Month: April 2023

Generation Z (1996-2012) Turning “Blue” On Abortion, Guns, Voting Rights!

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Generation Z (1996-2012) is rapidly turning “Blue” on the major controversies that divide America’s political parties.

This is heartening news for the Democratic Party, as young people in large percentages support abortion rights, whether they are women and girls or their male supporters. This is the generation most impacted by courts and politicians attempting to control their reproductive rights!

Also, young people recognize that the gun culture in America worships the crazy need to allow semi automatic firearms to go unregulated while thousands upon thousands of young people become cannon fodder in a nation that believes every fetus must be born, but then you are on your own!

Also, young people are being prevented from voting when they go away to colleges and universities in many “Red” states, because it is realized that they tend to be more “liberal” by being exposed to varying ideas outside of their family’s views, if they come from a household with little education beyond high school.

The more educated one is, the more likely they will tend to be Democrats, because they realize that life is more than just making money, but also to have compassion, empathy, decency, dignity, and care about human rights for more than just themselves!

So in the midst of difficult, stressful times, the future seems bright for Democrats and for “liberal” and “progressive” values, as the Republicans are alienating millions upon millions nationally who value women’s rights, gun protections, and voting rights!

Reality: Most Anti Abortion States Were Slave States Before 1865!

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It is sad but not at all surprising that when one looks at the map of states that have declared war on women’s rights, and specifically on abortion rights, all but three such states are from the “Old South”, the “Confederate South”, and the “Border South” of the American Civil War period!

The states that went to war to continue the ugly institution of slavery now are “enslaving” women and denying them the right to control their own reproductive rights, forcing even those who are victims of rape or incest, or whose lives are endangered, to follow through on their pregnancy and deny them medical and hospital services!

This is done in the name of “religious” indoctrination which should NOT be a factor in human rights in America!

But remember, many elements of organized Christianity endorsed and supported slavery all the way through the Civil War, and also backed Jim Crow segregation for the next hundred years, and even resisted the Civil Rights Movement, and stealthily supported the Ku Klux Klan in many cases!

Looking at the map, and seeing only Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina not restricting abortion rights, but all other “Old South” states and border states Kentucky and Missouri in that infamous group of denying human rights, along with Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Idaho, makes one ready to do everything possible to restore women’s rights to determine their own futures!

Facts: States With Weak Gun Laws And High Gun Ownership Lead In Gun Deaths!

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In the midst of the endless number of gun massacres occurring daily in America, and with children being the primary victims, statistics demonstrate the reality that Second Amendment advocates do not want to acknowledge.

States with weak gun laws and high gun ownership lead in Gun Deaths.

The six highest states in gun deaths are Mississippi, Wyoming, Louisiana, Alaska, Missouri, and Alabama, all with lax gun laws!

The five states with lowest gun death rates, all of which have strong gun control regulations, are Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York!

Notice that it is Southern states which primarily have high death rates from guns, while Northeastern, highly urban states have low death rates from guns!

Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, leading a Congressional hearing in New York City yesterday to go after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg due to prosecution and indictment of Donald Trump, comes from the Columbus, Ohio area, which has THREE times the crime rate of New York City!

Fox News Channel pedals lies and deceit, but it is clear that having stronger gun laws helps to lead to lower death rates, particularly among children!

It is clear that one major reason why Republicans, conservatives, Fox News Channel, and the National Rifle Association has no concern about death rates from guns, particularly among children, is the reality that many more African American children are victims than are white, Latino, or Asian children.

This is part of the continued racism and lack of concern, including police abuse against African American youths, so quick to shoot and kill, as compared to white youths!

Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s Tenure In Danger!

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Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is in great danger of losing his Speakership, and so far, the 118th Congress, with a small Republican edge in the House of Representatives, and a 51-49 Democratic Senate control, has accomplished almost nothing!

If McCarthy angers just one member of his caucus, a vote could come up to remove him from the Speakership, and if just five members of his caucus joined with the Democrats, he will be gone as the leader of his party!

