Congressional majorities then implement policies. The more progressive minded Democrats have to understand that their all-or-none approach to governing has never been successful. At the same time Confederate minded authoritarian Republicans have been on a slow move to take and enact power since the 1930’s. They have been slowly plotting and retaking the power they lost for almost 100 years.

Their strategy began showing some success with the election of Ronald Reagan and the Republicans winning control of Congress during the Clinton years. Since that time they have been on a major tear because Democrats and Progressives have sat out major midterm, state and local, elections. Now they are seeking to seal off the doors to democracy by controlling who runs elections and controls the electoral college votes under the auspices of elected egomaniacs carrying the MAGA banner.

Is it too late to stop this madness? Last night I listened to a video of parents in Uvalde TX asking the school board there why the Chief of School Police Pete Arredondo was still employed. These parents are largely Hispanic and the town voted overwhelmingly DJT by some 63%. Do you think having a force of over 370 cops standing outside while a shooter killed 19 of their children and two women teachers have made them more aware of the awful toll uninformed voting has cost them?

I am listening to stories of women who have had miscarriages who can’t get doctors to perform D&C procedures because abortions of any kind are illegal in their states. Do you think people are waking up to understanding their vulnerability to religious ideologs who don’t care if the life of the mother is at risk as long as the fetus thrives? But these folks overlook the scientific fact that if the mother dies so will the fetus.

My point is basic. It’s time to begin changing the guard. It is time the varied Democratic constituencies stop fighting for their different agendas in a selfish way and devise strategies to accomplish all they desire one step at a time. It is time that the Progressive minded policy makers understand that the popular faces in large urban cities are not so popular in the smaller cities and less populated states. So they have to be smarter about taking their ideas to those areas. Instead of defunding the police, how about redefining what police should be doing and holding them .accountable for how effective they are, Then they should be held accountable when there are clear violations of their oaths .

There should be no more shooting unarmed citizens for simple traffic violations. Badges and guns should not be given to officers with known white supremist affiliations and they should be prosecuted when involved in shootings or other acts of terrorism against citizens when evidence suggests that they stepped beyond their authority. This means ending ‘Qualified Immunity’ and holding those officers financially accountable for their actions.

Biden can set the next generation of Democratic leaders up by taking bold stances and executive actions now on climate issues, abortion, voting rights, public health, and to some degree student loans. This will excite the base and level the playing field for the upcoming midterms and let the next generation of Democratic leaders, who should be forward thinking in policy and messaging began to stand up….”If Biden decides against another term, there will be a healthy open primary for the nomination. One problem for the Democrats is that the obvious frontrunner will be Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris. Though his poll numbers are slipping, Biden can still make the credible case that he can defeat Donald Trump a second time if Trump chooses to run again. Harris’s polling numbers are as frail as Biden’s, and she ran a very poor campaign for the presidency in 2019. Harris is simultaneously well-positioned to defeat any Democrat who takes her on, and is poorly suited for a general election, where she’d carry all the baggage of the Biden years without being able to summon the memory of Barack Obama, who Biden served with for eight years. A Kamala Harris 2024 campaign, for Democrats, could end up the worst of all worlds.

Ideally – and this would not happen, because Harris is ambitious – Democrats would find a way to hold an open primary without any of the candidates tied directly to the Biden administration. Beyond Biden, there are a growing number of Democrats across America who could be viable in a general election against Trump or Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, the most politically potent Republican hovering around 2024 right now. If they win re-election, Georgia senator Raphael Warnock and Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, could be top contenders, having won multiple times on forbidding swing turf. Warnock would be particularly strong as a charismatic Black candidate – he was a prominent pastor – with the potential to recreate Obama’s multiracial coalition. Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, assuming he survives his 2022 re-election campaign, is another purple-state Democrat who would be an intriguing national candidate, having made a name for himself by defying liberals on unpopular Covid restrictions.

Part of Harris’s weakness is that, as a California senator, she was never battle-tested in a state where Democrats don’t dominate. Both JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, and Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, have the Harris problem: they run states where Republicans are increasingly impotent. As executives, they can argue, unlike legislators, they have to make tough decisions each day that affect millions of people. Pritzker is attempting to be a national leader on gun control and Newsom is taking on DeSantis directly, running ads in Florida promoting California as a place that won’t infringe on abortion rights and meddle in the classroom.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/13/democrats-2024-biden-alternative

I never said that Voters should not engage and fight back at the theocratic and authoritarian partisan public policy moves being handed down by Conservatives who have gained the power to control their state governments. Don’t blame Democrats. All you apathetic, “When they gonna stand up for us” voters need to stop admiring your reflections in the mirror, look beyond the makeup and hair styles and get real about what you’ve become and stop blaming the Democrats for your failures.

