Civil Liberties

152nd Anniversary Of “The Nation” Magazine, The Oldest Weekly Publication In America!

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Yesterday, July 6th, was the 152nd Anniversary of “The Nation” Magazine, the oldest weekly publication in America!

Started right after the Civil War’s end in 1865, “The Nation” has always been hard hitting, principled and honest!

It has held to liberal values more than any similar publication, never diverting from it in any fashion.

It has often been attacked and vilified but has always stood proud for its beliefs in equality, justice, freedom, and against right wing extremism from wherever it has emerged.

Many brilliant scholars and authors have penned essays for “The Nation”, and has helped to make it one of the great examples of literary excellence over a century and a half of American history.

It has never had a great amount of financial support, but has somehow survived through difficult times, including the Red Scare in 1919-1920 under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer (Woodrow Wilson), and the Second Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, generally known as McCarthyism, but much more than just one Wisconsin Republican Senator who was allowed to go berserk from 1950-1954.

“The Nation” is leading the charge against Donald Trump, and is part of the great journalistic tradition of challenging government authority, when it aims to take away our civil liberties and civil rights.

The 4th Of July In The Trump Era: America Has Lost Its Way!

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Today is the 241st anniversary of Independence Day, declared in 1776.

America was a great experiment in being a republic, and over the nearly two and a half centuries since, America ended slavery; opened its arms to scores of immigrants from all over the world; expanded the right to vote to all citizens over time, no matter what race, religion, nationality, or gender they were; promoted a social safety net; and expanded public education to all.

The Constitution was expanded to face modern realities; and both major political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, contributed to the advancement of tolerance and justice and equal opportunity; and the Supreme Court became a body that dealt with expansion of civil liberties and civil rights.

There were many detours along the road to today, but overall, progress was made, and a sense of optimism reigned.

And then, September 11 occurred, and the nation’s politics veered from one viewpoint to another and then to what is now present, a dark view of our nation, its people, and the world.

We live in the Trump era, which is in process of delaying, deleting, and destroying so much progress that has been accomplished in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

We are seeing race, religion, ethnicity and gender being used in an abusive manner to take away basic civil liberties, civil rights, common decency, and a sense of civility.

We are seeing the wealthy becoming the most stratified group in American history, and the middle class, created in the 20th century, destroyed, and the poor being treated in a shabby fashion.

One political party, the Republicans, has become the party of negativism, hatred, prejudice, and pure nastiness, and we have seen the shift of the Supreme Court toward a hard right conservatism that brings back memories of the Gilded Age Supreme Court.

It is as if we are in a time warp, and have reverted to 140 years ago!

So while we celebrate our national holiday, we have a lot to mourn, and it MUST make all of us determined to fight and resist with all our abilities combined, to resolve this crisis in a constitutional manner, with the removal of Donald Trump from the Presidency, as a tyrant and authoritarian figure who has met his match with our Constitutional remedy!

Donald Trump’s Lack Of Concern For Human Rights In America And Other Nations

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We now have a President who does not give a damn about human rights, whether in America or in other nations around the world. He embraces authoritarian leadership with gusto.

Nothing matters more than the defense and protection of human rights, but here we have a President who flirts with white supremacists, who promote antisemitism, anti Muslim, anti African American, anti Asian, anti Latino, and misogynistic attacks, and he has nary a word to say.

Here is a President who denounces Muslim terrorism, but ignores Christian extremists who encourage anti Muslim threats, and stir the kind of disaster that occurred in Portland, Oregon, by a Christian extremist, who stabbed three courageous men with two murdered, who defended two young women on a train from anti Muslim hatred.

Here is a President who consorts with governments that deny their citizens basic human rights, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Russia, the Philippines, China and others, giving up the American ideal of speaking up for the basic rights of all people.

Trump even has the gall to say we have no desire to tell other nations how to treat their own citizens, when we have always stood, at least in theory, if not in action, for condemnation of such violations.

Trump has no concern for America’s basic values of civil rights, civil liberties, and human decency, and is ready to abuse those in any way he can, and to embrace foreign dictators who do the same.

This is not what our President should be representing or doing, and he needs to be attacked vigorously on this every day until he finally is forced out of office as a disgrace to the Presidency!

The Republican Party Agenda In 2017: Destroy Obama Legacy And New Deal And Great Society, And Ignore Trump Abuse Of Power

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The Republican Party of 2017 is hellbent on destroying entirely the Barack Obama legacy, and all political, social, and economic reforms of the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, along with other reforms even by Republican Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, and Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

They are willing to cope with the insanity of Donald Trump, willing to ignore the abuse of power by the 45th President, and in the process, undermine civil liberties, civil rights, labor rights, women’s rights, consumer rights, protection of the environment, and the rights and protection of the disabled, elderly, and poor among our population.

In the past, the Republican Party was the conservative mainstream in American politics, but now the most mean spirited, nasty, uncaring elements have held sway over the party apparatus, and no longer care what public opinion polls indicate, that there is strong, vehement opposition to going back to the America of the Gilded Age and the 1920s, and in so doing, destroy all progress, and put America further behind more advanced nations in Europe, as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand worldwide.