The upcoming debt ceiling impasse will be a major test of whether McCarthy can survive the two year term of the 118th Congress!

The lunatic “Freedom Caucus”, with at least 46 sitting members, sadly, is controlling much of the Republican agenda in the House of Representatives!

This includes Matt Gaetz of Florida, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, as the most controversial of a group in which all the members are extremists!

Abe Fortas Resigned In 1969 From Supreme Court, And Clarence Thomas Needs To Do Same In 2023!

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In 1969, Associate Justice Abe Fortas, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1965 by his “good friend”, President Lyndon B. Johnson, resigned, due to an ethics scandal, and accusations that he was too partisan and close to his long time friend.

Fortas had been nominated to replace Chief Justice Earl Warren, but members of his own Democratic Party, as well as opposition Republicans, negated that, and under fire, Fortas retired from the Court after less than four years of service.

Now, 54 years later, we have Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1991 to replace retiring Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, under fire for much greater ethics violations, with calls for his resignation or impeachment after 32 years on the Supreme Court.

Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, was involved in the promotion of opposition to the counting of the Electoral College votes in the Presidential Election of 2020, and Thomas himself was willing to work to prevent the confirmation of Joe Biden as the winner of the Presidency.

Additionally, Thomas has not reported income and real estate dealings with powerful and wealthy right wing promoters, including Harlan Crow, and clearly, Thomas is the most right wing extremist member of the Court, more so in many respects than former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.

Thomas has a “chip on his shoulder”, since the investigation of sexual harrassment against Anita Hill complicated his nomination to the Court in 1991, with the vote for his confirmation being the closest in the 20th century by the US Senate.

He made the statement that he would stay on the Court to double his age at the time, 43, to “confound the damn liberals”, so he was already in 1991 ill qualified to sit on the Court with such a biased view of his role!

It is time after nearly 32 years, and 12th longest service on the Court, for Thomas to leave the Court, which he has stained with his corruption from his nomination until today’s controversies!

Republican Party Is The Party Of Death!

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The Republican Party of 2023 is clearly the “Party Of Death”!

The potential Presidential contenders are all speaking at the annual convention of the National Rifle Association, declaring full backing for no regulation of guns, despite the horrendous number of gun massacres occurring daily in the United States!

So called “good Christians” and other “Religious” people are showing no concern for the loss of life, while at the same time declaring they are “Pro Life” on abortion, even if women end up in critical health condition or die due to refusal of doctors to help them in pregnancy crises that are occurring regularly across the nation!

In 2003, there were 100 million guns in America, with only about one percent being AR 15s and other semiautomatic weapons.

Twenty years later, there are over 400 million guns in America, and a full 25 percent are AR 15s and other semiautomatic weapons which literally obliterate any human being who becomes a victim!

There have been more than 150 mass shootings in just about 100 days of this year!

So we have a political party that has no ethics, morals, scruples, or conscience, as they seek to worship the gun industry that promotes mass loss of life in such a common way, that guns have passed automobiles as the major cause of deaths in America!

Mitch McConnell Successor As Senate Minority Leader: Battle Of The “Three Johns”!

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As Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Minority Leader, returns next week after an extended period of absence due to a concussion and rib fracture after a fall, there is speculation that he might retire from the Senate in the short term.

So the battle for who would replace him has begun, with the “three Johns” competing for leadership of the Republican Party in the Senate moving forward.

These “three Johns” are

John Thune of South Dakota
John Barrasso of Wyoming
John Cornyn of Texas

John Thune has been in the Senate since 2005 and is 62, and is Republican Whip, second ranking position.

John Barrasso has been in the Senate since 2007 and is 71, and is Republican Conference Chairman, third ranking position.

John Cornyn has been in the Senate since 2002 and is also 71, and served in the past as Republican Whip.

If one went by population, which is not a factor, Texas and Cornyn would win with 30.3 million population, as South Dakota and Wyoming are among the five smallest states in population, with South Dakota 5th smallest with 900,000 population, and Wyoming the smallest of all states with 580,000 population.