You failed Obama in 2010, again 2014, his legacy in 2016 and you’re threatening to do it again in 2022. You damn near lost the House Majority in 2020, and if you understood basic civics it would have dawned on you that you need more than a 50-50 Senate and to move transformative legislation forward. Instead you simply looked at the most basic math, but you didn’t bother to learn a damn thing about the unique Senate rules that jammed up Obama’s Judicial nominations for years. But now its “The Democrats don’t fight hard enough.”

Democrats have been fighting loud and hard for years. But somehow you believe that you’re just suppose to vote for the Presidency and then go back to sleep for another four years and they will take care of things. When you wake up and find things all fucked up, it’s the Democrat’s fault. That is pure uncut unfiltered bullshit!. You go to work, when its payday do you trust someone else to handle your money, use it to pay your bills, and bring you back the rest to handle your banking and other life needs? Oh that is assuming that you have a banking relationship and you’re not using one of those check cashing places.

But no its the Democrats who are to blame. Its not the Conservative think tanks that get millions from wealthy donors of the top 1% to develop policies that further secure their economic interests at our expense. No, its not the Churches in this country that control over $1.4 trillion dollars, pay no taxes, but can access policy makers to adopt positions that ignore the desires of the majority of the citizens.. The article I included today says we have been knowing that SCOTUS was going to overturn ‘Abortion Rights’ since the Conservatives obtained a 5 to 4 majority.

People have been telling you that the President and the Senate majority matters since SCOTUS handed Bush the Presidency in 2000. However somehow you, the member of the non-voting electorate believes it’s Democrats who are responsible for exciting you to vote your own interest.

Here is the bottom line truth about the whole thing. Republicans, are passionate about voting their two key interests, money and White entitlement.. Oh Yeah and religion plays a key role in maintaining the status quo there. Look at the people of color who support the GOP public policy myths because they have been persuaded that somehow these policies are ordained by some higher power. In Ferguson, MO only 12% of eligible blacks were voting until Michael Brown was killed. Later we discovered that over70% of traffic tickets and court fines handed out by the majority White police force and judges were to Black motorists.

Imagine my shock to discover that over 60% of the largely Hispanic town of Uvalde, Tx voted for DJT and Greg Abbott. People ignore their own interest on public policy issues but it’s the Democrats fault for not getting you enthusiastic enough to look out for yourselves. You want Democrats to do more? Then stop whining and get involved, Make some calls, Help organize educational outlets, help keep people informed. Informed voting is your obligations and responsibility.

Democrats don’t need to marshal their anger. Voters who don’t like what they are seeing going on with this move towards theocratic White Nationalism need to marshal our anger and hold the corrupt and corruptible accountable to the laws they have violated. Here is a passage from and a link to the article that inspired my message today….

…”Have today’s Democrats forgotten how to fight? Or are they refusing to do so because too many of them are beholden to the same moneyed interests that also back the Republican-fascists and the “conservative” movement? Whatever the explanation, at a moment when America desperately needs spirited defenders of democracy, the Democratic Party’s leaders are acting demoralized, with little fighting spirit.

In a recent essay at Medium, Dr. Mark Goulston, a leading psychiatrist, former FBI hostage negotiation trainer and the author of the bestsellers “Just Listen” and “Talking to ‘Crazy,’” offers a provocative explanation for the Democratic Party’s weakness. He argues that Democrats are “highly conflict avoidant” and that such a temperament has made them “mincemeat to the vast majority of the GOP who is allegiant to Donald Trump.”

In my recent conversation with Goulston, he expanded on this analysis, arguing that Democrats keep losing to the Republicans because they refuse to speak passionately, clearly and in declarative terms to the American people. He warns that Republicans, especially Trump loyalists, are bullies who embrace and welcome conflict, and that Democrats do not fight back effectively because they refuse to acknowledge the reality that bullies must be confronted and cannot be negotiated with or defeated with rational arguments. Goulston further explains that Trump’s followers remain loyal to him precisely because of his antisocial and anti-human behavior, not despite it.

Goulston also explains that many members of America’s political class and the news media are naive or in denial about the nature of human evil, and therefore continue to express shock and surprise at each new revelation about the obvious crimes of the Trump regime. At the end of this conversation Goulston shares the advice he would give to Biden and other Democratic leaders about how to break their pattern of self-defeating behavior and formulate a winning plan to defeat the Republicans and preserve American democracy.  

American society is experiencing multiple crises at once. Democracy is in crisis, and fascism is in the ascendancy.  The pandemic has killed more than a million people in this country. There is extreme social inequality. There are mass shootings. The country is in a state of perennial grief and mourning but with no real catharsis or reckoning. It feels like America is on the verge of self-destruction, a form of societal and political suicide. How are you making sense of all this?

What you are describing is not just one moment of “suicidality.” There are actually several moments or a prolonged period of time where people who feel suicidal form psychological adhesions to death as a way to take away their pain. It’s not a psychological attachment, because a person can reason through that. A psychological adhesion is different: A person tucks that in their back pocket, so to speak. When you get slightly past the impulse, you reassure everybody: “I’m fine.” But in your back pocket is this option, this exit strategy, this permanent solution to a temporary problem that you can always exercise if things get really bad. People don’t talk about it because they don’t want to scare others.””

