College Students

The Time For Major Social Change Is Here!

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Here we are in September 2021, and it is time for major social change, what the Democrats and Joe Biden are trying to bring about as Congress returns from its summer break!

We need to provide Medicare expansion, including for eyes, teeth, and hearing.

We need to provide Medicare coverage at age 60.

We need to provide decent child care and elder care, so that many people, particularly women, can go back to work in an economy where most families need two incomes, although many poor only have one income, and are faced with the need to take care of their children or elderly relatives.

We need to provide early educational intervention before kindergarten, as a way to advance literacy and the love of learning at the age when most children are open to all kinds of knowledge.

We need to provide two years of college free tuition so that all those leaving high school have an opportunity to explore their futures, both in opening up their eyes to truth and facts, but also to career training that can improve their lives over the long haul.

We need to promote that young men do not ignore college and education, at a time when 60 percent of college students are females, leaving males behind.

We need to promote protection of the environment, and the advancement of actions to cope with climate change.

We need to promote raising the poor to a future of hope and change.

There is no excuse to avoid the responsibility of improving the lives of all Americans, and making clear that those who are more fortunate have a responsibility to pay their fair share of taxes, and this includes corporations, as well as wealthy people who invest, not only those who work!

Gerrymandering, Creating Barriers In Many States To Vote, And Changing Census By Adding Citizenship Question, All Designed To Help Republicans Overcome Future Diversity Of American Population!

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The Republican Party has dedicated itself to using every possible method, no matter how unethical it is, to keep themselves in power, by curbing voting by racial minorities the poor, and college students, knowing they would be unlikely to gain the support of such groups in the voting booths.

So they have utilized gerrymandering to create districts that will always favor the white majority in as many congressional districts and state legislative districts as possible, although some such gerrymandering schemes have started to be repudiated by state and federal courts recently.

They have created as many barriers as possible to different groups being able to vote, as a result of the backtracking of the Supreme Court in 2013, on the enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 under President Lyndon B. Johnson.

And now, they are trying to mandate a 2020 Census question on citizenship, designed to insure that undocumented immigrants will not fill out the census forms, out of fear of deportation.

All this, being challenged, will lead to the downfall of a party that has lost all morality and ethics, and many decent Republicans and conservatives outside of government positions have already done so.

The future diversity of the American population toward a non white majority within about 25 years is certain, and the Republican Party is fighting a losing battle in that regard!

Trump Budget A War On The Poor, Disabled, And Rural Supporters: A Savage Class Warfare Attack By The Elite Wealthy Against The Rest Of America!

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The Trump Budget proposal to Congress is a war on the poor and the disabled, as well as rural supporters who believed in Donald Trump!

It is a savage class warfare attack by the elite wealthy against the rest of us!

It is aiming to destroy the Food Stamp Program; Medicaid for the elderly, poor children, and disabled; disability programs of the Supplemental Security program under Social Security; and cuts funds for the War on Cancer and other health care spending.

It will affect nursing homes, hospitals, schools, and college students, making it harder for young people to gain a college education.

This is a reverse Robin Hood!

Its purpose is to force people to work at minimum wage to gain any benefits, and to, effectively, create a permanent lower working class that will be exploited and treated as if under the Poor Laws of England in the 19th century, setting up the horrors of unsafe factories and mines of two centuries ago in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

It is a war on all common decency and compassion, and the Budget Director, Nick Mulvaney, is Ebenezer Scrooge to the extreme.

The people who elected Donald Trump will, in many cases, be the biggest victims of their own ignorance, selfishness, stupidity, and racism.

It is hard to have compassion under the circumstances, but no one, not even the clueless, deserve the fate they might face if this budget plan is not radically transformed!

50 Years Of The Voting Rights Act, And Reluctance To Enforce It By Supreme Court And Many States Now A Sad Reality!

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On August 6, it will be 50 years since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, overcoming a near century of the denial of the right to vote to African Americans, despite the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870.

The Southern states denied African Americans the right to vote through all kinds of methods for three quarters of a century, but finally it was a Southern President and many Congressional Republicans joining with Democrats that caused that denial of democracy to be overcome, finally.

And Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, all Republicans, continued to endorse, promote, hail, and extend the provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

But then the Supreme Court majority under Chief Justice John Roberts weakened enforcement in a Supreme Court decision in 2013 (Shelby County, Alabama V. Holder), effectively giving license to states run by Republican governors and legislatures to pass new restrictions on voting, that would not only hurt African Americans, but also Hispanics, poor whites, the elderly, college students—all being required to make onerous efforts to meet the new restrictions on voting rights, when there was no earlier evidence of voting fraud.

This sad reality has pained John Lewis, Georgia Congressman, who was involved in the movement for voting rights in Alabama (the Selma-Montgomery March), and was seriously beaten, along with others who were killed, fighting peacefully for the basic right to vote.