An educated guess on the part of this blogger is that John Thune may have the upper hand, and the issue of age is not to be ignored, as he is a decade younger than the other two “Johns”, and is more “photogenic” and “charismatic” than they are.

Thune next faces voters in 2028; Cornyn in 2026; and Barrasso in 2024, so longevity is added to age as a factor.

But one never knows what will happen, and when it would happen, so we shall see!

Time For Senator Dianne Feinstein To Retire Now!

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California Senator Dianne Feinstein has been a long serving, productive member in the upper chamber since 1992, but at age 89 and in failing mental and physical health, it is time for her to resign from the Senate in dignity!

She is no longer able to carry the weight load that a Senator, particularly from the most populous state in America, needs to bear!

She is unable to meet her responsibilities, including her support of judicial appointments of Joe Biden, since all activity must be done in person, and she is fast declining in her cognitive abilities, and has suffered from shingles now for two months with no clear end in sight!

Everyone in public life needs to know when it is time to leave public service, and it is time for Feinstein to take that step!

Donald Trump Raves About Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, And Republicans Stay Silent!

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Former President Donald Trump is demonstrating yet again how dangerous and crazy he is, and yet the Republican Party acts prostrate toward him!

Trump went on Fox News Channel and was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, who we know has said he hates him, but still has him on his show, as the goal is, ever after, to make money for Carlson and Fox News Channel by allowing Trump to spew forth his authoritarian impulses!

Trump praised Communist dictators Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation, Xi Jinping of China, and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, lavishing them with glowing statements about how smart they are, and how brilliant they are, despite their well known record of human rights violations against their own populations, and threats to their neighbors.

And although one might say Putin is NOT a Communist, since the Russian Federation supposedly replaced the Soviet Union in December 1991, reality is that Putin WAS a Communist functionary in the Soviet KGB in the 1980s.

Imagine this, Communism was the enemy to decades of Republicans from the time of the Russian Revolution to the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It made the careers of innumerable Republicans, including the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy, President Richard Nixon, and a massive number of others.

But along comes Trump, glorifying and praising these dangerous and unstable authoritarians, who could also be termed “Fascists” in their tactics, such as past horrors as Adolf Hitler of Germany, Benito Mussolini of Italy, Juan Peron of Argentina, and Francisco Franco of Spain in the 20th century.

The differences between “old line” Communists and modern Fascists are miniscule, and to have an American President praise such tyrants, and his party stays silent, is truly proof that the Republican Party and Fox News Channel are a danger to American freedom, security, and democracy!

How is it that Republicans have completely changed their perception of foreign enemies, and are engaged in similar tactics to undermine the civil rights and civil liberties of millions of Americans, who do not fit the image of white supremacy Christianity?

What has happened that the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike, and Reagan has reached this point?

Theodore Roosevelt, The Food And Drug Administration, And Conservative Attack On Medical Expertise!

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In 1906, after reading the novel THE JUNGLE, by Upton Sinclair, President Theodore Roosevelt took leadership and pressured Congress into forming the Food and Drug Administration, under the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Now, 117 years later, a right wing Federal District Court Judge appointed by President Donald Trump, Matthew Kacsmaryk, is trying to destroy the right of women to an abortion drug Mifepristone, which has been safely used for a generation since it was approved in 2000, and is safer than many other drugs approved by the FDA.

This is a clearcut religious extremist decision, without concern of the effect it will have on millions of American women, and it cannot be allowed to stand.

The FDA is appealing this intervention, and this is a tense time as it will have a dramatic effect on the whole political system, at a time when vast majorities support a woman’s right to control her own body and reproduction!

Theodore Roosevelt, were he here in the present times, would roundly condemn this attack on the most basic federal regulatory agency, added to by later Presidents and Congresses who understand the federal government’s need for regulation in support of the American people, and the lack of religious groups having the authority to control Americans’ lives!

If one is religious, do not have an abortion, but do not dictate in a country based on separation of church and state what other Americans’ rights are!