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/11/dr-mark-goulston-on-why-democrats-keep-losing-theyre-afraid-of-their-own-anger/

“

I was listening to the news and again heard analysts with a Progressive leaning say “Democrats have to learn to fight like Republicans”. There is a major flaw in this premise. Frist the Democratic Party is a big tent, under it are constituencies that often have conflicting interests. White Women and Black Women don’t always have the same interests. Different minority groups, i.e. Black, Hispanic, Asian, LGBTQ and all the subgroupings, do not always have the same interests. Neither of these groups has the economic, social, and political power to consistently control how the country is governed and develops culturally.

The Republican Party is largely driven by Religious Conservative White Males who control the underlying economic forces of the country and have the financial resources to buy the political influence that they need at all times, even when it is useful to them to appropriate various elements of cultures they wish to restrict if it drives profitability.

Recently it hit me. When Progressives say ‘Democrats need to be more like Republicans’, that is tantamount to asking “Why don’t Jedi act more like Stiths? Why don’t Jedi use more of the Dark Side of the Force?” This was a startling clarifying realization for me because to the amazing cultural impact and insights that ‘Star Wars’ has had on our society and how it has subtly interpreted the history of human governance and greed for absolute power.

Let’s be completely honest here. Today’s Republicans were once associated with the Democratic Party as a racist subgroup called ‘Dixiecrats. They originated ‘Jim Crow Laws’ after Rutherford B. Hayes agreed to pull Federal troops, protecting freed slaves, out of the southern states in 1877, about 12 years after they arrived in Galveston Texas in 1865. That action took place about 18 months after the Emancipation Proclamation went into affect..

Let there be no misunderstanding, the marginalization of White males who didn’t own property, women, Aboriginal Peoples, African, Asian, and other immigrants has always been at the foundation of American public policy. So racism and sexism are human characteristics that have always been a part of the American experiment in democracy. However, along the way White woman gained the right to vote, But for years POC were terrorized for their efforts to gain access to the vote in southern states, but also met resistance in northern states during the ‘Great Migration’ when POC fled the south for work in the north.

Because White males in the north were threaten by the competition in the labor force many turned a blind eye to what was going on in the south and not grasping why minorities were migrating form the south for work and what they perceived were safer living conditions. In addition to this White males and females found if possible to accept racial hatred or indifference within the context of their religious practices, accepting that god had somehow ordained this acceptable despite the ’10 Commandments’.

The basic point of the analogy here is simple, Eurocentric Whites have always found comfort and use in the ‘Dark Side of the force’.. Minorites seeking to gain favor with Whites have also found the ‘Dark Side of the force’ could provide a measure of acceptability from Whites if they proved themselves to be useful to the overall efforts of subjugation non-Whites. It was also easier to obtain compliance if it was framed in a religious context. This method proved successful world wide as almost all aboriginal peoples and cultures succumbed to one of the Abrahamic religions.

So the basic premise here is that the Big Tent Democratic Party should become more like the White Nationalist racially hateful Republican MAGA base. But if we have learned nothing else from the ‘Star Wars Saga’ we know that the axiom of Master Yoda is true, once you start down the path of the ‘Dark Side’, you inevitably fall to the ‘Dark Side’.

The answer is not to do that, The answer is this, those of us who know we are targeted and are potential targets of White Nationalist racial subjugation must become involved and remain involved in fighting off these efforts. We have known this since 1863. We were told that SCOTUS was where we would find challenges, Tavis Smiley told us this before he lost his focus in the early days of the Obama campaign for President. You fight the ‘Dark Side’ by standing for your own interests, our collective interests, and not expecting any one else to do that for us.

How did we end up in this place today? Too many of us chose to believe that others would look out for us. What they did was look out to catch us not looking out for ourselves and they moved on our lack of focus and attention. Democrats don’t need to be more like Republicans, voters need to be more like what we are, ‘We The People’, not the corporations, not the top 1%, but the larger majority voice, We need to be willing to hold those accountable who would work to subjugate and marginalize us.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/04/why-do-jedi-turn-to-the-dark-side.html

Let me make this clear. I took the liberty of changing the name of a character in the story below from the way it originally read to reflect the reality of who is telling is that the grass is blue when if comes to the economy, the January 6 insurrection, inflation, the pandemic, and a host of other ills that are currently ravaging humanity and the planet. The truth is the faux evangelical elephants and their capitalist gods have crashed American ideals and tell you they will do nothing for you, but that those governing to fix the problem are incompetent.

Think about that point again, every major economic downturn during was caused by the greedy overreach of capitalism mixed with fake patriotism, religious inspired racism, sexism, and autocracy. Now with major tax cuts for the rich, which were designed to shackle good governance for the majority of citizens, we have a relative small group of wealthy people and corporations that position themselves to profit in good times and economically challenging times. It’s the return of the ‘Robber Barons’ on steroids.