A Sobering Centennial: America Enters “The Great War” On April 6, 1917

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It has been a century since America entered world affairs in a full sense, as on April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson spoke to Congress and asked for a declaration of war against the Imperial German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and allied with Great Britain, France and Italy, in what was called “The Great War” at the time, and later World War I or the First World War.

The controversy over whether Wilson could have kept us out of the war has raged for a century, and his handling of the war effort, and the promotion of restriction on civil liberties during the war has remained highly contentious, and has caused Wilson to decline from Number 6 in the C Span Presidential poll of 2000, to Number 9 in the C Span Presidential poll of 2009, and now Number 11 in the C Span Presidential poll of 2017, all participated in by reputable scholars.

American sacrifices in war had been avoided, as America remained isolated from world affairs and foreign conflict until 1917, but in the last century, we have been in many major wars since then, including World War II, the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War, along with many other foreign interventions in Latin America and the Middle East.

No one can be anything but sober to realize that when Congress voted for war on April 6, 1917, it transformed America in a permanent way, helping to create the concept of an American Empire, and America as a world leader since the end of World War II.

And now, with Donald Trump, the whole history of American foreign relations is in flux, and we face many challenges and crises in international affairs, and the hope is that we will avoid further military conflicts in the future, but hard to believe that is the scenario under Donald Trump.

PBS will have a six hour presentation on The American Experience on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings April 10, 11, and 12 on America and The Great War, our nation’s engagement in the First World War, from many different perspectives, highly recommended to all who read this blog.

The Wealthy And Corporations Love Trump, Most Pro Business Since Calvin Coolidge, But The Great Depression Came After Coolidge!

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The stock market has surged since the election of Donald Trump, and has hit the 20,000 mark and now the 21,000 mark, a 15 percent increase.

And why not? This nation, and its clueless masses, worship wealth and opulence over principle and ethics, sorry to say!

The wealthy elite and the corporations love what Donald Trump represents—massive tax cuts for the top one percent promised, and the end of most regulations of corporations in all fields of the economy.

This is already the most conservative President, just in pledges and promises, that we have seen since Calvin Coolidge nearly a century ago.

Even Ronald Reagan was not able to do so much so quickly, or pledge to do, as Donald Trump has been pledging to the elite wealthy.

Meanwhile, for the average American, and the blue collar whites who voted for Trump, they are not yet aware of the scam being perpetrated, as they lose their health care, their protection from environmental calamity, and their social safety net that they receive in greater numbers than minorities often have.

No longer can they get a lower interest rate on mortgages, or a greater overtime pay at work, or protection from being victimized by those who advise them on retirement investments.

Public schools will be harmed; gays and transgender people will be discriminated against in an open fashion; civil rights violations will not be investigated; and civil liberties of all of us will be undermined by a lawless, corrupt administration which is taking advantage of gullible citizens who thought a narcissistic billionaire, who has always treated his workers, contractors, and tenants with disdain throughout his life, could be trusted.

While the wealthy and corporations celebrate Trump, expect that we will have the same result we had under Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover–the coming of the Great Depression; and the same results we had under George W. Bush, the Great Recession.

Remember also we had great economic recessions under Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s; under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970s; and under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the 1980s and 1990s.

The way we get out of economic depressions and recessions is to elect Democrats—Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy. Lyndon B. Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, with FDR and Obama being the most crucial Presidents in taking us out of the two greatest economic downturns of the past hundred years–1929 and 2008!

Trump Speech To Congress: More Sober And Balanced, But Still Full Of Lies, Mistruths, And Deceptions!

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Donald Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress was more sober and balanced in tone, and avoided controversial rhetoric, but Donald Trump is still Donald Trump, and to believe that Trump is really going to change his lifetime pattern of behavior, is to believe in the tooth fairy!

His speech, no matter how well it seemed to come across in performance, sticking to a script of a person known for good acting on “The Apprentice”, it was full of lies, mistruths, and deceptions.

Trump said crime was at an all time high, when the opposite is reality, but he loves to stoke fear. Instead of defending civil rights and civil liberties his Justice Department under Jeff Sessions will promote law and order, which means, as under Richard Nixon, widespread abuse of power.

Trump said most of the terrorist attacks are from outside, when that is totally false, as it is by Americans who unleash violence, and now the Republicans want mentally ill people to have the right to firearms restored. We have a far greater danger from domestic terrorism than foreign terrorism, as we already have a vetting system that makes it hard for people of ill intention to enter the nation, but instead Trump promotes fear and trepidation to grab more power, as promoted by Stephen Miller and Stephen Bannon.

Trump exploited the family of the fallen SEAL Ryan Owens killed in Yemen, saluting the widow (a touching moment), but bragging about the longest applause ever, as if this is a TV show and that he was looking for ratings. Meanwhile , the Yemen raid was a disaster, so declared by intelligence agencies, and Trump is trying to avoid an investigation called for by the father of the fallen SEAL, who sees Trump as ordering something done in Yemen on a whim, without proper information, and deciding at dinner with Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner, and not in the Situation Room in the White House, where such decisions are made traditionally.