So while we celebrate the 50th anniversary of this path breaking legislation, we have to hope that the Supreme Court will revisit what it has done by a 5-4 vote in the next term, with the hope that they will reconsider what they have done, based on the discrimination now being practiced in many states across the nation.

Proper Republican Strategy: Attack Donald Trump Or Ignore Him? Neither Will Help GOP Brand!

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The Republican Party is in deep trouble, as Donald Trump has now emerged in first place in some public opinion polls, passing Jeb Bush, and leaving everyone else far behind.

This brings up the issue: What is the proper Republican strategy to deal with Trump, attack him or ignore him?

In reality, neither will help the GOP brand!

If the decision is to attack him, Trump will be infuriated, and will strike back and set out to destroy the GOP totally. He will bluster and bloviate, and will have the means to form an independent movement or third party.

If the Republicans choose NOT to attack and, therefore, to ignore him, they will be complicit in his racist and nativist viewpoints, which many of them actually agree with.

No political party can succeed now or in the future which sets out to demonize ethnic minorities, because, like it or not, the nation is becoming more diverse, and will be minority majority within three decades, counting Hispanic and Latino Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans.

There is no way to bring back, even if people wished it, a mostly white Anglo America, as that is not going to happen.

The rapidly aging white Anglo population is dying off, and the nation and the Republican Party MUST face reality.

But is that likely to happen for 2016?

The answer is NO, and therefore, the GOP is rapidly becoming a dinosaur, and trying to make voting more difficult will require more effort to overcome such restrictions through the courts and through political action to register voters and meet the onerous requirements that some Republican governed states have put on the elderly, the poor, college students, and racial minorities in a purposeful manner.

And with a Democratic President, a likely Democratic Senate, and a possible Democratic House of Representatives, the Republicans will be marginalized further. And a Democratic President will have the ability to insure that the Supreme Court and lower federal courts move to the left, and overcome the conservative influence of Ronald Reagan, and the two Presidents Bush.

Once constitutional law goes back to the Warren Court image of the 1950s through the 1970s, the country will have been transformed in a way that the Republicans will never recover, until they abandon the far right image they have developed over recent years. Only then will the Tea Party influence finally dissolve and disappear!

Georgia Congressman John Lewis, “Selma” Film, And The Effect Of The Voting Rights Act of 1965: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama!

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The new documentary, SELMA, about the March from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965, leading to “Bloody Sunday”, where state troopers and snipers fired on peaceful marchers demanding their right to vote, reminds us of a transitional stage in American history, when African Americans would regain the right to vote given to them in the 15th Amendment in 1870, and then denied in the South for about 75 years!

Alabama Governor George Wallace represented the worst of Southern racism, and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, a true hero then and now, had his head beaten and bloodied n the Selma March, but the horrible event led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965!

It is tragic that the Supreme Court allowed a reversion in enforcement of the Voting Rights Act two years ago, and that has led to new movements, and not only in the South, to make it harder for African Americans, Latinos, women, poor people, and college students to vote, and that could affect the Midterm elections of 2014!

But Lewis made the comment which is so TRUE: If it had not been for Voting Rights Act coming out of the Selma March, there likely would NEVER have been an open minded progressive Presidency of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama!

That would have been a tremendous tragedy, as no Republican President , whether Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, or George W. Bush, made civil rights enforcement a key goal of their times in the Presidency!

So thank goodness for the fortune that the sacrifices of the Selma Marchers brought us the great progress  we gained under Carter, Clinton, and now Obama!

Voter “Fraud”, Voter Suppression, Civil Rights, And The 26th Amendment!

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We hear Republicans claim “voter fraud”, which is a total fraud in itself, as the amount of voter fraud has been shown to be something like one billion of one percent!

There is no voter fraud to speak of, and if we are going to talk about voter fraud, what about the fraud in the vote count in Florida in the Presidential Election of 2000, which benefited George W. Bush over Al Gore; and the reported voter fraud in Ohio in the Presidential Election Of 2004, which again benefited George W. Bush, this time over John Kerry?

It is a fact that only in states that are seen as in danger of turning “blue”, do we see accusations of voter fraud, to insure that a “red” state will stay “red”! So we have seen the Southern states and some Midwestern states, which have passed voter suppression laws, affecting African Americans, Latinos, poor people, the elderly, and now, even the young.

So the classic case, but not the only one, is North Carolina, which now had cut down the number of voting days before Election Day; has stopped same day registration; has decided that early voting on the Sunday before the election shall be ended (what often is the method for black churchgoers to make voting a group event); has required a state ID to vote, something many poor people cannot afford, and often have trouble getting to proper locations if they wish to buy it in person (a requirement); and now is preventing 16 and 17 year old high school students from preregistration; and not allowing college students from other states to use their college address so that they can vote in the state elections of the college or university they are attending and residing in for four or more years!

So we have a law suit against North Carolina, asserting that they are discouraging college and young voters from registering and voting, therefore trying to fix the elections, true voter fraud! And the constitutional case is the 26th Amendment of 1971, which allows 18-21 years old citizens to vote!