While capitalists profit, they have faux-religious leaders who also feed well at the trough in the name of bogus spiritual doctrine. Today its Q-anon and the DJT loving MAGA evangelicals who believe that he and or Mike Pence are ordained by the god they worship to reboot ‘White Nationalism’ and put America back in order.

But Don’t think it just those on the right. I remember Bernie Sanders wanting to primary President Obama before the 2012 election. Later he extended the 2016 primary season, his supporters blamed HRC’s loss on what they referred as low information Minority voters while they stayed home. Bernie himself took the position that Democrats lost because their constituency is too broad and excludes ‘Working Class Voters’. More precisely, he said that democrats need to move away from ‘Identity Politics’ Translation::Democrats :need to move away from their minority constituents and toward White Males and religious influenced White Females.

Oddly enough, it took a strong but unreliable coalition of Black Women, Young progressive minded educated people, Progressive minded Hispanics of aboriginal descent, Progressive minded White Women, Progressive minded members of the LGBTQ Communities to garner a razor thin win in 2020. While the win was stunning because a Biden Presidency was not expected in the media, despite the total incompetency of DJT, When Democrats also won control of the Senate by electing two Senators from Georgia it was even more of a surprise.

So what is happening now? Well we’re being told that the Democrats are facing strong headwinds coming into the 2022 midterm elections. Never mind that the real level of corruption and designs by the Republicans to install a theocratic authoritarian government that will force citizens bow to the likes of DJT, Q-anon, White Racists militias, corporate oligarchy, individual oligarchy and an out of control SCOTUS.

All these elements are telling us that the ‘Grass IS Blue’! The real shame is that many in the media and on the left side of the political ideological band are telling us that Democrats have a messaging problem. That Democrats are not doing enough to get us to engage, participate, and vote our own self interest. That is a false narrative. Citizens have been told since 2000 that the Supreme Court matters and the President makes the appointments to that court, but the citizens didn’t listen to the other of that equation, the Senate has to confirm that appointment.

You folks allowed a Senate that was controlled by Mitch McConnel to steal a SCOTUS seat from Obama and to control the Senate during the DJT term, Now we’re wringing our hands worried that democracy itself hangs in the balance. Democracy, a form of governance that must have the informed engagement of its citizens to hold elected officials and the tools of government enforcement accountable. You folks got apathetic and came to think, “Well maybe, just maybe the grass really is blue, at least for now.”

This outcome is ‘Orwellian’ it’s ‘Brave New World’ like, It is as successful as the playbook of ‘Hitler’s Third Reich” Are you allowing others to tell you the grass is blue? Are you now accepting as your religious beliefs, things that your icons never spoke to? Jesus, never spoke on abortion, or same sex marriage for that matter, but some how those that tell you the grass is blue know what god thinks,. a god that would allow a ten year old child to be sexually molested, then force a female child to risk her life carrying the resulting pregnancy to term, who them is suppose to care for both of those children? Surely, the twice traumatized will be a good parent right?

Read the story below and I ask you, Who is really telling you that grass is blue

A faux-evangelical elephant told the tiger: The grass is blue and I am not referring to the blue artificial tuff of the Boise State football field.

The tiger replied: No, the grass is green​.

The discussion became heated, and the two decided to submit the issue to arbitration, and to do so they approached the lion.

Before reaching the clearing in the forest where the lion was sitting on his throne, the faux-evangelical elephant started screaming: ′′Your Highness, isn’t it true that the grass is blue?”​

The lion replied: “True, the grass is blue”​.

The faux-evangelical elephant rushed forward and continued: ′′The tiger disagrees with me and contradicts me and annoys me. Please punish him”​.

The king then declared: ′′The tiger will be punished with 5 years of silence”​.

The faux-evangelical elephant jumped with joy and went on his way, content and repeating: ′′The grass is blue, the grass is blue. “​..

The tiger accepted his punishment, but he asked the lion: ′′Your Majesty, why have you punished me, after all, the grass is green?”​

The lion replied: ′′In fact, the grass is green”​.

The tiger asked: ′′So why do you punish me?”​

The lion replied:

That has nothing to do with the question of whether the grass is blue or green. The punishment is because it is not possible for a brave, intelligent creature like yourself to waste time arguing with a lying manipulating fool, and on top of that to come and bother me with that silly question!

The worst waste of time is arguing with the fool and fanatic who doesn’t care about truth or reality, but only the victory of his beliefs and illusions. Never waste time on discussions that make no sense… There are people who for all the evidence presented to them, do not have the ability to understand, and others who are blinded by ego, hatred and resentment, and the only thing that they want is to be right even if they aren’t.

“When ignorance screams, intelligence shuts up. Your peace and tranquility are worth more.”