Trump told a group at the White House during the day that he had interest in immigration reform, rather than deporting millions, even though already undocumented immigrants have been deported or detained, including an immigrant who committed suicide once he was brought to the Mexican side of the border, and a woman detained who has breast cancer with no medical intervention available. When it came time to discuss what he had said earlier in the day, Trump avoided any discussion.

Trump used the term “radical Islamic terrorism” in his speech, despite the advice of National Security Adviser HR McMaster, and if this continues, McMaster, highly respected, might decide to leave, since Trump is ignoring his well regarded advice.

Trump distorted increased costs of ObamaCare, an average of 22 percent, not two to three times what the premiums were, so he lied, and gets away with it with many gullible people.

So Trump is depending on the moment, the audience, and the advisers around him in what he says,and is totally unhinged, totally manipulative and deceitful, totally uncaring about the effect that he has on others. No one knows what the “real” Donald Trump thinks, including himself.

So yes, the speech “sounded” better, but upon further investigation and thought, Donald Trump is still Donald Trump, a disgrace to the office he holds!

The 2017 C Span Presidential Survey First Impressions: What It Tells Us

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The new 2017 C Span Presidential survey, the third in a series with earlier surveys in 2000 and 2009, reveals a lot about how scholars evaluate Presidents and their performances in office.

The survey is based on 91 Presidential historians judging our Presidents on ten categories, and adding up points to rank the Chief Executives.

What stands out as glaring is that two Presidents with earlier higher ratings have dropped dramatically, as a result of recent research.

Woodrow Wilson’s racism and civil liberties abuses in office have dropped him from 6 to 9 to 11, but with his overall performance still seen as significant enough to be in the top quarter of our 44 Presidents.

Andrew Jackson has dropped from 13 and 13 to 18, and is now behind other 19th century Presidents, including James Monroe, James K. Polk, and James Madison, who he used to be above, and that is clearly due to his anti abolitionist viewpoint and defense of slavery; his native American policy (Trail of Tears); and his destruction of the Second National Bank (causing the Panic of 1837).

One might argue that we should not judge Presidents by our own time and changing views, but it is clear historians do precisely that.

Donald Trump Dealt Defeat On Muslim Immigration Ban: Victory For The Constitution And American Democracy!

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Donald Trump has been dealt a stinging defeat by a three member 9th Circuit Appeals Court, with one judge appointed by George W. Bush, one by Jimmy Carter, and one by Barack Obama, and this after a district judge, appointed by George W. Bush, had put a hold on Trump’s Executive Order establishing a travel ban, which is really a Muslim ban from seven nations, none of which have sent terrorists to America, while Saudi Arabia, as an example, has sent the 9 11 terrorists, but was not on the list.

It is clear that any nation that is Muslim but which Trump has business dealings with will never be on the list. This has caused tremendous consternation, inconvenience, and personal torment for many decent people who have been blocked from entering the United States for no good reason, but Trump has no empathy or compassion, and is clearly making a grab for dictatorial power.

This is a dangerous attempt to acquire absolute power, and it must be stopped cold by the Supreme Court, which it seems, assuredly, will happen.

This judicial intervention is a victory for the Constitution and American democracy!

Trump is a Fascist, a danger to our Constitution and our civil rights and civil liberties, and massive marches are continuing, and Republicans are getting the Town Hall treatment that Tea Party people gave Democrats right after Barack Obama was inaugurated.

It now seems possible that the Republicans, who cannot come up with a solution to ObamaCare, and are endangering so many of our accomplishments in the years from FDR through LBJ and beyond, could lose seats, and maybe control, if this discontent with them and Trump continues to evolve.

The country needs to stop this far right extremism desperately!

Cabinet Of “Deplorables” Marches Forward Toward Confirmation

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The effects of election results are demonstrated once again as the Cabinet of “Deplorables” marches forward toward confirmation.

The last 24 hours have been particularly gloomy as Betsy DeVos was confirmed as Secretary of Education, and Jeff Sessions was confirmed as Attorney General.

Having a person who has never in any way been involved in public education and believes in charter schools and Christianized education is outrageous and demoralizing. America’s children will suffer as she takes over with the intention of ignoring the issues of disabled students, racial and ethnic minorities, and the protection of women and girls, and the problem of guns in schools.

Jeff Sessions reminds us too much of George Wallace, and the old saying applies–Once a bigot, always a bigot–ant to believe that he will dispense equal justice, and enforce civil rights and civil liberties, and protect women’s rights and immigrants rights, is to believe the tooth fairy.

We will soon see Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services, with an intention to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare as we know it; and Scott Pruit head the Environmental Protection Agency which he has sued 14 times and would like to destroy the agency if he could; and Ryan Zinke as Secretary of the Interior, but not dedicated to preservation of the National Parks and protection of native American rights.

And other horrors in the cabinet are also in line for a vote, one that the Democrats and Progressives are unable to stop, a very depressing time.