This is the new attempt at what used to be called “Jim Crow” laws, and the Republican Party is fully backing such denials in multiple states, right after the Supreme Court, wrongfully, weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965, forgetting the struggles, bloodshed, and deaths suffered in the battle for voting rights. The ultimate civil right is voting rights!

What is clear is that when the states lose these battles, particularly regarding the 26th Amendment, they are guaranteeing the loss of the young vote for generations, as any intelligent young person voting for the party which worked to suppress its voting rights is as likely as “Hell Freezing Over!”

The Schizophrenic Supreme Court Of Chief Justice John Roberts

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The Supreme Court of Chief Justice John Roberts has been a schizophrenic one, with some decisions hailed as far reaching, and others seen as regressive.

In the first category would be, for instance, the decisions upholding ObamaCare in 2012 and Gay Marriage rights in 2013.

Regressive cases would include the Citizens United Case of 2010, giving corporations unlimited ability to spend money on elections, helping the rise of the Tea Party Movement; and the decision in 2013 which negated much of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it possible for North Carolina, Texas, and other states to curb the rights of African Americans, Hispanics, senior citizens, the disabled, and students at universities and colleges in their states.

So there is justification in hailing the Court on some cases, and to condemn them on other cases, and it can truly be said that the Court has a schizophrenic nature, only to be changed in the future as Democratic Presidents gain the opportunity to replace Republicans as the years go by.

The Supreme Court Has Set America Back On Basic Fairness And Justice!

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The Supreme Court of the United States is a much revered body, but sadly, in recent years, under Chief Justice John Roberts, the concept of America as a nation based on fairness and justice has suffered setbacks!

There is much evidence of this, but two key developments demonstrate how much the Supreme Court has set back progress!

The Citizens United Case of 2010 has allowed the rise of tremendous corporate spending and that by religious and social conservatives, leading to the rise and influence of the Tea Party Movement, and allowing the creation of stalemated, gridlock government under President Barack Obama, with the first time ever situation of a Republican House of Representatives and a Democratic Senate, with the GOP controlling the purse strings of government, and blocking all attempts to create jobs or promote legislation which advances the American nation. Instead, our government is being influenced by anarchists, couched in libertarianism, with the Koch Brothers and other wealthy corporate interests having undue influence on the deterioration of the rights of women, minorities, gays, and labor, along with attacks on any government regulation of the environment!

And the decision in June of this year, negating part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has now allowed many Republican state governments to pass legislation, taking away the basic right of voting on the false concept that voter fraud has been present and widespread, a total lie!

So the rights of minorities, the elderly, poor people, and college students are being curbed, and that is why the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder is bringing laws suits under the curbed Voting Rights Act, trying to reverse the discriminatory legislation on voting in many Southern states, Midwest States, and Great Plains States, all designed to fix the results so that likely Democratic voters will be denied the basic tenet of democracy, the right to vote for one’s government leaders!

It took until the early 20th century under Theodore Roosevelt to gain legislation to take power over government away from the corporations of the Gilded Age, and it took until Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s to gain legislation so that all Americans could vote without discrimination!

Now in just three and a half years, the Republican dominated Supreme Court has rejected what TR and LBJ worked so hard to accomplish!

So the battle to overcome the Supreme Court right wing direction is on, and we cannot afford to allow the Court to take away our democracy–a government of, by, and for the people!

Senator Rand Paul, Confederate Sympathies, And Racial Insensitivities

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Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul is making clear his desire to be the GOP Presidential nominee in 2016, and this was known even before he won the Senate seat in 2010 over the opposition of fellow Kentuckian, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Following in the footsteps of his father, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who gained the backing of naive college students when he ran for President in 2008 and 2012, Paul hopes to mine the support of Tea Party activists and libertarians to overcome the business establishment, the Neoconservatives who wish military intervention overseas all of the time, and mainline Republicans who see Paul as an alarm bell for the future of the Republican Party.

Rand Paul, meanwhile, has demonstrated again and again of his sympathies with Confederate types who still fight the Civil War, and has shown lack of sensitivity about racism.

Paul has kept on his Senate staff an individual who goes around in Confederate uniform and mask, a person by the name of Jack Hunter. And Paul has expressed in the past his view of his doubts about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And he comes across as naive about the outside world, and his libertarian views, while appealing to naive people, has never worked, and will never occur in reality!

Face the facts: Rand Paul is a lunatic, a weirdo with no qualifications, no message of significance, and with troubling connections to racism (which his father has also shown in his political career), and the odds of his being the GOP nominee against all of the other Republican factions is less than zero!

Were he, somehow, to win the nomination, which would require a miracle, it would lead to the total destruction of the Republican Party, worse than Barry Goldwater in 1964 or Alf Landon in 1936, both men of intelligence, which Rand Paul is not!

And imagine Paul against Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. She would walk all over him in a debate, and would join Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt in a massive win over their Republican opponents!