You ever wonder who is paying for those ads during campaign season that bring up issues that you have never heard about before? When did Congress send jobs overseas and outsource medical care to China? How is Congress undermining cell phone security? Why am I suppose to tell my Congressman or Senator tp focus on inflation and not what helps Steve Bezos, Elon Musk , or other tech company billionaires make more money and pay less in taxes?

The problem is that billionaires can underwrite these ads for tens’ of millions of dollars as if that is chump change, write off the costs of the ads while influencing elections for people who will vote their interest instead of voting the interests of the people they should represent. The truth is that Congress doesn’t send jobs overseas, corporations close down plants here in the US and send the manufacturing overseas where labor is cheaper. Then they create a supply chain that is easily disrupted by a pandemic, and blame the governing administration or party if they don’t have the influence they want.

Which party made it easier to outsource jobs and industries overseas? In 2012 Nancy Pelosi wrote the following blog post….”Since taking control of the House in 2011, Republicans have voted:

For the GOP Job Outsourcers’ Bill of Rights that makes it easier for corporations to send American jobs overseas and weakens the rights of middle class workers – allowing employers to relocate their operations to punish employees for exercising their rights to organize, demand better benefits and safer working conditions, and ensure a full day’s pay for an honest day’s work.  [Vote 711, 9/15/11, AFL-CIO]

Against the Democratic budget that rewards companies that choose to invest in or bring back jobs to America with a 20 percent tax credit, eliminates tax advantages for companies moving jobs overseas, as proposed by President Obama, and closes loopholes that allow businesses to avoid taxes by sheltering earnings in foreign tax havens.  [Vote 150, 3/29/12]

Against considering the Bring Jobs Home Act – the President’s proposal to reward companies that choose to invest in or bring back jobs to America with a 20 percent tax credit, and to eliminate tax advantages for companies moving jobs overseas.  [The Record, Vote 456, 7/10/12]

Against stopping businesses that outsource American jobs from receiving a 20 percent business tax deduction.  [Times Republican, Vote 176, 4/19/12]

Against stopping companies that ship jobs overseas from taking advantage of the repeal of the medical device tax. [Vote 360, 6/7/12]

Against ending government contracts that reward corporations that ship American jobs overseas.  [Release, Vote 19, 1/25/11]

Against considering the U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act to help revitalize a U.S. call center industry that has lost over 500,000 jobs just in the past six years.  The measure includes incentives to reduce outsourcing by requiring call centers to notify the Secretary of Labor at least 120 days before relocating outside of the U.S., and giving preference in contracts to employers who keep their call centers at home. [Paramus Post, Vote 381, 6/19/12]

Against a measure that places a priority on keeping jobs in America, protecting the authority of the National Labor Relations Board to order an employer to maintain or restore jobs in the U.S. that would otherwise be outsourced to a foreign country. [Vote 710, 9/15/11]

Against a measure to discourage outsourcing by denying the underlying bill’s pro-corporation election rules for companies that ship American jobs overseas and leveling the playing field for workers in union elections. [Vote 868, 11/30/11]

Against an effort to require work performed under intelligence contracts be first provided to U.S. companies and workers, and not outsourced to foreign-owned companies. [Release, Vote 300, 5/31/12]

Against a measure to encourage that oil and gas leases be awarded to companies that avoid outsourcing American jobs and that use U.S.-made materials. [Release, Vote 409, 6/21/12]

Against a measure to ensure that mining companies that receive American permits for mineral exploration not outsource American jobs and make a good faith effort to purchase American mining equipment.  [Release, Vote 467, 7/12/12]

Against a measure to help close overseas tax havens by giving the Treasury Department greater powers to investigate offshore tax abuses and crack down on offenders and banks that aid them, which could reduce the deficit by as much as nearly $1 billion.  [Vote 344, 6/6/12]

2001-2010

From 2007-2010, Republicans voted eleven times to:Protect tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas.

Protect off-shore tax havens for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Protect tax loopholes for CEOs’ deferred compensation paid by off-shore companies, foreign tax haven corporations dodging U.S. taxes, and Americans who renounce their citizenship.

These tax breaks cost American taxpayers over $60 billion

Under President Bush, Republicans voted 8 times to expand tax breaks for outsourcing and protect offshore tax havens.  The Republicans:Enacted legislation to provide $42 billion in tax breaks for offshore operations of U.S. corporations, encouraging the shipping of U.S. jobs overseas.

Voted to protect tax shelters for corporations relocating overseas to avoid paying taxes.

Voted to protect government contracts for these corporate expatriates.

Voted against help for workers whose jobs were outsourced and against even a study on outsourcing of U.S. jobs.

Republican Record on Shipping American Jobs Overseas
JULY 17, 2012 
BLOG

So you see even the supply chain issues and the resulting inflation has it’s origins back to the 2000’s when Republicans controlled Congress the Senate and the Presidency. Yet today influencers sympathetic to the GOP and donors wanting to turn our democratic republic where the to access voting is restricted so that only theocratic authoritarian White Christian males count place ads on out TV in hopes that the electorate continues to vote against it’s interest before their take over is complete.

Just remember elections have consequences, Ignorance of down ballot races has consequences. Those Black folks who tell us that voting doesn’t matter has consequences. Those Conservative minority members who support White Nationalist candidates have consequences, The failure of people to be motivated by their own self-interests has consequences.

Not knowing who id lying to you about what has consequences.

AMERICAN INNOVATION

I have been saying for months now that nothing being reported in the media regarding the 2022 midterm elections is to be taken seriously. July.is when the public starts to pay attention. Let’s understand that Fox-Nonsense, The Wall Street Journal, and many of the once venerable media outlets are nothing more that Conservative propaganda megaphones now.

Remember, they had DJT winning the Presidency against Biden and Mitch McConnell was going to remain the Majority Leader of the Senate. None of those GOP talking points outlets saw two Georgia Democrats winning Senate seats in 2020. They certainly didn’t see DJT losing the popular vote by more that 2 million and they sure didn’t see him losing the electoral college.

But DJT saw it, why do you think he was working so hard to flip the Republican trend of making maximum use of the voting by mail and letting minorities stick with ‘Early Voting’ and ‘Election Day Voting’? He knew that his Administration had errored on handling the Covid-19 virus. He knew that only his true MAGA-head believers would take his lie as truth that the virus was not deadly and that even the vaccine would be more of a threat to his base. Mind you that DJT had both the ‘Microbial Antivirus Treatment’ and the vaccine.

So the Republicans engineered an attempt to suppress the vote by disrupting the flow of the mail and trying to create long lines at polling places in various communities that serve minority voters. Why do you think it was so easy for Conservative White voters to believe the 2020 election was rigged? Well if all the things that they put in place to stop people from voting on top of the pandemic didn’t work then somehow ‘We The People’ re-took the election that they felt they had successfully stolen!

Here we are once again with a overarching media narrative that doesn’t quite mesh with our sensitivities and the expectations they have been leading us to are not convincing to our eyes. Why? Well for many of us our eyes just refuse to lie, no matter how much Conservative decry them being ‘Woke”. Lets go down the number a bit.

#1 The Biden Administration was trashed by the media for having a messy pullout of Afghanistan, but let’s remember it was DJT’s Administration that wanted to negotiate with the leaders of the Taliban so bad that they got them freed from a prison in Pakistan, flew them to Qatar and treated them like the legitimate leaders of Afghanistan while freezing out the heads of the government. The DJT Administration then allowed the Taliban a year to quietly retake the country unopposed beginning with the rural areas as long as they left Kabul alone until May when the US was to leave.

Once Biden won the Presidency his Administration extended the US stay to late summer of 2021. But let’s be clear, DJT would have left all those Afghans who aided US forces during the 20 years of engagement at the mercy of the Taliban. Biden got over 250,000 people out in a matter of weeks with only 13 American casualties who were not targeted by the Taliban but by the Islamic State, an ISIS affiliate.

#2 The media is not very careful or clear to report that inflation is not an American issue, it is a global issue. It results from the capitalistic approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, the corporate approach to managing the ‘Supply Chain’, the strength of the ‘anti-vaxx movement and the growing efforts to cut the labor force worldwide to return greater returns to investors. Before the end of 2020 the DJT Administration signed off on $3 Trillion in domestic spending to help struggling families. But they also gave away billions to corporations, billions to farmers who were hurt by trade war he started with China,

The $1.9 trillion Biden signed off on was for needed infrastructure spending, the ground work for inflation was already laid with the 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Of course gas prices at the domestic pumps went up, but that is largely due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Remember if DJT were still President he would have pulled the US out of NATO and Putin’s take over of that country and possibly Europe might have be far easier and much broader.

#3 Gun violence is up in the US, not because of Democratic policies but because more guns are available in that US. There are more guns than people in the US. States controlled by Republican legislatures and Governors have made it so easy for anyone to obtain a gun, The US Congress in alignment with DJT, made it possible for people with history of mental illness to obtain them without a background check. The US has averaged over 250 mass shooting events each year since 2001.

On July 4 2022, a shooter opened fire at a holiday parade in a Chicago suburb. This municipality saw itself as being immune to the gun violence in minority communities of the City of Chicago. The shooting suspect is a homegrown domestic terrorist who wanted to strike fear into the hearts of those who believe that they are safe. No one is safe as long as assault weapons are readily accessible and can be used to inflict maximum damage to the greatest number of human bodies in a matter of minutes.

#4 SCOTUS overturning abortions rights where young girls whose pregnancy’s result from rape or incest will be forced to carry those to term. In some states women who have miscarriage’s could be criminally investigated for breaking new anti-abortion laws. There are Conservative male legislators espousing the notion that life begins at conception and yet even a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother will not be permitted to be terminated in some states. The current SCOTUS is set to overturn the right to access contraception, the right to vote, allow state legislatures to overturn election results on solely partisan grounds, allow police to continue to kill unarmed citizens without any accountability, and allow those with the most money to give politicians to openly pay for public policy they support.

This brings me to the story below. The 2022 midterms have not yet been determined. The outcome may not be what we are being told it will be. The media outlets are so petty that they try hard to push a false equivalency that doesn’t really exist on the right and a lack of will by Democrats on the left. Neither side is looking at basic math….

https://www.yahoo.com/news/pressures-mounting-biden-thinks-gop-083857609.html

…”Allies say that Biden, along with others in the administration, will take better advantage of their megaphone in the run-up to the midterms, portraying Republicans as out of touch. Biden, they said, is energized by the Roe v. Wade decision, which may be a prelude to future Supreme Court rulings rolling back rights to same-sex marriage and contraception.

Unpopular presidents tend to fare poorly in midterm elections. But Biden-world sees an opening to defy the historical trends, springing from some of the same setbacks that have so angered the Democratic base.

Republicans are overreaching in ways that will alienate voters, White House allies contend.

“I can tell you that on the street, what you hear is a bubbling, seething cauldron of anger at the Republican Party for putting in these antediluvian judges who think they can take us back to the 18th century,” said Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state. “My spidey sense and the polling indicate it’s going to help people decide not to vote for the red team.”

Biden and other administration officials intend to draw a stark contrast between the parties in the coming months in hopes of awakening voters to how their personal rights will be imperiled if Republicans seize control of Congress. To the extent that Biden can drive home the message that the court’s conservative majority was built by former President Donald Trump and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, he can demonstrate the enormous stakes in the upcoming elections.

“You will see them [Biden administration officials] having a sharper message as we get close to the fall,” one Biden ally said. “That message will revolve around painting the Republican Party as extreme and doing things that are actively hurting peoples’ lives. Is there a strong enough message now? Probably not. But they know that.”

Biden previewed the strategy last week in a virtual meeting with Democratic governors. He pledged to use the full weight of the federal government to prevent what he called “extremist” governors who may try to block women from traveling out of state to get an abortion.

A Biden adviser pointed to former Vice President Mike Pence’s call for a national abortion ban — something that can only be stopped if Democrats have sufficient votes in Congress to block it. That’s the sort of issue that can mobilize voters who might otherwise be apathetic about coming out to vote.

Abortion “is much more motivating for Democratic-leaning voters than it is for Republican-leaning voters,” the Biden adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk more freely. “A lot of that is due to the fact that Republicans have sought this outcome for many years and they just achieved it. But the opposite effect is taking place with Democrats and independents, who are deeply offended by this and who are afraid about what it means for their lives.”

Most Democrats fret about a midterm wipeout, but recent polling shows grounds for optimism. Bryan Bennett, a pollster for Navigator Research, a coalition of progressive pollsters, noted that something “weird” is happening in this political moment. Biden’s approval rating is hovering around 40%, which suggests that Republican victories in the November midterms will be not so much a wave as a “tsunami,” he said. And yet in polls pitting generic Democrats against Republicans in congressional races, Democrats perform better than expected given the president’s low standing. Indeed, since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, three polls came out showing Democrats leading Republicans by anywhere from 3 to 7 percentage points.

“It’s a new election,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg wrote in a blog. “The chances of the anti-MAGA majority showing up again — as it did in 2018 and 2020 — have increased dramatically.”

And Republicans in some cases are putting forward candidates whom mainstream voters may find unpalatable. A video circulating on Twitter shows a recent debate among congressional Republican candidates in Wyoming, where some of Rep. Liz Cheney’s challengers struggle to form a coherent sentence.

“People are going to be stunned when they see some of the nominees they [Republicans] put out there,” said Joe Trippi, a longtime Democratic strategist.

Economics usually drive elections, though, and Republicans are working hard to remind voters that Biden is presiding over a period of $5 a gallon of gas and rising prices across the board. The White House describes inflation as a global problem for which Biden bears little direct responsibility.

I read this article about Clarence Thomas and I must admit that it made me laugh. It made me laugh because it goes far to attempt to rationalize Thomas’s brand of conservatism and compare it the with the likes of el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, (Malcolm X), Dr. King, and icons of the Black Panther Party.

I read this article knowing full well that Thomas has voted with the religious foundationalist white Nationalist right wing justices on the SCOTUS to gut the voting rights act and protect new racially restrictive state laws to ensure that there will never be another Black President of the US.

The White Supremacist minority of the country is willing to go so far as to dismantle our republic and representative governance to install authoritarian autocratic governance than ever allow another non-white head of state. But let’s be clear, while most White Supremacists willing to take to the streets to are mere foot soldiers, the real power belongs to the heads of capitalist corporations, religious con artists, and the appropriate governing entities.

Clarence Thomas and Blacks like Thomas Sowell, Tim Scott, and Ward Connelly were never of the same mind as Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, and even Dr. King. They never wanted economic and social justice. They wanted Conservatism that was acceptable to White Supremacists.

The Black activists wanted separate but equal justice and the right to self determination. The Black Civil Rights and Social Rights Activists wanted justice when White murders wore badges, they wanted less policing of our communities, less poverty so there would be less crime, and better education that includes pre-slavery cultures of aboriginal people.

Frankly, I am skeptical of mixing social justice and politics with any religious doctrine since in most case that means justice for the affected aboriginal peoples takes a back seat to the established doctrine of the Abrahamic religions, which are fundamentally rooted in the rights of aboriginals being subservient to those who imposed those beliefs on them.

However, this article is laughable in trying to make the case that White Liberals have never been significantly different from racist White religious Conservatives. Which group set up and sustained the underground railroad? Which group set up breeding farms? Clarence Thomas has consistently voted to block access to the ballot for millions of minorities in this country simply because of his skewed notion of Republicanism.

Yes el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz and Marcus Garvey were willing to discuss separation with White Supremacists. They and others were willing to discuss going back to Africa. I don’t agree with either on their religious beliefs, but it is not necessary. The truth is none of the Civil Rights era activist sought to take anything away from our right to justice. Clarence Thomas continues to do wage war against people who fight and die every day for things White Nationalists liberal and Conservatives have by virtue of their skin color.

I am reminded of something this article brought up. When DJT won the Presidency, supporters of Bernie blamed Black voters. They didn’t accept their role in creating what we have today. The concerns about the unreliability of moderate and independent White voters is legitimate. It should not have taken the television images of burning buses, fire hoses used on Black highschool kids and women for them to see how ‘Jim Crow’ undermined the ideal of American Freedom.

Clarence Thomas is no social justice radical and never was. Don’t let writers like this succeed with the DJT notebook of how to lie and win new friends.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/supreme-courts-roe-v-wade-opinion-sparks-racist-attacks-clarence-thoma-rcna36261

Every since Ronald Reagan turned to the ‘Moral Majority’ to win the Presidency and Robert Bork, and Jeff Sessions were denied seats on the Supreme Court, we have known that the goal of religious Conservatives was to tear down the wall the founders erected between church and state. At least in these modern times it has been clear that religious Conservatives want an authoritarian theocracy and the Constitution be damn!

Let’s be clear, American Christians had no issues burning witches,(mostly women). They had and still have no real issues with slavery, voter suppression, racism, sexism, homophobia, or with violence when used to express other forms of race and sex based bigotry. We saw the mostly White Christian evangelical right align with the ‘Tea Party’ against the Obama Presidency. We knew that the Republican Party embraced this movement out of fear and as a tool to hold onto power.

But we also knew that as long as they had the Presidency and control of the Senate, they would move to take control of SCOTUS and roll back as many freedoms that only White male property owners once enjoyed. Their objective was and is to take back rights that had now been extended to every citizen regardless of gender, race, and property ownership or the lack of. What makes watching the protests going on across the country now over the ruling on ‘Abortion Rights’ is that we knew this was going to happen.

The point was made over and over that elections for the Presidency are important because of who they Nominate to SCOTUS. A President can have at the most 8 years but their nominations if confirmed have lifetime appointments. Clarence Thomas was confirmed in 1991, over 30 years ago. Understand that though he is not the Chief Justice, he is the chief influence on the other Conservative Justices. In his ‘Abortion Opinion’ he gave marching orders to the other Conservative justices to go after any rights we now enjoy that are not specifically mentioned n the Constitution.

The most frustrating aspect of this new reality is that most of the people protesting or who will be adversely impacted by this decision and potentially others is that not all did vote. Or they chose to vote for candidates who could not win. Imagine if HRC had been elected President in 2016, we would not be at this point. If Bernie and Progressives had taken the danger of a DJT Presidency into account with the Republican control of over 26 statehouses we would not be here today. If these same people had understood the importance of ‘Down Ballot’ voting and voting in midterm elections we might live in a different reality. But now we are in a state of reactionary politics. Recovery, even survival are not promised.

Why is this the case, because voters are illogical, fickle, and unreliable. DJT told you who he would put on SCOTUS and they allowed Republicans to control the Senate anyway. We all knew Mitch McConnel had denied Obama his nominee but voters allowed him to control the Senate anyway. So we should not be surprised that we are here. Not the women who support a man with over 26 allegations of sexual misconduct against him (and he is not a football player). Not the Blacks who support him and although the MAGA base is made up in substantial part by avid White Supremist some overt others less so. But they do know who and what DJT represents.

So how can an informed and realistic person take this surprised reaction seriously? Those protesting now, voters, and potential voters, failed to take their responsibilities as the true keepers of Democracy seriously over beginning in 2000 when Reagan ran against Carter.. Then Bush v Gore, then again in 2016.